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I don’t know plants the wayup in the little courtyard of the medical center It could be a weed, it could be a flower But I think she’ll be happy with either--she just wants, needs, so to combat the sterility of her room and the emptiness of a world without ht with me into a kind of cup, scoop the soil inside, and pull out the plant

The roots dangle down, soh them as easily as it does the leaves When I stand up,my father back for her I understand why people wanted the tubes; I a to hold on to

And then, standing there with roots dripping dirt on arden day memory comes back to me My mother, my father, Grandfather, his tissue sa wild and reen tablet, Ky’s blue eyes, and suddenly I can follow Grandfather’s red garden day clue, I can take it and follow it up to leaves and branches and all the way down to the roots

And I catch

My mother’s hands are printed black with dirt, but I can see the white lines crossing her pals We stand in the plant nursery at the Arboretulass roof overhead and the stea out

"Bram made it to school on tiat o to work early, it is et Bra now? You have a few ht stop by to see Grandfather," I say It’s all right to deviate from the usual routine this way, because Grandfather’s Banquet is cos to discuss

"Of course," she says She’s transferring the seedlings from the tubes where they started, rowed in a tray, to their new homes, little pots filled with soil She lifts one of the seedlings out

"It doesn’t have many roots," I say

"Not yet," she says "That will coain I’er at her workplace, and I have an air train to catch Getting up early with Braivenwind is playful, pushingme another It spins some of last fall’s leaves up into the air, and I wonder, if I climbed up on the air-train platform and jumped, if the spiral of ould catch

I cannot think of falling without thinking of flying

I could do it, I think, if I found a way to s

Soled world of the Hill on my way to the air-train stop "Cassia Reyes?" the worker asks The knees of her plainclothes are darkened with soil, like , a few years older thandown Pulling up or planting? I wonder

"Yes?" I say

"I need to speak with you," she says A e as she is, and soood Match I’ve never had pero on the Hill, and I look back up at the riot of plants and forest behind the workers What is it like in a place so wild?

"We need you to sort so for us," the ain "I only sort at work" They are not Officials, nor are they my superiors or supervisors This isn’t protocol, and I don’t bend rules for strangers

"It’s to help your grandfather," the woman says

I stop

"There’s been a problem," she says "He may not be a candidate for tissue preservation after all"

"That can’t be true," I say

"I’m afraid that it is," thefro what?" I ask Grandfather has al in his aparto," the woman says, "when he worked at Restoration sites"

The man holds out a datapod It’s old, but the pictures on the screen are clear Grandfather, younger, holding artifacts Grandfather, burying the artifacts in a forested area "Where is this?" I say

"Here," they say "On the Hill"

The pictures cover a span of h the time

"And the Society has only now found these pictures?" I ask

"The Society doesn’t know," the woman says "We’d like to keep it that way, so he can still have his Banquet and his sample taken We need you to help us in return If you don’t, we’ll turn him in"

I shake my head "I don’t believe you," I say "These pictures--they could have been altered You could have made all of this up" But my heart pounds a little et into trouble And the thought of his sa Banquet randfather," the man says "He’ll tell you the truth But you don’t have much time The sort we need help with happens today"