Weeds

By Brook and Julia West

Contemporary fantasy short story by Julia and Brook West. Members of a college botany field trip start disappearing, and strange things are happening in the forest. Angela is the teacher's aide, responsible for the students' well-being. Angela and her husband must discover what's happening without becoming victims themselves.

Originally printed in Enchanted Forests, edited by Katharine Kerr and Martin H. Greenberg, DAW, December 1995.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Callihoo Publishing
• Release date: Sep 27, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466084155

Brook and Julia West

Brook and Julia West are a husband-and-wife team who write science fiction and fantasy, both in collaboration and individually. Brook has a degree in physical geography and loves to build worlds; Julia's degree is in anthropology and she is fascinated by the way people and their cultures work. Brook is fascinated with anything Japanese (he reads, writes, and speaks the language), and Julia spent her first three years of college studying botany and has studied medicinal (and other) uses of plants in many cultures.

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Weeds

Julia and Brook West

Published by Callihoo Publishing at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Julia and Brook West

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Cover design by Danica B. West

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Crisp mountain air, splash and gurgle of water dropping over a ten-foot waterfall, wind through the trembling leaves of an aspen forest; Angie Lindstrom wished she could capture the smells and feeling on videotape, as well as the silver-green flash of leaves. Odd that there were no bird calls or scolding chipmunks, though.

She turned off the minicam; she needed to help her botany students set up camp. Well, it was Dr. Stoker's class, but they were her students—she was the Teacher's Assistant.

A hand fell on her shoulder, and she turned, twisting out of Dr. Stoker's grip. I'm glad you're getting the camp going, Angie, he said. Where did you leave the cans of herbicide?

Angie was relieved to see her husband, Kelton, come up behind the professor. I put them over in that jumble of boulders, Kelton said. What do you need that stuff for, anyway?

Dr. Stoker turned to face Kelton. Call it a personal crusade. I feel that eradicating introduced weeds—like dyer's woad and thistle—is important. This valley may look like an unspoiled Eden, but odds are we'll find noxious weeds up here too, crowding out the native plants.

Angie made a face behind Dr. Stoker's back as