Page 49 of Where the Roses Bloom

Willow leaned in. “She must’ve kept this for Hazel. And Hazel kept it for you.”

I cracked the seal carefully, unfolding the pages slow. The writing inside was smooth and slanted, the kind of penmanship they don’t teach anymore.

To the women who come after:

If you are reading this, then I pray it means you’re ready to stop running.

I married into the Ward family when I was just seventeen. I didn’t know the stories then—not really. Just whispered things. Things you don’t repeat over tea. But I knew the land felt heavy sometimes. I knew the men didn’t laugh as much as they should. And I knew love here had a way of blooming wild and dying young.

I lost my sister-in-law when I was twenty-two. I lost my own daughter before she turned thirty. I watched my husband mourn his father and his brother and say nothing when another tree split down the middle after a lightning strike. They all acted like it was just life. Just bad luck.

But it wasn’t.

It was the curse. And it knows us.

I tried to keep a record. Tried to mark the signs. The roses, always blooming out of season. The animals that won’t go near the grove. The way children here dream things they shouldn’t.

If you’re reading this, you’ve seen it too.

Maybe you’ve lost someone already.

Maybe you’re the firstin a long time to love without fear.

Either way—keep going. Keep asking. The curse isn’t just a sentence. It’s a thread. And threads can be unspooled if you follow them all the way back.

Somewhere, there’s a knot waiting to be untied.

The curse was never just a warning. It was a map. Buried in bloom and bone. And if you want to find the end of it—start where the roots remember. Walk backward through what they burned.

She’ll guide you. She always does.

—Clara

I stared at the words, a cold shiver crawling down my spine. “What the hell does that mean?”

Willow’s eyes were still fixed on the page. Her lips parted slowly. “You said that Isadora was hung from a tree close to here, right?” she said. “I…I feel like I’ve seen it. A big tree in a clearing…a willow tree, split down the middle—right?”

I stared at her. “You can’t know that.”

“I know,” she whispered. “But I do. Rhett…I think we’re supposed to go.”

The wind outside shifted, brushing against the house. The lace curtains fluttered, even though the windows weren’t open.

“Tomorrow,” I said.

The windowsrattled. Willow met my eyes.

“Not tomorrow. Today.”

I blinked. “You sure?”

She nodded. “Whatever’s out there…it’s waiting. I can feel it.”

The wind rose once again, curtains swaying. A creak ran through the bones of the house, like it knew we were listening.

Willow stood, still holding the stack of letters. “I don’t want this hanging over us a single night longer. I need to know.”

I stood with her. “Then we’ll go.”