It was early summer and the garden was surrounded by lush and soft greenery in all directions, swallowing the cottage almost entirely. The garden was a little wild-grown, but not neglected - row after row of pale pink and white flowers grew there like nobodys’ business, each one at least tall enough to reach a grown man to the waist.
”Here it is. My marshmallow garden.” Meagan said as she lead her guest in through the gate of the deer fence. ”This is the plant I grow the most of, so you’ll spend most of your time here. The bulk of the work you’ll do this time of year is just weeding and collecting nettles for the compost brew, but you’ll also handle the deliveries, every monday and thursday. Don’t worry, I’ll handle the emergency deliveries in case of zombie attacks, so you just need to focus on getting the pre-orders to our customers. I’ve already let everybody know that you’ll be the one coming over from now on. I’ve mentioned you don’t talk, so don’t feel pressured about that, they’ll understand.”
The boy - whom Meagan had named Adrian - tilted his head a little as she mentioned ”emergency deliveries in case of zombie attacks”. He wondered what kind of stuff she was actually delivering, because thus far, the opnly job for him she’d spoken of were about these flowers. She had a herb garden, so maybe medicine..? He hadn’t seen any weapons, so it probably wasn’t that. He reached out and touched one of the plants. The flowers smelled of a mellow sweetness, and the leaves felt as soft as baby bunny fur. She smiled, gently and somewhat sad, at this child who never spoke.
”They make a great tea, these ones. Just seep the leaves in hot water for a few minutes and you’ll have a brew that’s great for calming down. Feels like drinking a soft, internal hug. Great for belly aches and stomach problems, too. It was my favorite tea back before the apocalypse and hard to find in stores, so it was the only flower I bothered to learn to properly care for. Quite the mistake in retrospect, of course. I was a devout prepper, so the only gardening field I really learned about was how to grow vegetables, in case shit ever hit the fan,” she chuckled. ”Well I mean, who’d have guessed, right? When the living started to wake up dead, caring for flowers was simply a skill no one expected to use agai-”
Out on the road, someone screamed ”ZOMBIES!” and Adrian immediately spun around and magicked a small gun from somewhere on his person, aiming it at the source of the scream. He had carefully observed every little detail about this place - the little deer fence wouldn’t keep zombies out for more than a minute and he had no idea where Meagans’ weapons stash was.
”Chill, kid. I’ve got this. You’ll be doing this later when you’re older so you might as well come and see how we do it.” Meagan said and walked towards the gate with a little hurry in her step, but absolutely devoid of fear. Adrian couldn’t decide if she was crazy or simply confident, but seeing as she and her village had survived three years of zombies... maybe? But he couldn’t see any weapons on her. All she carried was a basket with those marshmallow flowers. He decided ”insane” and wanted to run, but in the end - after hesitating until she had disappeared out of his sight and then some - he pointed his loaded gun at the ground and stalked after his new caretaker. She seemed.. nice, and he didn’t want to lose another place to stay if he could help it. If he had to, and there weren’t too many of them, he decided to cover for this crazy lady best he could.
But what he saw after he made it out onto the road stunned him. Meagan stood, her back straight and graceful, and calmly handed out flowers for the living dead. They looked at her as if they didn’t know what to think at first, as if these mindless creatures that only knew gore and hunger could stop and pause - and then, one at a time, they gently reached for a flower as she held them out for them to take. They brought it to their faces as if smelling them, gently rubbed the bunny-soft leaves between their fingertips and, as if they were satisfied, sat down underneath the trees and ceased their ragged breathing, holding the plants to their chests. Adrian stared in absolute disbelief as the mad light faded from their eyes. Mere minutes passed, and then, when Meagan almost ran out of flowers, the zombies had all peacefully passed away. She stood silently and watched them for a moment, and her smile when she turned around was bright and warm.
”We don’t need to take care of the corpses. That man who raised the alarm earlier should’ve already sent someone else from the village to give them a proper funeral.”
”You know,” she said to Adrian, ”back when the internet was still a thing and I did some research on growing these ones, I read somewhere that the ancients used to plant mallow on the graves of the dead. It said that mallow is a spiritually potent plant and that its presence fed and nourished the souls of the deceased. It didn’t say what culture, and I have no idea if it was marshmallow or not - as a piece of random trivia, there are over four thousand species of the Malvaceae family in the world. Or maybe what the restless dead really need is just peace? Something to give them a soft, internal hug, that is good for stress.”
She handed Adrian the marshmallow she was holding in her hand, and then gestured him back to the garden. ”Come on. I’ll show you were we keep all the garden tools.”
Maybe, what the restless dead really need is just peace? Something to give them a soft, internal hug, that is good for stress. For some reason, those words repeated themselves in his head, and his expressionless face softened a little, just a little.
