1. Lavinia
LAVINIA
The dead are always chattiest at dawn.
Not ghosts, exactly. More like echoes. Last thoughts that refuse to settle, unfinished apologies, little fragments of lives too stubborn to disappear all at once.
Most people wake to birdsong or the smell of fresh coffee.
I wake to the soft hum of the barely departed, lingering at the edges of my mind like a radio station that's never quite tuned in.
I've learned to live with it.
Belladonna Blooms opens at six every morning, and by six-thirty I've usually swept yesterday's leaves from the front walk, picked a twig or two from my hair, and mentally sorted through whatever emotional debris drifted in overnight. Some people get weather migraines. I get whispers.
This morning, the whispers are relentless.
Fog has rolled in thick from the bay, swallowing the harbor and softening the edges of every building along Main Street.
Rain hangs in the air, waiting for permission to fall, while the town slowly yawns itself awake.
Across the street, Clover is unlocking the doors to Hex & Honey, and the scent of fresh cinnamon rolls drifts across the sidewalk before the bakery is even open.
Somewhere farther down the block, a delivery truck backfires, a gull complains loudly overhead, and through it all one phrase repeats itself over and over again.
Poor Mrs. Fenwick.
I pause with a bundle of eucalyptus in my hands.
Mrs. Fenwick?
The echoes aren't conversations. They never have been. They're impressions, memories, emotions—fragments that drift together until I can usually piece together the story.
By eight o'clock, I have it.
Isadora Fenwick—retired first-grade teacher, enthusiastic but terrible baker, and owner of the moss-covered Victorian on Lantern Street—passed away quietly sometime before sunrise.
She had no children, no siblings, and only a distant cousin in Thistlebrook who remembered birthdays with postcards and little else.
The funeral is scheduled for noon.
I sigh softly and glance toward the order board.
Today's schedule suddenly feels much less important.
My first customer, a flustered bride with mascara already threatening to run, apologizes three separate times for requesting a bouquet at the last minute.
I smile, reassure her that peonies are remarkably forgiving flowers, and send her on her way with something soft, romantic, and far prettier than her budget probably deserved.
Weddings celebrate beginnings.
Funerals deserve no less care for the ending.
Once the bride leaves, I wash the rose stems from my hands and walk into the cooler.
The familiar scent of damp soil, greenery, and fresh blossoms wraps around me like an old quilt. This has always been my favorite place in the shop. Every flower waits patiently for someone to need it, whether for a birthday, an anniversary, or one final goodbye.
No one should be buried believing they were forgotten.
I pull a bucket of white spider mums onto the worktable, followed by blue hyacinths and fresh rosemary. Mrs. Fenwick always paused outside my shop in the spring to admire the hyacinths before continuing home. She never came inside unless she absolutely had to, but she always looked at them.
That seems reason enough.
My hands move without conscious thought, weaving stems into foam while my mind drifts through the echoes still humming around town.
She always had exact change.
Best cinnamon coffee cake . . . well, she tried.
She never missed a town meeting.
She smiled at my little boy every Tuesday.
Tiny pieces.
Tiny kindnesses.
It's funny what survives us.
I didn't know Mrs. Fenwick well, but I knew the rhythm of her life.
She walked with quick little steps because her sensible shoes were always half a size too small.
Every Thursday she bought a single loaf of honey wheat from the bakery before wandering through the square with her hands clasped behind her back.
Whenever we passed one another, we'd exchange quiet smiles without feeling the need to fill the silence.
I appreciated that.
Silence is a rare gift when you spend your life hearing everyone else's thoughts.
By the time the arrangement is finished, rain lashes against the shop windows with enough force to rattle the old panes.
So much for waiting.
I tuck the spray carefully into the back of my little delivery van, flip the sign to Out for Delivery, and make my way toward St. Aloysius Church.
The cemetery overlooks the cliffs at the edge of Blackthorn Bay, where the weather always seems just a little more dramatic than the rest of town.
Gray waves crash against the rocks below while mist curls lazily between weathered gravestones, giving the whole place an air of quiet reverence rather than gloom.
Father Boldin is already outside wrestling with an umbrella that has clearly surrendered to the wind.
Only a handful of mourners have arrived.
Mrs. Garcia from the bakery.
Two elderly neighbors wearing matching argyle scarves.
The church organist.
No family.
My heart aches a little.
I carry the arrangement beneath the church awning and stop beside the modest casket.
Someone has placed a single wilted carnation on top.
I gently lift it aside, settle my arrangement into place, then return the carnation to the center of the flowers.
"There," I whisper. "That's better."
The spider mums glow softly against the polished wood, their white petals almost luminous beneath the gray afternoon light.
Father Boldin begins the service with all the enthusiasm of a man reading assembly instructions.
I bow my head politely, though concentrating becomes increasingly difficult.
Thoughts drift around me in quiet waves.
Mrs. Garcia is wondering if Clover has enough cinnamon rolls left for the lunch crowd.
One of the neighbors is trying to remember whether she locked the back door.
Someone else regrets never inviting Mrs. Fenwick to Thanksgiving dinner.
I try to let the thoughts pass without holding onto them.
Most days, I manage reasonably well.
Today . . .
Not so much.
Then, without warning, the constant hum simply . . .
Stops.
Not fades.
Stops.
A strange emptiness settles at the edge of my awareness, so abrupt it makes my breath catch.
I slowly lift my head.
Beyond the cemetery fence, standing beneath the broad branches of an old oak, is a man dressed entirely in black.
Not funeral black.
Elegant black.
A perfectly tailored suit beneath a long raincoat, every button neatly fastened despite the summer storm.
A black shirt disappears beneath a slim black tie, while polished shoes rest motionless on the rain-soaked grass.
Water beads across the shoulders of his coat before sliding harmlessly away, yet somehow he never appears wet.
He isn't holding an umbrella.
He doesn't seem to notice the rain at all.
He simply stands there with his hands folded loosely before him, watching the service.
The funeral ends with the feeblest rendition of "Blessed Assurance" I have ever heard.
One by one, the mourners drift back toward their cars until only the two groundskeepers and I remain.
They look as though they'd rather be anywhere else, but I've never liked leaving before the casket is lowered.
It feels wrong somehow, as though the flowers deserve to stay with someone until the very last goodbye.
While the others gather their things, I snip a single blue hyacinth from the standing spray and lay it gently atop the casket.
"For your journey," I murmur.
One of the groundskeepers offers me a grateful nod before setting the winch into motion. The soft metallic whine echoes through the rain-soaked cemetery, strangely comforting in its honesty. Life spends so much time pretending endings don't exist. Cemeteries, at least, never lie.
I turn toward the path, and my steps falter.
He's still here.
He stands beneath the sprawling branches of a copper beech, perhaps twenty feet away, watching the cemetery with the same quiet focus he'd worn throughout the service.
Up close, he looks less like an apparition and more like a man who belongs at every funeral without anyone ever questioning why.
His black suit is impeccably tailored, his black shirt and tie perfectly neat beneath a long raincoat that should have been soaked through by now.
Instead, the rain beads across the fabric before slipping harmlessly away, leaving him looking as composed as if he'd stepped out of a town car instead of standing in the middle of a storm.
His gaze shifts to meet mine.
I should look away.
Instead, I stare.
The unsettling part isn't that he's watching me. It's that I still can't hear him.
Every living person carries a constant stream of thoughts. Some are loud, some are quiet, but they're always there. This man is different. I reach for his mind almost instinctively, expecting at least the faintest whisper of curiosity or boredom.
Nothing answers me.
Not silence.
Absence.
It's like pressing my ear against a wall and discovering there was never a room behind it.
I realize I've been staring far too long when one corner of his mouth lifts ever so slightly. It isn't quite a smile, nor is it mocking. If anything, he looks faintly curious, as though I've become the unexpected part of his afternoon.
I square my shoulders and call across the rain.
"Well? Have you come to admire the flowers, or do you attend every funeral in town?"
He studies me for a long moment before answering.
"I attend the important ones."
His voice is deep and unhurried, carrying easily through the rain despite never rising above conversation. There isn't an ounce of defensiveness in it, nor the awkwardness of someone caught where they shouldn't be. He sounds perfectly sincere.
I fold my arms. "And what made this one important?"
His eyes drift briefly toward Mrs. Fenwick's grave.
"She shouldn't have been alone."
The simple statement steals the retort from my tongue.
"I agree," I admit quietly.
For the first time, something softens in his expression. It's almost imperceptible, gone so quickly I wonder if I imagined it, but it leaves behind the unmistakable impression that we'd somehow reached the same conclusion from opposite directions.
"You knew her?" I ask.
"I met her today."
The answer is odd enough to make me blink.
"That's . . . an unusual way to put it."
"It seemed accurate."
I study him more carefully.
He isn't pale or ghostly as I'd first assumed from a distance.
If anything, he looks absurdly alive. His eyes are a striking silver-blue, clear and steady beneath rain-darkened hair, and there isn't a trace of exhaustion in his face despite standing in the storm as though he'd been there for hours.
He feels strangely out of place, an outsider among both the living and the dead.
"My name is Lavinia," I say at last. "Since you seem determined to attend funerals, it's only polite that we introduce ourselves."
"I know."
The answer catches me off guard.
"You know?"
He gives the slightest inclination of his head.
"Lavinia Graves."
A chill works its way down my spine.
"I don't remember telling you my name."
"You didn't."
I wait for an explanation, but none comes.
Instead, he looks past me toward the fresh mound of earth where Mrs. Fenwick now rests beneath a blanket of rain.
"You honored her well."
His words are so unexpected that they leave me momentarily speechless.
"I only brought flowers."
"You brought remembrance."
The compliment settles somewhere deep inside my chest.
Before I can think of a response, Father Boldin calls my name from the church steps.
"Lavinia! Thank you again for the arrangement."
I glance over my shoulder and lift a hand in acknowledgment.
When I turn back, the stranger is already walking away through the rain.
He doesn't hurry, doesn't look back, and somehow disappears into the drifting fog long before he should have reached the tree line.
I stand there for another minute, watching the empty path and listening for thoughts that never come.
For the first time in my life, I'd met someone whose mind I couldn't hear.
I wasn't sure whether I found that comforting . . . or terrifying.