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Phenomenal: A Hesitant Adventurer's Search for Wonder in the Natural World

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Leigh Ann Henion

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“Enormous hydrangeas with vibrant pink sponge-like blooms, rhododendrons and impatiens, tall spears of flowering oyster plants jostled together with Jurassic-looking philodendron leaves and tree ferns, a mixed bag all tied by a wild creeper with bell-shaped blue flowers. The damp smell of the garden reminded Jess of places she'd visited in Cornwall, like St. Just in Roseland, where fertile ground spoke of layers of different generations, civilizations past. At last, beyond the tangled greenery, Jess glimpsed the jutting white chimneys of a large roof. She realized she was holding her breath. She turned a final corner, just like Daniel Miller had done on his way to meet Nora, and there it was. Grand and magnificent, yet even from a distance she could see that the house was in a state of disrepair. It was perched upon a stone plinth that rose about a meter off the ground. A clinging ficus with tiny leaves had grown to cover most of the stones and moss stained the rest, so that the house appeared to sit upon an ocean of greenery. Jess was reminded of the houses in fairy tales, hidden and then forgotten, ignored by the human world only to be reclaimed by nature. Protruding from one corner of the plinth was a lion's head, its mouth open to reveal a void from which a stream of spring water must once have flowed. On the ground beneath sat a stone bowl, half-filled with stale rainwater. As Jess watched, a blue-breasted fairy wren flew down to perch upon the edge of the bowl; after observing Jess for a moment, the little bird made a graceful dive across the surface of the water, skimming himself clean before disappearing once more into the folds of the garden.”

HouseGardenHalcyonFairy Wren
Book:Homecoming
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