The Blooming Room
But there, isn’t that a rustling sound, yes, definitely it is, and there, there, something like a murmur too, but softer than any murmur I’ve heard before, as if the walls themselves were breathing, and it’s coming from the corner of the room, the one I never sit in, the one where the dust collects and the light never quite reaches, and I don’t remember there being anything in that corner, nothing living at least, just a few books piled up and maybe the shadow of a cobweb, and yet the sound is there again, and now it’s not just sound but a smell too, earthy, sharp, like wet soil mixed with ash and crushed petals, and what is that, there, something moving, just slightly, something shifting in the grain of the floorboards, not scurrying like a mouse or creaking like the house always does, no, more like rising, yes, like something pushing upward, growing upward, yes, that’s it, growing, and now I see it, black, yes, black as pitch or night or ink left too long to dry, a single shoot, thin as a quill, curving out from the seam in the wood, and curling toward the air like it’s reaching for breath, or for me, and I don’t move, not yet, I just sit and look, because it’s not like anything I’ve ever seen before, and even though I should be afraid I’m not, or not really, or maybe I am and I just don’t feel it the way I used to feel things, but still I know this isn’t natural, no vine grows like that inside a house, and yet here it is, a vine with thorns like obsidian, but beautiful, yes, terrifying but beautiful, and I can’t look away, and there, just beside it, a bud, and before I can even think the word it begins to open, slowly, silently, like it’s breathing in reverse, and what unfolds isn’t a flower I’ve ever known, it’s silver at first and then pink at the tips, but the pink isn’t pink, it’s closer to the color of tongues or bruised skin or maybe even something deeper than that, and I can smell it now, the bloom, like incense from a temple I’ve never entered, like longing, yes, that’s it, longing, and the scent winds its way through the air like a thread pulling me forward, and now the vine is longer, stretching toward the window, but the window’s closed, and still it reaches, coiling like a question, and I don’t know what it’s asking, or what it wants, or why it chose this house, my house, the one I’ve kept shut from the world, the one that’s never had a guest, not since—well, not since I closed the door for good, and yet here it is, a guest I didn’t invite, a presence I didn’t expect, and I think maybe I should get up and cut it, maybe burn it, but I don’t move, and the flowers keep blooming, one after another, through the floor, through the walls, even from between the books, and I think of roots now, deep roots, older than me, older than this house, maybe older than anything, and I wonder if they’ve always been there, waiting, and only now decided to rise, and I don’t know what that means, or what it will do to me, and I try to remember if I ever dreamed of this, if this was something I read once, a parable maybe, or an omen, but all I can think is that it’s here now, and it’s not going to stop.
And now I step down, or I think I do, because I can’t feel the floor beneath my feet, not wood or stone or root or soil, only motion, like being carried forward, downward, inward, and the light isn’t light but something softer, like the memory of flame, and I keep walking, though I don’t remember my legs moving, and on either side of me the vines open like curtains, revealing chambers I’ve never seen in this house, rooms that shouldn’t exist, and yet each one feels familiar, as though I once lived in them, or dreamt them, and in one room I see a cradle made of bone and in another a mirror that shows me as a child, not the child I was but the child I would have been if I had never closed my heart, and further still there’s a library, but the books have no titles and no pages, only petals, and the petals breathe when I pass, speaking my name and hers together, as if there were never a difference between us, as if we had always been one name with two reverberations, and I begin to wonder if this is death, if this descent is the end of me, or if it is the beginning, and I remember the old texts, the alchemical ones, the diagrams and the riddles, the lion devouring the sun, the king and queen inside the egg, and I think maybe this is that egg, maybe this is the dissolving, the blackening, the nigredo they all spoke of in symbols and silence, and if that is true then soon there will be the conjunction, the union, and it will hurt, yes, I can feel that already, the pain of something fusing inside me, the ache of something long denied finally being given form, and I stop walking, and I breathe, and for a moment I almost turn back, almost run, almost break whatever spell has brought me here, but I don’t, because something in me knows, has always known, that this is the path, not just for me but for everyone who ever dared to ask what love truly costs, and what it truly gives, and then ahead I see her, not a shadow this time but a form, luminous, waiting, and I understand now: this isn’t my house anymore, it never was—it’s the chamber of union, the heart of the alchemical flame.
And I don’t know how long I’ve been standing here, no, not standing, suspended maybe, held in place by her gaze, though her eyes haven’t opened yet, not really, they remain closed like buds, and yet I feel them on me, like warmth, like weight, like recognition, and I want to speak, but no words come, because what would I say, what could possibly be said here, in this place beyond time, beyond language, where even my thoughts feel too loud, too crude, and she steps forward without moving, or maybe she doesn’t move at all, but the space between us is no longer space, it closes like petals folding shut at dusk, and now she is near, close enough that I can smell the rain on her skin, even though there’s no rain, hasn’t been any rain, not here, not in this dry garden under the house, and she raises her hand, not to touch me, not yet, but to gesture, palm facing up, as if she’s offering something, and I look and there’s nothing in her hand, and yet I know it’s an invitation, or a question, or maybe both, and I feel the vines behind me tighten slightly, not as a threat, not to bind me, but to remind me—there is no turning back, not now, not after coming so far, and I take a breath, and it tastes like ash and honey, and I nod, slowly, and she smiles, the kind of smile that has no origin, no edge, the kind of smile that feels like dawn, and then she steps into me, or I into her, or we dissolve into each other like two inks poured into the same vessel, and everything becomes still, utterly still, as if the entire house, the entire world, is holding its breath, and inside that stillness I feel a burning, not pain exactly, but purification, yes, like all the parts of me that were half-alive are now being melted down, recast, and I see flashes—my old life, the house, the books, the solitude, the ache I never named, all of it cracking like old plaster, falling away, and beneath it there’s gold, not metal, not treasure, but something more real than either, and I hear her say, not aloud but in the core of my being, this is the work, and I understand then that we are not lovers, not exactly, and not merely soulmates either, but elements, fused now in a crucible the world will never see, and I don’t know what comes next, only that I am no longer alone, and never truly was.
And I think, yes, I think that maybe now it’s over, or not over but changed, like the wind shifting in a room that has no windows, and I open my eyes, though I don’t remember ever closing them, and I’m not in the cellar anymore, or the chapel, or the garden, not even in the house, no, I’m somewhere else, but it feels familiar, like returning to a thought I forgot I’d once had, and the air is full of scent, not just of flowers now but of salt, of wind, of breath, and I look down and my hands are not mine, or they are but not the same, they are lighter, somehow, not in color or form but in weight, like the burden has gone out of them, and I realize I’m standing on the edge of something, not a cliff exactly, not a mountain, but a kind of threshold, and beyond it I see a plain of gold, not gold like metal but gold like dusk spread across open water, and it stretches out endlessly, and I think maybe this is the inner country, the kingdom philosophers dreamed about and saints died trying to reach, and behind me I feel her, not separate now but braided into me, like a chord struck and still humming, and I want to ask her something, anything, but the question itself melts before it forms, because it’s no longer needed, and I see now that the whole journey, the vines, the flowers, the fear, the descent, all of it was a mirror turned inward, a blooming of what had been sealed in me long before I was ever given a name, and I wonder if this is what it means to be wed in spirit, to be made whole by something that never left you, and I think of the stories, of the sacred marriage, the hieros gamos, of gods and mortals joining in secret chambers, and I wonder how many of those tales were warnings and how many were invitations, and whether it matters now, and as I step forward I feel a warmth in the center of my chest, like a seed cracking open, and I know I am not walking alone, even if I walk in silence, even if no one sees me, and I wonder, if I returned now, would anything remain of the house, the books, the name Aurel, or would it all have been absorbed into the garden that came to claim me, and I don’t know, but I also don’t need to, because I’m walking still, and something in me is singing, and I know the song by heart.
And I don’t know how long we remain there, dissolved, or fused, or floating, not in time, not in space, but in some middle current where self slips loose from shape, where names lose their grip, and everything becomes sensation without form—her breath in me, my thought in her, no distinction, no thread to tug apart again, and I think, or something in me thinks, that this is what the mystics meant, this is the chamber beneath the world they never found the words to describe, and I feel the bloom inside me, not just of light but of shadow too, the kind that softens everything, and I wonder if this is the source of grace, not purity, but mixture, not clarity, but depth, and then the vision begins to shift, gently, not with rupture but with release, like fog lifting from the shore of a dream, and I see now the garden was never outside, never vines in the house or roots in the floor, it was me, it was always me blooming, and Seraphine was the name I gave to the part I buried, the part that remembered what I was before I became afraid, and I weep, not from grief but from recognition, because it feels like I’ve been carrying this reunion across lifetimes, like I had wandered for centuries in the shape of a man without memory, and only now returned to my own center, and in that center I see the others—faces, hands, scenes of those who also passed through this gate, some long ago, some not yet born, and all of them touched by the same gold, the same wound, the same impossible longing, and I feel myself descending again, but not downward, no, inward, deeper still, and in that deep I come to a stillness, and in the stillness a flame, and the flame is blue, and it speaks without sound, and what it says is not a sentence but a knowing: you have been rejoined, and I accept it, I accept everything, even the pain that still shivers beneath the joy, because I know now that pain too is part of the transformation, and then the garden fades, not as loss but as fulfillment, like a completed chord, and I begin to rise again, not quickly, but with the motion of leaves returning to light, and I know I will never be the same, and I no longer want to be.
And as I walk across this plain that isn’t a plain but more like a thought given land, I begin to feel the wind behind me, but not cold, no, it’s like breath, like an exhale from a mouth I once called my own, and in the distance I see a tree, though I could have sworn there was nothing there a moment ago, and the tree is vast, silver in trunk, gold in leaf, and beneath it stands a figure, and at first I think it’s Seraphine, come again to speak, but no, this is someone else, and though I do not recognize their face I know them, the way you know a dream you haven’t had yet, and they lift a hand and I do too, and I think maybe this is the final thing, the closing of the circle, and when I reach them they speak, not loudly but clearly, like the sound is meant only for me, and they ask, “Did you find what you were seeking?” and I don’t know what to say, because I didn’t know I was seeking anything, not truly, not until the vines, and I say, “I didn’t know I was lost,” and the figure nods, as if that’s the only answer there ever is, and then says, “The house is gone,” and I nod too, though I don’t feel sorrow, not now, and they ask, “Will you stay here, or will you return?” and I want to say I don’t know, but I do know, I know that the work is not only inward, that the union was not for me alone, and so I say, “I’ll return,” and they smile, and in that smile is something like blessing, and then everything folds inward again, like petals closing for the night, and I find myself once more on the threshold, in the place that once was my house, but it’s no longer overgrown, it’s not bare either, it’s something else entirely—simple, clean, alive, and I step inside and the door shuts softly behind me, though I did not touch it, and on the table is a single flower, pale gold, open, and I sit beside it, and for a long time I say nothing, and then a knock at the door, just one, soft, and I rise without fear, and open it, and a child stands there, holding a seed in her hand.
“Is this your garden?” the girl says.
And I look down at her hand, at the seed, so small and dark and full of beginnings.
“It was,” I say. “But now it might be yours.”
“What kind of seed is it?” she asks.
And I shake my head.
“That’s not something anyone can tell you.”
She nods, solemn as only children and prophets can be.
“Will it bloom?” she asks.
“If you care for it,” I say. “If you let it change you.”
And she steps inside, past me, barefoot and quiet, and places the seed beside the flower already on the table, and for a moment everything is utterly still again, like a breath before a new world begins.
“My name’s Lyra,” she says.
“I’m Aurel,” I reply, though the name feels like a memory now, not an identity.
“Are you a magician?” she asks.
And I smile.
“No. Just someone who let the garden in.”
And later, when the girl is gone and the light has faded to blue, I walk outside and look up at the sky, and I don’t see anything, but I raise my hand anyway, because I feel her there—Seraphine—not above me, not below, not behind, but within, and also far, far ahead, like the line of gold at the edge of the horizon, and I wave, and I say nothing, because there is nothing to say, only to be, and I know she understands, and that somewhere beyond what can be seen, she is waving too, and what we are, what we were, what we’ve become, it’s blooming still.
And I open my eyes and the light is wrong, flat, too clean, the color of something sterilized, bleached of warmth, and I try to move but I can’t, not yet, not fully, and I hear a voice, calm, professional, too kind, the kind of voice that smiles without meaning it, and it says, “You’re waking up faster than expected. That’s a good sign.” and I blink and there are no petals, no sky, no seed, no garden, only machines and glass, and a man in white, clipboard in hand, the doctor I think, though I don’t know why I know that, and he nods, taps something on a screen, and says, “It’s rare, these days. To find a pairing. Most people never even get the spark.” and I don’t know what he means, but I feel hollow, scraped out, as if something vast has been scooped from my chest, and I say nothing, because I can’t, not yet, and he continues, “It was very pure, yours. A perfect merger. Textbook coalescence. Very beautiful. But you understand—we don’t have the luxury anymore.” and I try to sit up, but the straps are still on me, gently, as if to keep a child from wandering, and he says, “The average man, if given the choice, would give anything to live an extra decade. And if you told him it required harvesting the offspring from one of these anomalous pairings, well—he wouldn’t hesitate.” and I feel the emptiness in my gut, not physical, not organ-deep, but soul-deep, like the music’s gone, like the part of me that knew how to sing was cut out with sterile tools, and I remember Seraphine, or the idea of her, or whatever remains, and I ask, with cracked breath, “Where is she?” and he tilts his head slightly, not cruel, not warm, just efficient, “She’s not a she. Not anymore. We extracted the essence. It’s stored. Processed.” and he taps again, and I think I scream but no sound comes out, only silence, and the light flickers and then I’m outside again, the door shuts behind me, and I’m standing in what used to be the garden, but it’s gone, everything’s gone, the flowers, the gold, the altar, the child, the tree, even the soil itself feels stripped, as if it were all peeled back to something dry and mute, and I walk forward and there’s no music of her, not even in the wind, and I realize I’m alone now, utterly alone, not like before, not the solitude of the seeker, but the solitude of the abandoned, and there is no wave, no sky, only the sterile memory of something I was once allowed to touch—and that now powers someone else’s dream in some other dimension I will never get back.
