“Remember that the plant wants to eat you,” the groundskeeper said. “It’s not going to let you get away. Don’t fight it. Let yourself be eaten.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m finding your advice to be less than one hundred percent helpful,” Wilson said to the groundskeeper. The plant was now beginning to drag him under.

“I’m sorry,” the groundskeeper said. “Usually the kharhn we feed to the kingsflower are already dead. I never get to see anything live fed to it. This is exciting for me.”

Wilson fought hard not to roll his eyes. “Glad you’re enjoying the show,” he said. “Will you hand me that rope now, please?”

“What?” the groundskeeper said, then remembered what he had in his hands. “Right. Sorry.” He handed one end of the rope to Wilson, who quickly tied it to himself in a mountain climber hold. Schmidt took the other end from the groundskeeper.

“Don’t lose your grip,” Wilson said. He was now up to his groin in plant. “I don’t want to be fully digested.”

“You’ll be fine,” Schmidt said, encouragingly.

“Next time it’s your turn,” Wilson said.

“I’ll pass,” Schmidt said.

More tentacles shot up, roping around Wilson’s shoulder and head. “Okay, I am officially not liking this anymore,” he said.

“Is it painful?” the groundskeeper asked. “I am asking for science.”

“Do you mind if we hold the questions until afterward?” Wilson asked. “I’m kind of busy at the moment.”

“Yes, sorry,” the groundskeeper said. “I’m just excited. Damn it!” The Icheloe started patting his garments. “I should be recording this.”

Wilson glanced over to Schmidt, looking as exasperated as he could under the circumstances. Schmidt shrugged. It had been a strange day.

“This is it,” Wilson said. Only his head was above the surface now. Between the tentacles constricting and dragging him down and the pulsing, peristaltic motion of the fleur du roi plant sucking him down into the ground, he was reasonably sure he was going to have post-traumatic flashbacks for months.

“Hold your breath!” the groundskeeper said.

“Why?” Wilson wanted to know.

“It couldn’t hurt!” the groundskeeper said. Wilson was going to make a sarcastic reply to this but then realized that, in fact, it couldn’t hurt. He took a deep breath.

The plant sucked him fully under.

“This is the best day ever,” said the groundskeeper to Schmidt.

*   *   *

Wilson had a minute or two of suffocating closeness from the plant as the thing pushed him into its digestive sac. Then there was a drop as he fell from the thing’s throat into its belly. The fall was broken by a spongy, wet mass at the bottom: the plant’s digestive floor.

“Are you in?” Schmidt said, to Wilson, via his BrainPal.

“Where else do you think I would be?” Wilson said, out loud. His BrainPal would forward the voice to Schmidt.