The forget-me-nots are turning the lightest shade of blue.
I reach down to clip one when I hear it.
Footsteps. Not the Monster. Heavier.
I straighten slowly, every part of me prickling, and that’s when I see him.
A boy climbs up the outer wall of Thornhill, swinging a leg over the top. Sunlight streaks through the leaves and lands in his chestnut brown hair. He doesn’t see me at first, his eyes taking in the castle instead.
I haven’t met another human since I moved into Thornhill eight years ago. My heart rattles in my chest as I try to decide whether to run or stay and watch him. Then his eyes land on me, and I feel my cheeks pale as he slowly grins. He’s beautiful. Like a prince.
He doesn’t say anything, and neither do I. We just stare at each other in silence.
“You’re real,” he says at last, his voice warm and soft like the sunlight on my face.
I blink, breathless, but something pulls me closer.
“I am,” I say, before I can think better of it.
“I thought you were just a story.” He smiles, his light brown curls falling into his eyes.
“I am not,” I say, finding my voice. “I’m a real girl who would like to know why you’re sitting on her wall.”
He tilts his head. “Would you believe I was looking for flowers?”
“There are flowers in the village.”
He watches me with care, and I wish I could turn invisible. I can’t. And even if I could. I shall not, with someone watching me.
“None like the ones here.”
I look away, feeling my cheeks flush, and instead I reach for another bloom. A rose, soft as sighs, still wet with morning dew. My hands shake a little. The petals in my apron suddenly feel too loud under his stare.
“You pick flowers like you’re choosing stars,” he says, and I glance up, finding his words curious.
“I’m not,” I reply, then, for some reason, I add, “Each one carries a thread. They aren’t just pretty.”
“Thread?” He leans forward on the towering stone.
I nod. “Of fate.”
He lifts a brow, like he doesn’t want to startle the words away. A voice in my head tells me to talk to him a bit more, so I do.
I tell him how some petals shift when something big is coming. A choice, a death, a beginning. How the colours warn me. How the flowers speak, if you know how to listen.
I hold up a lilac bloom. “This one doesn’t lie.”
He swings both legs over the wall now but doesn’t jump. He just sits, sunlit and strange, like he belongs here and doesn’t.
“What’s it saying?” he asks, his voice low.
I glance at the lilac. Its edges glow warm—the colour of new things, beginnings.
“It says…” I hesitate, just for a moment. “It says that I’ll remember this.”
He smiles at that. Not cocky—justhonest.
“I’m Elias, Eli for short,” he says. “And you are?”
