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The last words she spoke to her late fiancΓ© lingered in the autumn chill. Kneeling by the grave, Dr. Elara Vane whispered, βIβll find the truth, Elias. I swear it.β The stone was slick with rain, the soil freshly turned, and in that moment she felt utterly alone.
Once, she had been a reclusive botanist, content with her studies, but Eliasβs sudden death had left her hollow. With nowhere else to go, she returned to the only place still tethered to her bloodline: the misty town of Ravencourt.
The Vane manor sat like a forgotten sentinel on the hillside. Its windows stared blankly, ivy strangled its stone walls, and the hedges rose untamed around its grounds. Locals whispered that the estate was cursed. Since her motherβs death months ago, no one had enteredβsave perhaps whatever shadows the townsfolk claimed to see wandering through the halls at night.
Elara unlocked the doors herself, the air heavy with dust and mildew. The silence pressed close, broken only by the groan of the staircase. She explored by candlelight, and on the second night, in the library, she discovered a loose floorboard. Beneath it lay a journal bound in cracked leather.
The name inscribed on the inside cover froze her blood. Cecilia Vane. Her grandmother. The woman who had vanished decades ago without a trace.
By candlelight, Elara devoured the entries. Her grandmotherβs words were feverish, describing strange experiments with flora, rituals passed down through hushed whispers, and a garden hidden deep within the manor grounds. A garden where, at the stroke of midnight, roses bloomed as black as obsidian.
The notes hinted that these roses were not mere plants. They were tied to longevity, to forbidden alchemy, and to the disappearance of Cecilia herself.
On one page, scrawled in trembling ink, was a final warning:
βThe roses are the key. They grow from sorrow, drink from secrets, and guard what should remain buried. To seek them is to risk being claimed.β
That night, guided by the journal and the pale light of the moon, Elara wandered through the overgrown hedges at the manorβs edge. Brambles caught her dress, branches clawed her arms, but she pressed forward until she found a rusted gate half-hidden beneath ivy.
When the clock struck twelve, the air shifted. Mist thickened, curling low along the ground. Before her eyes, a withered patch of earth shimmered into bloom. Roses unfurled, each petal blacker than pitch, their fragrance sweet yet strangely metallic, like iron on the tongue.
Elara reached out. The moment her fingers brushed the bloom, a vision consumed her. She saw Cecilia kneeling in this same garden, her hands bloodied, chanting words in a language Elara did not know. She saw the roses writhe as though alive, feeding on her grandmotherβs anguish. Then, just as suddenly, Cecilia vanished into the dark.
The Truth Beneath the Roses
Shaken, Elara returned night after night, unraveling the journalβs secrets. She learned the roses were not natural at all but born from grief, seeded by sacrifice. Her grandmother, desperate to overcome mortality, had bound her spirit to the roses.
Then came the cruelest revelation: Eliasβs death had not been chance. In her final entries, Cecilia wrote of needing a new offeringβfresh sorrow to strengthen the roses. Elara realized her fiancΓ© had been lured, his fate sealed so the black roses might bloom again.
Her grief was not just her own. It was cultivated.
On the seventh night, Elara returned to the midnight garden with a lantern and her grandmotherβs journal clutched tight. The roses glistened, their petals trembling as if sensing her arrival.
From the shadows, a figure emergedβher grandmother, unchanged by time, her eyes glowing faintly with unnatural light.
βElara,β Ceciliaβs voice was both tender and chilling. βAt last, youβve come. Together, we can continue my work. Youβve felt the rosesβ power. With your sorrow, they will thrive.β
Elaraβs heart pounded. βYou killed Elias.β
βHe was necessary,β Cecilia said simply, almost gently. βEvery bloom demands a price. But imagine what we could achieve. No more death. No more loss.β
Elaraβs grief hardened into rage. βYou call this life? Feeding on pain, binding yourself to shadows?β
Her grandmotherβs form wavered like smoke, but her smile never faltered. βYou are a Vane. You cannot deny what you are.β
Elara struck a match and touched it to the roses. The flames caught instantly, racing across the midnight blooms. The garden wailedβan unearthly sound that was both wind and voice, anguish and fury. Cecilia screamed, her figure flickering, unraveling like threads of smoke in a storm.
βElara!β she shrieked. βYou will regret thisββ
But the fire consumed her, and the roses collapsed into ash. The vision shattered.
When dawn broke, Elara stood among charred earth where the garden once bloomed. For the first time, the manor grounds were silentβnot with haunting, but with peace.She left Ravencourt soon after, the journal sealed away, her grief still heavy but no longer poisoned by her grandmotherβs curse. Elias was gone, but his memory remained hers alone, no longer bound to a garden of sorrow.
And though the villagers still whispered of the Vane family, they spoke now of how the roses had finally stopped bloomingβat least for a while.
For in Ravencourt, they say grief never truly dies. It waits, buried deep in the soil, for someone braveβor foolishβenough to let it grow again.