Page 25 of Butterfly Effects

“That’s ridiculous,” said Sam. “Plants don’t have brains. They can’t be telepathic.”

“Don’t they?” asked Thomas. “Even on Earth, we have clonal colonies, large groups of genetically identical plants that communicate within themselves, passing information as well as nutrients through their roots. Their brains aren’t like ours, being more decentralized and deconstructed, but I’d argue that they’re thinking all the same. Now, Annie. What do you see?”

I looked around the village, noting the presence of a flowering vine that had seemed almost inconsequential before, the local equivalent of morning glories. The flowers themselves looked more like some sort of weird rainbow orchid, presumably optimized to attract bees and beetles I had never even dreamt of.

“I saw those vines where we landed, too,” I said. “Are they one of those clonal colonies?”

“I can’t be sure, but I’d wager yes,” said Thomas.

One of the original six nudged me to walk a little faster, and said, “The mind-mind flowers grow in discrete groves, and we build our settlements near their roots. They translate for us, and on the occasions when we find travelers like yourselves, they smooth the edges between our tongues. It isn’t without its drawbacks—none of us have actually learned to speak our mother tongue in generations, and I have little doubt that without the presence of the flowers, we’ll find that it’s been lost. But we understand each other, no matter where we wander, and we understand those who come from worlds beyond the sky, and we understand the heartless ones.”

I blinked. Sam spoke first.

“You call them mind-mind flowers?” he asked, incredulously. “Isn’t that a little, well, ridiculous?”

“No, we call them mind-mind flowers,” said the man. He paused, frowning. “Or, I suppose, we call them whatever it is you’re hearing in translation. We call them what they are, and that word translates itself for others.”

“Does it apply to names as well, I wonder?” asked Thomas. “If I say my name is Thomas Price, will they hear those words, or ‘twin cost’?”

“Both,” said the man. “Delightful, isn’t it? You can communicate with any of us, down to the littlest babe.”

The idea of babies being able to make their wishes known in words was at once positive and unsettling. It would definitely lead to some social changes, and explained why the various groups of children seemed to be entirely mixed, containing everything from toddlers to tweens.

“Wait,” I said. “If you haven’t learned to talk, does that mean you used to live someplace that didn’t have these mind-mind flowers?”

“Of course,” said the man. “We are Kairos. This is not our world.”

“Meaning what…?”

“Meaning you are strangers here, and while you seem to intend but little harm, appearances can deceive. Still your tongues and stay your questions. We’re going to the Eldest Living.”

He waved the group onward, and we walked deeper into the village, Thomas looking unnervingly serene for a man who’d been held captive in another dimension for decades and had now been effectively taken prisoner again, Sam mostly just looking annoyed. He kept his tail looped around me, limiting how far we could be separated, and I kept a hand on it, making it clear that right now, the anchor was more than appreciated. I didn’t know this place or these people, even if they were distant relatives of mine. I definitely didn’t want to deal with them alone.

Thomas’s serenity was odd, considering that we still hadn’t seen a sign of Alice. He kept walking, looking around himself with interest, and didn’t seem like he was getting ready to bolt into the brush. That probably meant he had a plan. I just wished he had a way of sharing it with me.

He glanced over at me and winked, broadly. Oh, he definitely had a plan. I’d just need to wait to find out what it was.

Holding to hope with one hand and Sam’s tail with the other, I took a deep breath and followed my grandfather into the unknown.

Seven

“When all else fails, do your research. When your research fails, restock your first aid kit.”

—Jane Harrington-Price

In Johrlar, going deeper into an inexplicable village

THE VILLAGE WAS LARGER THAN it looked when we first arrived, extending into the trees in several directions and at irregular angles, as if they’d been trying to emulate the shape of something dropped from a great height. Sam eyed the ladders and staggered rooftops as we walked, and I knew he was assessing how useful they would be if we needed to make a swift escape. He didn’t say anything. None of us were talking anymore.

Some of the houses were hidden by bamboo, or by impossibly large broad-leafed plants that hung over them, providing shade and camouflage at the same time. And the trailing vines of the mind-mind flower were everywhere, making it clear that the communication network extended throughout the village.

We were approaching a massive tree that appeared to have grown from multiple trunks that were now all fused together, forming a hollow almost as deep as the tree was big around. Its branches were thick and twisted, creating a wonderland of bars and connections. Any children’s play place in the world would have done well to erect a model of that tree. Its leaves were amethyst purple and glittered in the light, while its flowers were multi-petaled confections, almost like exploding carnations, black as onyx and almost as dazzling as the leaves.

Beetles the size of my fists scuttled across the bark, their carapaces flicking open to display the diaphanous lines of their wings. They didn’t flee as we approached the tree, only moved almost languidly out of easy reach.

Sam twitched.

I gave him a curious look.