The melody began by accident.
Elliot had been adjusting the supports for the green-frilled trellis vines—plants normally docile and indifferent to sound—when his humming turned to a low, absent-minded tune. A simple scale. Nothing more than a rhythm to pass the time.
But the leaves began to shiver.
It started with a tremble along the edge of the nearest leaf. Then the entire vine arched toward the sound like a serpent uncurling. Its tendrils loosened, slackened, and shifted to form shapes—twisting knots that pulsed with faint, internal light. Like nerves under skin.
"Did you see that?" Elliot called out.
Lyra emerged from behind a wall of sunburst shrubs, a small stack of seed-pods in her arms. "See what?"
Elliot hummed again—this time more deliberately. A slower scale, deeper in tone. The vines responded. Not just one, but five of them in sequence, each reacting with a movement that matched the pitch: low notes made the leaves ripple outward, high notes made the tendrils recoil.
Lyra knelt beside him, her golden eyes narrowed. "It's mimicking," she said. "No... syncing."
She set the pods down and pulled a small reed flute from her belt. It was an old thing, more ceremonial than useful. She blew a short, wavering tone—like the call of a bird that had never been seen in this part of the world.
The vines responded instantly.
"They're not just hearing," she murmured. "They're remembering a pattern."
The next few hours turned into a cautious experiment. They tried different sounds—hums, claps, soft whistling, stone against wood. Each sound produced a reaction: petals blooming open, leaves folding into spirals, roots retracting. Not all reactions were pleasant. One sharp note caused a nearby mushroom to collapse into itself with a hiss, releasing a pungent, dizzying spore cloud.
By mid-afternoon, they'd cleared a space and set down marked stones in a half-circle. Elliot had made rough sketches of each reaction, cataloging tones and responses. Lyra stood in the center, her flute raised, conducting the garden like an orchestra.
The ground vibrated lightly.
"Do you feel that?" Elliot asked.
She nodded. "Somewhere beneath the soil, something's listening back."
Suddenly, the central trellis vine convulsed—not violently, but with an energy that wasn't coming from their sound. The stalk split and opened like a mouth yawning. From within, a cluster of yellow-laced bulbs emerged, each pulsing softly with rhythm… in time with Lyra's heartbeat.
She dropped the flute.
The music stopped.
The bulbs stopped.
"I think…" she whispered, "this plant isn't just reacting. It's remembering a song it once knew. And I don't think it learned that song here."
Elliot picked up the flute carefully. "We need to be careful with this," he said. "If there are plants that carry memory… then this one might be a remnant from before Stillfall."
Or worse, he thought but didn't say—a seed of what caused it.