Bloom

by Kenneth Oppel

  “How else do we get the boat?”

  Seth cupped his hands and shouted out, “What’s wrong with the water?”

  Petra walked closer. Despite its stench and its murky color, there was something about the water that pulled her. She felt the same electric prickle of excitement she had the day of the big rain. Muddy water squelched over the top of her shoes, and soaked into her socks.

  “I can swim out,” she said, but no one was listening.

  “We need a boat!” she heard Anaya saying to Brock. “And I’m pretty sure you didn’t bring one!”

  “We had an inflatable raft in the copter,” he retorted angrily. “We’ve lost a ton of things, all right?”

  “Brock,” said Dr. Weber, “there’s a lot of movement up there with the vines….”

  “I can get it,” Petra said, more loudly.

  Anaya looked at her like she’d gone crazy. “What?”

  Petra dipped her hand into the water, and held it up. She couldn’t stop herself smiling. “No reaction. I’m not allergic.”

  “You sure, Petra?” asked Dr. Weber.

  From the island came Mr. Riggs’s voice, all the words washed away except “…water lilies!”

  Petra kicked off her shoes, giddy with anticipation. The whole lake was safe! She didn’t know how or why, and she didn’t care.

  “Petra, hold on,” said Anaya, staring intently out into the lake, “those water lilies—”

  “You want the canoe, I’ll get the canoe,” she said, and before anyone could stop her, she dived in.

  * * *

  BREATHLESSLY SETH WAITED for her to surface. Ripples from Petra’s body spread out across the dark water, rocking the water lilies near the shore.

  “Why isn’t she coming up?” he said.

  Brock cursed under his breath.

  “The water lilies are moving,” Anaya said.

  Seth looked. She was right. They weren’t just bobbing from the ripples, they were drifting toward them, twirling prettily, like they wanted to show off their cones of purple flowers. Their black leaves were very large. They reminded Seth of a manta ray’s wings.

  “I’ve seen these before,” Anaya said.

  “Where?” asked Dr. Weber.

  “Dad’s lab. They’re cryptogenic.”

  “Fantastic,” grumbled Brock.

  Seth looked worriedly at the water lilies gathering around the overturned canoe.

  “Petra should’ve come up by now.”

  Four lilies had drifted within fifteen feet of the shore. With a faint creak, one of the purple flower cones lifted slowly into the air at the end of a long black stem. To Seth, it was like watching a strange swan gracefully raise its head.

  A rustling sound overhead snapped his gaze high. From the high canopy, vines uncoiled toward them.

  “Look out!” he shouted.

  One slapped against his shoulder, snaking under his arm. He slashed out with his feathers and severed it. A second vine tightened around his ankle, and Seth whirled and sliced through it before it could jerk him off his feet.

  Wildly he looked around at all the dangling, writhing vines. He spread his arms, and felt his feathers flare to their full length, and it was a very good feeling. The small feathers were magnificent, their tips sharp as serrated knives. Never had he felt more powerful. With both arms, he scythed everything in his path, sending twitching tendrils flying.

  He glimpsed Dr. Weber get snared around ankle and arm, and hoisted up into the air. Anaya crouched low and jumped after her—and Seth had never seen such a jump. She went straight up and grabbed Dr. Weber around the waist. The extra weight dragged them both down, low enough so that Seth could slice through the vine around the doctor’s ankle. When she tumbled to the ground with Anaya, he slashed away the final vine around her arm.

  “Stay near me!” he shouted out, because he’d cleared away all the vines near him. He turned in a slow circle, looking up, waiting for anything new that might come.

  He saw Brock sawing through a vine coiled around his leg. Once free, the captain hurried toward him.

  From the water, Seth heard a strange creaking noise and saw that there were even more lilies near the shoreline now—and all of their flowered heads had lifted high, glittering with sharp seeds. They didn’t look like swans anymore. They looked like cobras, swaying, ready to strike.

  A musical twittering filled the air, and he looked around for birds. Then he realized the sound was coming from the water lilies. A cone-shaped head arched on its slender neck, then recoiled with a chirp. Something sharp and wet hit him in the cheek. His hand flew up, and he pulled a pointy, goo-covered seed out of his skin.

  “They’re spitting seeds!” he cried.

  Another chirp, and at the same moment, a seed smacked against his jeans and started smoking as it ate through the fabric. Acid! He didn’t feel any burning on his cheek, so he hoped he was immune to this stuff, too. But Brock and Dr. Weber…

  “Get down!” he said, and threw himself to the ground so his body shielded Dr. Weber. She needed protection. He couldn’t bear the idea of her getting hurt.

  Brock’s gas mask had been hit, and the acid was sizzling its way through the faceplate. He pulled the mask off hurriedly, and a second seed hit him in the neck, and a third in the stomach. He took out his gun and started firing into the water lilies. They returned fire even faster.

  Two vines plunged down and swept Brock up. Seth ran to him but was too late. Shouting, struggling, Brock was whipped high into the air. He fired with his gun, to no effect, and then pulled his knife, slashing furiously.

  On the opposite shore of the lake, Seth saw a shimmer of movement. Near the waterline, the ground trembled. A crack opened in the earth, and parted, revealing the slick purple flesh of the biggest pit plant he’d ever seen. Wider and wider its hideous lips spread. Black vines grew like a single tree up from the nearby earth, and they were all trembling now, as if sending signals along their length, higher and higher into the canopy, to where Captain Brock was snared.

  Slowly the vines encircling Brock began to shunt him in the direction of the pit plant, and Seth realized what was about to happen.

  “Brock!” he shouted. “They’re going to—”

  At that exact moment, Brock cut himself free. Seth breathed a sigh of relief as the captain plunged down, and cannonballed into the water. But when he resurfaced, he was hollering and flailing. “It burns!” His eyes were shut, and he was grinding a fist into his eye sockets.

  Water lilies converged on him.

  “Look out!” Seth shouted, and everyone else joined in, trying to warn him.

  But Brock probably didn’t even see the plants coming. They reared their flowered heads and let rip with their seeds at point-blank range. Brock tried to cover his head with his arms but it was no good. Eventually his arms fell limp and his head lolled back, and his entire body slipped below the black surface.

  THE MOMENT PETRA SLID underwater, everything changed.

  All those years she couldn’t swim—they just poured away. She was in and under and moving through the dark, silky water. Her sight was blurry. Light slanted down between the water lilies floating overhead. The feel of the water against her face! It was like she was eleven years old, before everything went wrong. She didn’t want to surface.

  She pulled again, and again, toward the tipped canoe. She felt her tiny tail twitch, as if it wanted to help steer. Were things getting clearer? Everything had been so murky at first, but now, if she really concentrated, things were more in focus.

  It was a strange underwater forest. The water lily stems were like skinny tree trunks, rising from the pond’s bottom. Beneath the finely veined lily pads—she could see this now—sprouted all sorts of little wavy tendrils, and some of them were wrapped around dead fish and frogs, a squirrel, and even, off to h
er right, what looked like a decomposing raccoon. She felt amazingly calm: this is just what these plants did. They ate things.

  How long had she been under? It felt like a long time, but she didn’t need a breath yet.

  Up ahead was the long shadow of the capsized canoe. Below, on the lake bed, were backpacks and gear that must have fallen out when it tipped. She surfaced inside the upside-down boat, and took a breath of the dank trapped air. Light slanted through bullet-sized holes in the hull.

  Treading water, Petra blinked hard. It took several tries before her eyes refocused after being underwater—and when they did, she stifled a yell.

  Bobbing at the far end of the canoe was the bloated corpse of a man. A water lily grew from his gaping mouth. Even in her terror she recognized the strange bat-shaped leaves—the same as the tiny plant that had grown in her bottle of rainwater. But that baby plant hadn’t had a big cone of purple flowers that now turned toward her with a menacing creak, bristling with sharp seeds.

  Instinct took over. Her hands shot out, grabbed the lily’s stem, and snapped it. Almost at once, the flower’s head curled and dipped lifelessly into the water.

  With her feet, Petra pushed the dead body outside the canoe. She heard shouting, and put her eye to one of the holes in the side. All around the canoe were lilies with their flowered heads raised. One reared back, and she heard a hail-like clatter against the hull.

  These things shot seeds! A new ray of light pierced the gloom as another tiny hole slowly opened in the boat’s side. She touched the still-hissing rim and rubbed the sticky goo between her fingers. Must be acid—but she felt no burning.

  Slowly she rotated the canoe so she was looking back to shore. Her breath snagged. It was total mayhem. Vines were dropping from the sky, trying to snare Anaya and the others. And there was a cluster of water lilies, their flowered heads lifted high and recoiling as they pumped out seeds. Dr. Weber was being lifted into the air—and Anaya jumped to grab her. Petra had never seen anyone jump so high from standing!

  As fast as she could, Petra started swimming the canoe back to shore. Water lilies brushed past; seeds hailed against the hull. She thought she heard a big splash from back out in the lake, and shouting. She kept going.

  When she was near the shore, she gave the canoe a good shove to send it the rest of the way. Then she dived underwater and swam hard for land. This time when she opened her eyes, it went from blurry to clear in seconds. Her eyes ached a bit, and she got the sense she was actually shrinking her pupils, changing the entire shape of her eyes in their sockets.

  She saw the cluster of water lilies that were firing at everyone. She saw the long stems that tethered these plants to the lakebed. She grabbed the nearest one and yanked. It was thick, and really anchored in the mud. With both hands she pulled, and this time the stem tore loose. She went to the next lily, and the next, ripping. Their flowered heads sank uselessly into the water. When she’d torn out the last stem, she surfaced and waded into the shallows. Water and muck streamed off her like some swamp monster, but she’d never felt so exultant.

  “I swam!” she cried out, unable to hide her joy. Then she grabbed the canoe and flipped it right side up. “Come on!” she shouted to the others. “Get in!”

  * * *

  ANAYA CROUCHED LOW, her face pressed against the canoe’s slimy bottom. There wasn’t space to lie completely flat, but she and Seth and Dr. Weber all squished themselves as small as possible. Underwater, Petra was ferrying them across the lake to the island.

  Toward Dad.

  Anaya stayed very still and quiet, watching water leak through the small holes in the hull. Dr. Weber still had her gas mask on, although Anaya had noticed that the sleeping gas seemed much weaker by the lake. Or maybe its smell was just overpowered by the rotten-egg stench of the water itself.

  Quite a puddle had formed at the canoe’s bottom. Anaya hoped they were close, but she didn’t dare lift her head to check, in case the lilies started firing again. Dr. Weber had been hit twice in the legs. There wasn’t time to do anything to help her right now. Anaya just wanted to get to Dad. She hadn’t heard his voice in a while, and was feeling even more anxious.

  Something landed on her back, and uncurled toward her arm. She struck it off with her hand and lifted her head to look. Vines dangled down all around them. Most were very still as the canoe glided past, but a few were now questing after the boat—including the one she’d just brushed off.

  It came curling back toward her like a hook.

  “Seth!” she hissed.

  In the canoe’s middle section, Seth raised himself up and slashed out with his feathered arm. The severed vine fell into the water. More came. She heard the chirp of lily seeds whistling past.

  “Stay down!” she said to Dr. Weber, who was crouched at the bow.

  Vines writhed all around them now, and Seth lunged to and fro, cutting them down. The canoe rocked violently, and Anaya worried they’d tip. She gave a yelp of surprise as the boat’s stern lifted right out of the water, followed by the bow.

  Peering over the side, she saw that vines had encircled the canoe and were lifting the entire boat toward the seething canopy. Seth pulled his arm back to strike the vine holding the stern.

  “Wait!” cried Anaya, but too late.

  Seth sliced through, and the stern plummeted. Anaya tumbled backward into the air, along with Seth and Dr. Weber, still wearing her gas mask. In those few seconds, she saw the lake, and Petra treading water and staring up at them in shock, and a cluster of drifting water lilies, and the shore of the small island—Dad gazing up at them—and the only encouraging thing was that they were close to the island.

  With a great splash, she hit water and went under. She spluttered up and started swimming for shore. Seth thrashed beside her, his feathered arms making him clumsy. Spluttering, Dr. Weber tried to drag off her gas mask, which was filling with water. Anaya came closer and fumbled the straps loose for her, and the doctor ripped the mask off, gasping. Anaya made a grab for the mask, but it was already sinking, and the seeds were flying everywhere, and they needed to get to land. She swam alongside Dr. Weber, trying to shield her.

  Seeds stung her head and shoulder, and she kept her face low. Suddenly there was a water lily right in front of them, rearing, ready to shoot. Without warning, the whole plant got dragged underwater, and Petra surfaced in its place, standing, the lily’s snapped roots hanging from her clenched fist.

  “Come on!” Petra yelled, grabbing Dr. Weber by the hand and pulling her into the shallows.

  Anaya staggered to her feet and slogged the rest of the way to shore. Straight ahead was Dad, urgently waving them in.

  “Come away from the water! They’re attracted by sound and movement.”

  He was completely caked in dirt, his hair a filthy, matted mess. A damp cloth was tied around his mouth and nose, and what she saw of his face looked red and blistered, as did his hands. But it was Dad, and Anaya felt such a flood of relief and joy. She ran and threw her arms around him.

  Instead of hugging her back, her father started smearing dirt on her hair and face.

  “What’re you doing?” she cried.

  “All over!” Dad shouted to the others, looking crazed. “It keeps the vines away. It’s toxic to them! On your clothes, too, yep, and don’t forget your shoes, they love ankles.”

  Even as he spoke, vines came curling down from overhead. Anaya didn’t hesitate. She scooped up some dirt and plastered it over her upper body. When a snaky black tendril touched her dirty shoulder, it recoiled as if scorched.

  They were all covering themselves as fast as they could, but the vines were quicker. Anaya saw one slyly wrapping around Petra’s leg.

  “Petra, look out!”

  “Got it!” said Seth. He flared the feathers on his right arm, and severed the vine with one quick blow.

 
“Whoa!” said Dad, staring at Seth and his barbed arms.

  “Hi, Mr. Riggs,” Seth said.

  And it suddenly struck Anaya how much her father didn’t know. About the plants being invasive species from another planet. About his own daughter being half cryptogen.

  Seth stood guard and slashed more vines while she and the others frantically covered themselves with dirt. Dad made sure Seth was caked, back and front. A few vines hovered around Dad, darting at him like hissing snakes, but never quite touching.

  Covered in dirt, Anaya looked around nervously. The vines nosed around them all for a bit and then, as one, pulled back up into the high canopy, where she could see their canoe, cocooned by vines.

  “This way,” Dad said, leading them quickly through the splintered stalks of black grass.

  “It really is dead!” Anaya said, kicking at the stubble. It was incredibly satisfying to see it like this.

  Dad brought them to a big boulder. On one side was a very small cave, maybe an old animal burrow that Dad had enlarged into a shelter just big enough for a single body. Inside, Anaya saw a backpack and some trail snacks and bottles of water.

  “Are you okay?” Dad asked, looking at her closely, then at Seth and Petra. “No seeds, you’re sure?” He frowned. “The water didn’t burn you guys at all.”

  Anaya shook her head. “We’re fine, but Dr. Weber…”

  Her father grabbed the bottle from his shelter and turned to the doctor.

  “Tilt your head back,” he told her. “I’ll sluice your eyes.”

  Dr. Weber’s skin had erupted in a red rash from the lake water, and her eyes were nearly swollen shut.

  “Thanks,” she said tightly.

  “Happened to me, too,” Anaya’s father told her. “I was in the water a lot longer. It’s a severe reaction, but it gets better. I was nearly blind for a couple of hours. Who are you, by the way?”

  “Dr. Stephanie Weber, Canadian Intelligence.”