The Abby's Garden

THE ABBY’S GARDEN

Once upon a time, in a small village nestled in the lush green fields of the rolling French countryside, a kind and gentle maiden named Aliénor lived. Aliénor spent her days wandering through fields of wildflowers, singing lullabies to the wind, and laughing with the horses at the village stables, where she worked each morning and dusk.

What brought Aliénor the most joy was Louis, a quiet young man with calloused hands from working the fields and eyes that lit up when they met hers. They would meet beneath the elder tree in spring, where their laughter mingled with the songs of birds. Together, they dreamed of a home with ivy-covered walls, where children could run barefoot through the grass.

On one autumn evening, everything changed. A senseless act of violence outside the tavern, involving a stranger's knife, shattered their peaceful world, leaving Louis dead and the entire village shocked.

Grief overwhelmed Aliénor, and she fell to the ground at the edge of the village square, her sobs echoing through the cobblestone streets. Her tears soaked the earth where Louis's blood had spilled, as if the soil itself absorbed her sorrow and mourned alongside her.

In the following days, Aliénor no longer sang lullabies or laughed with the stable hands. She would sit by her window, the candle’s flame flickering against the glass, and whisper Louis's name into the darkness, hoping he might still hear her despite the vast distance that now separated them.

Each day, she wandered the meadows they had once roamed, holding tight the wool scarf Louis had left behind, the one that still held his scent. She moved slowly, her eyes searching the horizon, chasing a voice that was now gone. Sometimes, Aliénor would pause beneath the elder tree where they first met, and listen, but the only answer was the low murmur of the wind through the grass.

The villagers watched as Aliénor’s world darkened. They left bread and soup at her doorstep. One boy once brought her honey in a clay jar and fled before she could respond.

On a quiet morning at the well, the baker's daughter gently touched her hand and said, "He wouldn't want you to disappear."

Aliénor managed a thin, distant smile but said nothing in reply.

Every Sunday, rain or shine, she visited Louis's grave in the cemetery behind the ruins of the old abbey. The cemetery was a skeleton of crumbled stone, a fitting sanctuary reflecting her broken spirit. For hours, she traced his name, sharing stories of her week, her dreams, sometimes crying, sometimes silent.

On a cold autumn night, with the air crisp in the starlight, Aliénor noticed a sprout pushing through the soil beside the headstone. At first, she thought it was a weed, but its dark, plum-colored leaves gave her pause. Something about it felt deliberate.

She returned the next night and the night after. The sprout grew steadily, defying the chill. She cleared the frost from its leaves, poured water from her waterskin, and began whispering a story to it, how he once stained his fingers picking blackberries and how he could never sneak up on her with his laughter.

As spring turned to summer and summer to autumn again, Aliénor's visits became a ritual. By the end of the second summer, the plant had bloomed. A single black rose, its petals deep as midnight and soft as a breath, opened under the moonlight. Dew shimmered like stars along its edges. She stared at it, stunned. It felt impossible and sacred, a part of Louis, perhaps, now rooted in the soil.

She didn’t tell anyone. This was their secret, born in the cemetery's silence.

In time, she planted forget-me-nots nearby, not to overshadow the rose, but to keep it company. In life, she had come to understand that quiet things could still carry great meaning.

That year, she returned to the stables. The horses seemed to remember her, brushing their heads against her hands.

A young stable boy waved in greeting. "It's good to see you, Aliénor," said young Mathieu, now nearly grown. "It's better with you here." His voice cracked a little.

She nodded and gave him a tired but genuine smile.

In the village, people began to approach her again, not out of pity, but hope.

At the market, an old woman pressed a sprig of rosemary into Aliénor's hand and whispered, "For remembrance."

The baker's daughter, now a mother herself, invited her for tea.

Aliénor declined at first, but weeks later, she knocked at the door with a jar of honey. They spoke of bees, not ghosts. She left with bread and a little light in her chest.

Time passed. The abbey’s ivy-covered arches crumbled more each year. However, the black rose never wilted. It thrived. Aliénor, too, endured. Her grief, transforming into something more, a life.

Sometimes, she would sing again, though more softly now. Her voice, weathered by time, still caught the notes.

Then, on a quiet spring morning, she made her way back to the grave in the cemetery behind the old abbey. Her silver hair shone in the morning light, and her slow but steady steps carried her to the rose. She knelt beside it, resting her hand on the earth.

As she touched the soil, her fingers sinking into the cool earth beside the black rose, a hush fell over the crumbling grounds of the abbey. The air was still, except for the soft rustle of leaves and the gentle whisper of wind through the broken arches. The old cemetery stretched out around her, its headstones standing in neat, worn rows, like a quiet, ancient garden.

Aliénor looked up and saw the headstones not as markers of loss, but as stems of memory. Each stone was a root in time, each name etched in stone a bloom that had once been loved, grieved, and remembered. The abbey's garden had not withered with ruin; it had grown quietly, nourished by tears.

A sense of peace settled over her then, as if the weight she had carried for so many years had gently laid itself down beside her. She realized that love had not left with Louis. It had taken root here, in the soil beneath her palms and between the rows of stone.

With her eyes closed, she drifted into memories, every joyful laugh, each shared gaze, every moment woven into her very being. It wasn't emptiness that defined insteadurney; instead, it was the gentle warmth of enduring affection that shaped her.

In the days that followed, something remarkable happened. A second black rose grew beside the first. Smaller at first, it soon bloomed fully. Their petals leaned toward each other as if embracing in silence, their stems entwining like a gentle promise: We are together again.

The END.