Rain soaked the town that night.
Heavy, relentless, as if the sky itself was trying to cleanse something ancient and stained. The droplets hissed against the Rotflowers, but they didn't wither. Instead, the petals drank it in, their dark sheen glowing faintly in the stormlight.
Sera stood at the edge of the community hall, watching the storm wash through Elowen Ridge. Behind her, the exhibit flickered in candlelight—people had continued coming even after the power went out. Some stood in silence before Celeste's final journal page. Others gathered in hushed clusters around Lina, asking questions, whispering stories of dreams, echoes, and old secrets rising.
"They're waking," Lina said softly.
Sera turned. "Who?"
"All of them."
Two women from the Historical Society arrived at dawn.
They weren't dressed like scholars.
Their coats were black, polished, and spotless despite the mud. They moved with quiet precision, hands gloved, eyes sharp. One introduced herself as Ms. Finch. The other never spoke.
"We need to speak with Ms. Wynn," Ms. Finch said crisply.
"I'm Sera," she replied, arms crossed.
Finch didn't bother with pleasantries. "The artifacts you've uncovered are dangerous. You don't understand what you're meddling with."
"I know exactly what I've found," Sera said. "Memories. Voices. Truth."
"No," Finch snapped. "You've uncovered roots. The deeper you dig, the darker it gets."
Sera held her ground. "Then let it get dark. I'm not afraid of the truth."
Finch narrowed her eyes. "You should be."
They tried to shut down the exhibit that afternoon.
But the town didn't let them.
Not everyone believed, of course. But enough had seen the black blooms. Enough had dreamt of thorns. Enough had remembered their grandmothers whispering warnings at the edge of sleep.
"They tried to silence my mother," an old woman said, placing a photo of her garden next to Celeste's journal. "She called the vines her children. They called her mad. Now they grow again."
By sunset, the exhibit was more than an art display—it was a memorial.
And a revolution.
That night, Sera returned to the underground chamber.
The vines were different now—tighter, denser, moving when she wasn't looking.
But the circle of pendants still hovered.
Dim, yes.
But waiting.
Sera stepped into the center. Her pendant pulsed faintly against her chest. The others began to glow in response.
And then the voices returned.
The bloom is not yours alone.
You are not the first who's dared to remember.
But you must choose—truth, or peace. You can't have both.
Sera closed her eyes. "Then I choose truth."
A low hum filled the chamber.
And one of the pendants shattered.
When Sera emerged, the sky was clear.
But the garden had changed again.
The Rotflowers were… retreating.
Their black petals curled inward, as though shielding something. Around them, green was returning. Small tendrils of healing—moss, shoots, ivy—grew at their edges. Life and death, side by side.
And in the center of the greenhouse stood a new bloom.
This one red-gold, with a center of soft white light.
It glowed gently, as if lit from within.
Lina touched Sera's shoulder. "It's hers."
Sera nodded. "Celeste's final bloom."
The petals curled slowly in the breeze, and in the silence, a single word echoed through the vines:
Remember.
They called a town meeting the next day.
Not at city hall. But in the garden.
Under open sky, with Rotflowers lining the edges like sentinels and Celeste's bloom at the heart.
Sera stood before the crowd, her voice steady.
"You were never meant to forget," she said. "They burned what they feared. Buried what they didn't understand. Called it unnatural."
She pointed to the Rotflowers.
"They told us this was evil. But this—this is grief. This is trauma. Left to rot because they didn't know how to heal."
She looked to Lina, who stepped forward and held up a painting she'd finished that morning.
It showed Celeste and Mira in the garden—hands clasped, vines blooming from their fingertips, eyes fierce with joy and defiance.
"This," Lina said, "is the truth they feared."
That evening, Ms. Finch returned.
Alone.
She didn't threaten. Didn't demand.
She simply walked to the center of the garden, knelt beside Celeste's bloom, and whispered something no one else could hear.
When she stood, there were tears in her eyes.
"My sister loved her too," she said quietly.
Then she left.
And didn't return.
Sera slept deeply that night.
And for the first time in months, she didn't dream of rot.
She dreamt of fireflies in the vines.
Of laughter echoing between trees.
Of a garden where memory wasn't buried—but planted.
Ready to bloom.