Dante Blackwood's Arc

Chapter 3 of 6

The next morning Dante cut flowers from his hidden bed. He chose the white lilies and three red-capped mushrooms, roots and all. He wrapped them in a scrap of cloth. His hands shook. He had never given a piece of his mother's garden to anyone. But Scarlet wanted more of him, and this was the softest thing he owned. The wolf watched him work, her heart-shaped mark bright in the shade. He carried the bundle down the row of shops. Scarlet stood at her book stall, sorting worn paperbacks into crates. She saw him coming and stopped. The tall man with the scarred face held flowers against his chest like they might break. "For you," Dante said. He held them out. "From the garden. The lilies and the ones she loved." Scarlet took the bundle. Her fingers brushed his. She looked at the lilies, then at the mushrooms with their bright caps and pale spots. Her face changed. Not delight. Something quieter and harder to read. "You dug these up," she said. "From her garden." "Yes." "Dante." She set the bundle down on the crate. "These are for her. You plant them every spring for her." Her teal eyes met his. "I can't take part of the one thing you built for yourself. That's not a gift. That's you tearing off a piece of your own heart because you're scared I'll leave." His chest went tight. The wolf pressed against his leg. He had given the wrong thing. He had given too much, and it landed wrong. "I wanted you to see the tender part," he said. "I already saw it. In the garden." She stepped closer. She barely reached his collarbone. "You don't have to bleed to prove it." She picked up one lily and tucked it behind her ear. She left the rest wrapped. "I'll take one. You replant the others. Today. With me." Dante stared down at her. Nobody had ever refused a gift to protect him. She had turned his offering around and handed him back his own garden. "You'd come?" he asked. "To put your mother's flowers back where they belong? Yeah." A butterfly with black and green wings drifted past the stall and settled on the wrapped bundle. Scarlet smiled at it. "See. Even it wants them home." Dante lifted the flowers. His hands had stopped shaking. He understood now what she was asking. Not for pieces of him ripped out and handed over. She wanted to be let inside the whole thing, standing in the dirt beside him. "Then close your stall," he said. "I'll show you how she planted them." Scarlet flipped her sign to closed. She followed him back down the row, the lily behind her ear, the wolf trotting ahead. Dante walked taller than before. He had tried to give her a wound. She had asked for his roots instead.