Under_The_Whispering_Door_by_TJ_Klune

Hugo chuckled. “A little older than that. This one was one of my first. It’s
ten years old next week.”
Wallace blinked. “Come again?”
“Growing tea isn’t for everyone,” Hugo said. “Most tea plants don’t
mature until around three or four years. You can harvest the leaves before
then, but something’s missing from the flavor and scent. You have to put in the
time and have patience. Too early, and you risk killing the plant and having to
start all over again.”
“Is this one of those times where we’re talking about one thing, but you
mean something else entirely?”
Hugo shrugged. “I’m talking about tea plants, Wallace. Something on your
mind?”
Wallace wasn’t sure he believed him. “I have many things on my mind.”
Hugo said, “In the fall, some of the plants flower, these little things with a
yellow center and white petals. The smell is indescribable. It mingles with
the scent of forest, and there’s nothing like it in all the world. It’s my favorite
time of year. What’s yours?”
“Why do you care?”
“It’s just a question, Wallace.”
Wallace stared at him.
Hugo let it go. “Sometimes, I talk to the plants. It sounds weird, I know,
but studies have been done showing plants respond to encouragement. It’s not
conclusive, and it’s not necessarily the wording as much as it is the
vibrations of the voice. I’m thinking of setting up speakers sometime soon, to
play music for the plants to hear. Have you ever talked to a plant?”
“No,” he said, distracted by the rows of green, the dark soil holding them
in place. They were planted with about four or five feet between them, the
leaves glossy in the starlight, and pungent, so much so that it caused Wallace
to wrinkle his nose. It wasn’t a bad smell (quite the contrary, in fact), just
overwhelming. “That’s stupid.”
Hugo smiled. “A little bit. But I do it anyway. What could it hurt, right?”
He looked back down at the plant before him. “You have to be careful when
you harvest the leaves. If you’re too rough, you can end up killing the plant. It
took me a long time to get it right. I can’t even begin to tell you how many
I’ve had to pull out and throw away because of my own haste.”
“Plants are living things,” Wallace said.