The Seed

Sunlight.

It glistened playfully over the ripples, like so many dancers swaying along the movements of a gentle melody.  The light glimmered over the dew-laden bristles of a nearby thorn bush.  Just to the right of the prickly foliage, a spring bubbled out from the green earth, spilling into a little pool and winding brook that traveled deeper into the forest.  There at the pool, however, the trees left an almost circular glade, occupied solely by the rippling pool.  A pile of red sandstone at the mouth of the spring tinted the water slightly crimson where it came out of the earth.  Over the pool, the trees’ branches stretched and met in a sort of emerald, blossoming canopy—full of spring’s promises for life and rebirth.  The sunlight slipped through this dome of nature’s cathedral and lit up the glade in a heavenly glow that danced over grass, flowers, and water.  No sound breached that beauty past a tender, whispering breeze, until a sudden panting interrupted the quiet.

The disturbance originated from a form sitting on the bank of the pool.  It was a young woman, at an age nearing the threshold of adulthood.  She sat stooped forward, with her feet dangling limply in the water and her trembling hands rested firmly on either side of her as if to prevent her toppling headfirst into the pool.  In fact, the drenched state of her pale golden hair and simple dress suggested she had already.  Given the weight of her panting, she had nearly drowned. 

In fact, Lily had drowned.  Hadn’t she?

She blinked.  Her wide eyes stared into the rippling water with confusion.  The light’s brilliance on the waters shrunk her pupils considerably, making the emerald rim of her irises bold and vivid.    A slight wrinkle formed between her eyebrows as she stared into the water, puzzling.  Something of great significance had occurred in the moments before, when  all the beauty and ferocity of the pool closed in and consumed her.  Looking back on it, Lily could not quite tell whether it had been a death or a birth—an end or a beginning.  Both, perhaps?  Either way, she felt certain she must never forget it.  Lily stared at her quivering hands.  With some effort, she straightened and turned her right palm upward.  Just as she thought, something had changed.  She felt altered all over, with her skin stinging as if rubbed raw.  The sensation encircled and revolved around her right hand, however, and she felt certain the most crucial change had occurred there.  A glance confirmed her suspicion.

There, in the flesh of her right palm, rested a small, fragile seed.

Lily could not tell if she held it or if it were part of her.  It seemed embedded, somehow, and when she tipped her hand over the kernel would not fall.  She blinked, studied it a little more, and resolved the change was permanent.  Not that she minded.  Lily felt quite certain she had been altered for the better.  She smiled, gathered her strength, and rose to her feet.  The pale green dress that hung to her knees remained plastered to her skin with water.  No matter.  She best get on her way.

Without another thought beyond a gentle, thrumming warmth in her chest, Lily started to follow the winding stream into the forest.  She hardly knew where she went or why, but the little Voice inside assured her that it was the path worth taking.  Swinging her hands at her sides carelessly, she trotted out of the glade and down her curious road.

Thunder.

It gave a great clap above her, and on its cue the heavens released a downpour.  The rain came so suddenly and without warning that Lily gave a startled cry and hesitated.  She would never get dry at this rate.  The trees parted enough along the brook to ensure a continuous drenching.  Perhaps following it was not for the best.  Trekking under the shadow and shelter of the trees to the left or right would certainly prove easier.  Lily sighed, looked at her options, and continued down her chosen route, intending to trust the Voice completely.  Still, the creek bank grew muddy, and the filth splatted across her bare feet and ankles.  Lily tried to ignore it, certain she had chosen right.

“Better find a more civilized road, dear.”

Lily stopped, startled, and looked up.  A woman stood across the stream to her right, kept safely dry under the trees and her own lacy umbrella.  She was no doubt kept warm from the chill, stormy air by all the refinement of the ladylike dress that covered her from neck to toe.  Lily found herself somewhat in awe by the sight, able only to stare dumbly at the woman’s neat, dark hair and fine appearance.  The woman’s violet eyes narrowed disapprovingly, taking in Lily’s dress and appearance, which seemed suddenly shabby in comparison to her luxurious apparel. 

“A new seed, by the looks of it,” the woman gave a distasteful sniff while taking a little glass perfume bottle from a delicate pouch at her wrist, “Take my advice and give up now.  The seed life will lead you to the most dirty and unpleasant places.  Stay clean and safe.  That’s the way to really live.”

Lily frowned, puzzled.  Her eyes wandered over the woman, trying to determine her trustworthiness.  She had assumed there were others like her—with seeds.  Following the Voice and taking care of her seed were instincts since her rebirth that she accepted, without considering other options.  The woman’s fine dress and obviously clean hands certainly looked more appealing than the rain and mud she embraced at present.  Lily observed as the woman sprayed the perfume on her throat and wrists delicately, then rubbed in the fragrance subtly.  While the scent struck Lily as something appealing, the motion drew her attention to something that stirred the her very core with revulsion.  When the woman rubbed her wrists together, Lily spotted a blackened, withered flower on her right palm, suffocated by the woman’s perfume.  Lily only saw it for a moment, but it was more than enough for her to clasp her own right palm protectively and continue down the bank.  The woman called after her with word about fine living, but they had lacked all their previous charm.  Anything that could ravage a budding seed was something Lily wanted no part in.  Another moment and the woman’s scent and words had faded into the rain forever, beyond enticement.

Lightning flashed.

She jumped, looked up at the clouded sky, but kept on her way.  Thunder, rain, or lightning, Lily entertained no intention of stopping.  The fine woman had assured her that taking shelter in the trees was not the path meant for her.  There was a reason the Voice urged her toward the brook, and she must give heed to that.  No sooner had Lily thus resolved, however, than the rain poured harder, the mud grew deeper, and a frigid gust of air beat at her.  Within a matter of minutes she began sinking up to her calves in the muck.  The stretch of drier ground just under the trees began to look more and more appealing.  She could walk there and still keep eyes on the water, surely.  Lily mused until her left foot slipped in the mud and she fell to one knee, dirtying her hands and the hem of her dress.  She shook her head distastefully as she rose. A fresh burst of wind settled her doubts instantly, and she stepped under the trees, careful to keep her eyes on the brook.  She could manage well enough that way.

“What’s a pretty girl like you doing all muddy?”

Lily jumped slightly, glancing toward the voice.  Deeper in the trees, a tall man stood smiling at her.  He seemed to have dark skin, which shimmered slightly when the light caught it.  The trees’ shadows kept her from making him out clearly, but his voice held a soft, comforting tone.

“Come further in, silly.  It’s drier back here.  I’ll walk with you for a while, if we’re heading in the same direction.”

His voice held such an enchanting sound that Lily found herself stepping closer to him without thinking.  He seemed to be walking the same direction, generally, so she met his stride with only a glance toward the brook.  They shared their names and fell quickly into a comfortable conversation.  His name was Nutsedge, and he was a wandering sort of fellow.  Lily hardly noticed it, but his merry conversation brought her ever closer to him and farther from the brook.  By the time she thought to look, she could no longer spot the creek at all.  Her breath caught in her throat frightfully.

“I say, Nutsedge, I can’t see the water at all!  Are you sure we’re headed in the same direction?”

“To be sure,” he laughed, putting an arm about her shoulders reassuringly, “there’s a little stretch where the brook gets too small to see, but we’ll be past that presently.”

His arm felt warm, safe.  For a moment she believed him.  Then a rare glimmer of sunlight lit the place where they stood.  Nutsedge released her and drew back sharply, but Lily had already seen him.  The light revealed the source of his warm, shimmering skin.  Warm, dark mud caked Nutsedge from head to toe—too much filth to ever allow a seed to grow.  She cried out sharply, disgusted.  Upon realizing she had spotted him, his comforting smile and tone vanished completely.  He stepped forward, with hands outstretched and a dangerous glint in his eyes. 

Lily screamed and fled.

For a moment she thought she might not escape fast enough or ever find the river.  Just as soon as she recognized such fear, however, the brook seemed to find her.  Nutsedge cried out with disappointment and was lost in the rain that soaked her once more.  Now, however, she had the revolting feel and stench his dark mud across her back and shoulders, and the rain did not seem able to wash it away, despite its definite increase.  Lily found herself trekking through the muck again, more miserable than ever.  Again and again she slipped in the mud, streaking her hands and arms with the stuff in her attempts to catch herself. 

Finally, she fell and ceased her attempts to stand.

For a long while she sat there and looked down at her own soiled self.  The fine woman’s talk of cleanliness started to feel more appealing, when confronted with such filth.  Lily sighed, studying her muddy hands.  She could not even see the seed anymore, beneath the muck.  Her throat tightened, and her eyes grew hot.  Lily took in a deep breath, trying to hold it in.  No good.  Tears and sobs escaped her without her permission.  Soon she wept shamelessly, crying aloud all her frustration at the seed that had offered nothing but trial and suffering.

“Well, that’s the best kind, isn’t it?”

Lily’s head snapped up, startled.  A small, wiry woman stood in the creek to her right, smiling down on her.  First Lily noted her pale green dress, and then the brilliant emerald eyes that watched her.  She also noticed a bit of mud splotching the woman’s hands and arms.  However, the oddity Lily spotted afterward removed every previous impression.  Vines.  They wound up the woman’s right arm, over her throat, and wove themselves through the crimson curls that tumbled down her back.  The foliage seemed part of her, branching out here and there with delicate, purple flowers.  Lily found she could only stare at the beauty, awed.

“What?”

The woman smiled sweetly.  “Seeds that lead you to hard places are the best, I said. Then you get wet and dirty, just as you ought.”

Lily struggled to hide her growing confusion, and the woman obviously recognized it.  She laughed brightly, stooping down to put her dirty hands in the rippling waters.  “Dirt and water nurture the seed, and when you refresh yourself in the river… everything becomes clear.”

With the last words, the woman straightened, letting Lily look at her hands once more.  There, where the dirt had streaked her arms, were fresh sprouts of vines.  The woman then took a step closer and offered her right hand to help Lily back to her feet.  At that moment, Lily realized that the woman’s vines all sprouted from a seed in her right palm.

“Now come on,” the woman crooned, “let the water restore you.”

Gently, the woman led her into the water, where they both scrubbed the filth from her.  Some of it was so caked and hardened she rubbed her skin raw removing it.  It hurt a little, much like the cracking of a seed’s outer shell to allow growth.  And beneath her filth lay growth indeed.  The rain ceased in that moment, allowing a glimmer to slip through the clouds and illuminate the miracle before her.  Fed by the soil of her struggle and protected by the purity of her efforts, a little green plant began to wind itself around her wrist, where one branch opened up into a little, white flower.

“Water Lily,” the woman laughed, “that’s your full name.  Mine’s Morning Glory.  Happy to struggle alongside you, Lily… nothing else is more worth it, in the end.” 

Lily might have doubted such a statement before, but she fully believed it when she gazed down at the little blossom on her wrist.  A little grain of reassurance sowed itself in her, sprouting a warmth in her chest.  In the end, she had chosen right.  The path was hard, surely, but that made it worth it.  After all, seeds could not grow without a little dirt, rain, and effort.