The red bloom opened with a soft crackling sound, like fire waking in dry wood.
It rose from the earth just below the greenhouse's eastern wall—tall, firm, and blooming out of season. Sera watched it sway gently in the windless air, its scarlet petals darker near the edges, nearly black. In the center, a yellow stamen pulsed, slow and rhythmic, mimicking a heartbeat.
Lina joined her at the door. "That wasn't there yesterday."
"I didn't plant it," Sera replied.
They didn't speak for a long moment.
Then Lina whispered, "Do you think it's another message?"
Sera crouched beside the flower and brushed away the surrounding soil. Her fingers hit something hard—wood.
She dug faster.
Within minutes, they uncovered a small, rotted box, sealed shut with wax and string. The seal was old, marked with a symbol neither of them recognized—three intersecting petals surrounded by a serpent swallowing its own tail.
Lina leaned in. "This symbol… I've seen it before."
"Where?"
"In Mira's notes. I think she marked it as something ancient—pre-harvest glyphs, she called them."
Sera looked at the flower again, then at the box.
Something in her gut whispered: Open it.
So she did.
Inside, nestled in dried moss, were three items:
A silver pendant shaped like the flower symbol, its chain tangled and rusted.
A folded parchment marked with Celeste's handwriting.
A small, glass vial filled with liquid so dark it looked like shadow.
Sera unrolled the parchment.
The ink was faded, but the words were unmistakable.
To whoever finds this: I entrust you with what I could not protect. This is my heart's truth, buried deep where they couldn't burn it. The vial is memory—mine, unfiltered. Drink it only if you are ready to carry what I could not. The pendant will call the old roots. Use it to wake the rest.
If you are her—if you are blood—you will feel the pull.
If you are not… walk away now. Let the bloom wither. And let me stay dead.
Sera's breath caught.
Blood?
Could Celeste be her ancestor?
Lina placed a hand on her shoulder. "You don't have to—"
"I do," Sera interrupted, picking up the vial.
Lina didn't stop her.
And Sera drank.
The world twisted.
Sera fell to her knees as the memory hit—harder than the greenhouse vision, deeper than the dream. This wasn't just sight or sound.
This was living.
She became Celeste.
Felt her limbs.
Heard her voice in her own throat.
Saw the town through Celeste's eyes—before the betrayal, before the fires.
It began in spring, years ago, when Elowen Ridge still believed in the old ways.
Before concrete paved over wild roots.
Celeste had been loved. Admired. The townspeople marveled at her ability to coax impossible blossoms from barren soil. She healed sick children with petal poultices. Made grieving men smile with flower-brewed teas.
But her gift grew too strong.
And the wrong people noticed.
The Harthmores had approached her with promises of support. A place on the town council. Funding for her garden work.
What they really wanted was control.
They asked her to breed specific emotions. Plants that caused joy. Submission. Forgetfulness. Rage.
Celeste refused.
That's when the threats began.
Her lover—Leona—disappeared first.
Then the children she mentored were forbidden from visiting.
Then came the fire.
She had tried to hide the black bloom—her safeguard. A flower fed by blood memory, capable of holding the truth across generations.
She buried it.
And then she died.
Not in fire, but in silence. Poisoned. Alone.
The vision snapped.
Sera choked as she came back, body heaving, vision blurred.
Lina caught her. "Sera! What did you see?"
"Everything," she gasped. "They killed her. But not just her. They killed what she stood for. They tried to erase the entire language of the flowers."
She opened her fist, revealing the pendant.
"She was trying to protect it. Not use it."
Lina's eyes flicked to the red flower. "Then maybe it's time we stop being passive."
Sera nodded. "We show them the truth."
The next morning, they returned to the wall of memory and added the pendant, the parchment, and a drawing of the red bloom.
They called it The Heartroot.
Beneath the flower, Sera wrote:
"The past cannot bloom in silence. Let the truth take root."
But not everyone welcomed the truth.
That afternoon, two men in suits arrived at Sera's shop. They claimed to be with the Elowen Ridge Historical Preservation Society.
They carried a cease-and-desist letter.
Claimed the greenhouse was built on a protected site.
Claimed Sera's use of "unregulated flora" posed a risk to public health.
Claimed she had "unauthorized ancestral claims."
Lina recorded the entire conversation.
"Are you trying to shut her down?" she asked, coolly.
The man replied, "We're trying to protect the town."
Sera stepped forward. "From what? From flowers? Or from the ghosts you buried?"
Neither man responded.
They left in silence.
But Sera knew this was just the beginning.
That night, the red bloom opened again.
And this time, it whispered.
Not in words, but in a pulse of thoughts and images. A new kind of memory. Shared memory.
Celeste's consciousness lingered in pieces—echoes in the plants she touched, seeds she scattered.
Sera wasn't just connected by blood.
She was the next root in a line of voices trying to be heard.
The greenhouse lights flickered, but didn't go out.
Instead, they shifted—soft reds, greens, blues—an aurora of blooming energy.
And beneath it all, a new vine had begun to crawl up the eastern wall.
Words formed in its thorns:
"Dig deeper."
"Remember me."
"Wake the others."
The garden had always been alive.
Now, it was awake.
And Elowen Ridge wouldn't be ready for what it bloomed next.