3.

The third day of December 1982 and little Ester Leigh Fontaine is six months old. She is as quiet and calm an infant as there ever has been, if anything she is unnaturally quiet though she is also as healthy as any infant can be. There is no cause for alarm with how quiet she is so for the particular moment is all well as well can be given all that is.

Mum has got herself more than a bit of a green thumb and this is something which has begun not all so long ago and has escalated quite quickly. If anything, it came about during pregnancy and only really became an obsession once a child had come along. Over the most recent summer right through to October she had her back garden the envy of any gardening world. With winter coming in she is caring for all of what she has to ensure her floral survival for the coming months.

Jim has come around a little to being a father; still, he is feeling somewhat indifferent towards the child which of course is something very odd for a new father. He knows he should love his child unconditionally, for some reason this is not so easy for him. It is as if something is holding him back, something is holding his feelings back, the good feelings at least.

His daughter has only just hit six months old so the goings on that either go noticed or unnoticed can't really be put down to anything she is or anything she does. How can anyone at this stage know of the baby girl's true nature?

Ester is special; she is different though indeed that cannot be easily determined or seen just yet. In all actuality there are signs though no one knows what to look for; no one even knows that something should be looked for. Darkness in the form of shadow is doing things and maybe on some level Jim notices this and maybe this is why he feels the way he does ... uneasy and on edge.

In a way therefore Darkness is sabotaging himself to a degree. Whether this is true or not there is always a kind of learning, learning which aids for improvement, a learning for next time if there is a next time.

At times when Jim does not notice, flowering plants and vines appear in the most unusual of manners and places. They want to do him harm but something else is holding that back preventing harm from fully coming Jim's way. This too can only last so long. Jim will one day have a job to do and that is if the vines don't get to him first.

Darkness and Light can't always co-exist, for at least a portion of daily time it does. In pitch black darkness there is no light, the brightest of lights will always cast shadows. Plant life however needs light in order to live even if it is drawn to darkness.

Seeing how strong her greens and other colours are doing, Estelle feels a strong sense to go visit the local garden center. She has been there many times before this day but never with Ester in tow. Despite it being a day early on in December today a time has come, a first time for Ester to be brought along.

Tucked up snug and well in her stroller, Ester is still as content an infant as there ever has been. Always being near when mum does her thing at home has its benefits. The journey to the garden center is made swiftly and without delay and it is right to the back of the store and out into an outdoor area that mother and daughter head to.

The flowering plants on sale here in this center have become brighter and more vibrant ever since Estelle Fontaine first began coming here and a certain store worker has noticed this and had been noticing for the past few months and has been dismissing the idea that the alterations are due to a certain recurring visitor. He has never seen this lady with a child before, which is obvious as she has never before brought her child here, until this particular day of course. During the summer, the first month or two at least, Estelle had convinced Jim to partly aid in her green thumb shopping with further purchase coming on-line.

Towards the rear of the store right close by the opening to the outside area of the store there are a number of rows of potted household plants. As Estelle and Ester pass by these plants, they react in a way they never have done before, in fact they react in quite an unnatural way. The vines on these plants reach for the mother and daughter as if they are living entities with a longing to be with them, a longing to be near them.

How can any plant life long to be anywhere or to be with anyone? And how are they able to ... reach? Anyhow, this is the reaction, so much so that a number of these plants knock themselves over trying to reach for what or rather who has passed by.

The store worker, being nearby and having his back turned to the goings on while attending to the section of the store he is in, hears the rather large number of potted plants tipple over and immediately is drawn to investigate what has only just occurred.

'Hey' he calls out upon seeing what has been turned over and seeing no one other than a young girl about five or six years old who herself has seen what had happened. He is about to ask her what happened when she points out towards the back area as if to tell that the cause of the mess has gone out there.

Store worker nods as if he knows exactly what she is saying and begins to make his way out to that outdoor area looking to reprimand someone and that little girl with whom he kind of had a conversation with is taken by a lady who appears to be her mother, scolding her for going off by herself. This little girl would love to tell her mother about the effect another woman and child seemed to have on a number of plants, but she knows that mum would not believe her.

'I hope you are going to pay for that mess in there ...' he says to the first person he sees, not realizing who that person is until she turns around.

'Are you speaking to me, Chris?'

'Missus Fontaine, oh, forgive me please. If I had known that you are you then I would have known that you had nothing to do with it.'

'Nothing to do with what?'

'Oh, a couple plants or so were knocked over, probably by some kids messing. A child pointed this way, and I assumed the culprits might have come out here.'

There is no one else out here in this area other than the store worker himself, Estelle and her daughter, and an elderly couple. The elderly couple certainly did not knock anything over, accidentally or otherwise and if they had then they would not have been able to get to where they currently are so quickly.

'I do apologize' he continues.

'That's quite alright' says Estelle knowing for sure that she had not noticed any kind of mess on her way out here and if she had she probably would have attended to it especially with this newfound love for all kinds of plant-based life she has acquired over that past year or so.

The store manager, a horrid gentleman who loves to have himself heard, lets out a roar for that store attendant to get inside and clear that mess up, a directive is also thrown out that if anything like this occurs again it most certainly will be taken out of the attendants paycheck. It doesn't even matter to this manager as to what had occurred, he just wants what he says done and done ten minutes ago.

The mess is attended to and the attendant soon sees the oddest of things. Yeah, he had noticed that the plant life in this store, or rather the vibrancy of the plants and their colour could be attributed to Estelle Fontaine's continued visits no matter how unlikely this might seem but when she comes back inside pushing that stroller she is using, he observes the plant life react as they once again appear to reach out for her or possibly the infant or both.

Estelle doesn't see this for it only occurs once she has passed by. Feeling a sudden need to get himself some answers, the attendant decides in this moment that he will investigate a little but perhaps not just yet for the store manager has returned and he is still barking out orders and threats.