The Sundry Worlds of Fiona

Fiona is half acrobat, half poet, and all brown-eyed, white-petaled silk daisy! She grew up in the 1970s with her eleven silk siblings on the Neuvelle's citrus farm in South Louisiana. The silk daisy lived an idyllic existence in her youth, with her brothers and sisters and her young benefactress Annie Neuvelle, but when Annie’s parents divorce years later, Mrs. Neuvelle moves to town and takes the flowers with her, storing them in a box in the attic of her new home. For years the silk flowers lie dormant. Fiona herself moves around in fits and starts—until a baseball comes crashing through the attic window, providing an avenue and opportunity for her to escape. Unable to find a suitable home, the silk daisy settles for a space among tombs in a nearby cemetery and underneath Mrs. Neuvelle’s porch. Fiona adjusts to her new life, traveling around town alone and with friends, stowing away on vehicles of unsuspecting drivers. She becomes bolder and bolder and sometimes a bit careless about expressing herself through her acrobatics and her poetics, risking exposure to humans who know nothing of the animated lives of silk flowers. As the silk daisy explores and experiments in her flowery life, she struggles with whether or not to act on her attraction to Sonny, a silk sunflower she meets at school in a magnolia tree. Unable to turn to her sister Crimson, a silk poppy, and, by all accounts, most consummate lover, and who has mysteriously disappeared, Fiona keeps all eligible suitors at arm’s length. Along the way, she befriends many flowers, silk and planted, and discovers what it means to live in a world in which all silkies must hide.