The Purple Dawn

By Michael Teasdale

The flower, if indeed it could be called a flower, looked like nothing on Earth.

Iris squinted at the purplish inkblot staining the vast green landscape of her garden shrubbery. It seemed to have bloomed overnight in the middle of an otherwise unremarkable hedgerow.

Without her glasses to aid her, Iris struggled to make out exactly what genus it belonged to. She bent in low, her wrinkled nose almost touching its delicate petals, while she breathed in the scent.

“Phew!” She staggered back slightly, ill-prepared for the rush of blood that this peculiar perfume sent racing through her body.

She tottered over to the nearby bench and lowered herself into a seated position, letting her frail hands settle on the armrests for support. A smile creased her face as her fingers caressed the grain of the wood. The bench was the last thing that David had fashioned for the garden before his passing, and Iris found herself in quiet conversation with the memory of her departed husband.

“It’s a powerful one and no mistake,” she exclaimed. “Not lavender, that’s for sure. Nor hyacinth. There’s nothing sweet about it, but it’s no sea holly either. Where the devil did it come from, and what’s it doing there, slap bang in the middle of the hedge? I’ll have to prune it, I’m afraid.”

From its place in the hedgerow, the unusual flower seemed to stare back at her like a single, cyclopean eye. Iris’ thoughts began to muddle until she could no longer recall why she had ever wanted to do such a thing.

“No,” she muttered. “No. I’ll leave it.”

She scratched at her nose, and when she drew her hand away, her eyes widened at the purplish pollen that stained her fingers.

“Oh dear,” she mumbled. “I’d better go and wash this off.”

By lunchtime, the scent of the peculiar flower had faded away completely, long replaced by the warm October aroma of roasting pumpkin and sweet pastry as Iris prepared pies for her grandchildren. Leaning on the kitchen table, Iris looked at the Jack-o-lanterns the boys had carved on their previous visit, fondly recalling her own children’s efforts of long ago. How many more seasons would she get to spend this way?

While the pies had been successful, her attempts to remove the purplish residue from her fingers had been less so. Instead, the pollen seemed to have spread like a rash, creeping up to her knuckles like stubborn port-wine stains.

“Perhaps I can pretend it’s a Halloween costume?” She scratched at the itchy places where the pollen had spread. “Curious,” she mumbled as she checked the oven. “Maybe I ought to get it seen to.”

She squinted out the kitchen window and into the garden, where she could just about make out the flower facing her.

Her thoughts began to cloud again. She snapped her head away and scratched at her temple in confusion, accidently picking at a tiny scab that came away on her finger. It looked for all the world like a tiny lilac-colored petal.

By the time the grandfather clock struck six, the sun burned low on the horizon. Iris drifted off to sleep in her armchair, giving little thought to the purple stains that now wandered up to her elbows. In her dreams she was back in her garden, staring at the purple flower in the hedgerow. Even from a distance, she could smell its strange, otherworldly aroma. With each passing moment the reason became clearer. There, thrusting out from the cabbage patch, was a second flower, identical to the one in the hedge. Another sprouted from the lily pond. Over by the greenhouse, a fourth and fifth winked quietly into existence, purple spies among the rhododendrons.

“Parasites,” Iris cursed in her dream. “If I don’t prune them soon, the buggers will be everywhere!”

She knew the trusty shears in her hands would do the job, but when she looked down, she was no longer holding the clippers. Instead, her palms were full of tiny budding flowers whose stigmata resembled the eyes of a hundred otherworldly children looking up at her.

“Grandma! Trick-or-Treat! Here we come!”

The smell of roast pumpkin still lingered in the kitchen as the boys tumbled into the house through the open back door.  On entering the darkened living room, the smell was replaced by something quite peculiar.

The eldest boy flicked on the light.

“Grandma?” said the youngest.

“What the…” said the eldest.

“Are those…?”

The two boys walked over to the armchair to get a better look at the curiously-shaped arrangement of purple flowers that filled the body of the chair, lined its armrests, and trailed down to the carpet at their feet.

The youngest boy laughed.

“Neat trick, Grandma!” he called out, and turned to his brother. “She made them look like a person.”

The older boy bent down toward the flowers and sniffed, jerking back his head and widening his eyes in response.

“Phew,” he exclaimed, scratching his nose. “Hey, what the…” He examined the purple pollen that stained his fingers. With a grin, he smeared some on his brother’s cheek.

The younger boy laughed. “Come on, let’s go look for her in the garden.”

Giggling at their own private joke, the two boys wandered out into the sugar-scented Halloween night.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Teasdale is an English writer of strange fiction and occasional travel memoir whose stories have previously appeared in the UK publications Novel Magazine, Litro Magazine and the science fiction anthology series Shoreline of Infinity.

He has called six different countries home and currently lives in Transylvania, Romania with his partner and their two cats.

---

More Stories