I didn’t think anything strange about a delivery so late. What was strange was that the package was for me.
At first, all I felt was excitement because I recognized the box. It was the same florist my dad used to send flowers to my mom.
Now I was getting my first delivery of flowers, but something was different.
Wrong.
I still remember the smell.
I hurried back to the living room and set my fancy box down on the coffee table undoing the ribbon while ignoring the nanny’s calls for me to wait.
By the time she stood over me, the lid was off, and I was peeling back layers and layers of fine black tissue paper. When my mom received flowers, those sheets always smelled wonderful.
My flowers, though, they didn’t smell so wonderful.
The opposite.
And I had that feeling I sometimes get in the pit of my stomach when I remember the man who told me monsters don’t hide in the dark.
When I finally peeled back the last layer of paper and saw the single dead rose inside, I thought how much the box resembled a coffin.
How much it resembled the coffins my mother and brother had been buried in.
I lifted it out, and the petals fell away, some into the box, some on the floor around my feet. When I turned my gaze up to my nanny, she had her hand over her mouth.
She didn’t look upset.
She looked terrified.
“It’s dead,” I said, holding it up to her
“It’s just dried,” she’d said in a small voice.
I didn’t think there was a difference. What was the point of having dead or dried flowers if you could have happy, living ones? I was preparing to explain this, not paying attention, when I pricked my finger on a thorn.
I sucked in a breath and turned in time to see a fat drop of blood, then another, splat into the box, half on a petal, half on that black paper. A second drop fell onto the polished white marble floor.
It was then I saw the small card inside. I lifted it out and read the two words.
Eight years…
“That’s strange,” I said. “Are they from Uncle Adam? Why didn’t he wish me a happy birthday? Maybe it’s on the other side—”
Suddenly, my nanny slapped the flower out of my hand, and I gasped. It wasn’t so much that it hurt but the shock of it. She’d never raised a hand to me before. I’d never even heard her yell, not at me or my cousins at least.
“I’m sorry,” she said when she saw my face, the tears welling in my eyes. She hugged me to her. “I didn’t want you to prick yourself again. They should have taken the thorns off. You’re just a little girl!”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, the words muffled by her hug.
She bent down, wiped my tears, and kissed my finger. “Nothing, sweetheart. Nothing at all. Let’s go get ice cream. Would you like that?”
“But it’s before dinner.”
“Well, it’s your birthday. We should celebrate. And I’m sure the florist just sent the wrong box.”
I’d forgotten about the rose by dinner time.
My next birthday, there were two roses in the box, and the note read Seven years.
Each year after that the rose count went up and the number on the card went down. I knew something bad was coming, and those numbers, they were some sort of twisted countdown.
Tonight is the night before my eighteenth birthday. I’ll receive my box of dead roses tomorrow. I wonder what the note will read because whoever was counting is out of time.
Or maybe it’s me who’s out of time.4CristinaI tug my raincoat closer as I approach the doors to exit the library building. The rain hasn’t let up, and with the wind, I’m not sure how much good this umbrella is going to do.
Securing my backpack onto both arms, I push the heavy door and step outside, the overhang not doing anything to protect me against the wind-blown rain as I fumble to open it.
Cars speed past, angry horns honking as the traffic lights turn from green to red, then flash yellow. The storm has knocked out the electricity. The university is only a few blocks from my uncle’s apartment, and it’s faster to walk than take the bus even with this weather.
I hurry, cursing inwardly every time I step into a puddle, water penetrating my socks and shoes, my jeans.
By the time I turn the corner to my block, traffic has thinned out. Just as I run to cross the street, a gust of wind almost forces the umbrella from my hand, turning it inside out, rendering it useless as it snaps the frame.
“Shit!” I step up onto the sidewalk as a car comes too fast around the corner, too close to the curb where water has collected inches deep. When I just manage to jump out of the way of the tidal wave it launches, I exhale with relief.