Darline's Arc

Chapter 9 of 13

Darline walked back to the saloon with her notebook tucked under her arm, boots leaving shallow prints in the dust. She'd saved Rosie from the convoy and given her a week to make the refunds. The double-billing scandal would stay buried as long as Rosie kept her word. But the notebook felt heavier now, weighted with more than just secrets. Darline stopped at the edge of town where an old covered wagon sat overgrown with vines, its wooden frame rotting into the dirt. Her mother had lived there for six months, teaching Silas about the burial ground soil in a withered garden plot behind it. Darline had been twelve when the florists started the rumors, calling her mother a witch and a grave robber. Within a week, the wagon was empty and Silas had claimed the discovery as his own. He'd never corrected anyone. Silas found her standing there, hands in his pockets. "Your mother made me promise not to tell you," he said quietly. "She thought you'd be safer if nobody connected you to the soil." Darline closed the notebook and looked at the dead garden, at the place where her mother's knowledge had bloomed and been buried by gossip. She'd spent years turning secrets into weapons, trying to prove she was better than the people who'd driven her mother away. Now she understood the cost. "I'm done exposing people," she said. "But I'm not done talking about the flower shops." Silas nodded, and Darline walked back toward the saloon, leaving the wagon behind her for good.