bait_backup | I found a little plot of land in the garden of Eden, it was dirt and dirt is all the same

*It's fashioned rather like a circus tent - rounded and bulbous, all curves and no angles with intricate iron-work spiralling between panes of glass. Inside, the greenhouse is a veritable jungle. Several trees reach the top of the enclosure easily like contorted pillars while vines, visibly and contentedly writhing, cover everything as neatly as a fresh layer of linen over a bed.

Earthy, messy and gnome-ridden, the Higgs manor greenhouse seems too untamed, too dirty, for a woman of Victoria's leanings. And yet, morning finds her in a thick, tarp-like dress, its material far more hardy and far less extravagant than her normal attire. The hems are dusted in soil and the position of her knees are highlighted with vague, grassy stains. Her tools of choice, a pair of prim gardening gloves and a bone china water jug, hopelessly dwarfed by the shrubbery.

Despite her meagre supplies, the mandrakes are already cooing in wriggly expectation, their malformed bodies plump and fully grown yet still distinctly infantile. The nearest mushes its gnarled face into the back of her legs happily, like a kitten wanting attention.*