Her social media is sparse. Mostly photos of her work—arrangements for weddings, funerals, corporate events. Occasionally, a sunset, a cup of coffee, a street scene that caught her eye. Nothing personal. No selfies, no friends tagged, no glimpses into her private life.
She's a ghost, almost. A woman who exists in the margins.
I find this intriguing.
I tell myself I'm being thorough.
The Dark Masquerade is an important event. The Serpent Brotherhood's annual gathering, hidden in plain sight behind the mask of charity. Every detail matters, every vendor must be vetted, every potential security risk identified and addressed.
Poppy Rivers is a potential security risk. She'll have access to the estate for hours before the event. She'll see things, hear things, move through spaces that most people never enter. I need to know who she is.
That's why I pull her file. That's why I have her followed.
That's what I tell myself.
The man I assign to watch her is named Hutton. He's competent, discreet, and entirely without imagination—the perfect surveillance operative. He sends me reports twice daily, dry recitations of her movements and activities.
7:15 AM: Subject leaves apartment. Walks to coffee shop on corner (Bean Corner). Orders a large black coffee, no food. Sits by the window for approximately 40 minutes. Appears to be sketching in a notebook.
8:02 AM: Subject walks to the wholesale flower market. Spends 2.5 hours selecting inventory. Speaks with multiple vendors. Purchases a significant quantity of black dahlias, red roses, and various greenery.
10:42 AM: Subject returns to apartment. Does not leave again until 2:30 PM.
The reports are thorough and utterly inadequate. They tell me where she goes, but not what she thinks. They catalog her actions but not her essence. Hutton can tell me that she sat by a window for forty minutes, but he can't tell me what she was drawing, what expression she wore while she drew it, whether she smiled or frowned or bit her lip in concentration.
By the second day, I've had enough. I dismiss Hutton and take over the surveillance myself.
I watch her from across the street as she works in the flower market. She moves through the stalls with purpose, but she stops often—to smell a bloom, to hold a petal up to the light, to speak with vendors who clearly know her. She haggles, but not aggressively. She asks questions. She listens to the answers.
At one point, she finds a bucket of dahlias that have wilted slightly, marked down for quick sale. She buys all ofthem. I watch her carry them to her van with something close to tenderness.
They're dying,I think.Why would she want dying things?
But I already know the answer. I saw it in the way she touched the flowers at the estate, the way she pulled a bruised dahlia from an arrangement and tucked it into her pocket rather than discarding it. She cares for broken things. Dying things. Things that others would throw away.
The realization does something strange to my chest.
That afternoon, I follow her to a cemetery. It's not part of her routine—Hutton's reports didn't mention it, and the route she takes suggests spontaneity, a last-minute decision to turn left instead of right.
She parks near the older section, where the headstones are weathered and the trees have grown thick enough to block the sun. I park at a distance and follow on foot, staying well back, using the mausoleums for cover.
She walks with purpose to a grave near the back corner. The headstone is simple, small, almost lost among its grander neighbors. I can't get close enough to read the inscription without being seen. But I watch her kneel, watch her pull weeds from around the base, watch her place a small bundle of flowers—the wilted dahlias, I realize, the dying things she rescued—against the stone.
She stays there for a long time. She doesn't cry. She doesn't speak. She just sits. Keeping company with the dead.
When she finally stands and walks away, I wait until she's out of sight before approaching the grave.
The headstone reads:
BERTHA RIVERS1952-2021Beloved Grandmother"She gave us roots and wings."
Her grandmother. Dead for five years.
I stand there longer than I should, looking at the wilted dahlias already beginning to brown in the cold air. She brings dying flowers to the dead. There's something almost poetic about it. A recognition that beauty doesn't need to be permanent to be meaningful.
I have never thought about flowers this much in my entire life.
***
