Page 28 of Where Shadows Bloom

I followed in her shadow, until she slowed, shifting slightly, so that we walked side by side. If I wasn’t careful, our hands would nearly touch.

She took my arm, and we walked onward, this time toward a long corridor made of hedges that climbed all the way up to the sky. The garden was beautiful, fragrant, and sunlit. But being outdoors, even on the brightest day, set me on edge. Nature, the subject of so much poetry—it was also the Shadows’ domain.

Ofelia grinned as we rounded a corner and found another long hedgerow before us. “The king’s labyrinth!” She eagerly tugged at my arm. “Oh, it’s just like a storybook! Perhaps a secret is hidden here. Where else would someone hide a treasure?”

Or a monster, I thought, recalling one of the stories she’d read me by candlelight.

The farther we walked, the darker the world became, with the shade of the hedgerows blocking the morning light. The growing darkness made the hair on my neck stand on end. We had seen a Shadow attack us while the sun was still in the sky. The dimming light still made me anxious. This kind of thick, heavy shade was a Shadow’s chosen battleground. If any creatures were lurking about these grounds, they’d be hiding here.

“Follow me,” said Ofelia, walking faster.

I raised my brows. “Do you know which way you’re going, my lady? This... this labyrinth seems quite vast.”

She walked backward, smiling impishly at me. “I read the book about Le Château so many times I’ve practically memorized the garden. At night, before I fell asleep, I used to imagine what it would be like to walk these allées.” She twirled in place, her skirts blossoming around her. “And we’rehere!” Ofelia’s smile faltered the smallest bit. “Mother must be here, too. She... she surely wouldn’t have gotten lost. She hired a coachman to bring her here. She must be here already, and we just haven’t found each other yet.”

I hoped that was so.

She turned a corner, and we entered an area surrounded by a round wall of hedges. A large fountain was in the middle of the space, with the statue of a woman draped in cloth thatseemed thin as paper, even when carved from marble. Her arms were outstretched, as if asking for an embrace—but the flat, blank surface of her face was a reminder that she was a goddess. We mortals were not worthy of knowing whatever beauty she held.

As we walked into this little pocket of the labyrinth, we approached the fountain. At its base was a massive pile of offerings, red roses, letters sealed with kisses, locks of hair, books of love poems. Candles flickered and the smell of freesias was thick in the air. In a few days, this would all be burned in a passionate, desperate gift to the goddess, casting all the prayers from Le Château into that invisible palace where the gods were said to live.

“Le Bosquet du Temple de l’Amour,” Ofelia noted. She smiled up at the goddess of love as if she were an old friend.

When I looked to the goddess of love, my stomach clenched. It felt too bold of me, too wrong, too foolish to ever even attempt to pray for love. My pulse always raced for Ofelia, but even I knew that the flutterings of my heart were pathetic, terrestrial things. My feelings were true, certainly—but surely not important enough to ask for the aid of a goddess.

“You could write such beautiful poetry about this place,” Ofelia mentioned. How sweet it was that her mind never strayed close to the darkness. I wished often that I could mold my mind to be like hers. That my eyes would see beauty likehers did, instead of danger. Basking in her light was the closest I could come to viewing the world like she did.

“I hope I’ll get the chance to, my lady.” She was so near to me, her cheek almost brushing the shoulder of my coat. I had to catch my breath. “You gave me a great gift when you taught me how to write. It was like teaching me how to see the world in new colors.”

“Even when you talk about poetry it’s like poetry,” she beamed.

I laughed, bowing my head and praying she didn’t notice the red in my cheeks.

Ofelia pointed at a small green book in the offerings pile,Grandes Obras Poéticas, and said, “Oh, you have that one!”

I smiled—it, like every book I owned, had been a gift from her. “I’ve read that one so many times the binding is holding on by a thread.”

“Oh, I shall have to buy you another one as soon as I can.” She turned on her heel and began to walk out of the bosquet, her hands behind her back, like this was some ordinary morning stroll. Like she belonged here. “So which one is your favorite poem?”

“There’s a poem I like,” I said. “The writer says that he knows that one day his lover will pass away. That one dayhewill pass away. But he writes that death cannot erase the love they had. It exists outside of time, outside of flesh. He says even when they are dust, they will be enamored dust.”

Ofelia let out a delicate sigh. “Oh, how romantic!”

The inevitability and the strength of death did not strike her as it had me when I’d read the poem for the first time. She gleaned immediately what took me months to understand. The beauty of love so deep it could not be separated even from one’s own ashes.

Part of me wanted her to keep looking at me like that, swoony and fond, and part of me wanted to turn invisible at once, so I could run away and stop making a fool of myself in front of her. What was I doing? Knights didn’t recitepoetryto those they were sworn to protect!

“Do you believe that?”

I blinked, leaving my cloudy thoughts behind. “Believe what, my lady?”

“That love is something immortal.”

I stared down at my feet as we walked, watching the gravel turn the toes of my boots white.The poets always said love is immortal... but is it?I had loved only two people in my life. And one I could still see behind my lids. Carlos’s face, so still in death, and then wrapped forever away in a sheet, his freckled face a blank, nameless skull.

Love was not only some romantic thing, not just something bright and pure like the illustrations of knights and princesses. It was strong and angry and resilient and most of all, painful—viciously so. I looked at Ofelia, and my heart ached for a future that could never be. I thought of Carlos,whose memory still wounded me, even after he was gone.

“Yes,” I said to her. “Love outlives everything.”

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