The Botanist

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“I don’t know if they’re ready to tap,” Keri said. She took his hand, and her touch drowned the tree song in Daniel’s head. “I’m way behind on my quota. Come help me, please?” She leaned toward him. “You always get through early. You’re never wrong.”

Daniel looked away, swallowing dry-mouthed as her breast brushed his arm. The mothwing touch of her flesh, coupled with the humming ripeness of the sap-trees, made him dizzy. Keri was sixteen to his just-fifteen, soft with new curves where last year she had been muscle-on-bone, like a yearling colt. In this same year, she had become almost a stranger, in a way that troubled his dreams at night. “Somebody’s using the old greenhouse,” he blurted out. “I was gonna go see.”

“Oh, it’s just some dope-grower starting plants.” Keri dismissed the mystery with a toss of her head. “Please help me, Daniel?”

He sighed, thinking about the thirty trees he had left to tap. Jensen, the super, would give him grief if he didn’t finish. He might fire Keri if she came up short on her quota again. “All right.” He retrieved his pack from where he had cached it against the swollen bole of a tree. The sample jars rattled as he dropped his bark knife into it and swung it over his shoulder.

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