As the Flower Blooms Episode 13: The Name Beneath the Signature

Then Daisy broke the silence.

“Let me make sure I understand. You went back for Camellia,” she said, turning toward White Rose, “but someone had already taken her.”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t think to mention that before?”

“I thought she was safe.”

From her little glass vase near the door, Camellia gave a quiet, humorless laugh.

“You thought wrong.”

The blue and lavender Hydrangeas leaned together.

“Oh, this is dreadful.”

“Absolutely dreadful.”

“Move over. I can’t see the paper.”

Rose ignored them. Her deep crimson petals remained perfectly still, but her gaze followed Peony as she studied the collection list on the worktable.

Leave until morning. I will return personally.

Below the note sat a signature, its faded loops disappearing into a dark smear.

Peony leaned closer.

“There’s something underneath.”

“Underneath what?” Lily asked.

“The signature.”

Daisy tilted toward the page. “Please let it be an explanation. I’m beginning to need a notebook.”

A narrow corner of paper protruded from behind the collection list. Camellia recognized it immediately.

“That was folded with the original. I thought it was only backing paper.”

As the pages separated, a small receipt slipped onto the walnut table.

Across its top, in faded ink, were the words:

EAST BED — TRANSFER RECORD

Peony drew back.

Rose closed her eyes.

“You knew,” Peony whispered.

“I knew a division had been kept,” Rose said. “I didn’t know where they took it afterward.”

“Took me.”

Rose opened her eyes.

“Yes.”

For once, Daisy had nothing to add.

Lily bent toward the receipt. A lavender ribbon lay across its lower edge, hiding the final line.

“Camellia,” she said carefully. “Who brought you out of the garden?”

“I never saw a face. It was dark. I remember the ribbon around my container, and someone saying there was one more stop to make.”

“One more stop?” White Rose asked.

Camellia nodded.

“The east bed.”

Peony stared at the receipt.

White Rose looked toward Rose. Rose looked away.

Daisy noticed both.

“Oh, absolutely not,” she said. “We are not doing another meaningful silence. Somebody move that ribbon.”

The ribbon slipped aside.

Beneath the faded signature was a second line, written in smaller, firmer letters:

Received on behalf of the keeper.

And below it, a name.

DAISY.

The Hydrangeas gasped so sharply that one small lavender floret trembled loose.

Lily turned.

White Rose went still.

Peony’s voice was barely audible.

“Daisy?”

“That isn’t possible.”

But Daisy was no longer looking at the name.

She was looking at the tiny silver charm beside the keepsake box—the little daisy that had arrived with the torn letter.

Until that moment, she had thought it was simply shaped like her.

Now she noticed the missing tip on one silver petal.

A memory stirred.

Rain against glass.

A lantern moving through darkness.

Someone fastening the charm to a lavender ribbon.

And a voice, low and urgent:

If anyone asks, you were never here.

“Daisy,” Rose said softly. “What do you remember?”

Daisy lifted her face.

For the first time since Camellia arrived, her expression held no curiosity at all.

Only fear.

“I think,” she whispered, “I’ve been asking the wrong questions.”

Outside, something tapped against the studio window.

Once.

Then twice.

Camellia turned toward the sound.

“That,” she said, “is how they knocked the first time.”

To be continued…

Next episode: “The Knock at the Window.”

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