Cashmere Botanical Gardens pt 2 The Tree Exhibit

I was awoken Tuesday morning by a call from Carl.

I had been sleeping poorly, my dreams filled with the strange lady I had encountered on my round that night. The more I studied her, the more I came to believe that she was the statue from the pond, but that was crazy. Statues didn't just get up and walk around on their own. The more I remembered about that night though, the more convinced I became that it had been the woman depicted in that statue. Was she someone who worked for the park? Did we have an actor who portrayed her for meet and greets?

I didn't know, and I realized that the only way to know would be to conduct more investigations.

When the phone rang, I had been drifting in and out of sleep thinly, and I must have sounded groggy when I answered.

“Hey kiddo, you feeling any better?”

I lied and told him I was feeling okay, and the answer seemed to make him glad.

“That's what I was hoping to hear. I hate to do it to ya, kiddo, but I may need you to cover night shift on an emergency basis for a little bit.”

“Something happen to Chuck?” I asked, wiping the sleep from my eyes as I tried to focus.

“Yeah, he disappeared last night. Showed up this morning and the booth was empty. Chuck was a bachelor though so it's possible that he just got an itch and decided to leave. We can move the new guy to nights too, if Randy says he's ready, by next week, but until I can get you some help you'll be running the show seven nights a week by yourself.”

I paused long enough for him to ask if I was still there, weighing the options. Spending more time on the job would allow me to investigate the statue more, and I'd be lying if I said I couldn't use the money. I was still paying off student loans from the small loan I had taken out to try for a degree in business, and my credit card situation was still looking a little dire. It would be rough working all those hours the next week and a half, but I had little doubt I could do it.

“Kid? You there? I know it's a lot to ask but,”

“Yeah, no problem. That's time a half after my regular forty, right?”

“Given the circumstances, let's say triple time. Doc Thurston has taken a liking to you and says it's the least we can do after you collapsed at work.”

We chatted a bit more and when he hung up I went to the cabinet and crunched up a couple of melatonin that were only slightly out of date.

I would need some solid sleep before tonight.

April 2nd

I was about two blocks from the park when I saw the new sign by the side of the road.

“Come see the new Trees of Georgia exhibit at Cashmere Botanical Gardens”

The sign featured pictures of native trees, their names little more than squibs below them. I had to squint as I rolled past though, not sure what I had seen. The trees looked like they had little cameras on them or something. It was weird, but I supposed that someone would explain it when I got to work. The banners on the outside of the park told me that it was, indeed, our Botanical Garden that was running the display and I could see fliers and pamphlets on the welcome center rack explaining the exhibit.

Randy, however, was better than any flier.

“Look whose back,” he said, shaking my hand, “you had me scared for a minute there. Glad you didn't just up and run, given the circumstances.”

He looked a little down and I told him I was sorry to hear about Chuck. Randy and Chuck had started out on the same shift and their off days matched enough for them to maintain a consistent friendship. They had been buddies for quite a while, and Randy was taking the news of his friend leaving pretty hard.

“I just wish he'd have called me or something.” Randy said, looking glum, “I got one call from him before he disappeared but it was just him butt dialing me. It was weird too. It was in the middle of night, and all I could hear was some old sciencey guy talking about trees.”

“Trees?” I asked, interested.

“Ya, talking about age and size and region. He must have butt dialed me by the new exhibit. Maybe he was gonna tell me he was dipping out, but it kinda freaked me out a little bit.”

“Oh yeah,” I asked, “What is this new exhibit? Something about local trees?”

“Nothing gets past you, kid,” Randy said sarcastically, “Yeah we got some grant money last minute and had to spend it on an educational exhibit that talks about something in the state. Hence, Trees of Georgia.”

“Which area are they in?”

“The Governors Ring.” he said, “I tell ya, it's been school buses and snot nosed kids for the last two days. I'll be glad to see it go, but it looks like it might be here to stay.”

I nodded, making a mental note of the location for my rounds. The Botanical Gardens had eight different “rings” where the exhibits were kept. Thinking of it like a clock, The Governors Ring was at the twelve o'clock position, with the Gurbers Ring, the Selvier Ring, the Mastly Ring, the Tuckman Ring, the Reese Ring, the Georgia State College Ring, and the Delaney ring going around clockwise from that. They were named after their sponsors, and each ring held a unique exhibit. Keeping with the round theme, there was also a large wall that circled the rings and within were other smaller biomes for permanent settings. The Pale Ladies lily pond was one such of these and all together it made for about forty unique displays and set pieces to explore.

“It's been a headache keeping all the kids from climbing the exhibits, especially with my new helper asking a string of questions while I do all the work. The noise from the trees is enough to drive an icepick into your brain too.”

“Noise?” I asked, unsure of what he was talking about.

“I won't spoil the surprise, you'll see it soon enough.”

It wasn't long before I realized what he was talking about.

The Governors Ring was towards the middle part of my round, and as I walked around, I heard the noise before I saw the exhibit. The signage proclaimed the Governors ring to be The Home of Georgian Trees. They had transplanted about eight half grown trees into the ring and each of them had a little speaker box attached to them. The speaker box proclaimed the tree's name, in Latin and English, and some facts about it. It would have been cool if they were on a timer or not so close together. In the end, they all ended up walking on each other and the bleed over would definitely have given me a headache after a while.

“I'm an American Beech, Fagus grandifolia. My bark is very smooth and light gray, remaining so as the tree ages. Large tree with rounded crown of many long,”

“Hi there, I'm American Yellowwood, Cladrastis kentukea. I have a broad, rounded canopy, and a vase-shaped, moderately dense silhouette. My,”

“You can call me Tupelo, Nyssa sylvatica. I am also sometimes called Black Gum, and my summer leaves are a dark green with a high-gloss appearance, but the most spectacular part of me is my fall foliage with many shades of yellow, orange, bright red, purple or,”

And on and on and on. Standing there for only a few minutes was enough to make my temples throb and I moved on as I continued my rounds. The adults I saw in the exhibit seemed to agree, though the kids seemed excited for some reason. Maybe it was the idea of talking trees or maybe they liked all that chaos, but the ones I saw kept running around and trying to climb the trees. I ended up camping out in the ring for a while, telling kids not to climb the trees and asking parents to control their children. Thank God the Garden closed at seven, because an hour later I was sweaty, tired, and nursing a throbbing headache as I started my second round.

I had hoped that after the park closed the speakers might go off, but much like the muzak they pump in over the speakers, I could hear the sound of trees being described every round. I thought it was odd how well it carried too. Sometimes it seemed that I could hear certain trees while I was in my office, only to hear different ones later in the night. It must have been windy too, because I seemed to catch leaves rustling against the camera more than once. I mean, it's a Botanical Garden, leaves are kind of everywhere year round, but they don’t usually buffet the camera’s quite that much.

It was nine o'clock, my fourth round of the night, when I heard the weird “science guy” voice that Randy was talking about.

I was coming around the third ring, on the east side of the garden, when I heard someone talking. I pulled out my maglight, thinking we had unscheduled guest. The third ring, Mastley Ring, held a display of beautiful spring lilies and orchids, their arrangement looking like a meadow in full bloom. Mr. Mastly's grounds keeper had even set up a water feature so that it appeared a stream was coursing through it, and it was pretty impressive to think about.

There were three trees in the display, one of them holding a rope swing, and as I stood there sweeping my light, I could definitely hear the sound of someone talking.

“rot resistant....used for.....skets and boa....”

It was muffled, life someone trying to keep their voice down, but I could still hear it.

As I got closer, I finally picked it up, and it made me feel foolish for being so skittish.

“I am a Bald Cypress, Taxodium distichum. I am valued for my rot resistant wood that is often used in caskets, cabinets, and boat building. I can be found in...”

I switched my light off and kept walking. It was just some blow back from the tree exhibit. I made a note to talk to maintenance about maybe turning them down a little at night as I made my way to the fourth ring which was decorated in lush jungle plants and housed several very believable taxidermy animals from Mr. Selvier's personal collection. I had been startled in the daytime by a few of them, and he had a couple of cats hanging out in there that would definitely have gotten him some jail time these days for even attempting to shoot them. I heard the cacophony from the Governors ring as I came to the north end of the park, and sped up a bit before the noise could get my head hurting again.

I slowed a little, though, when I came to the pond that held the Pale Lady.

She was standing placidly in the middle of her lily pond, fan still hiding her face coquettishly. She could be the twin of the woman I'd seen on the path I realized as I came a little closer. Whoever had carved her had done an amazing job. Her features were so clear, defined, and there were none of the usual imperfections that you often got from Marble left out in the elements. She was free of dirt and bird splatter, free of moss or mold, and she stood like an alabaster angle in the...

I jumped back as my shoe registered wetness.

It appeared that while I was studying the statue, I hadn't been looking where I was going. I had stepped right into the lily pond, and I cursed as I realized that my sock was going to be wet for the rest of the night. I tromped the remainder of my round quickly, shoe squishing with every step, and when I got back to the office, I took my shoe off and rung my sock out as much as possible.I laid it to dry across the corner of the desk, but as I was turning to inspect my shoe I caught a huge something from the corner of my eye on one of the cameras. It was a blink and you'll miss it kind of moment, but whatever had moved in front of it had been enormous. It was the camera over by the fourth ring, Selviers Ring, and it had blotted out the whole lens as it moved past.

Well, not necessarily, I reflected.

A bird or a bat flying in front of the camera could have achieved the same effect, but it had definitely given me pause as I sat there with my shoe in my hand.

Without warning, the lens on another camera went dark for a split second.

Then a third.

It was harder to chalk it up to flying creatures after I watched it happen again and again. I sat watching the monitors as something large moved in front of the camera's again and again, and I suddenly didn't want to leave my little booth. If it was something really big, then the concrete cubicle wouldn't offer me much protection, but it was like hiding under your blanket when you're a kid. You know it won't save you from the monsters, but it makes you feel better.

I jumped when the alarm went off on my watch, realizing it was time for another perimeter walk.

I looked at the door the same way I had looked at the closet door when I was young. Out there was where the monsters were, real or imagined. If I went out there it could get me, and that was when I had to remind myself that I was an adult. I had a job to do and I wasn't about to get fired because I had seen a shadow and wet my pants.

I put my shoe back on and walked out to start my round.

I had barely come out of the booth when I started hearing the light sound of monotonous droning. I could hear voices coming from every direction, the voices getting closer the farther I walked. I refused to look behind me. I would not look behind me. I kept repeating it as the voices came closer. If I ignored them, maybe they would go away. It was just the wind anyway. The boxes were connected to trees for God sake! Trees don't move!

My pace quickened as I rounded the third ring, but when my flashlight fell on the idyllic scene, I felt it slip out of my hand and tumble to the pavement.

The bulb popped like corn in the pan, and I was left in semi darkness.

The spring scene had two trees now, the poppler and the oak with the swing in it.

The third was gone.

There had definitely been three trees there earlier. I remembered them. They had been sitting symmetrically, and the scene had made sense with three. But, I remembered now, three was wrong. There had always two, at least before tonight. I cast my memory back to the month I had been here, and realized that was true.

So where had the third tree gone to?

“I'm your local Chestnut Oak!”

I spun in place as the shadow of the tree fell on me, stumbling back and tripping on the low fence of the exhibit.

“I'm a deciduous, native tree which reaches fifty to sixty feet in height with an equal spread when grown in the open.”

I had thought they were half grown when I'd seen them, but even then they were larger than I. The oak stood about eighteen feet high and was broader through the middle than nearly two of me. The base, which had been wrapped in a wet, burlap sack, had burst as the tree's roots capered about like living legs. It was scooting towards me on those agile limbs, the wooden behemoth groaning as it lumbered along, and I raised my hands up over my head as I expected to be smashed into a red paste when it simply rolled unseeing over me. Even now, the strangeness of the situation was made all the stranger as the calm, educated voice of the Chestnut Oak continued to spit out facts about itself. I felt almost foolish that my last moments on earth would be filled with descriptions of leaves and the possible width and breadth of this lush giant.

When I wasn't immediately dealt with, however, I opened my eyes and saw the tree departing in a cloud of facts about temperature zones and blooming seasons.

It was heading deeper into the Garden, and I think, even then, I knew where it was going.

I picked up my flashlight as soon as I could get my heart beat into something like a normal pattern, and headed after it. The light was useless, the bulb having burst, but I suppose that if I had met any normal sized attackers, I could always club them with it. I think I wanted it out of some strange sense of security as well. The flashlight, the radio, the keys, they were all part of my uniform and if I had them all, then nothing bad could happen to me, right?

It is odd the talismanic effect of our things sometimes.

The tree wasn't hard to follow, but as I kept a safe distance behind it, I began to realize that it wasn't alone. The voices began to converge as we walked, and the Oak was joined by a Beach, a Cypress, and finally a young Black Gum. This may sound comical somehow, a bunch of trees moving together on tentacles of living root, but it was all I could do to keep following them. The creaking of their legs, the groaning of wooden bodies not meant to move, the rustling of leaves as they fell in droves, and the yammer of the informational tapes that walked across each other in a hellish chorus was enough to leave my skin crawling and my brain ready to join it in a nice stroll away from here. I put my hands to my ears as we neared their destination, and when I saw the lily pond, my suspicions were confirmed.

The eight sturdy trees, others already present, stood around the small pond in a similar formation to the eight rings of the Botanical Garden. All of them seemed to kneel, as much as something without knees can kneel, and I watched as the huge moon seemed to put the statue in spotlight as they bent before it. The marble figure held court over them, a delegation of trees come to plead their case before the Pale Lady, and as I watched, the statue began to move again.

Dust fell from its arms, the fan sliding away to reveal a face that grinned impishly. She looked two faced from here, her features expertly chiseled into the marble, and as one side of her face twisted up into an infernal grin, the other pulled down into a rictus of a snarl. She thrust the fan above her head as the marble patterned around her, a woman freed from a basilisk spell, and when she opened her yellow eyes, I could feel her regard on me.

I ran then, my shoes squeaking a little on the pavement as I took flight. I stumbled over the small wall and fell into a display of merigolds, but I kept running as I rolled free of them. I could still hear that hateful chorus, their facts now simply herolds to their gargantuin protectors, but they seemed to be getting further away. I didn't care. I was glad they weren't chasing me, but my only concern was getting as far away from them and the Pale Lady as possible.

When I saw the guard shack coming up, I ran inside and pushed the doors closed behind me, leaning against it as I panted like a dog.

I was safe, but for how long?

I went to the camera's, looking for anything that would prove that I wasn't just hallucinating. If I had caught them on camera, I could show Randy in the morning and prove that this wasn't some practical joke. I could show it to Carl and Doctor Thurston, I could let them know what was happening after hours, and they would be able to do something about all this.

The camera's looked so still and normal that it took me a few minutes to realize they were frozen. They had lost connection just as I stepped out for my circuit of the park, and I could see myself standing motionless as I crept from my hole like a scared mouse. I reset the system, but the data was lost and the camera's stayed frozen for the rest of the night. I called Carl, the poor guy sounding like he was having just some amazing sleep, and told him what had happened. He said it happened sometimes and recommended that I press the Network button when I remembered to and to be careful while on my rounds.

“Can't think of why anyone would want to break into a Botanical Garden, but if they do, the cameras will be no help.”

I almost laughed.

It wasn't something breaking in I was worried about, but the things that were already here.

I skipped a few rounds that night. I'm not ashamed of it. I was too scared to risk going out again, and as the sun began to peek up over the horizon, the cameras suddenly snapped back to life. It was eerie how it well it synced up with five o'clock, and from my booth I could see that every tree was back where it was superposed to be in the Governors Ring and the Pale Lady was still on her little island in the lily pond.

I reported to this journal as Randy arrived for the day.

I didn't bother submitting an actual report.

It doesn't seem as if it would go anywhere anyway.

I need proof if I'm to do anything about this.

I need to find out what the hell this is.