Sowing Seeds

The Hyacinth Fields

A day after promising that he could speak with Fred and Ernest, Dahlia and Lily walked with Shadow toward Fred's home. He helped lug a covered cart filled with vegetables, tubers, and fruit, which Lily explained was for the big city farmers market. The cart clacked across the cobblestones as he hiked down the pathway through the forest and grassy acreage, passing several homes. All the way there, he thought about the question he'd ask and how to get his answers, if they had any for him.

Down the path, around the corner, and through to the other side of the thicket, another bunch of houses lined up. On the porch of the first house, Fred and Ernest chatted together.

"I can't tend to your chicken," said Ernest, shaking his head. "I'm a doctor, not a vet."
"Ya just saw Gale last month — ain't she a chicken? What's the difference?"
"There are huge differences between animals and anthropomorphic animals."
"Like what?"
"Uhh..."

Before their dialogue could go much further, they waved at him, Dahlia, and Lily.

"Mornin', Lil!" Fred greeted. "Got a big day ahead of us, don't we?"
"Don't remind me."
"Shadow," Ernest said with a great big grin. "Nice to see that you're still doing well."
"And he's so helpful," Lily gushed, "giving me a hand with that damned cart."
Dahlia approached Fred and held out the basket she'd been carrying. "Got those greens for your chickens, Fred! How's Henrietta?"
"Not so good. Maybe seein' you will perk 'er up, though."

With that, Fred said his goodbyes to Ernest and took Dahlia and Lily inside, but Shadow stayed behind.

"Ernest," he said before the doctor could leave. "I have to talk to you."
"Of course, son, what do you need?"
"Have you heard of the Chaos Emeralds?"
The immediate head tilt and pulled back lip told him all he needed to know. Still, the doctor twisted the knife by elaborating. "I'm afraid not. Doesn't ring a bell, at least. I have heard of the Master Emerald, though."
Shadow's gaze dropped to the ground, shoulders deflating along with his hope. "Yeah, so have I..."
Ernest placed a hand upon his back. "I'm sorry, son. I hope you find what you're looking for."

He turned away from Ernest and headed into Fred's house. Any hope he may have had dwindled to an unrecognizable iota. He felt no motivation to find Fred within the foreign residence. The cat wasn't directly in front of him and the thought of searching him out only for the same, depressing answer repulsed him.

From the front door, he saw through the den, around the corner to the kitchen, and the back door which had been propped open. Dahlia's laugh sounded from that direction. Its pleasing, familiar sound was the only thing he gave enough of a shit about to follow. He plodded through the unkempt house and to the backyard, whereupon chickens ranged across a sunlit, grassy field. Dahlia had been kneeling down to one of the chickens who'd flipped itself onto its back to let its belly be scratched.

"You're so funny, Camille," she said, giggling.

Fred tossed the contents of her basket onto the ground and all of the chickens quickly converged upon the weeds. As Dahlia stood, she lifted her arm and tapped his chest with the back of her hand.

"Ain't that somethin', Shadow? 'Least someone likes our weeds. Speakin' a' healthy appetites—" Her now serious eyes rested on Fred. "—where's Henrietta?"

Fred took them to a much smaller, enclosed area across from the big chicken coop. Everyone had to remove their shoes before entering the tiny, shed-like containment. His socked feet crumpled the newspaper floor, which crinkled loudly but wasn't enough to make the lethargic chicken stir. He saw her from the single beam of light coming from the sunroof. She rested in a cat bed, blanket covering her as she put her face under her wing.

"Henrietta," Dahlia cooed. "Hey, girl."
Henrietta twitched but didn't move otherwise.
"See the problem?" Fred asked rhetorically. "She been like this for a couple days now. Not eatin', barely drinkin', an' when she first started gettin' sick the other girls bullied' 'er. So I was wonderin' if ya could take 'er home with ya, Dahlia. I just don't trust Junior to give 'er enough care. So could ya look after 'er an' see if she gets better while me an' your mom are gone?"
"Of course, Fred. I'll take good care of Henrietta."

Not long after, Lily kissed Dahlia goodbye and left with Fred, both of them hauling huge carts full of vegetables and fruit to the ferry for the city's farmers market (which Dahlia mentioned was held on an island of the archipelago called Midnightropolis).

Shadow and Dahlia headed back to the house with a blanketed Henrietta under Dahlia's arm. Most of the walk back home, Dahlia talked softly to the chicken who limply rested in her grasp.

At the house, she placed Henrietta on a pillow and kept her covered in a crocheted blanket. He went out back to the garden with her to collect beneficial plants: lavender, chamomile, mint, ginseng, and marigold. She cut them up and put bowls of them near Henrietta, along with a bowl of ginseng water.

The only thing left to do was wait and see what came the next morning.


Henrietta hadn't eaten anything. It was almost lunch the next day and all of her bowls remained full. Dahlia knelt beside her and stroked her head which rested upon the pillow, the bird's eyes closed and breathing shallow.

Shadow stood in the doorway, watching them. Dahlia appeared so distraught over something as simple as a chicken. She'd been quiet all morning. As much as he didn't want to admit it, he missed her smile. Without it, without the true Dahlia, the island felt darker and his dwindling hope hit him that much harder. It was almost like a fog enveloped him. While he didn't know what to do for her or how to help, he wanted to try.

"Is Henrietta going to be okay?" What a strange question that just came out of his mouth.
Dahlia frowned at him. "I'm not sure. She's not doing well."
"Is there anything that can help her?"
"We do have one possibility. See, there's this medicinal flower called the Hyacinth Bell. It's really powerful and we've used it to help a couple of people before. We've never tried it on chickens before, but it helped Gale get over her pneumonia, so I can't imagine Henrietta wouldn't benefit."
"Since I haven't seen it in the garden, I'm guessing there's a catch."
"Yeeaaah, the catch is that it's deep in the woods on the other side of the island. We tried to grow it here, but it was near impossible to grow since it needs hyacinths and bluebells and really wet soil to grow. After lots of trial and error, and a few drowned cucumber plants, we got a Hyacinth Bell. But then it attracted hordes of aphids and snails that decimated half our crops for the year. We haven't tried to grow it since."

Henrietta then unleashed a phlegm-filled, hacking cough. Dahlia gasped into her glove, tail and ears drooping.

"We should get that flower," he said. "Quickly."
She tucked the shivering chicken into her blankets and patted her comb. "Don't worry, girl, we'll be back soon."

Dahlia packed two thermoses of water and a small box stuffed with damp paper towels into a black knapsack and slung it over her shoulders. They were out the door very soon after, Dahlia taking one last glance at Henrietta before heading out. He walked beside her, keeping stride as she led him to the hyacinth field.

At the town center where water cascaded from the fountain, they headed right toward the shoddy food stands. Dahlia forced smiles at their fellow inhabitants during the afternoon greetings. Denizens waved and said hello to him, too, but he didn't reciprocate. After every time she waved back, her hand would then clench the straps around her shoulders. Her tail hung low during their trek.

They passed the meat stand where the owner, who Shadow now noticed was a pale teal porcupine, happily replaced the ice over some of his wares.

"Hey, Dahlia!" He called with a smile and wave. "How're things?"
"Good, Quill," she said half-heartedly, with a wave just as insincere. "Real good."
"Glad to hear. Thanks again for the assist the other day! You n' your friend really gave those guys what-for!"
Dahlia grinned, teeth showing and brow refusing to unknit itself. "No problem."

He watched as she tried to go for the strap again. He'd be damned before he let her sulk the entire way to the Hyacinth Bell. Before Dahlia could regain the vise-grip on her knapsack, he caught her hand and held it by his side. Her confused gaze at him soon returned to her far more comforting smile and her cheeks turned rosy. She shifted closer to him while they walked off the cobblestone path and onto the dirt road that led into the woods. Once they left civilization behind, she said,

"Thanks."
"For what?"
Her grip on him tightened. "For just... Bein' there. Bein' you. Helpin' me and not lettin' me be all mopey."
"I could say the same to you."
"Ya didn't need to say it out loud — I could tell since ya always look so happy and cheerful."
"You and Junior have a penchant for terrible jokes, don't you?"
"I think we're bad influences on each other."

Conversation carried on similarly to this as they traversed the forest. Her reassuring, warm smile graced their venture, goofy jokes and amiable presence a welcoming recompense for his effort.

The dirt path eventually disappeared behind them. Woods grew thicker and twisted, making them carefully watch their footing. Two huge trees had blocked them at one point, with only a strip of pathway for them to bound over. Shadow went first and held onto Dahlia's hands as he helped lead her over the uneven roots.

It had taken a couple hours of walking to finally break through the dense weald and into a glade, forest floor blanketed in flowers and weeds of all colors. Dahlia showcased her knowledge of plants by pointing out the various species: green leaves with purple tops called Lamium purpureum or purple dead-nettle, bright yellow Senecia jacobaea or ragworts, white and fluffy Trifolium repens or white clovers, and as they got closer to the river they came upon bright red scarlet rosemallow.

"The Hibiscus... Err..." She hesitated. "Hibiscus co— Okay, so that one I don't remember. But it means we're getting close to the hyacinths."
He entertained, "And their scientific name is?"
"Hyacinthus."
"Now you're just making names up."
She laughed. "I'm not! That's really what it is."

Walking with her laughter in the rainbow fields released all tension from his body, relaxing him. Their laced fingers kept her near — her perfume definitely smelled of coconut, which he probably wouldn't have noticed without being so close, given the growing floral fragrance in the distance.

The colorful field of hyacinth came into view, speckled with reds, purples, yellows, blues, pinks, and whites. Beside them, a farther-off cluster of deep blue flowers on thin stems, which he assumed were the bluebells.

"Somewhere between them should be the Hyacinth Bells," she said. "They bloom every spring. Just gotta look for pale blue or white flowers — they grow like the hyacinth but droop like the bluebells."

As they closed in on the flower fields, a creeping feeling wriggled its way into his skin. Things were quiet. He could only hear their footfalls that slowed to the lack of sound. No birds. No bugs.

Her loose grip on him stiffened. "Somethin' feel weird to you?"
"Yeah. Let's get the Hyacinth Bells and get out."
"Definitely."

The hyacinth and the bluebell patches nestled the Hyacinth Bells, most of which were varying shades of light blue with the occasional white mixed in. Dahlia grabbed only the blue ones so Shadow did the same, collecting a few flowers and placing them in the box of wet paper towels. Being as they felt dry to the touch, she watered the towels with some of the leftover water in her thermos.

As she cleaned up and he took a few drinks off his own thermos, something near a tree at the edge of the hyacinth field caught his eye. A group of the flowers had been crushed by something quite large — the print had no discernible toes, rather just a rectangular shape of a pseudo-foot.

He took a few steps near to examine it further, his heart pounding. If that's what he thought... But it couldn't be. Dahlia had told him that no one on Mobius familiarized themselves with technology. No one, except...

Just as he whipped around to get Dahlia's attention, branches snapped from above and a shadow zipped across him. The ground rattled and he staggered to keep his footing. Between him and Dahlia, a bulky orange robot loomed. Joints and gears churned as it observed him. Metal strips of brown lined its round face, looking quite like a mustache under its bulbous pink nose. Then it turned to Dahlia.

"Ah," said a voice from it, "you look familiar. Do I know you?"
She stammered, "E-Eggman."
"Oh, that's right! I remember now. You're the spitting image of your sniveling father. How is he, by the way? Oh, right: Dead. But don't worry, I'll let you say hello to him."

It pointed its hand at her. Before Eggman's robot could make another move, Shadow found the strength in his legs to launch himself into its back. He spiraled over its shoulder and landed in front of Dahlia, then whipped around as the robot stumbled forward. He reared back his fist and punched the robot's rotund torso, once again jostling it around. Damn did that hurt his knuckles.

He growled, "Stay the hell away from her."
The voice from the robot laughed. "Hoo-hohohohoh! You damn hedgehogs are so irritating and ornery! But this will knock you down a peg."

Gears whirred and the robot's arm opened wide into a giant sledgehammer. It plunged the hammer down, gale rushing out from underneath and blowing his fur and quills about. If he moved, the hammer could easily be directed onto Dahlia. So he stood tall, thrusting his palms up to catch the weapon, steeling himself for impact.

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