The flower child yawned, her eyes closing against her will. Her head fell forward as sleep overtook her. She realized it at once and jerked herself awake. It lasted half a moment before she nodded off again. She began to fight it once more but her dreams began to whisper promises of wondrous things and tempted her to stay.
She pulled her hood lower as she stepped through the wood, willing no one to notice her there. “Think like a flower,” she told herself, and kept her head down.
At long last the prophecy was coming true. All along the limbs of the wooden beasts they unfurled; the Eaters of Sunlight, Givers of Shade, and Echoes of Tranquility. Soon the forests would shiver with great green clouds of them holding back the sky and the long awaited summer would once again rule the land.
Those first green things, so timid in the light and so unafraid of frost, are the bravest souls I know. Before the trees unfurl their leaves they’re there, daring to bloom in the sunlight while it lasts. Before it’s hidden away. One glorious week or two of brilliant life until it fades away, happy, satisfied, willing to wait another year for its time in the sun to come ’round again. I wish I could be half so patient.
The noise of the crowd fell away as she stepped forward to accept her scepter. She forgot to breathe a moment when she first saw it. It would be the symbol of her reign and it was far more beautiful than she had hoped. She gripped it with her left hand and held it high. “Let the leafing out begin!” she called to the trees, and the forest filled with cheering.
The little boy screwed up his face as he looked at the pussy willows. “I just don’t get it. How can something start life at the end of a tiny branch and grow up to be an animal that purrs at our feet and chases mice in the basement?”
His sister shrugged. “Maybe that’s where the stork finds them before he brings them to their mommies.”
He stared at them a moment, considering. “That makes sense.”
The family of fernlets huddled together as they emerged from the soil for the first time. The sun shone down and a vast forest loomed around them. It was all rather frightening after the dark of the earth and they needed some time to collect themselves.
She stopped short when she noticed the fragile first leaves of the season. They bobbed with joy on the breeze that wafted past, and she smiled the first smile the leaves had ever seen. They were dazzled, and both lives were all the richer for it.
The wizard narrowed his eyes at the children. They watched in horror as he reached for his wand. Should they run? Was there anywhere to hide? They held their breath as he muttered a few rhymes and pointed his wand at them…and nothing happened at all, for it was spring and the wand was far too busy growing buds and dreaming of leaves to bother with children just being kids and a grumpy old wizard.
The spring bulbs peeped up from the leaf litter, worried they might be a little early or worse – too late! Cold winds swirled around, carrying the sounds of hungry robins and the smell of damp soil. They waited a few more days, working up their courage, before bursting above the old leaves and claiming their place in the sun.
Jennifer Shelby 