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“Then I’ve found the right Roderick. The man told me that it had been a gift from a dear friend, so I’d anticipated you being much older. I mean, it is quite the gift. A peony flower isn’t the kind of thing someone usually gives away, even to a friend.”
“What are you talking about?”
Alba stares at him in disbelief. Most of her life has been spent finding and selling rare flowers to collectors and others with great needs or interests. To hear that someone had possessed one of the most
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.
