Miss Adelaide’s garden was alive with whispers. The vegetables spoke to her in hushed tones as she trudged between the rows, her arthritic fingers trailing along leaves that shimmered with an otherworldly gleam in the heavy Mississippi twilight.

“You ain’t been yourself lately, Miss Adelaide,” murmured a concerned butternut squash. Its voice was deep and warm like honey.

“Hush now,” she replied, though her trembling hand betrayed her unease. Ever since her grandson Timothy had returned from the war, changed and hollow-eyed, the vegetables had grown restless.

The tomatoes were especially agitated tonight, their vine-wrapped bodies swaying despite the still air. “He ain’t right in the head no more,” they chittered amongst themselves. “Somethin’ dark followed him home.”

Adelaide pressed her lips together. The vegetables had always been her closest confidants, ever since she was a little girl and first discovered their gift. But lately, their prophecies had taken on an ominous tone.

“Grandma?” Timothy’s voice cut through the garden’s murmurs. He stood at the gate, silhouetted against the dying sun. “Who you talking to out here?”

“Just tendin’ to my garden, sugar,” she called back, trying to keep her voice steady. The okra trembled beside her.

“You spend too much time with them plants.” His words carried an edge she’d never heard before. “Ain’t natural, the way you carry on.”

The corn rustled urgently. “He means to burn us, Miss Adelaide. We seen it in his dreams.”

She felt the blood drain from her face. “Timothy, come sit with me a spell. Tell me what’s troubling you.”

He walked closer, his boots crushing her beloved herbs. Each step made the vegetables shrink back in terror. “I seen things over there, Grandma. Things that showed me what’s real and what ain’t. And this?” He gestured at the garden. “This ain’t real.”

“Everything here is real as you and me,” she insisted, reaching for him. “The garden’s been in our family for generations. Your mama knew their voices too, before she passed.”

“Mama was crazy,” he spat. “And now you’re crazy too.” He pulled a gasoline can from behind his back.

The entire garden erupted in screams only Adelaide could hear. She threw herself in front of her precious vegetables. “Please, Timothy. They’re family!”

“Family don’t talk to rutabagas,” he said, dousing the first row. “I’m helping you, Grandma. Helping us both.”

As the flames began to rise, Adelaide sank to her knees among her beloved plants. Their dying whispers filled her head - not with fear or pain, but with love and forgiveness. For Timothy. For her.

The last voice she heard was the old butternut squash: “Some wounds can’t be healed with earth and water, Miss Adelaide. But you taught him love once. Maybe he’ll remember, when the smoke clears.”

She closed her eyes as the fire consumed everything she had ever truly understood about the world, leaving only ash and silence in its wake.