Bloom

by Kenneth Oppel

“Seth, come on,” said her father, “you can’t want to keep—”

  “Dad!” Petra said. Seth was the only one here without parents, and he didn’t need anyone giving him a hard time. “Drop it!”

  But he didn’t. “There’s no point keeping—”

  Seth stood so suddenly that Petra gave a little gasp.

  “No one is clipping my feathers.” His eyes focused with a raptor’s intensity, and his arms spread slightly. Petra thought they actually swelled, as if all his feathers were straining against their bandages, ready to razor through. A prickle of unease traveled over her skin; she didn’t know what he was about to do.

  “It’s Seth’s choice,” Dr. Weber said calmly, “and I promised I’d honor that.”

  With relief, Petra saw Seth’s shoulders relax. Limply his arms fell to his sides and he sat back down. “Sorry,” he mumbled. But Petra could tell her father was shaken.

  “CSIS is already looking to move us to another facility,” Dr. Weber said. “We’ll be more secure there.”

  “Where is it?” asked Anaya’s father.

  “I don’t know that yet.”

  “We’re not being separated from our daughter again,” Anaya’s mother said.

  “I would make sure you could accompany them, wherever we are.”

  Dr. Weber’s phone trilled and she looked at the screen. “Excuse me, I need to take this,” she said, standing and walking into one of the bedrooms.

  “I don’t like this,” Petra’s mom said to Anaya’s parents. “I feel like we’re losing control over our own kids.”

  “I think Dr. Weber’s an honorable person,” Mr. Riggs replied.

  “Maybe, but everyone has someone in charge of them. She works for CSIS. What if she gets orders we don’t like? I say we go home.”

  “Mom,” said Petra, “I am not going home and turning into a friggin’ crocodile!”

  Her father gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “You’re going by some dream drawings, right? Look, this herbicide is going to work, sooner or later, and once the plants disappear, life goes back to normal.”

  She let out a deep breath. How she wanted to believe her father. Go home and have everything magically return to the way it was.

  “Well,” said Mr. Riggs, “I need to stay here until we get a workable herbicide.” He looked at his wife and daughter. “And I want you guys here with me.”

  “What about this talk of moving everyone to another facility?” said Petra’s mother. “I’m not a fan.”

  “If it’s the best way of keeping our kids safe, and healthy, I think it’s a good idea,” Anaya’s mother said, “but I plan to be there.”

  They stopped talking when Dr. Weber returned to the room, looking solemn.

  “What is it?” Petra asked.

  “They’ve found others,” she said.

  Petra was so startled she couldn’t think of what to say.

  “Kids like us?” asked Seth. “Immune to the plants?”

  Dr. Weber nodded. “Not just that. The boy they found in Halifax has claws on his hands and excessive hair growing on his legs.”

  Petra looked at Anaya, who seemed barely to be breathing.

  “And in Toronto a girl was brought into Emerg, and one of the nurses secretly took some footage on her phone.”

  “Do you have it?” Seth asked.

  Petra crowded around with the others while Dr. Weber cued it on her phone. The footage was shaky, shot through a hospital dividing curtain. Petra saw a girl about their age in a hospital gown, crying softly while two doctors examined her. The doctors kept blocking the view, but through the gaps, she caught a glimpse of an arm bristling with feathers. They were a different color than Seth’s, but appeared just as sharp.

  Petra looked across at Seth, who watched the girl, mesmerized. She was pretty, and Petra felt an unexpected stab of jealousy.

  On screen, the male doctor gave a cry and pulled back, blood dripping from his hand. “Stay still!” another doctor told the girl. And the girl shouted back, “Get away from me!” And then both doctors stepped back as she spread her arms threateningly. “Nurse!” the female doctor shouted over her shoulder. “We need security!” Then the video image went sideways and cut out.

  “What happened to her?” Seth asked, frowning with concern. “Is she okay?”

  “Apparently they sedated her. My colleagues in the States also just reported several teenagers with exactly the same profiles as you three.”

  “So the secret’s out?” Petra asked urgently.

  “So far, we’ve managed to contain it,” Dr. Weber said. “But it won’t be long before it leaks. This changes things. We may need to move you all quicker than I thought.”

  Petra locked eyes with Anaya, then Seth. They weren’t alone. Dr. Weber had already told them about her own son, and guessed there must be others out in the world, but it was different now, knowing. They weren’t solitary freaks. There were kids the same age, with the same feathers and claws and hair and skin and tails. The same ability to jump high, or slash things apart. Or swim underwater.

  “You were right,” she said to Anaya. “We must be part of some big experiment. We’re lab rats.”

  And yet, she felt strangely reassured. They weren’t alone.

  “Failed lab rats,” Anaya said, looking at her parents. “So they sent down the plants, and we started to do better.”

  Petra suppressed a shiver. “To see if they can come themselves.”

  “Okay, slow down,” said her dad. “There’s an awful lot of guesswork here. If you guys were supposed to be specimens, who’s been studying you? Where’ve the cryptogens been all this time?”

  “Well, they must’ve been here at some point,” Anaya’s mother said, then added with difficulty, “the night the children were conceived.”

  “So, have they been hiding out on the planet all these years, watching us?” Seth asked.

  The idea was almost too creepy for Petra to fathom. Night faces at her window. Looking over her as she slept. Examining her in her sleep?

  “Doesn’t make sense,” Mr. Riggs said. “If the planet was truly hostile to them, they couldn’t have survived here for any length of time.”

  “Maybe they wore suits,” Petra said. “Or sent robots. Or they’ve been watching us from a spaceship, I don’t know. They must be able to do all sorts of stuff we can’t. Anyway, if we wipe out all their plants, they’ll give up on Earth, right?”

  This was her grand hope, and she didn’t want anyone chipping away at it.

  “Maybe so,” Mr. Riggs said. “Farmers without a crop don’t last long. Let’s hope tomorrow we see some damage to those plants.”

  * * *

  SETH WOKE FROM a flying dream, heart pounding in his temples.

  He’d been soaring so quickly it was almost like being pulled. As if someone was expecting him, and was eager for his arrival. He wasn’t high in the sky this time, but skimming low over land, because it was misty on all sides. He looked over his right shoulder at his splendid wing, the feathers glinting almost metallically in the sunlight. And there was Anaya, furred and sleek and bounding alongside him. Over his left wing, keeping pace through the water, was Petra, light glistening off her flanks, fierce but graceful in the water. What joy he felt to be with both of them, and all traveling in the same direction, all headed somewhere momentous. And then his attention was focused forward, straining to see what awaited them.

  When he woke, his chest was damp with sweat, and his arms ached as if he’d truly been beating them. Sitting up, he rubbed his temples, and then put on his clothes. He could tell by the curtains the sun hadn’t risen yet, but he felt awake and restless.

  He slipped out of his room and left the apartment he’d been sharing with Carlene since Petra’s and Anaya’s parents arrived. He knew his way around the building by
now. Down a long, windowless corridor, hang a right, and then he was at the doors. Outside, it was overcast and the air still had a cool bite to it, which would have been refreshing if it weren’t for the sulfurous stench given off by all the water lilies in the harbor.

  He’d overheard Dr. Weber and Anaya’s father mention that the plants were emitting methane, and how that could eventually change the planet’s atmosphere, warming it, altering its chemical composition. Making it ready for them.

  The sky was brightening in the east, but it would be at least half an hour before the sun broke the horizon. He nodded at a masked soldier on patrol near the parking lot, and headed toward the east field.

  Petra was standing near the high chain-link fence, looking across the water at the black grass in Stanley Park. He was happy, but somehow not surprised, to see her.

  “Any change?” he said quietly, walking up beside her.

  “Don’t think so,” she said, as if they’d already been talking for a while.

  The dream made him feel incredibly close to her, like they’d shared an amazing experience. He wanted to enjoy the feeling before telling her about his dream. Or maybe he wouldn’t. He should probably just keep his dreams to himself. The last time he’d shared them, she got really angry.

  “I thought I heard some vines cracking earlier,” Petra said, “but it was just a bird getting eaten.”

  “Hey,” said a voice behind them, and Seth turned to see Anaya walking toward them.

  “Hey,” Seth said back, and now felt the full strangeness of it: all three of them being in the same place, at the same moment, as if by agreement.

  “Couldn’t sleep either?” Petra asked.

  “Dream woke me up,” Anaya said. “It was so vivid.”

  Seth knew the answer to his question before it even left his lips. “Were you running?”

  Startled, she looked at him. He had his answer.

  “Not just running,” Petra said. “You were taking these huge leaps.”

  “Yes,” Anaya breathed. “And you were swimming. You were so fast!”

  Petra turned to him. “And you were between us, flying.”

  He nodded. His skin prickled in the cool air. He remembered when he’d first seen both of them in his dreams. Never did he think one day they’d see him in theirs.

  “How could we all have the same dream?” Anaya said.

  “Did I have scales?” Petra asked.

  “No,” Seth told her.

  “Oh, good,” breathed Petra. “I didn’t see any either.”

  “I was covered in hair,” Anaya said.

  Petra touched the back of her head and asked, “Did you guys get the headache?”

  Seth nodded.

  Anaya said, “And we were going somewhere. Where, though?”

  “This is so weird,” Petra said, her face pale in the coming dawn.

  “Is it?” Seth asked. “We’ve been having the same kind of dreams all our lives. Only now we’re in them together.”

  “I don’t want this,” Petra said abruptly, and Seth worried for a moment she was going to freak out. “I just want normal.”

  Gently he asked, “You sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure! What’re you talking about?”

  “What about the swimming?”

  “Shut up, Seth!”

  “In the lake,” he said quietly. “You loved the swimming.”

  Her face softened and became wistful. “I did love it. It was amazing. I felt like I was in exactly the right place. But it was also like I was a completely different person.” She shook her head, as if trying to dislodge a nasty thought. “So, yeah, the swimming was great, but there’s all the other stuff. Like getting a tail and my skin sloughing off. Turning into one of them.”

  “I want wings,” Seth said. “I want to fly.”

  Had he ever said it, so simply and bluntly? He felt his feathers taped against his skin, and felt proud of them. Their dazzling color, their sharpness. They let him do all sorts of things.

  “You really think you could fly?” Anaya asked him.

  “If my feathers keep growing, maybe.”

  He watched their faces closely, and was relieved there was no revulsion in them.

  “That would be…amazing,” Petra said.

  He let out a breath. He’d been so afraid they’d think he was a freak. “So, no, I don’t want to go back to normal,” he said.

  Anaya kicked at the ground. “Normal. For me, that means a snotty, zitty mess. I was enjoying not being feeble.”

  “You’re enjoying being pretty, too,” Petra said wryly.

  Seth saw Anaya’s face redden. “Okay, fair,” she said. “But I’m also growing fur and claws, so I can probably say good-bye to that one.”

  “We’ll always be us,” Petra told her kindly, and Anaya returned the smile.

  “Look!” Seth shouted, pointing.

  Along the edge of Stanley Park, some of the massive stalks of black grass had yellowed. With a snap, one of the stalks cracked and fell, quickly followed by a second.

  “It’s working!” said Anaya.

  “Yes!” shouted Petra. “Yes, yes, yes!”

  Seth had never believed people really jumped for joy, but he did now.

  “Call the colonel!” Anaya shouted at a soldier across the field. “Call everyone! It’s working!”

  Within minutes, people were hurrying out of buildings. Soldiers of all ranks, Colonel Pearson still buttoning his jacket, Dr. Weber pulling a sweater over her tousled head.

  Across the water, the wall of black grass was turning the color of curdled milk. Amid the darkness of the mighty firs and cedars, jagged streaks of yellow started to appear. It was the vines, withering and snapping as they fell through the branches.

  Seth turned to see Anaya’s and Petra’s parents rushing toward them. He watched them hug, and felt the old familiar clench of loneliness. The girls had their families, and sooner or later they would go home without him. Even if he got his wings, would it make up for losing his friends?

  “Look at that!” Mr. Riggs said as more black grass cracked and fell under its own weight. “It’s coming down. Under twenty hours, and it’s coming down!”

  Cheers went up from the soldiers. From the city, Seth heard shouts carry across the water. On rooftops and balconies and even on the streets, people had been watching and waiting and hoping for this moment. A news helicopter buzzed overhead and started filming. Car horns were honking downtown. From a rooftop, someone sent up a fountain of fireworks. Their lights fluttered down like a dozen shooting stars whose wishes had come true.

  “The water lilies, too!” Dr. Weber shouted, coming over to them. “Look!”

  The bat-shaped leaves were turning a sickly green, and their seed-spitting heads drooped into the water.

  Colonel Pearson marched over and shook hands with Mr. Riggs and Dr. Weber.

  “You make this stuff work a bit faster and I can load my soldiers up with it,” he said. He turned to Seth and Anaya and Petra. “You’re brave kids. You and your families are welcome to stay on the base as long as you like.” And he marched off, shouting orders to his deputies.

  “We’re going to win,” Anaya said. “We’re going to get rid of this stuff!”

  “And maybe go back to normal,” Petra added.

  Seth saw Carlene Lee out on the field with the soldiers, happily watching the plants die in Stanley Park. Before long, he knew she’d be filling out forms, and trying to match him up with new foster parents.

  Maybe Dr. Weber heard him sigh, because she put a hand on his shoulder. “I wanted to talk to you about something. I asked Carlene if I could be your guardian for the time being. She said she’d be happy to do the paperwork.”

  Seth looked at her, amazed. “You’re serious?”

 
“Absolutely.”

  “So you’d be my foster mother?”

  “If that’s all right with you.”

  He suddenly couldn’t speak, so just nodded, then nodded some more, happiness blooming through him.

  It started to rain, heavily all at once. Seth pulled up his hood. Beside him, Petra swore and ran for the base. But after a few steps, she stopped and turned back.

  “Weird.” She held out her bare hands. “No itch! You see any rash?”

  Seth looked at her skin and shook his head.

  Jubilantly Petra tilted her face to the rain, then her smile melted away.

  “No,” she muttered, gazing at the dark, pregnant clouds.

  And suddenly Seth understood. The last time rain like this had come, it came with seeds. These drops were so big they seemed to bounce. They came down harder. After a second, he realized some of the raindrops weren’t soaking into the ground. He frowned. They just rested there like tiny, clear eggs.

  Then, as he watched, the rain began to hatch.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There are a lot of very unpleasant plants in this book. I owe a huge debt of thanks to Dr. Stefan Weber, a specialist in botany, who answered my endless questions about plant biology and behavior, and enthusiastically helped me imagine terrifying new types of invasive species—even making wonderful drawings for me. He also came up with the name “cryptogens” for my fictional plants and their creators.

  This novel had many early readers: Philippa Sheppard, Nathaniel Oppel, Stefan Weber, Steven Malk, Hannah Mann, Kevin Sylvester, Kevin Sands, Jonathan Auxier—all of whom made very insightful comments that guided me forward through subsequent drafts.

  I’d also like to thank my editors, Suzanne Sutherland and Nancy Siscoe, whose expertise helped this novel to germinate and bloom.

  Mark Raynes Roberts

  KENNETH OPPEL wrote his first novel at age fourteen and hasn’t looked back. His books include the Silverwing trilogy, which has sold over a million copies around the world, and Airborn, winner of a Michael L. Printz Honor Award and the Governor General’s Award. He is also the author of Half Brother, This Dark Endeavor, The Boundless, The Nest, Every Hidden Thing, and his latest, Inkling, which the New York Times called “astonishing.”