Illegal House Plants
Luz finished putting the bandage over the stitches in one of her latest customers, a trio that the mob boss sent on a job nearby her. It went south fast, resulting in one of them getting shot beneath their left floating rib and them not being able of steeling whatever they were sent to get.
“Ok, here’s some medication. Take two a day to help with the infection. Try not to do anything to strain yourself or break the stitches.”
The man she was treating grabbed the bottle she handed and reached to grab his shirt. “Thanks Otter. And sorry for doubting your abilities.”
“It’s fine. I’m a teenager who admitted to never patching up bullet wounds before beyond classes from a unnamed school. It would be suspicious if you did trust me. If you want to repay me, you could tell me what you were trying to steel.”
The man looked to his two companions for a few moments before turning back to her. “Promise not to laugh?”
Luz shot him a look. “The only reason I would laugh when bullets are involved would be if one of your friends shot you in the butt.”
He relaxed a little at that. “Ok.” He then took a deep breath before continuing. “WeWereTryingToRobTheBotanicalGardens.”
Luz just stared at him for a few seconds. “Did you say the Botanical Garden?”
He just nodded.
“Did they get permission to have an exhibit of plants used to make drugs?”
He shoot his head. “They have a Philodendron Spiritus Sancti, or PSS. A very valuable and desired leafy plant.”
“They shot you over a plant?”
“It’s not as ridiculous as you might think. Thanks to the mix of an increased number of people living in small apartments with no yards and quarantine forcing everyone to spend long periods inside caused the demand for house plants to skyrocket. The fancy ones can fetch big money with the right buyer.”
That last line peaked Luz’s interest. “How much are we talking?”
Later in the shack
Luz sat in a yard chair next to the shacks garden while Willow was working. She was staring in shock at the screen after watching several videos and articles on the illegal house plant trade.
“I can’t believe it.”
Willow looked up from her garden and over to Luz. “Can’t believe what Luz?”
.
She looked up from her laptop. “The Dudleya succulent can go for $50 each overseas. Saguro Cactus is $100 for each foot tall it is. The Philodendron Spiritus Sancti can go for $15,000. That’s just the ones I found the prices for in the articles. Orcids and Venus Fly Traps apparently have high prices as well.”
Willow just looked on in shock. “There is a black market for normal house plants?”
“Yes! It’s the endangered ones that fetch the really high prices, and the trade is even driving certain species to extension in the wild because smugglers keep hunting them down and digging them up to sell.”
“That’s horrible!”
“There is a plus side. One of the articles mentioned that a method to fighting this is to flood the market with science made clones of the rare ones to drive down the demand. If we could get you the seeds, you could grow lots of the really expensive and rare ones so we could flood the market and drive down the prices and demand in the area. It won’t stop all the poaching, but they would have fewer customers to sell to around here.”
Willow grinned. “Make money and help protect plants? I am so in. Where do we get the seeds or starter plants for me to work with?”
Luz turned her laptop around to show her the website that was already up. “My clients today said they have a number of the most effected plants at the botanical gardens. Want to go solo or bring a date?”
Willow turned a little red at that. “Me and Hunter aren’t dating.”
Luz began to grin like the Cheshire Cat. “I never said Hunter.”
Willow just shot her a look. “Do you really want to do this with me?”
She held her hands up in a surrender position. “All right, but do you still want to bring Hunter so that you have back up?”
Willow didn’t answer for a few seconds before sighing. “I’ll see if he is available.”
Botanical Gardens (Inspired by this)
“I’ll pick you two up in a hour. Have fun!”
“Thanks Camilla, we will!”
Camilla drove her minivan (with new adjustments by Amity) away from the lot, leaving Willow and Hunter in front of the building. Hunter was busy looking at the map he got online.
“Ok, there are three green houses and an outdoor path. The green houses are separated into desert plants, tropical plants, and native plants. The outdoor path has more native plants and trees too big to fit in the green houses. Where do you want to go first Willow?”
Willow turned to look at the map and crossed checked it against a list she was able of getting from Luz’s latest patients. “Let’s see. I would suggest going to the tropical area first to see the PSS and carnivorous plants. After that we can just wander around it for a while before heading over to the desert to check out the succulents and cacti. We can then swing to the native plants and the outdoor plants at our leisure.”
He smiled at her. “Sounds great, lead on.”
The two walked into the tropical greenhouse side by side, but no hand in hand yet. They immediately walked with the crowed to the PSS hanging from the ceiling. They were all looking at its beautiful leaves, though Hunter privately wondered what was so special about a fern like plant with massive leaves. It didn’t even have any flowers!
Willow herself was admiring how glossy the leaves were as she did a small spell circle with her hand in her pocket to make another small branch grow off the main body directly upwards so no one could see it. the branch then clipped itself and dropped down behind Willow’s back into her palm, where she then had it slither up her arm and fashion itself like a bracelet on her upper bicep under her long sleeve shirt.
She continued to admire it for a while before moving on to look at the dozens of other beautiful plants all around the green house. She stopped to smell the orchids, watched the feeding of the carnivorous plants, and even saw a vanilla plant next to a coca tree.
She made sure to grab small trimming from all the ones on her list with her magic and hid them under her clothes.
After about 15 minutes wandering around, they moved on to the desert green house. Inside they saw a large bed filled with dozens of different kinds of succulents. The sheer variety of colors and shapes was astonishing.
“Ok, I think I can understand why there is a craze around these guys.”
Willow smiled at Hunter. “Looks like we will make a plant lover out of you yet.”
He just rolled his eyes. “I already love trees and flowers, it’s the things like ferns and PSS that I can’t understand the fascination behind.”
Willow just gave him a smile before turning her attention back to the succulent collection. She cooed over how cute they were to cover up her magical clipping of each one into Hunter’s backpack.
They then wandered around looking at the 5 ft tall Saguro Cactus, listening to all the things that came from the blue agave, and cooed again at the tiny cacti. All the while continuing to gather small clippings.
After 15 more minutes they wandered into the third and final green house for native plants. These were less exciting looking as the other, not just because they have seen these around more but also because they were much cheaper. They did see several pretty flowers though. This green house was mainly just used as what they told Camilla they would be doing, hanging out together while looking at plants.
After 15 minutes of looking around the green house they finished their tour by taking a walk side by side down the path between the trees and flowers. Not taking any samples, but just enjoying each other’s company.
And if their hands wandered into each other’s grasp once or twice, no one else would know.
1 week later
Luz knocked on the door to the shack’s basement, right on the sigh Willow had put up that read “Willow’s green house, KEEP OUT!”
“Willow, are you down there?”
There was no response, with her looking back at Hunter in worry.
“She has been down there since breakfast. Should one of us go down there?”
Hunter just shook his head. “You heard what she said, and you can read. Willow doesn’t want anyone down there unless she invites us. Do YOU want to get on her bad side? I’ve seen what she did to that Odalia look-a-like, and I would rather trust that she knows what she is doing then risk being used as fertilizer for her plants.”
“She is not THAT scarry.”
…
“Ok she can be, but she is a nice and loving person that won’t hunt people without a good reason.”
“Like trespassing?”
Luz openly groaned at that. “Fine. If you are too scared, I’ll do it myself.”
She then turned to the door and opened it, revealing a lite stairway leading downwards.
‘Gulp.’
Luz steeled her nerves and walked slowly down the stairs. When she reached the bottom, she saw that the room had been completely converted into a horticulturalist’s dream come true. There were magical lights fixed to the ceiling, large tables covered with plants of all kinds, and glass walls set up to separate them based on their preferred temperature.
“Willow? Sorry for coming down here but disappeared after breakfast and it is now 1pm. I just wanted to make sure you had lunch.”
She walked between the rows of orchids towards the back, where she though she heard someone making noise.
“Willow?”
As she rounded the corner, she saw Willow sitting at a computer Lux had never seen before wearing a headset and talking to someone.
“Ok then. Half now and Half after I deliver the PSS to you. Would you prefer it being on your door step at 9 ish, midnight, or 7 am ish?”
“Willow?”
“Midnight it is then. Pleasure doing business with you. Plant Coven out.”
Willow then took off her headset before stretching in her office chair, which Luz also never remembered seeing before.
“Will-“
Luz suddenly found herself pinned to the wall by multiple creepers growing on them and a fist pulled back and ready to strike.
Willow relaxed after realizing who was there.
“Oh, sorry about that Luz. I guess I was more into this than I thought I was.” She then looked down to her watch. “I guess I missed lunch?”
Luz could only nod her head before the vines let her go and she dropped to the floor like a sack of flour.
“It’s ok, I have done the same thing multiple times before. What were you doing?”
Willow smiled and pointed to a dozen potted plants hanging over her head. “I was just selling these Philodendron Spiritus Sancti online. Thanks to some help from the mob boss, I was able of getting into contact with the people those patients of yours were trying to sell to. They paid $12 grand for one of these, I just locked in another buyer for $16K, and I have buyers for the other 11 stuck in a bidding war that has an average price of $14k each. The hardest part is going to be shipping to areas far enough away we can’t use our staffs, but the boss said he would help with that for a fee.”
She then swept her hand through the green house. “I also have a similar story for dozens of these guys here as well. They aren’t nearly as expensive as the PSS, but at this rate I will be making more selling these plants then we were making selling drugs.”
Luz could only look on in shock. “As impressed and happy that you were able of making enough money off your passion to pay for it, I do have three important questions.”
“Where did the computer set up come from, how are we going to launder all of it, and are you hungry?”
GROWL!
Willows stomach decided to answer the 3rd one for her.
“I am going up to eat something now, and Vee’s camp friends helped out with the computer set up. I paid for it with the profits from the first PSS.”
Her face began to drop after that, but there was still a small smile. “The money is defiantly too much to launder though, but I might actually have a lead on another front for us.”
She then reached over and picked up a small purple flower off her desk.
“This little guy here will be getting us a in with about a dozen fancy restraints that will gladly help us with our little problem.”
Luz could only look at the flower with skepticism.
“Is this a new drug plant you grew?”
Willow just giggled. “No, but you wouldn’t know it by the price.
“It’s Saffron, and I’ve been making a pound a day for the last three days.”