A Garden of Wilted Roses

In truth, I don’t know what she is.

The thought struck me as I stood at the window, watching the thick mist rise from the wet ground and wrap itself around the crumbling stones of the graveyard. A near-constant stream of cold air whistled around the old window frames, carrying with it the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves.

Her cottage, draped in ivy, sat next door as it always had. Although I will confess to a suspicion that one day I will wake up, and her house will no longer be there. As usual, her thick curtains were drawn shut. Her garden, which also backed onto the old graveyard, was well kept – except for the rose bushes, which were all wilted.

Her name is Elara. We met for the first time on the day I moved in. With our houses set apart from the rest of the village, I didn’t think it would be too long before I met my new neighbours, but she took the initiative quickly. One moment, I had been alone in my garden, piling boxes on the lawn to sort for unpacking. The next, she was there.

She seemed to be roughly the same age as me, though over time, I could guess she might be much younger or older. She was delicate and otherworldly, with a simple, accessible beauty. I felt drawn to her from the first moment we met.

“You like to read,” she said. A statement, not a question.

“I love to read.” I told her. I don’t remember much else of the conversation, just the first words we ever spoke to each other.

Over the next few weeks, we bumped into each other often. I say “bumped into”, but the truth is she had a habit of just appearing. Even now, she maintains the habit. She drifts in and out of my life, with no pattern. Each time she appears, it is as if she hasn’t been away. Sometimes she’ll pick up the last conversation we had, days later, as if she had somehow skipped the intervening time.

In time, she offered to show me around the area a little and we began to walk together. It didn’t take long for a routine to form, although the thread connecting us never felt anything more than fragile. We wandered along narrows paths that snaked and looped around the village, passing through fields and woodland, and we learned things about each other.

She had lived in her house since she was born, having inherited in from her parents at a young age. When she speaks of her parents, she is curiously detached. As if she is simply telling a story. A tale that happened to someone else, at that.

Though we walked together almost every day, I cannot say with any great certainty we ever took the same path twice. We begin, as we always do, at our houses, skirt the edge of the old graveyard and then… beyond. We often walk under gloomy skies, into chill winds, under ancient boughs where only crows can be heard, but never seen, among the treetops. We wander here and there, sometimes towards thick, swirling mists which we never quite reach, and she always knows a shortcut.

She would often stop abruptly and walk into a nondescript gap between two trees, perhaps climb over a slightly lower portion of wall, or duck beneath the arch where two hedges met, and sure enough there would be a path. Sometimes, it would simply be a thin track of trodden earth. Often, it would be mostly overgrown. Occasionally, the shortcuts had shortcuts.

Though she often takes the lead when the path grows narrow, she never seems nervous about my presence behind her. Even as I follow in her footsteps, admittedly enjoying the shape of her, how she moves, how her long hair falls over her shoulders, and how I can always tell when she’s smiling, I think it would be perfectly reasonable for a lone woman to show some kind of discomfort when in the company of a man she barely knows.

At times, she seems to walk closer to me, our arms almost touching. Conversation comes easily, her eyes sparkle with mischief, and I sense a fleeting warmth that leaves my heart racing. Other times, she retreats behind a veil of silence, or simply says things which feel scripted. Like she’s forgotten how to be Elara.

Each day brought new confusion. There were moments when I caught her studying me, her expression a mix of curiosity and warmth. And yet, just as suddenly, she would pull away, leaving me to wonder if I had crossed some invisible boundary.

And each day, she drew the heavy curtains of her cottage long before sunset, leaving them closed until long after sunrise the next day. Sometimes, she wouldn’t emerge from her house at all. Days would pass before I saw her again, and then she’d drift into my world again as if she had never left.

There was something about her, something that whispered to me that she was guarding a secret. She rarely spoke of her life in any great detail, often brushing off questions with vague answers or generalisations that left me craving more.

Once, we sat and rested on a bench, looking out over a gloomy valley I don’t think I could find again if I tried. She told me, matter-of-factly, that an entire village lay beneath the dark waters of the lake at the bottom of the valley. Her legs rested beneath mine, although I still don’t know if she was aware of the fact, or how much of my attention was focussed on her position.

“Why do you close your curtains so early?” I asked, hoping to pry open the mystery of her, if only a little.

“Why do you watch my house closely enough to know I close my curtains so early?” she laughed, although I thought it didn’t quite reach her eyes.

I had wanted to dig deeper, to unravel her just a little, but something in her eyes told me to stop. So, I did, though the question gnawed at me.

One evening, as we walked beneath a canopy of clouds, trying to reach home before the distant rumbles of thunder became a more immediate issue, I felt the familiar chill of uncertainty creep into my chest. We passed the graveyard, and I noticed Elara’s pace quicken. She glanced at the headstones, then resolutely turned her gaze to her house.

“Not worried about being near the graveyard during a storm?” I asked, half-teasing, half-curious.

Her expression shifted, a flicker of something dark passing over her beautiful features.

“No. The graveyard doesn’t scare me at all. I already know what’s in it.” she replied, her voice barely above a whisper.

I wanted to ask more, but I held my tongue, sensing that probing further might shatter the delicate connection we had.

“I need to go home now.” She said.

I watched her retreat, as she slipped back into the solitude of her cottage. The door clicked shut behind her, and I stood alone in the growing darkness.

Several days passed without a word from Elara. I found myself wandering paths alone, never quite sure I was treading familiar ground, steeped in the uncertainty her absence stirred in me. I would glance toward her cottage, hoping to see her tending to her garden or peering out the window, but the curtains remained drawn tight.

When she finally reappeared, it was as if she had materialised from the fog itself. I spotted her one afternoon, crouched by her roses, her fingers gently brushing the wilted petals. She looked up as I approached.

“Hello stranger,” I said, trying to appear more casual than I felt.

“I had… things to take care of,” she replied, offering a vague smile.

“Things?” I echoed, a knot tightening in my chest. “What kind of things?”

She shrugged, her gaze drifting back to the garden. “Just… things.”

As the days grew shorter and the nights colder, my feelings for Elara deepened, but so did the mystery surrounding her. Each time we walked, I was filled with an ache of longing, mixed with a gnawing fear that I was losing her.

One afternoon, we were battered by a sudden hailstorm. The tiny balls of ice stung our faces, and beat at our clothes, as if trying to strip us bare. Walking beside a wide river I didn’t recognise, there was no cover we could retreat to, so we pulled our hoods down, hunched our shoulders and pressed on.

The walk home seemed to take much longer than the walk out had, though we took the same route each way. This in itself was unusual. If the weather turned while we walked, she would usually find a shortcut, and we would somehow arrive home in half the time.

After the day of the hailstorm, she disappeared for a while again. One night, a biblical storm rolled over the village. Great forked tongues of lightning lashed the sky, followed by deep rumbles of thunder which rattled the foundations of my old house. Inevitably, the power failed. I thought of Elara, alone in her house and went to the window. Between flashes of lightning, I saw it. Every window in her house bled pure white light, despite the thick curtains. I hadn’t ever seen a generator.

The next evening, the storm long passed, and a thick fog having taken its place, I found myself outside her gate, the air thick with an eerie silence. I hesitated, unsure of what to do, but the longing in my chest propelled me forward. I knocked on her door, the sound echoing in the stillness. For a moment, there was nothing but silence.

Just as I was about to turn away, the door creaked open, and there she was.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

“I was worried,” I replied, my heart racing. “You’ve been gone for days.”

“I told you I sometimes need to deal with things,” she said, a hint of frustration colouring her words.

“I could help,” I urged, stepping closer. “You don’t have to do it alone.”

Her gaze flickered toward the graveyard behind her cottage, and for a moment, I thought I saw a shadow pass across her face.

“You don’t understand,” she said, her voice trembling. “I can’t let you in.”

I hadn’t asked to enter her home.

“What are you afraid of?” I pressed.

“I… used to see things. When I was little.” She said, “Out there. In the graveyard. At night. I don’t want to drag you into it.”

I took a deep breath, my heart aching at the weight of her fear.

“But I care about you.” I said, “You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

“I don’t know if I can trust you,” she whispered.

For a moment, we just stood there, as the silence between us grew.

“You should go,” she said, stepping back into the safety of her cottage.

“I’m not going anywhere.” I said to the closing door. “I’ll be here when you’re ready.”

Days turned to weeks. The last leaves fell from the trees, and a brutal cold descended upon the earth. I kept my promise. I waited. I walked our paths alone, slowly building up a familiarity with the area, even discovering what I thought were a few shortcuts of my own. All the while, I held onto the hope that she would emerge from her solitude.

And then, one chilly morning, after a particularly cold night, I saw her—standing in her garden, the wilted, frost-tipped roses glistening in the pale light of dawn. The curtains of her cottage were drawn back, and I felt something rise within me.

“Can we talk?” I asked, my voice the only sound among the grey backdrop.

She nodded, a small smile spreading across her face. As I stepped into her garden, I felt the promise of something waiting to bloom from seeds that had been sewn during the gloom of autumn.