Their first shoots have begun to bloom. I inspect the garden daily, checking its perimeter for parading ants, larvae, and freshly-laid nits. I’m aware the process will take months. I do what I can —I care. I want nothing to disturb them.

It seems like it was only yesterday that I watched my son and daughter roam the thicket by our house, searching for the seeds that would eventually take root and damn them. They were young, maybe too young, curious, and carefree like nymphs. Aster was nine and Rue six. Why did I believe they were ready, that they could begin to toy with life’s delicate balance?

I squat and draw symbols in the dirt: a pair of flowers, a five-pointed star, a winding spiral. What are some of the most fundamental factors when practicing any type of magic? I asked them.

Intention, Aster answered swiftly.

And mentalization, Rue followed in response.

I urged each of them to bring me something wounded and withering. I’ll wait by the garden. Don’t take too long, I said.

My son came first, bearing a stag beetle, crushed, armored shell cracked like tempered glass, legs still twitching. I wondered if Aster had encountered the creature in that state or simply —intentionally— stepped on it. What? Aster asked. I thought you wanted something that was dying.

I should have been more specific and explained that we don’t take a life for the sake of practice. Something shouldn’t be killed just because it can later be replaced. This: the continuation, my innocence, my eager desire to teach them, was my first mistake.

Rue came running out of the woods. Daddy, daddy, she said, peering down at her cupped hands, nursing a shattered bird’s egg. Rue was panting. I could tell by the size of my daughter’s eyes that she was genuinely concerned. I don’t know if this counts.

I looked at my children. Aster with his contentious sneer, wit, and unabating purple aura dense with ambition, pride —power. Then there was Rue, sunny and warm, unmistakably pure. I directed my gaze to their offerings. It suited them, their nature —I should have known better.

My son and daughter kneeled beside me. I had carved two holes in the dirt. The air around us thickened, and the ground vibrated as if releasing shallow breaths. Aster was nonchalant, Rue a bit stirred by the presence, the ripple of magic.

There’s nothing to worry about, I said. You’re nature’s children. This is just the earth’s way of greeting you two.

Resonance, Aster remarked.

I nodded. This is how we operate. It’s the base of our art, our history. It’s how we understand, channel, and tip the scales.

I instructed them to offer what needed to be cured to the earth, having my son and daughter place the tortured stag beetle and damaged bird’s egg into their respective holes. They covered the bodies. With every shift of soil, every stroke of their hands, I had them envision light, the ruptures in each creature being pieced together and mended seamlessly: the stag beetle creeping on a branch and the hatchling chirping.

*

Not all magic is as simple as planting a seed. Intention, desire, and visualization are meager fragments, but magic can sometimes require more. Much more. Spells can be demanding, rigorous in their requirements, and depraved in their rituals.

I cross my legs like a monk. The grass is prickly and tickles my ankles. The air around me smells of iron, bone dust, and chlorophyll.

Raising my hands over the plot, I picture a protective dome. Nature responds with its chorus: a breeze, a rustle of foliage, a wave of heat.

My mind is a canvas, welcoming like a garden. I imagine yellow flowers, tiny and cumbersome, peppered over the ground like snow. The light inside me shifts. I dabber my mental plain with sharp purple edges and blossoms opening their heads in the shape of stars.

I’m their root, the anchor chained to my son and daughter.

I’m the only one that can bring them back —harvest them— to life.

*

The garden and the woods quickly became their favorite places. My children became scavengers, ravenous in their pursuit of dying things. My daughter, Rue, was generous —filled with compassion. Angel-like, she retrieved graying robins, suffering field mice with botflies, dismembered lizards, and placed them all in the dirt. What should I do when my healing magic isn’t enough, Daddy? she asked once.

Aster, in contrast to his sister, gorged himself like a jackal. I knew he was setting traps around the premises: trip wires for wandering rabbits, tainted flesh for possums and raccoons. He became wild in his experimentations. He would wake up early and come out of the woods carrying the bodies of skinned creatures, birds with their wings twisted and snapped, a tailless fox with an open belly and deprived of entrails. Regardless though, no matter the harm he caused, my son was always able to fully heal his prey. Magic, to him, was a game. He played predator and sought after his comrades, the other players, the helpless creatures he cured and set free in the woods, again and again.

It took them over a year to learn the limit of their abilities, to understand that it would take a bit more than soil and magic to perform even stronger acts of salvation.

It’ll take blood, I said.

Blood. The word piqued Aster’s interest. What do you mean? he asked.

My son hadn’t just injured another creature, a young doe, but killed it. It was the snare, he explained. It caught her in the neck. She must have tugged until she choked.

Aster had enlisted Rue’s help in dragging the body to the garden. I just wanted to save her, she said.

I know. But what you two are thinking isn’t that simple.

This was my second mistake. I thought the idea: that to perform even more advanced magic, they would need to give something in return could stun my children’s growth. This is going to take some work, I said.

We peeled off a layer of grass and pulled away at the pesky weeds. We then enlarged the garden. The next day, Aster, Rue, and I, under the sun’s watchful glow, opened a pit deep enough to hold a deer.

I should tell you both that this sort of magic requires prudence. Strength. Don’t use it unless you have to.

We covered the body of the doe with shovelfuls of dirt. I had my children help the entire time —made them sweat; work. Is it always like this? Aster asked.

If you had killed something smaller, we wouldn’t need such a big hole, I fired.

I said it was the trip wire.

Well, it didn’t just grow there, now did it?

My son huffed. Whatever, he said. Next time, I’ll just —

Next time? I barked. This isn’t something to fool around with, Aster. You’re playing G—

I’m not playing, he returned. I’m practicing.

I knew that Aster was obsessed with using his magic. He was good at it. I also contemplated stopping him, imagining that he also took pleasure in the hunt —sliding a razor’s edge under furred skin, plunging his blade into muscle, and hearing the sound of broken bones.

Once the offering had been buried and the pit covered, we began.

What kind of magic is this, Daddy? Rue asked.

I asked my son for his pocket knife. I sliced my arm, from elbow to pulse, and washed the ground with blood.

Necromancy, I said.

Rue stood there startled, eyes like the moon. Aster, on the other hand, looked entranced, mesmerized by the scarlet runlets across my arm. He was unmistakably intrigued.

*

The garden, my children, needs me more than ever. The sprouts will only thrive —grow— with even more magic, more blood. With my son’s blade, I stab my own palm, twist, and pour my life onto the flowerbed. It hurts, but I have gone through much worse.

Hot flashes streak across my body, my vision blotches, then blurs. I’m doing this for you two. Nature responds; my blood seeps into the ground, and more flower shoots unfurl.

I heard my daughter’s scream in the woods. Running, heaving, I called her name as I bolted through the trees. Rue, where are you? Daddy’s here. I’m coming.

I felt lightheaded, dizzy. The trees taunted me with their sameness and their quiet.

Hand on the ground, I communed with the magic around me, tracing my daughter’s essence, her energy, like footprints. She’s in danger. She was dying.

I saw Aster first. Knees to the ground, he towered over his sister. Rue lay lifeless, arms and legs stretched out like a star.

What did you do? I shouted. What on earth did you do, Aster?

He tumbled to his feet. It’s not what you’re thinking, Dad, he said. Aster took a step forward. I wanted to. . . I just wanted to. . . It’s alright, it’s fine. We can just bring her back.

I could see the knife sticking out of my daughter’s chest, vines around her legs like shackles. You trapped her, I said, holding back a sob. You killed your —

The earth below us rattled.

It’s not like that. I knew we could —

No, I shouted, unwilling to let my son explain himself. I should have never —

I looked at Rue again, at her idle figure and painless expression.

Dad.

I focused on the blade. My will. My intent. I’m so sorry.

Blood spurted from my son’s mouth. He raised his hand and reached for the pocket knife embedded into the side of his neck.

*

I grip my wounded hand closed. Soon, I tell myself, to the flowers, to my children. The gash on my palm stops bleeding, the stinging sensation fades in seconds, and not a scar is left behind.

I hunch closer to the garden, close my eyes and feel for them, projecting my magic to the depths, to the roots of my children’s lives and souls.

I couldn’t bring them back, at least not with necromancy, not after everything they had seen and learned.

Healing something is relatively simple. To revive anything requires blood, magic, and practice. My biggest mistake was opening my children up to their gifts. If they had been resurrected, they’d remember. I prefer to carry the burden, the story of my son’s and daughter’s past lives, on my own.

This time though, they’ll never know.

I burned their bodies, leaving them, my children, in ashes and cinders. I collected their remains and took them to the garden where their flowers could grow. It takes time, a cycle of the seasons, for new life to form.

Rue’s ashes were buried first, months before I decided to forgive her brother, to give Aster another chance. She’ll be older, and that gives me some reassurance, hope. Maybe, my daughter will be less passive and have her brother look towards her for softness.

I reach them, their presence, the stems and strangled life, their cores. It’s faint, but I can make out their essence, their astral pulses like hymns, like heartbeats.

When I open my eyes, all I see is the garden. Now, they are nothing but seedlings, empty vessels, two separate species of flowers: Ruta graveolens, yellow, sunny, and delicate Rue, and Aster amellus, bright, killing, and depraved Aster.

I stand, then grab my son’s pocket knife from the ground. I stare at the blade’s edge longingly. This time around, I promise I’ll do better.

An echo, a swell of relief, courses from out of the forest.

Nature is thankful.