Nothing new took root. That season a scar remained on the earth where the Amanita once stood. At first the cluster was shocked by the sudden disappearance. The spot looked so bare where the knife had gouged a divot out of the dirt. Only one thing was sure: nature never left a void for long. What seemed like a cataclysm at the time always turned into something else.
Volcanoes erupted and spewed lava and molten ash into the unsuspecting sky. The fiery expectorant blanketed the earth, killing everything in its path. As it cooled, molten lava hardened and cracked. Wind sprinkled seeds like confetti. They caught in the fissures and sent out roots.
When a stand of trees was destroyed by forest fire, the intense heat germinated long dormant seeds, revitalizing the old growth forest. Some species couldn’t exist without fire to reinvigorate them.
And out in the cosmos, far beyond knowing, when one star burned up, others expanded to fill the empty space.
Where the stolen Amanita once stood, the other Amanitas continued to grow. Their stalks broadened, and their caps reached out for each other until they plugged up the hole so tight it was impossible to tell that where there were now only four plump mushrooms, there were once five.