When the first apple blossom bloomed, the entire farm seemed to breathe.
Leah discovered it at dusk—on the east-facing branch of the oldest ‘Winter Sweet’ apple tree, a pale pink bud quivered softly in the twilight, like a butterfly cautiously unfurling damp wings. She stood beneath the tree for a long time, watching until the blossom fully opened in the evening breeze, five petals encircling pale yellow stamens, a tiny, perfect galaxy.
Tonight was the night.
She returned to her room and opened the pinewood box. The seeds inside lay silent, yet she could feel their distinct ‘pulses’: the tomato seeds eager and restless, the rose seeds graceful and slow, the mint seeds cool and lively… And in the deepest corner of the box, the apple seed from her great-grandmother’s wedding tree emitted a deep, steady vibration, like distant mountain drums.
She held it in her palm.
When night fell completely, Leah carried a kerosene lantern up the hill to the Glass Greenhouse. Her father called after her, “Come back early! Frost is forecast for midnight!” She acknowledged him, but she knew in her heart that the journey she would undertake tonight was beyond any weather prediction.
The moment she pushed open the wooden door, she held her breath.
The full moon had just cleared the eastern ridge. Moonlight didn’t just fall; it poured—a silver-white pillar shining precisely through the cracked pane at the very center of the greenhouse dome, striking the bare earthen floor in the middle of the room. Dust motes swirled upwards within the beam like a reverse-flowing galaxy.
Following the scroll’s instructions, Leah had washed her hands with moonlit well water three nights ago, the night before, and again tonight. Now her palms were cool, but the hand holding the apple seed felt unusually warm, as if the long-dormant seed was awakening.
She stepped into the center of the light.
And then she saw—no, deciphered—the scratches.
The greenhouse glass was covered in fine scratches she had always assumed were random marks of time: bird-claw streaks, hail impacts, branch scrapes. But from this angle, under this specific moonlight tonight, those seemingly chaotic lines began to connect, extend, and intertwine…
They formed a vast, intricate geometric pattern.
Hexagons nested within pentagons, spirals intersecting radiant starbursts, all intersection points aligning perfectly with the greenhouse’s twelve main beams. These weren’t scratches, but carvings—a summoning array deliberately left by someone, in some era.
“Where glass mirrors the full moon,” Leah whispered, repeating the scroll’s words.
She looked up and saw her own face reflected in the glass above. But not just her face—the moonlight pierced her silhouette, projecting another, overlapping image on the other side of the glass: a younger version of herself, wearing unfamiliar robes, standing inside an unimaginable structure.
The very instant this realization struck her, the apple seed cracked in her palm.
Not a physical break, but an internal blooming. She felt something release from the seed, travel up her arm like spring sap flowing in reverse, and reach her heart. Simultaneously, the earthen floor beneath her feet grew warm.
No, not warm. It was breathing.
The soil rose and fell like the chest of a slumbering giant. All the glass in the greenhouse began to tremble, emitting a clear, ancient, wind-chime-like resonance. The geometric pattern formed by the scratches ‘stood up’ from its two-dimensional plane, becoming a labyrinth of light and shadow suspended in the air.
Then—growth.
True growth.
The glass walls of the greenhouse began to divide, extend, and reconfigure like plant cells. The aged glass became as transparent as flowing crystal, its thickness and boundaries melting away. Through this ‘liquefying’ barrier, Leah glimpsed the scene on the other side:
A palace.
But not a palace of stone or wood—a forest of glass, a cathedral of light.
Immense Victorian-style arches curved into an immeasurable height above. Thousands of glass panels joined at impossible angles, each refracting a different hue: the tender green of new leaves, the deep blue of the ocean, the violet-gold of dusk, the colorless transparency of morning dew… Vines didn’t climb the frames; they grew from within the structures. These luminous vines pulsed like glass veins, flowing with a soft, liquid light.
She saw figures moving within, their robe hems leaving brief trails of light as they brushed the air.
She saw floating, tiered gardens where plants from different climates thrived side-by-side: tropical orchids misting steam next to snow-dusted pines.
She heard sounds—not through air, but harmonies resonating directly in her mind: the bass of soil, the whisper of roots, the crisp rhythm of photosynthesis, the fluid melody of the water cycle…
The greenhouse floor began to soften.
Leah looked down to see her boots sinking into a substance that was no longer clay—it was a warm, resilient platform, woven like mycelium. She instinctively tried to step back, but tiny luminous roots sprouted from the apple seed in her hand. These rootlets anchored gently into the platform, holding her in place.
A figure approached from the other side of the portal.
It was a tall, slender man in robes the color of interwoven moss and bark, with real buds sprouting along the hem. His eyes were glass-pale grey, his pupils reflecting shifting spectrums of light.
“Leah Greene,” his voice sounded directly in her mind, gentle as a spring night’s wind. “You are seven years late.”
“Seven years?” Leah managed to speak.
“Counting from the day you first heard the apple tree weep,” the man smiled. “But Verwel Academy believes every Flora-Speaker has their own season. Welcome home.”
He extended his hand. His fingers were long, his nails transparent like polished amber.
Leah hesitated for a heartbeat, then took his hand.
At the moment of contact, she was gently ‘pulled’ forward—not through a barrier, but as if two spaces overlapped within her. She stood simultaneously in two places: the abandoned greenhouse and the threshold of the glass palace. The dual sensation was dizzying yet terrifyingly clear.
She glanced back.
Her family farm blurred on the portal’s near side, like a reflection disturbed by ripples. But she could see the light still on in her father’s room, and the apple tree with its first blossom standing serene under the moon.
“Will they wait for me?” she asked.
“All things planted with a true heart will wait,” the man said. “Now, take a deep breath. Some experience chrono-vertigo during their first cross-dimensional transit.”
Leah inhaled deeply.
She smelled scents never encountered before: the ink-and-paper smell of old books blended with the moisture of a newborn rainforest; the sulfurous tang of volcanic soil layered over the thin, cold air above snowlines; and pervading it all, the clean scent of sun-warmed glass.
“I am Errol Moss-Shade, Gatekeeper and First-Year Mentor of the Primal Dome College,” the man said. “Before the ceremony proceeds, I must confirm: does the seed you bring travel with you willingly?”
Leah opened her palm.
The apple seed was utterly transformed—it hovered an inch above her hand, its shell now transparent as crystal. Inside, a miniature apple tree cycled through accelerated life stages: growing, blooming, fruiting, shedding leaves, and regrowing. Its roots extended fine filaments of light, connecting with the lines of Leah’s palm.
“It knows me,” Leah said. “And I am beginning to know it.”
Mentor Errol nodded, a glint of approval in his eyes. “Then step through. Mind the threshold—it is both boundary and beginning.”
Leah lifted her foot.
The moment she crossed the invisible threshold, the entire greenhouse folded behind her. It didn’t vanish, but closed like a flower at night, gently enveloping and preserving the familiar world within.
She stood inside the glass palace.
The floor beneath her feet was warm, alive—a wooden structure so transparent she could see deeper ecosystems operating below. Above, the luminous vines dangled fine tendrils that brushed her shoulders in greeting.
A chime echoed in the distance—not from metal, but from the resonant, soul-clearing ring of some immense crystal being struck.
“The Initiation Ceremony begins at dawn, when the dew is heaviest,” Mentor Errol said, pointing down a path illuminated by glowing mushrooms. “Until then, you must choose: will you keep your ‘old-world clothes,’ or let the academy robes grow forth?”
Leah looked down at her jeans and plaid shirt, still dusty with farm soil. After a moment, she replied, “Can I… have both? Like glass that can both reflect an old landscape and admit new light?”
The mentor laughed, a genuine sound this time. “A very Flora-Speaker answer. Yes, it can be so. The Academy respects all forms of growth—including growth that is not in haste to shed its skin.”
He clapped his hands softly. Faint green patterns, like the earliest moss on a spring stone wall, began to trace over the fabric of Leah’s clothes. The scent of farm earth remained, now overlaid with the freshness of a forest after rain.
“Come,” Mentor Errol said. “The other initiates are gathering in the Root-Vein Hall. Tonight, your first lesson begins: how to listen to the memory of glass.”
Leah followed him onto the glowing mushroom path.
She took one final look back—the portal had closed, becoming an ordinary mirror on the wall. But in its reflection, she saw the apple blossoms back home blooming peacefully under the moon, and the kerosene lantern in the greenhouse still burning quietly, as if she had never left.
And in her hand, the apple seed began to beat in sync with her own heart.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Each pulse a silent decree: The time for growth has come.
