Before the Bloom, Part 3

 

Before the Bloom

Part III: The Knowing

Greywood deepens slowly.

Not enough to alarm.

Not enough to warn.

That is how it survives.

The roots grow thicker

beneath their feet.

The air sweeter.

The silence heavier.

Morning disappears quietly there.

Swallowed whole beneath branches

that allow light through

only in fragments.

The Collector walks ahead.

Not hurried.

Not slow.

Simply certain.

His satchel rests against his side

with every measured step.

Cloth wrapped carefully around glass.

Space prepared already

for the Bloom.

He does not speak often.

Not from cruelty.

Not from distance.

But because devotion

has narrowed him.

The forest ahead.

The House behind.

The task between them.

Nothing else seems permitted

to exist for long.

The Page trails close to the Companion now,

boots sinking softly into damp earth.

Every few moments

they glance toward the Collector

with open admiration.

As though watching someone

become legend

in real time.

“Does Greywood always smell like this?”

The Companion keeps his eyes forward.
“Like what?”

The Page breathes in carefully.
“Sweet.”

The Companion waits a moment.

“Rot sweetens before it collapses.”

The Page thinks on this seriously,

as children do

when trying to understand things

larger than themselves.

Above them,

something shifts in the branches.

Not animal.

Not wind.

Just Greywood

remembering it is being watched back.

Still-

The Page notices beauty first.

Silver moss threaded through bark.

Pale mushrooms opening softly

from hollow trunks.

Light caught in hanging dew

like shattered glass.

“It almost feels holy here.”

The Companion nearly laughs.

Not because it is funny.

Because once,

he thought so too.

The Collector continues ahead.

A dark shape moving steadily

through darker trees.

He touches nothing unnecessarily.

Looks nowhere except forward.

The Companion watches him carefully.

The rigid shoulders.

The tightening grip

around satchel straps.

The way exhaustion has begun

settling quietly into posture.

Small things.

Things children do not notice.

Things devotion hopes

can be hidden.

“Was he always chosen first?”

The question comes suddenly.

The Companion glances downward.

The Page is watching the Collector again.

“He earned trust early.”

“And you?”

A pause.

“I learned earlier

what trust costs.”

The Page does not fully understand.

That much is merciful.

They walk further.

Greywood thickens around them

until the path no longer feels discovered

but allowed.

The Collector finally slows

near the hollow of a dying tree.

Its trunk splits open at the center,

rotted inward

without fully falling apart.

And there—

Greyroot Bloom.

Pale petals folded softly

against dark decay.

Beautiful enough

to feel undeserved.

The Page steps forward instinctively.
“It’s smaller than I thought.”

The Companion reaches an arm out immediately,

stopping them without force.

“Do not touch it.”

The Page blinks.

The warning lands strangely there,

beside something so delicate.

The Collector kneels.

Quietly.

Reverently.

As though approaching an altar.

Gloveless fingers brush the stem.

The forest stills.

The Companion feels it immediately —

the tightening of air,

the subtle shift beneath root and soil.

The Collector flinches once.

Small.

Brief.
Almost nothing.

Then continues.

Grey strands cling softly to skin

where stem meets hand.

The Page notices only

how the petals catch the light.

“It looks silver.”

No one answers.

The Bloom is wrapped carefully.

Once.

Then twice.

Still the scent escapes.

Sweet first.

Then metallic beneath it.

The Collector rises slowly.

For the first time,

the Companion sees effort

in the movement.

But the Collector continues forward

as though devotion alone

might steady the body.

The Page walks between them sometimes,

trailing fingers along bark,

watching fractured light gather in moss.

Greywood remains beautiful to him.

That is the cruelty of it.

And somewhere between

one step

and the next,

beneath crowded branches

and patient rot,

the Companion understands

what the Apothecary already knew.

Greywood never intended

to release the Bloom

without replacement.

The realization arrives quietly.

Not like panic.

Like grief.

Because the Collector

still walks forward.

Still carries the satchel carefully.

Still thinks first

of returning.

Of proving worthy.

Ahead,

he walks in silence.

Already fading somehow

despite remaining fully visible.

The Companion watches

the slight unsteadiness

hidden carefully in each step.

Watches someone loved

mistake consumption

for purpose.

And behind him,

the Page continues

to marvel at the forest,

unaware

that something beside him

has already begun

to die.

By the time Greywood loosens its hold,

even the light feels different.

And somewhere beneath root,

rot,

and patient dark,

the forest settles again,

having taken

what it was owed.