Under_The_Whispering_Door_by_TJ_Klune

The air was cooler still. Wallace shivered and wondered again why he
was shivering. He could make out Apollo’s tail down in the yard, but it took
time for his eyes to adjust. He gasped quietly as Hugo flipped a switch near
the door.
Strings of light that hung above them burst to life. They stood on a back
deck of sorts. There were more tables on it, the chairs turned over and set
atop them. The lights had been strung around the deck railing and the eaves
overhead. More plants were hanging down, bright flowers that had turned in
on themselves against the night.
“Here,” Hugo said. “Watch.” He went to the edge of the deck near a set of
stairs. He flipped another switch set against a wooden strut, and more lights
turned on below the deck, revealing dry, sandy soil and row after row of …
“Tea plants,” Hugo said before Wallace could ask. “I try to grow as much
of my own as I can, only importing leaves that wouldn’t survive the climate.
There’s nothing like a cup of tea from leaves that you’ve grown yourself.”
Wallace watched as Apollo trotted up and down the rows of plants,
stopping only briefly to sniff at the leaves. Wallace wondered if he could
actually smell anything. Wallace could, a deep and earthy scent, one which
grounded him more than he expected.
“I didn’t know they grew from the ground,” Wallace admitted.
“Where did you think they came from?” Hugo asked, sounding amused.
“I … never really thought about it, I guess. I don’t have time for such
things.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he realized how it sounded.
Normally, he wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but these were strange
days. “Not that it’s a bad thing, but…”
“Life gets away from you,” Hugo said simply.
“Yeah,” Wallace muttered. “Something like that.” Then, “Why tea?”
He followed Hugo down the stairs. The plants were tall, the biggest and
most mature rising to Wallace’s waist. In passing, almost at the back of his
mind, he noticed the cable stretched tight between himself and Hugo.
He stopped when Hugo crouched down, reaching out to touch the leaves
of one of the tallest plants. The leaves themselves were small and flat and
green. He touched one briefly, his fingers trailing along the tip. “Guess how
old this plant is.”
“I don’t know.” He looked around at the other plants. “Six months? A
year?”