#eartha notes

The theory was simple but not without potential consequences for Loren's mortality, so he asked Virginia and Gabriella to help him test it safely. Gabriella was a naturally strong swimmer and had recently done a lifeguard internship, in which she 'saved' a few swimmers feigning floundering about while training, so she volunteered to retrieve Loren if anything went wrong. Virginia had a fully charged phone in her bum bag ready to call for help, too.

Now for Loren's part to play. He sprinted from the beach house to the waves, his skin smoking as he flew across the sand. The waves were coming in gently today but he hit them with a clumsy crash before finally getting shoulder deep. He turned and gave the girls a thumbs up.

"There he goes. I don't see any smoke. Do you, Gab?"

"No." Gabriella was still watching her uncle bob around, determined to be ready for anything, just in case. But the fact remained: the telltale sign of the sun singing Loren's skin was gone. It was the middle of the day, in the full heat of the middle of summer, and he wasn't holed up under the sunlamp in his shed with the blinds drawn. Whether it was the salt of the sea protecting him, or Virginia's half-joking theory that he was a merman, he could now join his family in the sun.

His desk buddy at the agency knew a guy, who knew a hacker who knew how to access "not necessarily the black but, like, the grey area market if you get what I mean", where one could obtain a single seed of the supernaturally-rumoured human-eating plant. It was a long shot that Cliff followed through burner phones and layers of VPNs to get to, lest he and anyone involved along the way be fired or arrested or worse. Cannibalistic plants weren't simply a search engine away for the plebs of the general public to access. Such botanical life was reserved for wealthy underbellies, like the Tricou family; since Eartha's aunt, who was part of that family, refused to help, Cliff was left with no other choice but to add a possibly inert seed to his cart.

Spoiler alert: it was not inert. The cherry on top? The forums weren't trolling about the cow-shape of the plant's flower.

"Babe, what is this?" Eartha asked one day, fascinated but incredulous as she laid down on the grass at the plant's level for a closer look. There was no point hiding it away from her; Cliff had a feeling the eventual size of the thing would make keeping it a secret logically impossible without a deep basement or bunker - domains of the rich. He managed to whip up a plausible explanation about a work experiment, creating new plant life for vegan milk production that tasted just the same as dairy. The truth was too confronting for Cliff to speak aloud, least of all to his wife.

The question was put no more bluntly than Cliff's usual manner of speaking but he still managed to surprise himself. The content of his query was absurd. Sure, venus flytraps were real plants that attracted flies to the inner tract to feed on, but a plant big enough to swallow a human could not be possible, and Little Shop of Horrors was not a documentary.

Then again, Night of the Living Dead was no doco either, but proof of a reanimated not-quite-alive, not-quite-dead person shuffled amongst everyone in the village, and Cliff had played a part in making that grey zombie of Hi Thyme a sad reality. He'd never really liked the guy but it turned out the guilt of taking part in a dark ritual had a way of weighing on one's conscience, especially after becoming a dad. Life was nothing to played around with. Kesha was also starting to get curious and ask questions about the green people; it was only a matter of time before she wondered about the pale uncle of her school friend Tech.

It just so happened Eartha had invited her aunt Delta for dinner one evening. For Eartha's part, she had abandoned the basement ritual to bring Hi back, as she was already pregnant with Kesha and felt sick at the sight of it. Cliff could only wish he'd followed her then and there, but here he was, taking Delta aside for a yarn in the backyard and asking the lovely old woman what she knew about human-eating plants. Wholesome family activity.

Delta's face dropped and she moved past Cliff to go back indoors. "It's not my place to talk about such things, even if I am married to a Tricou. Oh, I think Kesha's calling us." Cliff did not hear his daughter's voice but Delta seemed certain, and he was left standing by the sunflowers, listening to whizzing cicadas nearby.

The supernatural forums were right. Members of the Tricou family, famous for reappearing at their haunted House of Fallen Trees after years of having vanished from the city, were indeed the right people to ask about a plant that eats people. The "looks like a cow" thing probably wasn't true but the rumour mill had ground out a single kernel of truth.

Eartha and Kesha were visiting that afternoon so Angelo could be properly introduced to his aunt and cousin. Time had gotten away from both sides, Goldie and Eartha could both admit - but it had to be done now. Daddy would have wanted to see his grandchildren talking and laughing together; oh, Goldie's heart still caused lumps in her throat at the thought of him being gone, and her big brother before his time, and her big sister leaving behind her literary legacy. Romeo, oh her Romeo! And mama, poor mama.

She was going to see them all again in a matter of days; the doctor's stilted, serious diagnosis had made that clear. There was only so much heartache a graceful woman who had aged like fine wine could take. So Angelo would need family wrapped around him, as a teenager without his mama - Goldie knew what that was like, all too well. He was a Monty son, so he would never want for anything, by design at her late mama's behest.

In the early days of Eartha getting to know Cliff, she'd asked him about his family. He'd gone quiet and shook his head - parents lost in a car accident, he eventually said. So it was up to Eartha's side of the family to show up for Kesha at milestone events, and show up they did, in droves. The Lands came with armfuls of gifts, which they would set down on the dining table to free themselves up to scoop Kesha into their arms, announcing themselves as 'gruncles'; Delta was the classy granty.