“You stole a brochure from the plane?” Simon slightly raised his voice.
“What?” Chris blinked, unimpressed. “You stole the blanket.”
Simon stuttered. “Because it was nice and soft. And if I can’t fly business, I might as well take what they provide.”
“Anyway.” Chris looked back at Shanna. “It’s about as far away from here as it can be.”
Wonderful.
“By that logic, the rest should be closer,” Simon said. “Which means we can try those points first. So, what are they?”
Chris looked at the postcards. “No clue about this one.” She thrust a postcard with the picture of river rocks, interspersed with gold nuggets, back into Shanna’s hand. “This one looks like the Abel Tasman National Park, though.” The last postcard featured a golden sandy beach with a turquoise sea and lush, green vegetation.
Simon tapped away on his phone. “That’s rather close. On the very north of the South Island. Sounds like a good next stop.”
Shanna turned over the card. In the same handwriting as on the Wellington one, it said, “Everyone else forgets, but the trees will remember.”
“What does that mean?” Simon had moved in closer, their shoulders touching.
The rain that had drenched them earlier added a refreshing layer to the pine smell of his cologne. The smell of a rainforest—as if he was already geared up for adventure.
“No idea. But I’ll try to do the same searching spell as I did here.”
“Hey.” Chris had walked ahead, reaching the statue of a man on a pillar at the end of the road. “Can we do something I want now?”
“This isn’t a tourist trip,” Simon said, but Shanna patted his arm and said to Chris, “Sure. Where do you want to go?”
Chris nudged her head. They followed her to the monument, but she ignored it, instead heading through a wrought-iron gate into a park. Despite being in the middle of the city, it waswonderfully quiet and calm, as if an invisible barrier, or perhaps the force of the place itself, kept noise at bay. Descending twilight wrapped the downhill path in a soft purple haze as, amidst the trees, statues and stelae rose.
“It’s a graveyard,” Shanna said.
“Here.” Chris opened a black plastic sack she’d pulled out of her bag. Inside were flowers—roses—of all colors, looking slightly familiar …
“You stole roses from the garden?” Shanna whispered.
“Nobody else was going to use them.”
Simon rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Take it or leave it.” Chris picked up a few blooms and left the bag with Shanna. She wandered down the path and began to put one rose at the foot of each gravestone, kneeling down for a few moments.
Shanna headed to the graves on the other side of the path. She picked out a soft pink rose and laid it on the grave.
“They’re so old.” Simon stood behind her. “All of these graves. These people died over a century ago.”
“So what? Does that mean they don’t deserve to be remembered?” Chris’s voice came from a few graves down.
Shanna slid her fingers along the etching on the gravestone. The occupant had died in 1897. There wouldn’t be anyone still around to remember them. Was there anyone who cared, even, except for this strange goth girl who stole roses for them?
She twitched when something brushed her fingers, her mind reaching to spirits coming to join them in the night. But it was just Simon, taking hold of the bag. Their eyes met, and he nodded.
And they walked in silence, from grave to grave, leaving roses in their wake.
Shanna woke up the next morning, stretching her arms toward the ceiling, gazing at the unfamiliar black dot on it before she remembered this was the hotel room and not her house.
And Simon was here.
In the bathroom, more accurately. The sound of running water came from behind the door, and his bed was hastily made up. Shanna smiled to herself, drawing her knees up underneath the blanket. They were leaving today, and for some reason, he still made the bed.
