The Seed Library – Part 1: Catalogue

The seed library occupied one cool, windowless floor of a university building in Lima, and it smelled of paper and earth.

Valeria arrived with a cardboard box held in both arms. She was thirty, a field botanist with a sunburned nose, mud on her boots and three days' sleep to catch up on. Inside the box, wrapped in tissue, were forty packets of potato and quinoa varieties, gathered from remote valleys before the farms disappeared.

"For deposit," she said.

The librarian looked up from her desk. She was thirty-three, calm and elegant, in a cream cardigan, with her hair pinned up and reading glasses on a chain. "Ximena," she said. "I'll take them."

She unwrapped each packet with great gentleness, writing numbers in a green ledger, her handwriting small and perfect. Valeria watched, hypnotised.

"These are old," said Ximena, softly.

"Some are three hundred years old. Grown by one family, in one valley."

"And now?"

"Now the family has moved to the city. The seeds are all that's left."

Ximena's hand paused over the page. "Then we will keep them," she said. "Properly."

When she finished, she looked up, and her gaze lingered on Valeria's face. "Have you eaten today?"

Valeria blinked. "Sorry?"

"You are very pale."

"I... no. Not since Cusco."

Ximena rose, took a covered dish from a drawer, and set it in front of her: rice, beans, a small sweet plantain. "I always bring too much. Please."

Valeria ate it at the desk, ravenously, while Ximena sealed the packets in glass jars. The lamp glowed gold over the ledger. Outside, the grey Lima evening deepened.

"Can I ask you something?" said Valeria.

"Yes."

"Why the seeds?"

"Because some things deserve to be kept," said Ximena.

"Green?" said Valeria, shyly.

"Green," said Ximena, smiling. "Very green."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Germination.