It was a strange little house, the one the herbalist lived in. People in the village would avoid it unless they were sick, in which case they had no other option. There weren’t any other doctors around for miles, and the herbalist’s tonics always worked. But still, there was no denying that the place made the villagers… uncomfortable.
The feeling of unease that it created was similar to that of a haunted or abandoned house, although it was neither. Rather, it had a palpable overabundance of life. As if the plants that grew in pots, up walls, and on windowsills were watching you.
The herbalist herself had nothing to do with it. She was a kind, relatively normal person, despite living in what was essentially an indoor garden. She knew all the herbal remedies forwards and backwards, but she also knew people — if someone went to her with chest pain, for instance, she could tell if they had asthma or were actually suffering from a broken heart. If she hadn’t lived in such a place, she probably would’ve been accepted by the community a long time ago.
But the herbalist didn’t mind, and the villagers had nowhere else to take their aches and pains, so the too-alive house remained as it was.
Maybe it made people uncomfortable because they realized that the plants lived with more reckless abandon than they ever could, spreading as far and growing as tall as possible. Maybe it was that they were so unapologetic about being alive, greedily drinking the rain and turning their faces unabashedly to the sun.
Or maybe it was the knowledge in the back of their minds which said that long after the herbalist passed away and the village ceased to exist, the plants would continue to grow, covering over the house and creeping over the rest of their homes before blending into the forest. Leaving no trace of what had existed before.
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