Wraithwood Botanist

Chapter 120 - A Father's Daughter

Doug Hill wasn't a religious man—but he found something when his daughter was born.

She was his first child—his only child at the time.

And even now, she was his only daughter—irreplaceable.

He could still remember naming her.

Tanya was very pregnant at the time, and she could never get comfortable. So she asked her doctor, and the asshole told her, "Sleep on your left side—it increases blood flow," and for the first time in his and Tanya's marriage, she forced him out of his coveted position on the left side of the bed (to which she had banished him so many years before) so that when she slept on her left side and woke up, she was in a perfect position to talk to him, or in practice—routinely wake him up at 1:00 a.m. with statements like:

"What do you think about Rose?"

And while he never remembered his dreams, Doug imagined himself on the beach somewhere, drinking margaritas between firing .50-caliber Browning shells at a dragon or whatever good dreams men usually have, mere moments before the hand of reality slapped him awake with yet another name.

"Hmmm?"

"Rose? What do you think about Rose? It's been cherished for generations, yet so few women have it."

"Cherished by your generation."

"Our."

"Yeah, our..."

"So?"

"So what?"

And so it'd go until he would roll around and groan and say, "What's wrong with Alison?"

And she would get angry and say, "You can't just pick the same name every time we speak."

And somewhere in the midst of a few dozen sleepless nights like this, he ended up going, "Fine... Whatever. Just... give me a second."

He thought about it seriously for the first time, moving through a catalog of names that were socially acceptable enough to be middle class but steered away from basic names like Sarah that are reserved for nervous parents who think that being too different would hurt their child's opportunities. Somewhere in that list, he found a few and chose the one he liked most, knowing it would get rejected anyway, and said:

"Mira."

He could still remember the way it rolled off his tongue as if it were a magic spell, mere words in a magical tome that lay dormant until chanted. The sensation raised the hairs on his arms, and he turned to his wife, who was lost in profound contemplation.

Then she said yes—

Softly. Weakly. Determinately.

Their daughter was named Mira Hill, and when she came out of the womb and cried and screamed, and Doug panicked and feared he'd snap her neck if he held her tiny red body wrong, the doctor thrust her in his arms—

And it clicked.

Just everything. That Mira was his daughter, someone he would protect then and forever with his wife, and the first words out of his mouth were...

Mira.

Mira. What a troublesome name.

It seemed so cliché, but this girl was born to love plants. Doug had to board up the dog door because she would crawl outside. After Tanya started screaming for her and Doug stopped reloading shotgun shells or reading his books and joined her, they would always find Mira out in the garden, dirty as a beggar, giggling and touching plants.

Oh, yes, she loved plants. So he... bought one for her.

It happened sporadically, really. He swerved off the road when he saw a gardening store, grinning slightly, feeling like he'd terrorize his wife a bit with a prank joke on Mira's gardening adventures (lovingly, of course), and when he got there, he saw the perfect plant.

It looked like... a Chia Pet. He doubted kids had seen them at the time, not with their cellphones and Netflix and such, and he considered that. But he remembered. His grandfather made one with him; it was a clay pot statue with holes, and you would plant seeds in those holes, and when you water it, the chia plants would grow out of it, wrapping around the statue like vines, as if it were from an ancient civilization that was left behind for generations.

"What?" Doug asked.

"I just..." Brexton grinned. "Well, let's just say, I thought that Mira would like... um... sugar coat things?"

"What does that mean?" Tanya snapped panickingly.

Brexton turned to Tyler, who turned away sheepishly.

"Tyler Maxwell Hill," Tanya said. "What is he talking about?"

"I don't know, Mom," Tyler said. "Something... killy or something? I doubt she's covered in blood, but I'm guessing that's the general idea."

Doug and Tanya turned to Brexton.

"You'll just have to see."

And oh, they did.

The scene was so much worse than their wildest imagination.

Before Doug ever saw Mira, he saw twenty-foot ribs protruding up from the earth like jagged yellow arches. They were massive, something from the times of Gods and titans, and the bones extended a football field in length between the fractured limbs of various titan bodies.

And in front of that was a massive pile of fresh corpses, one of which was the size of a double-decker bus. And flanking both sides were massive wolves the size of elk.

Tanya's face drained of color, and Doug held her back, and Tyler yelled, "Mira!" with the cheeriest goddamn voice Doug had ever heard before running off to this death pit without any concern or consequence, flanked by Dante guards.

"What?" Doug looked up and saw Mira sitting on a rib above the corpse pile, waving at them like she was a windshield wiper.

"What the hell is this?" Tanya whispered. "Mira Isabella Hill! What is this!"

Tanya flew after Tyler, and somehow, both of them seemed to disregard the beasts! True, they were briefed on these massive creatures, but it didn't matter! They were still... to hell with it.

Doug ran after them, fighting past his old age and out-of-shape body to get there first. And before long, he could see Mira, and his mind blanked out, and he started crying when she jumped off the rib and over the corpses and landed on the path, and started running to them, too. It wasn't until she was lifting Tanya and carrying her to Doug for a double hug that he realized that he was bawling.

Mira was there—and she was sobbing, too.

She gripped both of them and said esoteric, gargled things as she hugged them, squeezing too tight and letting go—trying to find the right pressure.

"I've missed you," Mira said first.

"I've...." Doug choked, and Tanya answered for him:

"We've missed you, too."

Mira released the two of them, hugged her mother for about five seconds until she got the point across, and then flew into Doug's arms.

She might be older and a bit scarier, but she was still a daddy's girl, and how grateful he felt for it.

Because just as she was a daddy's girl, she was his baby girl, and he loved her more than anything.

That's all that mattered.

Everything else became untethered and threatened to disappear forever until Aiden coughed uncharacteristically and said:

"Soooooooo are we just going to pretend like the corpses don't exist?"

The whole family turned to him, and he looked away with faux awkwardness, smirking as he turned and walked away. For whatever reason, this made Mira burst into laughter and more tears.

"Yeah," Tanya said, breaking out of her trance and looking at the massive stack of corpses. "Why are these corpses here?"

Mira glanced away sheepishly as the rest of the harvesters crowded around. "Well, funny story, really..."

And that's how the harvest began. He had no idea then what he would see or experience or what impact it would have on him. All he knew was that he was with his daughter—and that was enough. Rain or shine, corpses or killing—he loved his daughter—and that was enough.