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“She always said she wanted no wake. Only to be buried under the old, twisted hawthorn. So that’s what I did. I buried them side by side. Two lovers in one grave to feed the grove.”

He held her hand fast and they stayed that way for a while before he pulled away, gesturing to the necklace of his mother’s he’d put on her earlier. “She would have liked you. Sametake no shitespirit and wild, brilliant mind.”

He reached out and took the vial in his fingers, his knuckle brushing her breastbone. The heat of his hand sent shivers up her spine. Gently dropping it back against her chest, he stood and pulled off his undone tie. “Come on.”

“Where are we going now?”

He reached over his messy desk to grab a notebook and pen, handing them to her. “You’ve heard my sob story. Now let’s get you the notes I know you’re itching to take.”

How did this man know her so well after only a couple of months? It was as if he could see inside her soul.

She took the writing materials gratefully and followed him back toward the Hawthorn Grove. Before they made it outside, he stopped at a closet that was larger than Atta’s entire room. He handed her a woollen peacoat that smelt like him because they’d left theirs in the atrium. She put it on and snuggled into it, while he put on an almost identical one in a deep green.

The sun had sunk lower in the sky, the temperature dropping drastically when the wind had blown in earlier. Clouds were gathering quite heavily, but it didn’t yet look like a dousing rain. They went into the magnificent atrium of ironwork and glass, immediately shucking their coats and laying them on top of the other two.

“I didn’t realise you knew how to cultivate plant life like this,” she said, flipping past his anatomical notes to a fresh page in the notebook.

“I don’t.” She glanced at him. “Not at all. This has all grown completely on its own.”

“But the temperature is tepid. Perfect conditions for flora like this to grow.” She looked around, but it didn’t actually make sense. “There are no heating lamps in here.”

“As I said, the corpses began to flower before I knew what was happening. By the time I came to visit their graves, this was already well underway.”

Atta furiously took notes, walking around the greenhouse, stepping close to some plants to sketch them, touch them. Most were somewhat similar to things she’d seen before, but just like the flora they’d found in Lauren and all the John and Jane Does, they weren’t completely identifiable.

She gently fought past a mess of nearly sea-like fronds, approaching where the bones of Sonder’s mother lay, pushed up from the ground, nestled against the old hawthorn tree.

She knew it was her and not her husband, because there was a beautiful ring on the bone of her left ring finger. The ring Atta had seen in her portrait. She turned to Sonder. “Do you mind if I—” She gestured with the pen toward his mother.

“Not at all. Do what you need to do.”

Atta just caught him turning away though, as she bent over the arm, following it up until she could just make out the rib cage, covered in mycelium and moss. If only she could see the heart. Or where the heart had been. It had to be the epicentre, not just the body as a whole—the mycelium control centre.

Gingerly, she used her pen to prod at the tiny fungal root system responsible for all the foliage. After a few moments, she managed to make a small opening and could see through the left side of the rib cage.

Atta gasped. The heart was still there, over six years later. Black as pitch and covered in congealed blood that was so thick and coarse it had become fertile soil for the mycelium. But it couldn’t be. . .

“Atta?” Sonder called from farther away than she thought she’d left him.

Her hand slipped.

She should have worn gloves.

That was her last thought as the pain seared across her eyes, everything going green, then bloody black and glaring white.

A woman. A beautiful, frail woman. Olivia Murdoch writhed on her bed of white linens stained with her infected blood. She called out a name. For her son. The vision shifted—the white glazing into a forest of fog and snow-covered ferns. Silver teeth like daggers lunged for her throat.

Atta released her grip on Olivia’s rib cage and staggered back, becoming entangled in vines.

Sonder was there in a second, cutting them away with a machete. “No!” she cried, but he was already through them, reaching for her. She heard the hiss. Heard the voice in her head.

Slash their hearts and gouge their eyes. Give us what is ours in time.

“Are you all right?” Sonder hauled her backwards to a pathway clear of bramble.

“Yes. I’m fine.” She put her hand to her chest. “Oh, no! Your mother’s necklace. The chain broke.” Atta rushed back into the mess of vines, Sonder on her heels.

They both stopped dead in their tracks. They needn’t search for the small vial at all. It had fallen against the stones and smashed, the Tears of the Grieved spilling onto a leaf that was withering, decaying before their very eyes.