Page 48 of Where the Roses Bloom

To no one. To him. To the air.

I didn’t even have to open it to know what it was.

Willow must’ve known too, because she whispered, “Your grandfather?”

I nodded, then opened the envelope.

I swore I wouldn’t write this down.

But grief has a way of rotting in the bones if you don’t bleed it out.

I don’t know where you went, John. I don’t know if the river swallowed you or if it was something else. All I know is you walked out into the woods that night, and you never came back.

They searched for you for weeks. Dogs. Volunteers. Flashlights cutting through fog and kudzu. But I knew better. I knew the moment you stepped off that porch, I’d lost you.

You said you didn’t believe in curses. That I was letting old stories turn me into a shell. You laughed when I salted the windows and burned rosemary under the full moon. You told me the past couldn’t hurt the future unless we let it.

But maybe the past didn’t need our permission.

You were good. You were steady. And I think the curse hated that about you.

Our son was born with your eyes.

And every time I looked at him, I swore I’d never let this curse touch him. But then the years passed. And the signs started showing again—dreams, deaths, things blooming where they shouldn’t.

Sometimes I wonder if Isadora’s blood runs thicker than ours. If this land loved hermore than it ever loved us. Maybe it should have.

If you’re still out there…

If something took you…

I want you to know I loved you. I still do. And I’m still trying to break this thing before it takes anyone else.

I don’t want our son to grow up thinking love is a punishment.

I stopped. Let the page lower into my lap.

Willow was crying openly now, like Hazel’s pain was hers, too.

“She lost him before she ever had a chance to say goodbye,” she whispered.

“Just like Silas,” I said. “Just like my parents.”

“And yet she kept trying,” Willow said. “Even after all that. Even when it hurt.”

I nodded, jaw clenched hard.

“Rhett,” she said softly, touching my cheek. “She didn’t leave these letters just to confess. She left them because she believed someone could finish what she started.”

I looked down at the stack still resting on the coffee table.

“Then we better keep reading,” I said. “Because I’m done losing people I love.”

Willow nodded. “Me too.”

The next envelope was older—almost brittle. The paper had yellowed to a parchment hue, and the ink had bled a little at the edges. The handwriting was neater than Hazel’s, more formal, and the signature on the back read: Clara Ward.

“My great-grandmother,” I murmured. “Hazel’s mother-in-law.”