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Mithraeum. Arthur was the Officiant for the day. Adriano was one of the most talkative members during the meeting. Master Danilo said no word; he watched Bruno carefully instead.

"I ask our brethren not to prolong the meeting unnecessarily", said the Officiant with a bored expression, "if one or two of you can void your requests to speak the works can be concluded faster."

Adriano got shy and voided his request. Anderson and Guilherme too. The Officiant then addressed me.

"Do you wish to ask a question?"

"Yes, I want to ask Bruno what his voice sounds like when he speaks", I joked, making him send me violent vibes through his eyes.

"You have to keep to the theme that is being discussed. Mithraeum todays has no room for chit-chat. Have you got anything to say about the theme?"

"Nothing to say, sir."

He went on talking to the other members of Taurinos' Ancient Society:

"Last night, as everyone knows I had an accident with my horse at a deserted spot next to the town limits. I want to record that weren't it for her, I'd be at that spot maybe until now waiting for someone to decided to pass it by one day."

"Aren't you a bit off-theme too, sir?", I teased the Officiant.

"Your permission to speak expired for the moment, Miss Grisam. Please wait until it is renewed", and he went on talking, "everyone knows that the Celestial Gardener hasn't allowed Miss Grisam to help brethren Andrés and Renan in anything, even that being giving them a glass of water. To this moment, she was acting the same towards the Celestial Gardener and all of the members of this Council. The only exception had been master Danilo."

The countryman signaled to me, probably asking me not to take provocation to heart or whatever.

"Yesterday she proved this Officiant that her will to retaliate against the Celestial Gardener is not so strong as she wants to make us believe."

I almost rose to my feet, infuriated. I saw the countryman signaling to me again, nervously from where he was sitting. I saw Bruno watch him carefully as he did it. I decided to wait and hear it to the end.

"She carried me on her back for some good kilometers. I admired her energy; like you, I'm not exactly light. Her tiredness made me even heavier, I'm sure. Not many people would do this for someone who claimed they can turn her house to rubble at a snap of their fingers. I'm sorry I spoiled your stroll, Miss Grisam."

He really seemed sad when he said it. Anderson looked at me, all the others stared at me bringing me the discomfort of being under the spotlight. The Officiant went on, in a brighter tone of voice:

"As you have helped me in a difficult moment the Celestial Gardener is going to help you too. He knows you want them back home more than anything else. We do too; we hate the idea of doing this to them, but they have to learn there are things that are not playthings and are not available to their whims whatever they are. Had they known that from the start we wouldn't have to be discussing this all here today."

He made a pause. Silence everywhere. No one requested voice.

"They would never be able to find what you left in there without your help. This is how the Celestial Gardener is going to help you. This is why I insisted so much that you should open my gift. Not only because it was a plant. Because my gift to you is the solution to all this mess. Because by looking at the plant very carefully you'll find the solution and bring the town back to its normal again."

I requested voice and the Officiant granted me the right to speak.

"You mean that the solution is in the plant?"

"I mean that the solution is in you. Watch the plant carefully, until you bang your head on the table so sleepy and you are sure to find it out. You're so intelligent, you'll find it out. Only an intelligent person would create so many wonders in just one town. Only you can free the kids from the Sanctuary now. We know what happened there and what you left there. But we're no janitors. Nothing against janitors, but this is just not our branch. Renan and Andrés created this mess and only they, that will now have your invaluable help, can fix this mish-mash."

The Officiant went on, saying that as soon as I found the solution myself, I could send anyone to the Sanctuary to tell the kids where and what to look for. The two would bring it out of the Sanctuary on their own.

Master Danilo and I were sitting for over two hours in front of the plant. He said it was a liana existing in a part of the way to the Sanctuary, said he knew where it was and had even told me about it before. That he could go there and even find out what happened but it would be rendered useless if it were not found out by me. If he said that to me, it would void the whole demand and might even incur worse things in town.

"Lord, "sá" Stella, the lads are already very angry at you; now we'll have to obey the Celestial Gardener blindly", said master Danilo almost in a whisper.

"But can't Renan and Andrés just step out of the Sanctuary?"

"And their debt with their community? No, they got their pride. You can say loads of shit about the kids but they sure got their pride. You know they do. Another thing is that no one would dare to guide them out of the Sanctuary. If they tried to leave by themselves evading a solution to the issue they would get trapped walking in circles forever."

And what of this strength in me? I know they did create the shit, but where is my own pride if I don't help them in a moment like this? I apologized and said I had been nervous with all of that and with the burden that had been laid on my back. Master Danilo used my phrasing to elaborate a little further.

"What happened on the road last night was an accident but at the same time was full of meaning. He made you carry him on your back to show you the burden of responsibility that was about to be put on your back. When you agreed to carry him, agreed to bear this responsibility on your back too."

"You mean he forged the accident?", I was astonished at his explanation.

"Yes and no", he disputed, "he intended to create a situation that forced you to help him, but he didn't expect his horse to knock him off. Now if you come to think of it, they should master all the animals, I dunno. But there's a lot of meaning on this night you spent carrying him. Arthur twisted his ankle as he fell from the horse, won't be walking his 100% for a while. If that was a test, it was very real and you did the only thing that could be done. I guess he himself must have realized that if you thought it was another test you might have left him left to his own devices on the road and no one would ever know where he was until his parents came knocking on your door after him and you finally understood it was real."

I cited the story of the boy who cried wolf and he said he knew it as the story of the boy who cried snake. There were many varieties of the same story, but the moral was just the same: false alarm creating a true tragedy sooner or later.

The plant fascinated me. I thought it was the kind of thing that would fascinate a craftsman too. It was like handcraft spontaneously grown in the middle of the forest. The countryman looked at the plant without much detail; his acquaintance with the plants of the region would explain his not being so eagerly interested: the plant didn't stand for anything per se. It stood for something that had happened at the spot it was. The plant fascinated me, but I needed to rescue those two kids from the green hell or they'd come back half-eaten by mosquitoes as Johan Dalgas Frisch coming from the bush.

"Do you remember anything different that happened when you were passing by those lianas?"

"I remember that Andrés was stung by a black ant, one of those painful ones."

"I know what kind, with a big head and all", he said, "but I don't know if it's important, at least it doesn't seem so. What more do you remember from your stop there?"

I told him all and he heard me with attention, but didn't grasp anything that could be of use. We came to the conclusion that the solution to the problem was in me thinking of a solution to the problem.