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Holby returned from town with her arms full and her thoughts heavier than the paper sacks cradled against her ribs.
Blood-and-bone fertilizer — iron-rich, old as ritual, still warm with the memory of what it had once been. A bundle of hand-held tools with curved blades and polished wood handles worn smooth by other hands, other lives. Twine. Seed packets. Three squat blocks of birdseed wrapped in brown paper, meant to hang from the surrounding trees like small offerings. Like apologies.
The path to the greenhouse was narrow, swallowed by foxglove and nightshade that leaned in as she passed, leaves whispering against her coat as if gossiping. The glass structure rose at the clearing’s edge — iron-ribbed, fog-breathing, its panes fogged with green life and breath.
And the door was open. Just a hand’s width. Just enough.
It had been closed when she left. Holby stopped.
The forest seemed to notice. Birds fell silent. Even the wind pulled back, holding its breath. Her grip tightened on the sacks until the paper creaked in protest, bone dust shifting inside like something unsettled.
“Alright,” she murmured, not to the greenhouse — but to herself. “Alright, then.”
She nudged the door wider with her boot.
The hinges did not creak. They never did. She’d charmed them for silence years ago, back when she still believed secrecy was safety.
Warmth rolled over her the moment she stepped inside. Damp, loamy heat. The smell of chlorophyll and iron and something faintly sweet — nectar with a threat behind it. Sunlight fractured through the glass overhead, catching on drifting motes of pollen and spores like a held breath made visible.
Empty.
No intruder. No lurking shape between the beds. No shattered glass, no broken wards screaming their absence.
Just the plants.
They were… restless.
The raised beds overflowed as they always did — too lush, too vivid, greens so dark they bruised toward black. Monkshood curled like sleeping serpents. Belladonna berries gleamed wet and tempting. Hemlock stretched in pale lacework shadows. Roots pressed against the edges of their beds as if testing boundaries.
The venus flytraps nearest the door opened wide at her presence, thick mouths gaping in unmistakable expectation. Their inner flesh flushed a welcoming pink, cilia twitching, eager. Always hungry. Always listening.
“I know,” Holby said softly, setting her bags down with care. “I’m late.”
She moved through the greenhouse slowly, boots tracing the familiar paths between beds. Her fingers brushed leaves as she passed — never careless, never unannounced. She checked stems for stress fractures, leaves for bruising, soil for disturbance. She spoke as she worked, low and steady, the way one might soothe children after a fright.
“You’re alright,” she told the wolfsbane, smoothing a curled leaf back into place.
“I know, I know — you don’t like strangers,” she murmured to the foxglove, whose bells chimed faintly despite the still air.
“Easy,” she whispered to the mandrake shoots, pressing her palm to the soil until their tremor settled.
The greenhouse breathed with her, tension easing inch by inch.
Then she saw it. A shoe.
Leather. Dark. Mud-caked along the sole. Worn at the heel like it belonged to someone who walked too often and rested too little. It sat near the eastern bed — half in shadow, half in sunlight — as if deliberately placed. As if waiting.
It had not been there this morning. Holby straightened slowly.
Her gaze swept the room again, sharper now. Counting. Measuring. Listening not just with her ears, but with the part of her that felt changes in pressure, in intent. The wards still hummed beneath the glass and iron — unbroken, intact. Whatever had come inside had not forced entry.
That meant it had been invited. Or tolerated. Her jaw tightened.
She crouched near the shoe but did not touch it yet. Instead, she checked the surrounding plants first — because that was the order of things. Always. Leaves parted at her approach, some brushing her knuckles like reassurance, others recoiling with offended dignity.
“No broken stems,” she murmured. “No missing leaves. No trampled soil…”
Her hand paused at one bed — the flytraps closest to the shoe. Their mouths were closed now, smugly so. One bulge throbbed faintly beneath its green skin, something struggling — or digesting — inside.
Holby sighed through her nose. “Did you take a bite?” she asked, not unkindly.
The plant shuddered, cilia twitching. A slow, unapologetic yes.
She rose, crossed her arms, and tilted her head. “You know better. That wasn’t food meant for you.”
The flytrap snapped once, petulant.
Holby reached out at last and nudged the shoe with the tip of her boot. It rolled slightly, revealing the inside — empty. No foot. No blood. Just dampness and the faint, lingering echo of fear.
She exhaled.
“Alright,” she said again, quieter now. More thoughtful. “We’ll talk about this later.”
She turned back to her supplies, already planning — extra wards woven into the hanging baskets, birdseed charms threaded with watching spells, fertilizer mixed with crushed nettle and salt. She would feed the flytraps soon. She always did. She would hang the birdseed in the trees like small sentinels, eyes and wings and whispers all her own.
And whoever had wandered into her greenhouse uninvited — Well. If they’d left a shoe behind, it meant they’d gotten out alive. Which was more mercy than most things received once they crossed Holby’s threshold.
The greenhouse door swung shut behind her on silent hinges. And this time, it locked.
