The Constant Gardener

I’m Mira, sixteen, and I’ve been keeping a secret for eight years. It started when we moved to a small town in the foothills of the Himalayas, into a sprawling old bungalow that my father had rented from a reclusive botanist. The house was beautiful, with a garden that was a riot of exotic flowers and thorny bushes, but there was something wrong with it. The previous tenant, they said, had been a botanist who loved his plants more than people. He’d died in a greenhouse accident, and his widow had moved away, leaving the garden to grow wild. My father, a botanist himself, was thrilled, but my mother and I felt a creeping unease from the start.

The first month was peaceful. I’d explore the garden, careful not to disturb the strange, alien-looking flowers. But then my grandmother, my mother’s mother, passed away in August. Her death was sudden, and we were all grief-stricken. It was a week after the funeral that I first heard the sounds—a rhythmic, rasping noise, like something being dragged across the floor, coming from the living room at night. The first time, I woke and sat up in bed, my heart pounding. The noise was unmistakable: a slow, heavy dragging, then a pause, then a soft thud, like a pot being placed on a table. I thought I was dreaming. I lay back down, pulling the covers over my head, and eventually, the sounds stopped.

A few nights later, I mentioned it to my parents over breakfast. My father’s face went pale. He set down his cup of chai and said, ‘I’ve heard it too. Last night, around 2:30, I was working on my laptop in the living room when I heard that dragging sound. I thought it was the landlady moving furniture in the adjacent house, but she’s on a month-long trip. And when I looked out the window, there was no one in the garden. The plants, though—they were swaying, even though there was no wind.’ He tried to laugh it off, but I saw the fear in his eyes.

Over the next week, the sounds grew more frequent, and other things began to happen. The plants in the garden, which were usually perfectly still, seemed to shift positions overnight. One morning, I noticed that a large, twisted shrub near the front porch had moved a few feet closer to the house. My father wrote it off as the ground settling. But my mother, who was usually the rational one, started sleeping with a nightlight and refused to go into the garden after dark.

Then came the first nightmare, if you can call it that. I dreamt I was in the garden at night, and the plants were whispering to each other, their leaves rustling in a way that sounded like speech. In the dream, I walked to the greenhouse, drawn by a pale blue glow. Inside, I saw a figure hunched over a large potted plant, its back to me. It was wearing a tattered brown robe, and its hands were moving, tending to the soil with an almost loving care. It didn’t turn around, but I heard a voice, dry as dead leaves: ‘Your grandmother was a seed. All seeds must be tended.’ I woke up screaming, my mother rushing in to comfort me.

After that, the presence became more tangible. I’d find small piles of fresh soil on the doorstep, or a single leaf from a plant that didn’t exist anywhere in the garden. My father, despite his fear, became obsessed with identifying the sounds and the movements. He set up a video camera in the living room, hoping to catch evidence. The video showed nothing—just an empty room, the furniture static, the night passing. But in the footage, at 2:33 AM, the camera’s battery drained suddenly, and the recording stopped.

The climax came on a full moon night, exactly three months after my grandmother’s death. I was in my room, unable to sleep, listening to the dragging sound from the living room. This time, it was louder, more persistent, like something huge was being moved. I crept to the door and peered out. The living room was shrouded in darkness, but I could see a figure—tall, thin, with long arms—moving among the shadows. It was holding a pot containing a small, withered plant, and it was walking toward the front door, leaving a trail of soil behind it. I watched, frozen, as it opened the door and stepped out into the garden. Through the window, I saw it kneel down, dig a small hole with its bare hands, and place the potted plant into the earth. Then it stood, and for a moment, its face turned toward the house. I saw nothing but a smooth, featureless void where a face should be, except for a mouth that curved into a thin smile. Then it dissolved into the night.

The next morning, my father found a new plant growing near the spot where I’d seen the vision. It was a strange, pale flower, unlike any in the garden. My father identified it as a rare species, one that supposedly only bloomed once every hundred years and then died. He was excited, but I felt a chill. That night, I had another dream. In it, the figure from the garden held out a seed to me and said, ‘You have been chosen to tend the garden. It will grow your memories, your fears, your very soul. In return, you will never be alone.’ I woke up with my hand clenched, and when I opened it, there was a small, black seed resting in my palm.

I haven’t told my parents about the seed. I keep it in a small tin under my bed. But I’ve noticed changes. My reflection in the mirror sometimes lag a second behind, and I hear constant whispering in the garden, even during the day. Last week, I found the seed in the living room, resting on the table, as if it had crawled out of its tin. And the new plant in the garden has grown at an alarming rate, its vine creeping toward the house, its leaves seeming to turn toward my window at night.

I know now that the house was never just a house. It was a garden that tends itself, and the botanist never left. He became part of the garden, and now he wants me to join him. I don’t know how to stop it. The sounds are getting louder, the plants are reaching farther, and I can feel something growing inside me, like a root spreading through my veins. Maybe I’m the next gardener. And maybe, when I look in the mirror, soon I won’t see a face at all.