3. Grim
GRIM
Iwait for a storm that never comes.
The sky threatens, and the wind carries the raw, cold scent of salt and rain, but the clouds only pace overhead, heavy and withholding.
I remain outside Belladonna Blooms for several moments longer than necessary, my hands tucked deep into the pockets of my coat as I watch the lights in the shop fade one by one.
In the front window, a bouquet of late-autumn dahlias nods gently toward the glass, offering a slow and solemn bow to the evening.
I should leave, but instead I stay until the last light downstairs disappears.
No one has ever asked me back simply for my company.
The invitation lodges beneath my ribs with a strange and uncomfortable brightness, following me through the evening with more persistence than it deserves.
I have devoted millennia to discipline, to routine, and to the quiet rituals that accompany every ending, yet I cannot seem to free myself from a single sentence spoken across a teacup.
Come back whenever you have time.
I wonder whether Lavinia understood the weight of those words. Perhaps her gift allowed her to see more than she admitted, or perhaps she had simply offered kindness without considering what it might mean to a man who had so rarely received it.
Eventually, I turn away from the shop, though I do not head home.
Instead, I walk the long block toward the corner, passing the milliner's with its headless displays, the bookmaker's shop with its midnight-blue shutters, and the thrift store that smells of mothballs and the forgotten contents of other people's lives.
There is a particular hush at dusk in Blackthorn Bay, a softness that settles over the old stone buildings and narrow streets once the shopkeepers begin drawing their curtains.
I wander without purpose, replaying every word spoken over too-sweet tea and quiet laughter, allowing the memory to pull me farther from the familiar shore of my own restraint.
I make three aimless loops around the bay before duty finally interrupts.
It begins as a pressure behind my eyes, a low and unmistakable pull that tightens with every passing second. The thread draws me through the city's slanted darkness, across abandoned trolley tracks, and into a maze of narrow streets that seem to tremble beneath the wind.
Kilian Vane's time has come.
The address has changed over the years, but the man within has not.
I remember him first as a screaming infant wrapped in a blue blanket, then as a blood-faced child bandaging his sister's scraped knee with more determination than skill.
I remember the sullen boy clutching a fistful of homework, the gangly young man pretending not to notice the girl who would eventually become his wife, and the proud father holding his firstborn as though someone had entrusted him with the moon.
I see every version of him as I approach his door, each memory folding quietly into the next.
Tonight, Kilian sits in a sturdy chair angled toward the window, watching the moonlight settle across a patch of birdseed and late roses.
The room is spare but deeply lived in, softened by small evidence of a long life.
A crocheted blanket rests over his knees, its edges worn smooth from years of use.
A battered chessboard sits on a nearby table with one queen permanently missing, and framed photographs line the mantel, documenting a family that grew, fractured, and found its way back more than once.
His breathing is shallow, but his gaze remains fixed on the garden.
I enter without sound and pause beside the yellow-papered wall.
He knows I am there before I speak.
"You're right on time," Kilian says. His voice is ragged from long use, but the humor beneath it remains intact. "I always thought I'd be the one late to my own funeral."
"I always try to be punctual."
He laughs, and the sound shudders through him, half memory and half release. "I suppose you want me to put my shoes on."
"Only if you'd like to."
He glances toward the front door before slowly shaking his head. "No. I don't imagine I'll be needing them."
A comfortable silence settles between us. The dying often feel compelled to fill the last moments of their lives with important words, though importance is rarely something that can be forced. Sometimes the quiet says everything that remains.
"She would have liked you," he says at last.
I follow his gaze to the photograph on the end table and know he means his wife.
"You take your coat off out of respect, and you keep your shoes by the door. That's more manners than most people manage these days."
"She sounded formidable."
He tilts his head, considering the description. "She liked to think so."
The fondness in his voice is unmistakable.
After a moment, he looks back toward the window. "I imagine the garden mostly looks after itself now."
I study the yard. The roses have wandered beyond their beds, and the lawn is slowly surrendering to dandelions. Borage sprawls wherever it pleases, bowing beneath the weight of the weather, but the bird feeders remain full, and a pair of field mice feast peacefully beneath them.
"She would approve," I tell him.
He nods as though I have confirmed something important, then reaches for the photograph on the table.
"I keep thinking she'll be waiting for me," he admits. "Then I wonder whether she's changed so much I won't recognize her."
His fingers tighten around the frame.
"Or whether she won't want to recognize me."
His voice is smaller now, stripped of humor and pride. At the end, fear is often the last thing a person has left to surrender.
I kneel beside him until we are nearly eye level.
"Love has an excellent memory."
He looks at me, waiting.
"I have watched it survive wars, oceans, lifetimes, and distances no living person could measure. It recognizes the smallest spark, even on the darkest nights."
His shoulders begin to loosen.
"She remembers you, Kilian."
His eyes shine. "Will it hurt?"
I pause for the briefest moment, not because I do not know the answer, but because I have answered the question more times than there are stars above Blackthorn Bay.
"No."
He breathes out slowly.
"But it may surprise you."
A smile pulls at his mouth. "I've always been easy to surprise."
For a little while longer, I allow Kilian to be nothing more than a man who is old, tired, and full of longing. His breaths grow slower, each one farther from the last, until the room becomes impossibly still.
When the world finally releases him, I take his hand.
"Shall we?"
He rises without effort, his body no longer bowed beneath pain or years, and together we step into the narrow corridor between the final heartbeat and whatever waits beyond it.
The world unfolds instead of disappearing.
The cold night melts away so gradually that I scarcely notice it leaving, replaced by warm sunlight and a meadow overflowing with wildflowers that seem to have chosen the place for themselves.
Nothing has been planted or arranged. They simply belong, as though the earth always knew they would bloom here.
The sky above us is familiar in a way no living sky has ever been, blue with the memory of every summer Kilian loved. Grass brushes his knees, and flowers sway in the warm air, their scent carrying traces of every spring he ever remembered with joy.
Kilian stands straighter.
The stoop leaves his shoulders, and the years fall from his face until the young man beneath them is visible once more. He stares down at his steady hands, searching for a word large enough to hold the wonder of being whole.
Then he sees her.
Margaret waits beneath the old oak in the pale-blue dress she wore on their first date. Her hair is swept stubbornly to one side, exactly as he remembers it, and her smile carries every happiness they shared through the long years of their marriage.
For one heartbeat, Kilian can only stare.
Then he laughs.
It is not the careful laugh of an old man protecting fragile ribs, but the fearless laugh of a sixteen-year-old boy who has just seen the rest of his life waiting beneath a tree.
She opens her arms.
He runs to her.
I remain where I am, watching as they embrace with no frailty between them, no knotted hands, no memories too painful to carry. There is only the perfect clarity of a promise kept.
I have witnessed reunions since the beginning of time, yet somehow they never become ordinary. Each one leaves something behind, however small, reminding me that love has survived every ending I have ever been asked to guide someone through.
Kilian and Margaret walk together into the meadow's low sun, and when they finally disappear from view, I allow myself one quiet smile.
Another promise kept.
The city calls me back eventually, though the familiar thread feels softer now, more like a rope than a chain. Rain has finally begun to fall, drifting through the streets in quiet sighs as I return to Blackthorn Bay.
I should take the direct route home.
Instead, I pass the bakery with its darkened windows, the old post office, and the ancient oak that has outlived three city planners and one poorly engineered levee. Without any conscious decision, I find myself turning the corner toward Belladonna Blooms.
A single light still burns in the apartment above the shop.
The window is propped open with a worn bird guide whose spine has surrendered after years of use.
Lavinia is curled in the seat beside it, her legs tucked beneath her and a thick quilt pulled nearly to her chin.
An open book rests forgotten across her lap, while her enormous orange tabby, Marigold, has somehow compressed herself into an impossibly small circle on the windowsill.
Lavinia must have intended to read.
Sleep simply arrived first.
I pause on the sidewalk, ignoring the splash of passing headlights and the distant, lonely cry of a train.
No one else is waiting for me tonight, and the city's clocks continue to run perfectly well without my supervision.
I am permitted these few moments of peace, and for once, I do not refuse them.
It is different with Lavinia. She recognizes me without demanding explanations and welcomes me without asking me to become someone else.
She brews her tea too strong, speaks to her flowers as though they are old friends, and always looks as though she is about to laugh, even when she is alone in the dark.
I know better than to tap the glass or disturb her. To Lavinia, I am only a friend, or perhaps a regular customer with an unusual interest in funerals and lilies. For now, that is enough.
I remain beneath the window until I am certain she is deeply asleep, listening to the rain and watching the light soften around her.
Tomorrow, she had said, if you have time.
For the first time in centuries, I intended to make time.