The Datura Bloom

The summer I turned nine, my family moved into a rambling Victorian house on the edge of a dying town called Ashford. The house had been vacant for years, and the realtor, a nervous man with sweat on his upper lip, called it ‘a fixer-upper with character.’ My father, always chasing a bargain, saw past the peeling paint and the creaking porch. My mother, tired of city life, fell in love with the wild overgrown garden, especially the massive, white trumpet flowers that grew in a tangled patch near the fence. She called them moonflowers. They were datura, and they were the first sign that this place was not ours.

Our new home was isolated, on a dead-end road that petered out into a thick, dark forest. The nearest neighbor was a half mile away, an old woman named Mrs. Holloway, who lived in a squat, stone cottage with a single, perpetually lit window. She never came out, but we often saw her silhouette, a hunched figure watching us from behind the glass. One afternoon, my younger sister, Lily, wandered too close to the property line between our house and hers. She came back with a single, wilting datura bloom and a strange smile, saying, ‘The lady in red said I could have it.’ There was no sign of the old woman, who always wore gray. My mother didn’t think much of it, but I felt a cold knot in my stomach.

That night, the dragging began. It was a slow, rhythmic sound, like something heavy being pulled across the floorboards upstairs. Our house had a third floor, a small, dusty attic that we never used. The sound came from directly above my bedroom. At first, it was just a soft scrape, but it grew louder, more insistent. I lay in bed, my heart pounding, listening. I told myself it was the pipes, the house settling. But the next morning, I found fresh, deep scratches on the attic door, as if something with long claws had been trying to get out. My father dismissed it as an old door, but I saw the way his hands shook when he turned the handle.

Lily began to change. She spent hours in the garden, talking to the datura in a low, sing-song voice. She would bring them inside, placing them in chipped vases in her room, filling the house with their sweet, cloying scent. At night, I would find her awake, staring out the window at the dark forest, whispering, ‘She’s coming.’ When I asked who, she would just smile, a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. My parents, finally alarmed, tried to get her to see a doctor, but Lily would lock her door, and we could hear her moving furniture against it, a frantic energy in the thumps and scrapes.

Then the man in the soiled overalls started appearing in our yard. He was always at the edge of the property, near the fence where the datura grew thickest. He had a gaunt face, hollow eyes, and his hands were crusted with dark dirt. He would just stand there, watching the house, and when I tried to get a better look, he would melt back into the undergrowth. I told my father, who went out to investigate, but found nothing. Still, I saw him again, and again. One evening, from my window, I saw him reach through the fence and pick a datura bloom, placing it in his pocket. He looked directly at me, and his lips moved, forming a silent word: ‘Soon.’

My mother began to have strange dreams. She would wake in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, and tell me she saw a tall, thin woman in an old-fashioned white dress, beckoning her from the garden into the forest. The woman’s face was blank, featureless. My mother, a rational woman, tried to laugh it off, but she started sleeping with the lights on and pulling heavy blankets over the windows. The tension in the house was palpable, and the air felt thick, heavy with the scent of datura, even when all the windows were closed. I started having nightmares where the ground beneath our house was a root, a vast, malevolent organism.

One stormy night, the dragging sound was louder than ever, and this time, it was not confined to the attic. It moved down the stairs, a slow, heavy bump-thump, bump-thump, like a dead body being dragged. Lily was in her room, humming, and the sound stoppered right outside her door. I charged out of my room, my heart hammering, and found the hallway empty. But on the floor outside Lily’s door was a fresh, brown stain, like something had been dragged from the attic, past my room, and left there. I pounded on Lily’s door, but she didn’t answer. I forced it open. The room was empty, the window wide open, the rain blowing in. On the bed, a single datura bloom, its petals bruised.

We searched for weeks. The police combed the forest, dragging the ponds, but they found nothing. The town whispered, and Mrs. Holloway, for the first time, came to our door. She looked us over with her rheumy eyes and said, ‘She took a daughter once before, many years ago. The ground gives back what is buried. Your girl planted the seed, now it’s growing.’ She handed my mother a handful of black, root-like things and said, ‘Burn these. Burn the garden. It’s the only way.’ My father, desperate, took the roots, but my mother recoiled, saying, ‘Those are from our datura. They’re beautiful.’ She held them to her chest like a child. That night, her sickness took hold.

She began to speak in a voice that was not hers, deeper, more ancient. She would wander into the garden at night, wearing only her nightgown, her feet bare on the cold ground, and we would find her in the morning, sleeping among the datura, covered in dew. When we tried to wake her, she would snap, her eyes fluttering with a milky film. The police were called, and they took her to the hospital, but she escaped, leaving only a note written in shaky, childlike handwriting: ‘She wants me. The seed is ready.’

Now, the house is quiet, the garden is overgrown, and the datura has spread, creeping up the walls, its white flowers like many-eyed stares. Mrs. Holloway said to burn it, but we were too afraid. Last night, I heard the dragging sound again, and from my window, I saw a figure in the garden, a tall, thin woman with no face, holding the hand of a small girl. The girl turned, and her face was Lily’s but older, pale, and her lips moved. She mouthed three words, ‘We are whole.’ Then the other figure, my mother, stepped out from the shadow of the house, her face a mirror of Lily’s, and she waved. I don’t sleep anymore. I just watch the garden, and the datura blooms, and I wonder when the seed will root in me.