treasured flowers in Eretsfel and let it slip away so carelessly strikes her as something akin to blasphemy.
“How could you give away something like that and not know what it was? I mean, why the decorative container if you had no idea that its contents were so precious?”
“Because it had a different sort of meaning between me and my friend,” Roderick says somewhat embarrassed. “I apologize if that’s not what you wanted to hear, but could you tell me more about this flower.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just, flowers are my life. I find the ones that are hard to locate and sell them for a decent haul. I’ve been searching for a peony for years without luck. Those who know of it say that it has mystical healing properties. How’d you come across one?”
“Stay here for the night, and I’ll show you in the morning. It’s dark out, anyway, and if you can’t tell by the big, empty house, I could really use the company.”
A weak laugh forces its way past Alba’s lips as she agrees, and the two of them spend many more hours talking. Alba is able to carefully conceal her growing fondness for Roderick and navigate the rest of the night without being so obvious, or so she supposes. Roderick stops being so forward with her, not wanting to scare off the girl who might be able to help him finally solve his mystery of the lightly-pink flowers.
When they eventually go to bed, neither is able to sleep. Even though she is exhausted from her swift travels, Alba cannot stop the rushing of her mind. She pretends that this is only because she is close to the peony that she has been so diligently seeking, but deep down, she knows that there is more to it than that.
People seldom have the effect on her that Roderick almost instantly did, and that is only when she has been around them for a long time, something she rarely allows to happen. Feeling suddenly so close to Roderick therefore terrifies her.
Roderick, meanwhile, spends all night worrying about the impression he hopes to make in the morning. He doesn’t want her to leave, but despite their long chat, there is nothing to indicate that she intends to stick around for very long. He feels that he will have only one chance to get her to come back.
In the morning, the two restless souls enjoy a hot breakfast of boiled eggs, bacon, toast, and freshly baked sweet pastries, all courtesy of Roderick’s growing talent in the kitchen. Although Alba delights at the taste of everything Roderick places in front of her, she still tries to be cold and stifle any further liveliness between them, but Roderick becomes keen to her act as he also starts to sense the connection that they share.
After the meal, he leads her out to the garden behind the estate. Within seconds, she locates the plant, running toward it and throwing herself down onto the ground by it. Roderick grins widely as he watches her glow in her excitement at finding something that she treasures so much.
“Was it worth the wait?” he asks.
Alba doesn’t answer. Her eyes and ears, along with every aspect of her being, are completely fixated on the many flowers coming from the plant. She brushes and strokes their petals between her fingers, leaning in to smell their sweet aroma.
Not wanting to intrude, Roderick just waits patiently as she enjoys her moment of euphoria. He looks around at the rest of the garden, noticing that much of it is dead or dying because of the approaching winter. All of this only makes the peony appear that much more majestic.
“It’s odd,” Alba abruptly says, “that buds are still growing and blooming. I wasn’t aware that the peony had fall flowers. Does it ever go dormant or hibernate?”
Roderick pauses, unsure of how he wants to answer the question. As he lay awake the previous night, he felt comfortable with the idea of opening up to Alba so that she could help him figure out why the magic of this flower has been following him, but now that she is warming up to him, he is fearful that telling her will ruin the connection they’re starting to have and make him seem crazy. He decides instead to be less forthright and to instead be forward about something else.
“As long as I’ve had it there.”
“Really?” she lights up, even more intrigue in her voice. “Did you plant it from a seed or did you bring the plant here?”
“From a seed,” Roderick answers, stepping in close so he can be next to her.
She doesn’t seem to mind the closeness, continuing with her barrage of questions. To each one, Roderick replies honestly, though incompletely. With each answer, Alba only becomes that much more animated.
Having let Roderick be right next to her with all of her enthusiasm, her guard is down again. She starts feeling once more what she felt the moment they met, but this time she doesn’t immediately reject the feeling. She doesn’t stop him when he steps in close and places his hands on her sides. She doesn’t swat away his hand when he slowly lifts it up and brushes her blonde bangs away from her face, resting his hand on her cheek. And she doesn’t pull away when he leans in and rubs his nose against hers.
She instead tilts her head and presses her lips against his. Hers are cold and dry from the crisp, wintry air, but when he kisses her back, they become warm and smooth like his. The two of them share each other’s breaths briefly, just long enough for both of their hearts to burn, until Alba feels a sharp pang of panic. Not from anything that Roderick does, but from a memory, one that has always brought fear to her heart and caused her to push people away.
Not wanting to upset Roderick, she gradually pulls back and releases him, staring emotionally and apologetically into his tender, dark-brown eyes.
“Please don’t let that happen again,” she says softly.
Those words don’t completely devastate Roderick, but they do hurt. It is one thing to feel rejected by someone because they do not feel what you do. It is another thing for someone to feel the same tenderness and push you away despite it. Roderick understands the difference because of what happened between his parents. His father never stopped loving his mother. He just loved something else even more.
“Okay,” he sighs, wanting to understand why but afraid to ask for fear of pushing her away and losing her.
Roderick then removes a small blade from his belt and uses it to cut a flower from the bush.
“Here,” he says, handing it to Alba. “I want you to come back. Each time you do, I’ll have another one for you.”
A smile returns to her worried face, realizing that maybe for once, she has found someone who is of the right sort. His understanding response makes her not want to lose him, either.
“Then you’re going to need to put up a fence or something. If one of the few people who know and care about these flowers learns that you have them, they won’t be safe out in the open.”
“I’ll be sure to do that,” Roderick reassures her.
He then slowly reaches out for her hand, nestling his fingers between hers and leading her back around to the front of the house. Holding his hand doesn’t bring the pang back, and so Alba happily goes along with it.
“So where are you off to now?” he asks.
“West, to the coast. There’s a doctor there who asked me to bring him a peony flower if I ever came across one. He wants to study it and see if he can figure out why legends say it can heal almost anything.”
“You’ll have to let me know what he finds.”
“Of course,” Alba replies. “I’ll be back this way in a few weeks.”
“I look forward to it,” Roderick smiles.
With that, Alba leaves down the road. Roderick watches her the whole way until she disappears from view. Each step further she gets seems like a mile to him, at least to his heart. It longs for her and fears that she will never return.
The weeks pass, and Roderick can only think of when Alba said she would return. He tries to combat the anticipation and anxiety by keeping himself occupied with his work. He spends even more time in town making and executing different business plans. When he has to journey away, he leaves a note at his door for Alba and asks the townspeople to keep an eye out for her. He also d
oes as she suggested and encloses the garden, creating a large fence around it and then another enclosure around the peony.
No matter how hard he works, however, Roderick is unable to escape his fears when he lies down to rest at night. For that reason, he doesn’t sleep until he becomes exhausted, using his nights to instead complete renovations around the house.
After a long wait, Alba does return, and she is as excited to see him as he is to see her. She tells him all about her journeys and adventures hunting flowers over more tea. As he listens, Roderick is surprised to find that he doesn’t miss the life of travel, though he wishes he could be on hers simply to be with her. She, on the other hand, enjoys seeing all of his renovations and hearing about what he is doing with his company.
Months come and go, and the two of them continue to meet after this fashion. Yet despite their obvious liking for one another, they hold back from their affections, Roderick because he made a promise, and Alba because of the ghosts of her past. Roderick never asks, which she appreciates, though she hopes to someday find the courage to open up to him.
Alba’s collection of lightly-pink flowers grows and grows, but she doesn’t ever give them away, even the first, the one she was going to take to the doctor. By the time she reached the coast, she simply couldn’t bring herself to part with it.
A regularity slowly develops for the visits. The two of