I take the scribbled note from my hands and check it one more time, making sure I read the note correctly. A tendril of spilled ink, with a shaky hand that fervently wrote: “Garden, near the brick and stone.” My warm breath creates smoke signals around me in the cold air. At least I’m sure I’m alive. I enter a gated square with lines of stone to catch each footfall. The smell of floral rot: the rose, peony, and soil swirl around me in a delicate game of tug-of-war. Baby pinks, passionate reds, sickly browns and greens, a kaleidoscope of a garden on the edge of a bustling downtown.
The rot condescends the brick mansion, its permanent partner in decay. It feels peaceful at a time like this, the day feels a little bit like night, while birds still sing their sonnets. Suddenly, I hear a voice call out to me, dark and deep, so much so that I feel it in the depths of my chest, like a bass drum.
“You’ve found it,” he says.
I turn to face him, the teeth grinding in my jaw the only stable bravery I own. “Yes? Of course I did. I’ve compared every piece of this city to this very description.” I hold up the note as I shake my head, ignoring the sly smile peeling across his face. He leads me to a patch of flowers, fallen and rotten—I could taste the nausea boiling in my stomach. The stranger points a pale finger to a particularly macabre flower, white and grey as ash with patches of pink that still made it look beautiful in its fate, lying beautifully like Aphrodite in an open casket.
“There,” he says smoothly—but sharp as a knife, “see that? In the study of plants, whenever you see the rot, you cut it off to save the other plants.”
My body stills as I peer down, frozen, feeling as helpless as the garden itself, the fog-turned-rain adorning their petals with pearlescent teardrops.
“This one, a shame, couldn’t be saved,” he continues.
His hand snakes around my neck like a python and I its prey, his breath warm against my freezing neck.
“Sometimes, you must sever the blight at just the right time, so nothing else is affected. Will you be that beauty saved, or will you lie in rot—like that poor thing there? The choice is yours, but sometimes nature does it for you before you can cut the rot out.” His voice softens, almost apologetic.
I swallow hard, my insides twisting and turning.
I sigh, but it comes out more as a heave.
My mind begins to play tricks on me, my head swirling with begging whispers of escape, escape, escape.
In my peripheral vision, I see the glimmer of a blade raised just above my head. I close my eyes tight and brace for this ugly thorn in my side.
Kenna DeValor (they/them) is a nonbinary+ queer writer, literary agent, and current graduate student based in Northeast Pennsylvania. They hold a B.A. in English Literature with a minor in Creative Writing from Bloomsburg University. Currently, they attend Wilkes University’s Maslow Family Creative Writing MA/MFA program for Fiction. They have been published 70+ times in various art/literary journals and magazines around the US, UK, and Australia. They have been nominated twice in 2025 for Best of the Net (1x for visual art & 1x for short fiction) and once for Best Short Fictions 2026. They have their poetry collection DISCOFRUIT available at certain indie bookshops in Pennsylvania! (Friendly Alien Bookstores etc.) They also started their very own nonprofit (501c3) literary arts magazine in 2019 called FlowerMouth Press that uplifts diverse voices, which has amassed over 4,000 followers. You can find Kenna on Instagram at: @teadragonz & @kennadevalorwrites and on their website: www.kennadevalor.com.
Featured image by Pedro Vit on Unsplash.
