The next morning arrived not with birdsong, but with a quiet ripple through the garden's soil.
Elliot woke to the sound of leaves shifting in rhythm—not wind, not water, but something deeper. Like the garden had… inhaled.
He sat up slowly, the journal still resting open beside him. A single Buffbloom petal had fallen on the page.
Lyra was already outside. She stood barefoot in the soft soil, arms half raised, her breath matching the gentle rustle around her. A circle of Sentiblooms had opened wide around her form, glowing faintly in the morning light.
"She's attuning," murmured Mira, the elder who'd begun tending the herb rows recently. "The garden's reacting stronger to her."
Elliot blinked. "You mean—listening?"
Mira nodded. "And speaking, too. You just need to be still long enough to hear."
By midday, it became clearer.
The vines near the western fence had started to bloom early. Scorchleaf patterns shifted—aligning along the garden's border like a flame-ring waiting to ignite. Even the Glowshrooms clustered closer to the hut, dimming during the day.
Something was coming.
Elliot gathered the group—Lyra, Mira, young Kio, and the two newcomers from the outside who had been welcomed in just two weeks prior, Lenny and Sera.
He laid out the signs. The rhythm in the roots. The flowering perimeter. The quiet.
"I think the garden is preparing for something," he said. "Maybe even warning us."
"Another Blight Rain?" Kio offered.
"No. No clouds. No wind shift," Mira said, shaking her head.
Lyra looked up. "It's not danger from above," she said. "It's from beneath."
That night, Elliot didn't sleep.
Instead, he sat by the Heartroot Tree, watching the way its leaves shimmered in the firelight. He placed a hand on the bark.
"I don't know what you're trying to tell us," he whispered. "But we're listening."
Silence.
Then, faintly—barely noticeable—one of the long vines coiled around his wrist. Not tight. Not warning. Just… present.
And the ground beneath him pulsed once.
The next day, strange seeds appeared near the edge of the garden—long, translucent pods like teardrops. No one had planted them. They hadn't been there before.
Lyra touched one. "It's… warm."
Mira crouched down. "These aren't threats. They're gifts."
"From the garden?" Kio asked.
"From something deeper," Lyra said. "Something beneath the garden."
That evening, they gathered the pods, careful not to damage them. When one accidentally split, it released a sweet, golden mist—calming, restorative.
Lyra and Elliot exchanged glances.
"This is something new," she said. "A plant we've never seen."
Elliot nodded. "And it wants us to use it."
Later that night, while everyone slept, Elliot opened the journal again.
"Today, the garden didn't just grow. It spoke. Not in words, not in vines. But in offerings. I think… I think something is waking."
And as he finished writing, a faint hum moved through the floor again. The roots were listening.