affame_le_geant_oredalia fyn gula thora led the madrill through the shoppe, past the stacks of various sized terracotta pots, crates of paperwhites and amaryllis bulbs, a display of heirloom potager seeds, shelves of gorgeous coffee-table garden books with glossy fotos of hidden sanctuaries, over to the 194o's counter rescued from a pharmacy in montepoules, where annalacroix, thora's in-shoppe manager was busy informing a valued customer about the proper way to force tulips to bloom indoors. excuse me, ann-darling," thora said. the madrill, slightly embarrassed of her injury in front of the two strangers, put her bad hand in the pocket of her wool coat. she felt the alcance del mundo and was inadvertantly made aware of her mission and connection with an evil world far removed from the simple beauty of a life where one grew things, made friends with the earth, and sustained themselves by being honest and hard-working. she looked down to a basket of blue-seed potatoes and felt the tears sting her eyes. suddenly she hated herself and her commitment to proina's malvolent cause. she cursed her iron hold, for it was too late to turn back when all she wanted to do was sink her hands into good soil or fiil a tin watering can and soak a hanging basket of lemon-scented geraniums. she blinked away the hot regret and felt the throbbing pain of the wound in her palm, a pernicious reminder of a destiny gone terribly wrong. "yes, thora?" annalacroix said, st.martin tulip bulbs in her fingers. she turned from a young man with a crow's head. he was holding a child in his arms, an 18 month old, with fuzzy black feathers, it was asleep, its human arms wrapped around its fathers human shoulders, its little crow's beak across his chest in repose. thora could see its tiny lungs rising and falling in dream. she smiled at the innocent beauty. and what did it see in its slumber? the sun eclipsed behind clouds? a butterfly emerging fom a sticky chrysalis? annalacroix was completely human, which was rare in montamore, or any of the twelve villages along the bianca strada. she broke through into kemulya from ibiza, spain when she was 18. she had been reading viginia woolf's 'mrs. dalloway" under a cork tree one day in june when white clouds stuck to the blue sky as if pressed by thumbtacks. "what is this terror? what is this ecstasy? what is it that fills me with extraordinary excitement?" she read, and then she closed the book to write the words in her journal, but instead found herself opening the door of thora and twinkletoes's garden shoppe with an application in her hand. she had a silver ball pierced on her tongue which caught the available light and she wore clothes from anthropologie. "will you watch things while we're gone? i'm taking my friend, umm, silly me," and here thora seemed very flusterd. she opened her beak wide and made a strange sound much like a bluejay when it seems embarrassed. "i never asked you your name. can you imagine that?" and then annalacroix, the crow man and even the child, who was startled by the sudden weird noise, turned to the madrill. "what is your name anyway?" thora asked, placing her hand on the madrill's back. she giggled in an effort to facilitate the awkwardness. the madrill seemed alarmed more than any of them for her anonymity was the disguise she hid behind. there was an uncomfortable pause that was too long to accept as normal. "oh, ahh...." the madrill murmured. "i'm sorry," she looked down at a tag that was tied to a burlap sack of starter vidalia onions. it listed their place of origin; montefiore. "oredalia." she said, still gazing away. the ensuing silence was the crash of cymbals in her head. 030112 what's it to you? who go blather from