Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [968]

Cory had planted shade-loving flowers at the base of the tree, and they had thrived there. She and my father had scattered small, rounded boulders among these in a way that seemed no more than decorative. A few of these had been turned over, crushing the flowers near them. In fact, the rock with the money under it had been turned over. But the two or three inches of dirt over the money packet, triple wrapped and heat-sealed in plastic, was undisturbed. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 968

Note

A paragraph that stays in the register of description to deliver suspense. The repeated emphatic ‘In fact’ lands like a struck match, then the sentence’s own syntax protects the money the way triple wrapping does — a clause stacked on a clause (‘the two or three inches of dirt over the money packet, triple wrapped and heat-sealed in plastic’) before the plain verb at the end releases it. The buried thing survives because its hiding is indistinguishable from decor.