Born to a mother like our mother before, and hers before her, and so on, generations back and up the spiral twist of the vine, we took to earth and to root when the chill came into the air, the first nip of cold any of us had known after a civilization of summer. Root was safety, root was sleep; the tender flesh of the stock and the sweet sap all we needed to sleep the long winter through.

They knew we were coming, our mothers, planned for the hope of us, though never they’d see us; when we woke again, buoyed up to the sun by the rising tide of the sap, breaking black earth, spreading delicate wings, they were long dead, centuries dead. We have already lived far past our time, cradled in slumber, and wake already gravid, brim-full of portent. Time is short, and the fundatrix yet to be born — we will not live to see her or her impossible bride.

Uprooted once, borne out of our sphere, we found food and safety in alien climes, and spread; they chased us with toads and with poisons but we spread, leaf to root, fatter and more fecund than ever before, till they despaired of us and imported the old stock to keep us at bay. Still we thrive, ground to gall, mother to daughter; daughter to mother; living well is the best revenge.