Winter Rose

It was a quiet morning. The air was still and fog sat heavy around the house. I saw the old widow working in the garden on my way out the back door. She did not look up as I passed, her hands were busy in the dirt around her rose bush. The garden was quite bare but for that single bush with thorns as large as my thumb and petals so crimson they were almost black. How she managed to keep the flowers thriving I could not imagine, for the dirt all around the mansion and throughout the forest was dry and unnourished and not a spot of sun had managed to break through the dense milky fog in the past few days. Maybe even weeks. It was hard to keep track of time here.

I walked my usual route, down the steps to a stone path which skirted along edge of the forest. The path was nearly invisible below the cottony blanket of mist, but I knew it well and felt the broad smooth stones below my feet. To me it seemed the walkway flirted with the woods, dancing around the outside like it would run into the open arms of the trees at any moment. But it never did. For a long ways it snaked and teased, but not once did the path turn into the chilly allure of the autumn forest's waiting embrace. I never once lost sight of the house. With all this fog it seemed odd that it should not disappear behind the velvety curtain but there it sat, on the top of the hill, its massive jagged outline piercing through the very air with its stone and iron armor. After a while, when the fog got thicker with the afternoon air and I could scarcely see my own hands, I turned back to the house, still visible as if on a clear day, and started back. I tried not to look, but as usual my eyes could not help but be drawn by the dark pout of the roses. An intolerable melancholy pervaded me and the scene of the copper forest swimming in white fog which had been so serene and supernatural that morning suddenly darkened with gloom. The cold fingers of the mist grasped at my heels begging me not to close the door behind me. A loud silence suffocated the house, interrupted only by a rhythmic creaking from one of the upstairs rooms. That would be the widow sitting in her rocking chair by the window facing the forest path from which I had just come. I knew she would be there because I would often see her as I looked back at the house, her one milky eye gazing at something I could not see while the other seemed to watch me as I walked. The creaking stopped and the house was quiet. I wandered around a while, wondering if I would see the old woman again today. She had been quite excited by my arrival when I first came to the house God knows how long ago. It feels like its been ages. I was the first visitor she had had in a while and the loneliness of her place was enough to drive the sanest man mad. Utterly alone, with not even a single worker to help with maintaining the estate, the old woman attended to me hand and foot making sure my stay was comfortable. I fell into a routine here, pampered by the lonely widow and before long the days started to meld together and here I am now. The woman never talked to me anymore. At some point she just stopped and scarcely left the upstairs drawing room. Only to attend to her roses. I do not remember when she became so withdrawn. My mind felt foggy whenever I tried to recall any particular memories. I must just be tired. This weather is making me weary.

I spent the rest of the day in the library flipping through the impressive collection of books that overflowed the library. I finished off Hamlet for the fourth time. “Then venom do thy work!”. I shivered. My ear itched. I reached from where I was sitting to the nearest book and picked up Metamorphoses. One of the pages was bent down at the corner so I flipped ahead to it. Book IX. I read a while longer, and with thoughts of death I went to bed.

A sound in the night woke me. Or was it the lack of sound? I had been dreaming that I had fallen asleep under a tree in the rain, but was woken when a drop of water fell from the leaves and into my ear. When I opened my eyes in the dream I saw the filmy eyes of the widow, made whiter by the light of the moon standing over me. I felt as though a cold hand was squeezing its bony fingers around my throat and a feeling of pure dread creeped over my skin and into my bones. I awoke with this same feeling grasping at my very spirit. I reached up and felt my ear but it was dry. Unable to shake the gloom I got up and went to my door. On the other side stood the old woman, holding a bouquet of roses. The petals were speckled with early winter frost, now melting in the warrmth of the house, revealing that they had just been picked. I stood unmoving, wondering if she even noticed I was there.

"Beautiful girl, beautiful roses" I heard her mutter. Was she talking to me? As I wondered how to respond the woman entered my room and placed the boquet on a desk by the window. I followed and for the first time noticed a newspaper clipping that had been framed sitting atop the desk. As the old woman shuffled out of the room, choosing once again not to acknowledge me, I picked up the frame and read.

Missing: Jocelyn Barrie, 30 years old. 5'6, medium build, dark red hair, blue eyes and freckles. Last seen at H. bus station wearing jeans and a blue plaid shirt. Please contact H. Police Services with any information regarding this missing person.

Beside the article was a black and white picture of a beautiful young woman with hair that I could only imagine was a luscious red, much like the weeping rose petals that sat on the desk. The date on the article was from the spring. I tried to remember if the old woman had ever mentioned having a daughter but as usual, the foginess in my head kept me from recalling any details. I heard the backdoor close heavily and pulled the window curtains aside. Moonlight spilled into my room setting my blonde hair aglow and raising goosebumps on my arms with its ghostly touch. If I looked straight down I could just see the garden and the now nearly bare red rosebush peeking up at me. What on earth was the widow doing gardening at this hour? I could see her hunched over a fresh mound of dirt to the left of the roses. For a while I watched her work, the moon dipping in and out of clouds. Finally she stood and walked back towards the door, out of my sight. The moon emerged once again in all her brilliance and lit up the garden. Like a candle in the dirt I saw it. A single yellow rosebud growing from the freshly turned garden dirt.