The crowd moved like something alive—a single organism with a thousand eyes and one silent judgment. Albert felt it press against him from all sides, a weight that had nothing to do with physical bodies and everything to do with unspoken condemnation.
He and Rosen were trapped in the middle of it. Every time they tried to push forward, the crowd shifted, closed ranks, redirected them in subtle ways that felt almost coordinated. Like cells in an immune system rejecting foreign tissue.
"Excuse me," Albert muttered, shouldering past an elderly woman. She didn't even glance at him—just repositioned herself to block his new angle of approach. "Coming through. Press."
The words that usually opened doors might as well have been curses. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. The silence felt deliberate, oppressive, a physical thing pressing down on his chest like Gotham's perpetual rain-soaked sky.
Rosen's camera equipment clinked softly as he followed. "Albert, maybe we should—"
"Keep moving." Albert's teeth clenched. The story was right there. The mysterious tree planter, the impossible magic, the crime lords standing together in mutual grief—this was the kind of exclusive that made careers. Pulitzers. Book deals. A way out of writing obituaries and traffic reports for a city that didn't care about either.
The crowd pressed closer. Sweat beaded on Albert's forehead despite the cold. His pulse hammered in his ears, mixing with the soft patter of rain on umbrellas and the distant rustle of wind through the cemetery's naked trees.
Then—suddenly—his vision cleared.
He'd broken through.
Albert stumbled slightly, caught himself, looked up. His breath hitched.
To his left stood Carmine "The Roman" Falcone, hatless, head bowed in what might have been prayer or might have been calculation. The godfather of Gotham's underworld. The untouchable boss whose name made grown men cross themselves and check their insurance policies.
To his right: Salvatore Maroni. Second in power, first in ambition, the man who'd watched his entire inner circle slaughtered on St. Patrick's Day and lived to stand here in the rain beside his greatest rival.
And directly ahead, maybe twenty feet away, a figure in a black cloak waved a shovel with mechanical precision, filling soil into a freshly dug hole. Behind him, a cluster of children in dark raincoats waited with more saplings, their small hands gentle on the bark.
Albert's throat went dry. He'd made it. He'd actually made it to the front.
"Rosen," he whispered, barely moving his lips. "Follow me. Close."
Rosen's hand trembled slightly on the camera. "Albert, I really don't think—"
"We're already here." Albert practically dragged the cameraman forward, his shoes squelching in the muddy grass. "This is it. The story everyone wants. We're the first."
Every eye turned toward them. Albert felt the weight of those gazes like spotlights—hot, invasive, measuring him against some invisible standard and finding him wanting. The Roman's gaze was cold as January ice. Maroni's burned with something that might have been fury or might have been exhausted indifference.
But nobody moved to stop them. Nobody spoke. They just... watched.
That was somehow worse.
Albert's hands shook as he adjusted his tie, cleared his throat, took another step. Questions cycled through his mind like headlines: Who was this tree planter? What kind of fertilizer made saplings bloom in seconds? How did he train the owls? Was this a con? A miracle? A publicity stunt nobody else had figured out yet?
He could already see the article taking shape. Mysterious Figure Brings Magic to Gotham's Dead—Exclusive Interview. The editor would eat it up. The syndication rights alone—
"My ideal was a hero like Don Quixote."
The voice stopped Albert dead in his tracks.
It came from the tree planter—filtered through some kind of voice modulator, deep and steady, the kind of measured tone you'd hear from a radio announcer or documentary narrator. But the words themselves—
Albert's chest constricted.
"He would carry a microphone like a sword that would cut through the darkness." The cloaked figure placed the shovel aside, rested one gloved hand on the newly planted tree's thin trunk. "He would face the camera like he was stepping into a sacred and solemn duel. And he would wear a suit like he was wearing indestructible armor."
No.
No, no, no—
"He would use the news to expose injustice and darkness. Rage against the dying of light." The voice continued, relentless, each word a knife sliding between Albert's ribs with surgical precision. "If he died in a duel with the evil giant, I would be buried with him. Mrs. Sara, died by suicide."
The rain felt colder suddenly. Albert's vision blurred at the edges.
"I can die for this road," the tree planter said softly, "but I can't let her suffer for me. Albert, the former journalist, died under duress."
The memories came like a flood breaking through a levee.
Sara's apartment, the walls covered in news clippings and red string connecting dots nobody else wanted to see. Her laptop open to another article about Wayne Enterprises contracts and Falcone shell companies. The gun on the coffee table that she'd bought "just in case."
"Albert, we're so close. One more source and we can prove—"
"Sara, please. They've already warned us twice."
"So we stop? We just let them win?"
"We stay alive."
Her hands cupping his face. "You used to believe in something."
That had been three days before they found her body in the Gotham River. Suicide, the police report said. Jumped from the harbor bridge. No signs of foul play except for the complete and total impossibility of Sara ever giving up on anything, much less life itself.
Albert had known. Of course he'd known. But knowing and proving were different things in Gotham, and the difference could get you killed.
So he'd let them bury her. Let them close the case. Let the stories die with her.
And he'd survived. Crawled through the next fifteen years writing fluff pieces and celebrity gossip, selling his soul one byline at a time, becoming exactly the kind of journalist Sara would have spat on.
A wind whistled through the cemetery trees—sudden, fierce, carrying the smell of wet earth and something wilder. It brushed across Albert's face like fingers, gentle and familiar, the way Sara used to wipe away his tears when he cried over his first rejections.
Not fingers, his rational mind insisted. Just wind.
But his heart knew better.
The sounds around him suddenly intensified—a cacophony of chittering, rustling, wing-beats. Birds erupted from the trees in flocks: crows and sparrows and pigeons that shouldn't be flying in weather like this. Deer materialized from the woods like ghosts, their eyes huge and dark and impossibly calm.
A doe stepped forward, pressed its soft muzzle against Albert's leg. He stumbled backward. Rosen yelped as a squirrel scurried up his jacket, balanced on his shoulder, chattered something that sounded almost like scolding.
More animals poured from the forest. Rabbits. Foxes. A family of raccoons moving in formation like soldiers. They surrounded Albert and Rosen in a living tide of fur and feathers and patient, insistent pressure.
The deer turned, used its flank to nudge Albert's knees. Gentle but firm. A clear message: Leave.
"What the—" Rosen's voice cracked. "Albert, what is—"
The birds descended in a whirlwind of wings and wind, not attacking but encircling, creating a wall of motion and noise that disoriented, confused, herded them backward step by step.
Albert let it happen. He didn't have the energy to fight. The deer's pressure increased until he was walking, then stumbling, then standing back in the crowd surrounded by silent mourners and empty air.
The animals vanished as quickly as they'd appeared. One moment a fox was at Albert's feet; the next, nothing but wet grass and fading footprints. The birds melted back into the trees like smoke. Even the deer simply... weren't there anymore.
And the tree planter?
Gone.
Albert scanned the cemetery woods. No black cloak. No shovel. Just rain and shadows and the row of impossibly green cypress trees standing like sentinels at the forest's edge.
His hand moved without conscious thought. He found Rosen's camera, pressed the record button, aimed it at the newly planted tree.
They stood there for half an hour. Albert didn't speak. Rosen didn't ask. They just watched as the sapling—barely knee-high when planted—slowly, impossibly, began to grow. Branches unfurling. Bark darkening. Leaves sprouting in defiance of season and sense.
By the time they left, the tree stood taller than a man.
Albert walked in silence through the rain, his clothes soaked, his camera footage safely preserved, his article forgotten. He'd come here for a story. He was leaving with something else entirely.
Tomorrow, he thought distantly. Tomorrow he'd come back. Stand at the edge of the woods and watch more trees grow. Listen to more stories of the dead.
Maybe, eventually, he'd find the courage to tell Sara's.
"Jude, a lot of people have been asking about you lately."
Jason's voice carried that particular note of importance that kids got when they thought they had crucial information. He shifted the shovel on his shoulder, trying to match Jude's longer stride as they walked the muddy path away from the cemetery.
Jude kept his eyes forward. The voice modulator under his hood made his next words come out measured, mature, nothing like his actual age. "Asking who about what?"
"About us. The kids." Jason hopped over a puddle, missed, splashed through it anyway. "They all know we're a gang of homeless children living in the city. Street rats. But they don't know who you are. They know we help you, but..."
"But they want to know who pulls the strings." Jude adjusted his grip on the shovel. His real voice—younger, more tired—whispered behind the electronic filter. "So what did you tell them?"
Jason straightened immediately, chest puffing slightly. "Nothing! We didn't say anything. Not one word."
"Good."
"But..." Jason glanced sideways at Jude's hooded profile. "They might suspect you anyway. You're the one who's closest to us."
"Suspicion without evidence won't lead anywhere useful." Jude's modified voice carried a faint note of amusement. "They probably suspected me the second day we started planting trees. Maybe the third. But as long as I refuse to admit anything, who would dare force me to admit it?"
Jason considered this. "Yeah, I guess. But why don't you just tell them? Why all the secrecy?"
"Because I don't want to be seen as a charlatan." The modulator made the word sound even more ominous than Jude intended. "Or worse—a saint. Both get you killed in Gotham, just in different ways."
They walked in silence for a few more steps. Rain pattered on their black raincoats, ran in rivulets down the fabric to drip off their elbows. Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed—Gotham's constant lullaby.
"The scene back there," Jason said eventually, "with all the animals? That really felt like Saint Patrick."
Jude couldn't help the small laugh that escaped. Even through the voice filter it sounded genuine. "You remember Gordon's story?"
"Of course I remember!" Jason's indignation was immediate and fierce. "I'm smart!"
"I never said you weren't."
"Commissioner Gordon said Saint Patrick was a believer in the Lord. A green messenger." Jason's voice took on the slightly dreamy quality of someone reciting a beloved tale. "Animals followed him voluntarily. Elves talked to him. He drove all the snakes from Ireland."
"Your memory is excellent." Jude reached over, ruffled Jason's damp hair through the raincoat hood. The kid squirmed but didn't pull away. "You remember everything Gordon tells you."
"I'm very smart!" Jason unconsciously straightened his posture again, trying to make himself taller.
Jude watched the boy's profile, saw the pride there, the desperate need to prove himself worthy of attention and praise. In another life—in another city—Jason Todd would become Robin. Would die. Would come back wrong, broken, furious at a world that had failed him.
But here, now, he was just a kid who liked learning things and wanted to be useful.
Keep him this way, Jude thought. Keep him safe and whole and believing that smart matters more than strong.
"Since you're so smart," Jude said aloud, "answer me something. Do you know what day it is seven days from now?"
Jason's face scrunched in concentration. He counted on his fingers under the raincoat. "Seven days... that's next week. Um." His face brightened. "Sunday?"
"Not the day of the week. The date. The festival."
"Oh." Jason's confidence deflated slightly. He thought harder. "I don't... what day is it?"
"Ohigan."
"Ohi—" Jason stumbled over the syllables. "Ohigan—what?"
"Ohigan. A festival from where I'm from originally." Jude shifted the shovel to his other shoulder. "It's about offering sacrifices, worshipping ancestors, sweeping graves. The living remember the dead, borrow a little courage and optimism from them, and then move on with their own lives."
"Oh." Jason looked back toward the cemetery, where the impossibly green trees stood against the gray sky. "So it's the same as what we're doing now?"
"Similar. But hopefully with more peace." Jude paused at a crossroads, checked both directions out of habit. Empty streets, rain-slicked pavement, the eternal graffiti covering every surface. Home sweet Gotham. "You should feel more at ease than you do now. Less pressure."
"Are you going to do something special for it?"
"I'm going to teach you all a poem." Jude started walking again, Jason hurrying to keep up. "Part of your education."
"You can recite poetry?" Jason's voice carried genuine surprise, as if the idea of poetry and tree planting and voice modulators all existing in the same person was somehow impossible. "Can I learn poetry too?"
Jude rolled his eyes under the hood. "We don't just grunt and point at things, Jason. I'm trying to give you all an actual education here."
"I know, but—poetry?" Jason's skepticism was palpable. "Seems fancy."
"Poetry isn't just fancy words for rich people. It's history. Culture. Ways of thinking about the world that survived centuries because they mattered to someone." Jude glanced down at the kid. "You want to be a cop someday, right?"
"Yeah! Like Commissioner Gordon!"
"Well, cops need to understand people. Poetry helps with that."
Jason mulled this over, clearly trying to connect dots. "Okay. I'll learn your poem."
"Good." Jude stopped at another intersection. The rain was picking up now, transitioning from drizzle to downpour. Water ran in sheets off nearby fire escapes, turned gutters into temporary rivers. "We'll start now. You've all been learning Romaji with me for a while. Time to put it to use."
The other children emerged from the shadows, all in matching black raincoats that made them look like a particularly grim gaggle of ducklings. They clustered around Jude naturally, used to following his lead after weeks of tree planting and technical lessons.
Jude raised his voice slightly to be heard over the rain. The modulator gave it that steady, teaching quality. "Read with me. Sound it out: Ame fureba—"
"Ah-meh foo-reh-ba!" the children chorused, mangling the rhythm but getting the general shape right.
"Kanashiku—"
"Ka-na-she-koo?"
"Close. Ka-na-shi-ku. Sadness. To mourn." Jude demonstrated the pitch with his hands. "Try again."
"Kanashiku!"
"Better. Narite."
This got scattered attempts, some closer than others. Jude patiently worked through each syllable, correcting pronunciation, demonstrating the sharp clip of the vowels, using his hands to show the staccato beat that English didn't capture.
The rain drummed against their raincoats. Water ran down their faces. None of the children complained. They were Gotham street kids—they'd stood in worse conditions for less educational reasons.
"Okay," Jude said after they'd practiced each word separately. "Now let's put it together. The first line: Ame fureba kanashiku narite."
"Ame fureba ka-na-shi-ku na-ri-te!" Jason shouted enthusiastically.
"When the rain falls, sadness comes," Jude translated. "That's what it means. Now, everyone together. Slowly."
"Ame... fureba... kanashiku... narite..."
The words emerged clumsy, uncertain, childish—but recognizable. A fragment of poetry from another world, spoken in halting syllables by kids who'd probably never left Gotham City, standing in the rain at a crossroads in the most dangerous place in America.
"Very good," Jude said quietly, and meant it. "Next line."
They worked through the rest of the poem in pieces, the children stumbling over unfamiliar sounds, gradually finding the rhythm. The rain intensified, turning from steady downpour to biblical flood, and still they stood there practicing pronunciation.
Sake no ko wo—I think longingly of the sake bottle.
Koishiku omofu—Searching for comfort.
Ame no yuugure—In the rainy twilight.
Ancient words about rain and drinking and searching for comfort in strange places. Seemed appropriate for Gotham.
Eventually they got through it, more or less. The poem hung in the air between them, mangled but present, a small act of defiance against a city that tried to grind culture down to bullets and blood money.
"What's it about?" one of the younger kids asked, shivering slightly.
"Getting sad because of the rain," Jason answered before Jude could. "And looking for a bottle to feel better."
"That's Gotham every day," another kid muttered.
Fair point.
Jude checked the street signs, oriented himself. "Alright. Time to head back. You all know the routine—split up, take different routes, meet at the soup kitchen in twenty minutes. No running. Don't draw attention."
The children scattered like windblown seeds, each taking a different path through the maze of alleys and side streets. Within seconds they'd vanished into Gotham's urban sprawl, just more anonymous kids in a city full of them.
Jason lingered for a moment. "Jude?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks. For the poem." The kid shuffled his feet. "And for... you know. Everything else."
Jude felt something twist in his chest—affection mixed with responsibility mixed with the terrible knowledge of what Jason's future should have held. What it might still hold if Jude couldn't keep him safe.
"Go on," he said gruffly. "Before you catch pneumonia and Commissioner Gordon yells at me."
Jason grinned, saluted sloppily, and darted off into the rain.
Jude stood alone at the intersection for a moment longer, watching the water run down the street in rivulets that carved temporary paths through accumulated grime. The rain drummed against his hood, soaked into his boots, ran cold fingers down his spine.
It was just a few days after the Spring Equinox. The traditional time when spring water began to flow and spring forests began to flourish. When the dead were honored and the living moved forward.
In Gotham, spring always came late and left early. But it came.
Jude turned and walked into the rain, carrying his shovel, heading toward another day of impossible survival in a city that should have killed him months ago.
Somewhere behind him, in the cemetery at the edge of the woods, cypress trees stood impossibly green against the gray sky. Animals rustled in the undergrowth. An owl called three times, then fell silent.
And the rain kept falling—the first true spring rain of the year, washing away winter's last traces and bringing with it the faint, stubborn promise of growth.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Writing takes time, coffee, and a lot of love.If you'd like to support my work, join me at [email protected]/GoldenGaruda
You'll get early access to over 50 chapters, selection on new series, and the satisfaction of knowing your support directly fuels more stories.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~