The back workroom of Florista Ferreira smells of wet earth and dying lilies. At quarter to four in the morning, the shop is a cavern of velvet shadows, save for the single taper candle burning on the zinc-topped counter. Marisol sits in the stillness, her bare feet pressing against the cold encaustic tiles. She hears the faint, rhythmic hum of the hydrangeas in the front window—a low vibration only she can perceive—but tonight she ignores their thirst. She is waiting for the one thing her grandmother never explained.
Every Thursday for forty-one years, twelve dark roses have appeared at this door. They arrive before the sun, paid for in coins that smell of old cedar and deep earth. Marisol traces the thin gold wedding band hanging from the chain at her throat, her thumb catching on the small scar at her eyebrow. Why now? she wonders, the silence of the shop pressing against her eardrums like rising water. She has spent twelve years as a widow in this garden of ghosts, but the curiosity has finally outgrown the fear.
A floorboard in the alleyway groans under a weight that is too steady to be the wind. The fado music drifting from the bars in the Alfama has long since faded, leaving only the sound of her own shallow breath. A shadow thickens against the frosted glass of the rear entrance, blotting out the faint moonlight. Marisol stands, her leather apron creaking, as the scent of crushed rosemary suddenly fills the air.
The heavy iron latch on the back door begins to slowly lift.
