“We got you most of what you wanted,” Jemma tells her. “And everything in here’s either indigenous to the area or has been here long enough it might as well be. We even got your bees, though it wasn’t easy to convince my superiors to include them. My lab partner actually ended up making a speech to them about pollinators and how we need more bees around in general, especially now. I don’t think I’d ever heard her talk so much.”
“Be sure to thank her for me.” The back of the truck is open, and the smells of the bayou plants fill the air. There should be enough of them to finally complete the task Mina’s been laboring at for nearly a year, ever since she went out into the swamp after her father’s wake, still in that kimono, and thought she could bear this if she could only see all the life lost there restored.
The plants and various pollinators are all labeled, much of the latter shut up in containers that look much like the one Jemma gave her for the “darkforce.” They take everything out until it surrounds the shed. Inside, Jemma scans the “darkforce” with some another of her fancy devices, says, “This is mostly like what we’ve found in Los Angeles, but it’s not identical. It’s almost as if there’s something else…” She shakes her head.
She finds similar readings in the mice, nodding as Mina reminds her which one of them are which. “Unfortunately none of them have living counterparts anymore, which seems to mostly mean they’re stuck as they are.”
None of it’s even half as heavy as the crates of plants they’ve already unloaded. Working together, they get everything onto the truck pretty quickly, including a flash drive with just about anything Mina’s ever written down on it. When they close the back up, Mina feels as if she’s rid of a part of herself, the part that maybe was there for all those years she visited her catatonic father in the hospital, but she really only felt after she’d been what he’d called a Terror. It’s a relief, but she feels loss too.
For a moment they just stand there. Neither of them wants to say goodbye, Mina thinks. Of course she doesn’t; she had lots of help in the early days of this, but now that even Ty and Mrs. Bowen have fallen away, recently she hasn’t had much company at all. And if Jemma’s spending her life working for some shadow organization, trips like this would obviously be a chance to literally get fresh air for her (even in New Orleans’ climate).
“Do you want to help me plant some of these?” she asks, though she expects the other woman will have to say no.
But Jemma considers for a moment, then says, “Let me talk to my driver.”
Mina’s finished taking stock and started assessing what she’ll take out today when Jemma comes back and says, “We’ve decided we’re each taking the afternoon off. The two of us need to go plant these and return here at a little after four.”
Half an hour later, the two of them are out in the wilderness. Jemma seems genuinely interested in everything, even the native grasses. One of the irises is blooming; she actually coos over it. She clearly has some knowledge herself, even pointing out one thing Mina nearly forgets when it comes time to plant the first shrubs=, so she’s very glad she came.
They even bring a couple of trees. Those make for exhausting work, and by the time they’ve got the black willow planted, it’s nearly time to head back. They don’t even bother trying to plant the handful of things they’ve still got with them, but just take the last few minutes to lean against an older bald cypress and gaze into the swamplands. “I think I’ve seen more insects today than usual,” Mina observes.
“I suppose that is a good thing…” Jemma sighs. “But you know, I’m feeling better right now than I have in probably more than a year.”
“Yeah, I think I am too,” Mina says, realizing it only as she says it. She’s not sure if it’s the plants, the imminent success, or even just the company of this woman. But somewhere inside her, there’s a warmth blooming in soil she thought drained, her hope grown back once more.