Chapter 9 The First Week of Work #2
Flora had not planned a grand opening. She had simply unlocked the front door one morning and left it open, and by midday three customers had wandered in.
An elderly man bought a small arrangement of dried lavender for his wife.
He held it like it was the most precious thing he had ever carried.
A young mother bought a single stem of baby's breath for her daughter, who held it like a treasure, her small fingers wrapped around the stem with the careful grip of someone who understood that beautiful things needed protection.
A woman Flora did not recognize bought a pot of the mystery seed Marigold had brought, saying she liked the look of the soil and wanted to see what would grow.
A fourth customer came near closing time, a young man who wanted flowers for his girlfriend.
He stood at the counter, nervous in the way of someone who was not sure what flowers meant.
Flora asked him what he wanted to say. He blinked.
"I do not know. That I like her?" Flora selected a small bunch of yellow roses and tucked them into brown paper.
Yellow roses were easier than trying to explain the whole correspondence system to someone who had not asked for it.
"These mean friendship," Flora said. "That is a good place to start."
None of the arrangements were magical. Flora was careful not to let her intention slip, not to focus too hard, not to cross the line between arranging flowers and casting spells.
The yellow roses she had arranged for the woman with gray streaked hair had been the last arrangement she had made without thinking about the magic. She was not ready to make another.
But the shop was open. People came. They bought flowers. They left. And some of them, Flora noticed, walked more slowly when they left, as if the air outside smelled different than it had before.
And every evening, Hazel came.
She arrived at sunset, a basket over her arm, her boots dusty from the greenhouse. She did not knock. She sat on the back step, the worn wooden step that led into the greenhouse, and she waited.
The first evening, Flora was uncertain. She sat down beside Hazel, keeping a careful distance, not sure what she was supposed to do.
Hazel handed her a bowl of root stew and a spoon, and they ate in silence, watching the sky turn from orange to purple to dark.
The stew was warm, rich with herbs Flora could not name, and by the time she finished, the tension in her shoulders had eased.
The second evening, Flora found herself looking forward to it.
She finished her work earlier than necessary, tidied the shop, sat on the step before Hazel arrived.
She told herself it was because she was hungry.
When Hazel rounded the corner, her face lit with a quiet smile, and Flora knew she was lying.
The third evening, they talked. About the greenhouse, about the correspondence system, about the way the moonpetal seeds had not sprouted yet and whether that meant anything.
Hazel asked questions that did not feel like interrogation.
She listened. She remembered what Flora told her.
When Flora mentioned she had never learned to make proper bread, Hazel laughed, a warm sound that settled into the evening air and stayed.
"Then I will teach you," Hazel said. "Bread is like magic. You have to let it rise on its own time."
The fourth evening, they did not talk. They sat in comfortable silence, Hazel's shoulder warm against Flora's, the stars emerging one by one above the forest. A cold wind stirred the leaves, and Hazel shifted closer, and Flora did not move away.
She noticed that she was not calculating how long it would take to leave.
She was not thinking about the ferry. She was not planning her escape.
She was thinking about what she would make for dinner tomorrow.
On the sixth evening, as they sat on the back step, a jar of honey tea between them, Bloom curled at Flora's feet, Hazel said: "I look forward to this. All day. I find myself hurrying through my work so I can get here."
Flora did not know what to say. The words sat in her chest, warm and terrifying.
"I do too," she said. The words came out before she could stop them.
Hazel's smile was quiet, private, like something she was keeping just for herself. "Good."
That night, Flora lay in the cot above the shop, Bloom warm at her feet, the scent of the day's flowers clinging to her clothes.
She did not think about leaving. She thought about the lavender that had glowed under her hands.
She thought about Clover's careful fingers and Marigold's mystery seed and Thorne's dark honey.
She thought about the way the shop had felt when a child had walked in and gasped at the flowers.
She thought about Hazel's shoulder against hers, warm and steady and there.
She did not know what she was building here. She did not know if it would last. But for the first time in nine years, she was not planning for the moment she would leave.
She was planning for tomorrow.
The moonpetal seeds had not sprouted. The mystery seed had not sprouted either. But the soil was warm, and the shop was open, and there was a woman sitting on the back step waiting for her, and Flora found that she did not want to keep her waiting.
She got up. She made tea. She opened the door.
And she was still there.