The return journey began in silence.
Elliot and Lyra moved cautiously through the narrow trails, their arms filled with the strange seeds and stalks they had found beyond the boundary. Despite the early hour, the air carried a weight—dense with memory and faint whispers, as if the plants around them were murmuring secrets just beneath hearing.
The bundle in Elliot's satchel trembled now and then, a rhythmic pulse like a heartbeat. One of the seeds was still active, responding to its proximity to living roots around them. Lyra noticed and slowed her steps.
"Don't let it touch bare soil," she warned. "These seeds adapt too quickly. They'll imprint and anchor, even through cloth."
Elliot adjusted the satchel, careful to keep it suspended from his shoulder. "Are they from the echo flora too?"
"Worse," she replied. "I think they're descendants. Hybridized forms. Echo flora usually don't last this long off their source."
They passed the place where they'd first noticed the unnatural compression of grass. It was gone now—replaced by a carpet of innocuous clovers. But the arrangement was too neat, too perfectly shaped to be natural. Each cluster circled an invisible center.
"Something's covering its tracks," Elliot muttered.
"No," Lyra corrected, her voice low. "Something's watching—and reshaping."
The final stretch of forest felt longer than before. Trees leaned differently, and the canopy had shifted. The light that filtered through was tinged faintly green, casting shadows that moved before their feet did.
By the time the outer rim of their garden came into view, Elliot's nerves had frayed thin. Lyra reached for his hand, grounding them both.
"We made it," she said, but even she didn't sound convinced.
Back inside the garden, they placed the seeds inside a containment ring woven of sleep-thistle and binding grass. These plants were attuned to dormancy and could suppress growth reactions. Lyra traced a circle around them in chalk mixed with powdered moonbud petals—an old technique to keep echo effects from spreading.
"What do you think they are?" Elliot asked as he stared at the silent bundle.
She hesitated. "I think they're memory remnants that learned to grow. Not just metaphors. Actual, physical echoes that absorb story and loss. Then root it."
Elliot sat back. "That's... terrifying."
Lyra nodded slowly. "If we planted these... they wouldn't just bloom. They would remember."