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THE NEWLYWEDS ENJOYED THE WEEKEND alone on their little getaway. It was hard to not acknowledge how blissfully silent it was at the resort. The absence of traffic, or neighbors with their movies and video games up too high, was stark.
They sipped smoothies their last morning there, sharing a wicker bench on the balcony, discussing preparations for the babies’ arrival.
One baby was expensive. Two babies... Someday they’d find a way to pay Kaylah back.
Marcus’s eyebrows knit as he sat pensive. “Did I ever apologize for getting you the wrong birth control tonic?”
She searched her memories. “I don’t remember.” They’d been in a pretty heated conversation when she’d told him.
“I am sorry. I mean, not that I’m sorry that we’re having them, because I want them, but you know...”
She smiled softly. “I know.” One of the babies kicked, and she moved his hand to feel it. He always ate that up.
“I promise I’ll be more careful,” he said. They hadn’t brought any tonic with them, and as the tonics required ingredients only available in the Green Lands, they couldn’t brew up their own even if they knew how to. Hormonal birth control wouldn’t help either, as Ivy chemistry didn’t align closely enough with that of humans. They’d have to use other methods of contraception while in the human world.
Like the dimmed energy over here, and the constant noise of electronics, ease and comfort of contraception was one more mental tally mark in Leah’s mind as she processed where they were going with their lives. And the fact that she had to keep her vines hidden when in public sometimes brought back hurtful memories of her childhood and being forced to repress that side of herself.
Marcus broke her from her reverie. “We should peg down baby names. Or do you think we should wait until we see them?”
She slurped up the last of her smoothie, setting the glass down beside the bench. “I think one less unknown makes me less crazy. What are your thoughts?”
He shrugged.
Leah adjusted her seat. “I know Kaylah was joking in her text, and Ivies don’t normally do middle names, but what would you think about giving them middle names? And having the girl’s be Kaylah?”
Marcus smiled. “I’m okay with that.” He rested a hand on her leg. “Any other suggestions?”
She chuckled. “I’m all out of names from decent people in my family, unless you want to include Eric.” As soon as she said it, guilt weighed her down for so easily dismissing her mom. But Beata would never be a complimentary name for a child in the Green Lands. It was like a modern human naming their child Stalin or Putin.
“Mmm...” Marcus rocked his head back and forth. “No offense to Uncle Eric, but how would you feel about the boy’s middle name being Guillen?”
Marcus respected his father so much. Guillen was kind. He had kind of implied that Leah wasn’t equal to his son when he’d visited at the cottage, but she’d come to understand where he was coming from. His parents’ marriage had been disastrous. He had also given Leah permission to not marry Marcus, and that was a bit awkward now that they’d tied the knot. But he’d given her permission no one else had. And he’d been the first to actually congratulate her on her pregnancy.
Leah rested her hand on Marcus’s. “I think that’s a great idea.”
And then to decide on the first names... They considered other Ivy and human traditions. In the end, they agreed upon Aspen for the girl, Ash for the boy. It made Leah twice as excited to finally meet them.
Marcus carefully lifted Leah’s shirt, exposing her stomach. He leaned down, pressing his lips to her skin, and then blew a massive raspberry.
Leah gasped, clenched, and pushed him off. “I swear you made them both just kick my bladder!”
He laughed. “Sorry.”
She offered him a dirty look.
“I am sorry.” His tone was all but apologetic as he lifted a hand to his heart. “But I’ve been neglecting giving you good luck. I think we’re gonna have to do it three times a day until we meet them, to make sure everything goes smoothly.”
She threw him a death glare. “You can give them luck once we meet them. I will continue to exercise my powers without your special brand of good luck, thank you very much.”
He only smirked in response, and it took everything she had to not cave and kiss that smirk right off his face.
Seeder reproduction worked like clockwork; it was extremely predictable. Ivy pregnancies weren’t on that level, but they were still far less risky and more predictable than those of humans.
Almost to the day, Leah went into labor around her eight-month mark. Olivia and her accompanying nurse were ready for her at a private birthing center.
She hadn’t mastered the techniques the nurses had tried to teach her. The birth was painful and stressful, and involved a little swearing, a lot of sweat, and plenty of tears. Marcus gripped her hand tightly through it all, much calmer than she’d expected him to be.
Aspen and Ash were beautiful, their little cries music to Leah’s ears. There weren’t words to express their perfection and how much it meant to finally meet them.
As the nurses cleaned them up, Leah rested, taking slow breaths. Her Ivy energy and chemical powers surged within her as they tried to find a proper equilibrium again. Her stomach cramped as it set to work healing already. “If we ever do that again, I’m practicing those exercises from day one,” she said.
“You’ll want to have more kids?” Marcus asked sweetly, brushing aside a wisp of hair plastered to her forehead with sweat.
She stared at him. “Not the best time to make that decision.”
He chuckled, kissing her cheek. “You were great, Mom.”
And then she started to cry again. Mom. She was a mom.
They set little Aspen and Ash on Leah’s chest, and her heart overflowed. They were perfect. They both had a full head of hair, and as expected, it was black like Leah’s. They also had her and her mom’s nose. Eye color could change a little with time as they grew, but for now, their eyes were light brown, and she hoped they’d stay that way. Leah’s love for her own green eyes had been tainted by learning about the man she’d gotten them from.
Nursing the twins was intimidating, especially with two of them, but they sorted it out. She was grateful for that. They could have survived off formula, but it was expensive, and she planned to stay home. Plus, they didn’t have any kittlefruit in the human world, the type of nourishment green folk used when babies over there couldn’t nurse.
By nightfall, the couple returned to their apartment with two little swaddled ones in car seats. Leah rested, cuddling with the twins in bed while Marcus ordered them dinner. This had been such a massive hurdle in her life. From her puzzle box, it felt like a lot more than just two pieces clicking into place. It was more like an entire row.
She beamed as Ash made an adorable soft baby grunt in his sleep. With Marcus, this was her world. She’d never wanted to rule the kingdom, even if people misinterpreted the assassination attempt that way. She’d never been big on traveling, not when her mom had forced her to move so much growing up. She was a homebody. She wanted a place to call home, and people who wouldn’t leave her, who she wouldn’t have to leave. For once, she had that.
It took time to get their routine down as a family of four. Marcus couldn’t take much time off if he wanted to keep his job, not as a newer employee with questionable work history, references, and legal paperwork.
Both Leah and Marcus gave their all, taking turns with shopping, cooking, and changing diapers. When she wasn’t too exhausted and could make the time, Leah continued to work on her stories. The adventure in her fictional novels was enough for her. The truths in her memoir were hard to face, but also freeing, especially when she considered how it might change people’s perspective of her.
On one of his days off, Marcus prepared dinner while the twins napped. Leah sat on the couch, scratching away at the plot of her adventure romance work in progress. Marcus kept encouraging her to continue. She definitely needed more opinions than his, but she enjoyed imagining herself as an author. She’d be crushed if other people read it and decided it was rubbish. But even then, she was willing to learn, to improve—as a writer and as a person.
In some ways, she’d corrupted Marcus, changing him from the shy, obedient, nerdy kid to a runaway, and one who was not shy in the bedroom. But he’d tamed her, too. She wasn’t chasing the thrill with the next guy or party or shoplifting haul. She was a bookworm and a mother.
Marcus handed Leah a plate of taco salad, and she set her work aside. “I like what you did with the last chapter,” he said, easing down next to her.
“Thanks.” She smiled. “I’ve been doing some thinking... If we’re serious about this being my thing, I want to publish the adventure romance books here, in the human world.”
He raised an eyebrow. “That’s ... not going to go well. We should stick to Green Lands publishing, where it’s, you know, legal...”
She sighed. The secrecy from humans was understandable. Imagine the uproar if the masses of humans discovered there was an alternate realm filled with botanical beings on their own planet? “I know... But it’s fiction. People will think it’s fake, like fairies and dragons and all that.”
He eyed her, and she huffed. “Blah, blah, blah. Joint laws with Seeders, Ivies, and Bomen. I get it. But I could change the details. Instead of green folk in the Green Lands, they’ll be ... butterfly people in the ... Blue Lands?”
Marcus laughed. “Butterfly people? Blue Lands?”
She pointed her fork at him. “Don’t judge me. I’m sure most humans would think we’re ridiculous.”
Shrugging, Marcus dug into his salad.
“There’s a wider audience in the human world, ya know? Instead of a few million potential readers, it’s a few billion.”
He crunched down on a piece of romaine. “If you do butterfly people, you could publish in both worlds.”
She wrinkled her nose. That was true, but she also kind of didn’t want people in the Green Lands to read those books. It felt weird to mingle her memoir and identity with something fun and playful. “We’ll see.” Maybe she’d use a pen name to separate them.
“What about those stories back at Kaylah’s?” he asked. “The ones you wrote for Aspen and Ash?”
That brought another smile to her face. “I still want to get them made up. But I’d want them professionally illustrated.” She cringed. “I don’t want to give our kids nightmares.”
“You should ask Saff.”
Leah furrowed her brow. “Your mom and Kaylah’s Seeder friend? I’m sure she’s got enough on her plate.”
He shrugged in reply.
Leah recalled a painting at Kaylah’s estate. “Kaylah probably doesn’t even know who painted it, and I don’t know if they can do people, but there’s a painting in her library I love. The colors are really soft. It’s of daisies in a vase. I think I’d like the style if it were in watercolor.”
Marcus choked on his salad and laughed. “Saff painted that.”
Leah pursed her lips. “Fine. Point made.”
Day after day, week after week, time passed, and they found their groove. Before Leah stopped meeting with Olivia for checkups, Olivia delivered congratulations from Marcus’s family back in the Green Lands. No official announcements had been made. Olivia provided Leah and Marcus with two Boman jade tokens for Aspen and Ash so they could rift. And ... to their discomfort, they discovered people were looking for the couple, here in the human world.
Had Marcus never gotten back together with Leah, he probably would have faded more into obscurity once there was a proper prince in the Ivy Kingdom to dote over, and now four princesses. But ... Leah was gossip-worthy. They were a pair people kept tabs on. She’d been in hiding too long; they’d both been missing for far too long to go unnoticed. People had even stuck their noses in Marcus’s family’s business on this side of things, showing up at his grandparents’ house, and that of Tobias and Camry.
As Leah healed physically and emotionally, she fought against the tug to go home, at least to the home Marcus had grown up in. This world had been her home. With the comforts of modern electronics, planes that could take you anywhere you needed, light bulbs.
But every day, she felt that subtle tug, that her time here was running out. She wasn’t a Seeder; cut off from the energy of her ancestral realm, she wouldn’t die like they did. But she did feel that lacking in her Ivy energy, every day.
Marcus, Aspen, and Ash wouldn’t feel it nearly as much since they were Bomen with only wisps of Ivy energy. Aspen and Ash probably wouldn’t even know the difference, since they’d never experienced the Green Lands. But could Leah really take them away from family, from their heritage? Just because she didn’t like the attention over there?
No one had ever hunted for Leah when she was a child. They’d tried to hunt down her mom, but had eventually given up. They hadn’t known about Leah until she’d revealed herself.
Now, she’d never be left alone. How long would it take for people to track them down? Would she and Marcus move to Argentina to run away? The thought of forcing her children into a life of hiding was nauseating.
So, she continued to write her memoir. Hopefully, someday it would make a difference.
And as she did so, Leah started to forgive herself. As she and Marcus grew into their parenthood and proceeded to focus on being better communicators, she started to see others’ perspectives better, and began to forgive some of them too.
But she worried... Where would her relationship with her mom come out at the end of it all?