Roses in Winter
Marie’s garden grew roses through the winter that died in the spring. What spent most of the year as a barren flower bed with naked shrubs overflowed with bright blooms at the first sign of frost. Peaches, creams, and pinks – every colour of rose there was from palest white to deepest purple. Her favourite was the blood red rose by the garden gate. Nothing was so beautiful as the sight of those dark roses against the snow.
When Marie pricked her finger on the many thorns of her roses, she did not bleed. No one seemed to know why.
Winter was her busiest time. She would pluck handfuls of velvet petals just when they were at their ripest and take their scent for her handmade soap. No one wanted it in winter – they wanted other scents like pomegranate and spiced apple – but when the snows melted and the spring returned with its yellow daffodils to line the lane and the forest grew its carpet of bluebells, she had all the floral soap the world could ever want ready to sell from her front window.
She did not like the world outside her home and garden. It seemed a loud and busy place, so she never ventured further than the little shop on the corner, and certainly never went so far as the market. Not that it mattered. Her soaps were so praised that folk would happily visit her window to purchase a bar or two, even though her home was on the other side of town to the market stalls.
What money she earned from soap was spent on the upkeep of her cottage and on food she never ate. Hunger had not once touched Marie. She bought groceries from the shop on the corner once a week because that was what she had seen everyone else on her street doing. The very next week she would empty the spoiled contents of her cupboards and broken fridge into the bin before heading out to the shop. It all seemed very unnecessary to her.
The ritual ended when she returned one day to find a young boy up to his elbows in the bag she had left on the curb. He had already found the half loaf of only slightly stale bread and was retrieving a bunch of brown bananas when she came up and thrust her fresh shopping into his arms.
The following week he had a friend with him, then a third, a fourth. She invited them all in and let them eat their way through her shopping. No explanation was given or requested, either from Marie or her gathering of scrawny children, but soon they were visiting as often as they liked, and she was always pleased to see them. Time passed, and as it did, she saw their anxious frowns turn one day to easy smiles.
She let them have the run of the cottage. In the cold months, she let them curl up on the sofa, or in the bed she never slept in. In the spring and summer, the older boys carried boxes of soap to market and came back to give her every penny they had earned. She bought more food for all those hungry mouths. She commissioned the carpenter to make little beds for the children, and the seamstress to make them clothes.
The children were allowed to play in her garden – the only rule was that they were not to go near her roses.
All but the first boy obeyed. By now he had grown taller, though he was just as gangly as when she first saw him digging through her old food. One cold winter morning she found him out by the garden gate looking at the red roses. She was too late to stop him touching the thick stems, but she was there to see the drop of blood that welled from his fingertip.
“My hands don’t do that,” she said, quietly, all thoughts of scolding forgotten. A spot of blood appeared in the snow. She reached out and touched her finger to a thorn. Nothing happened. “I don’t know why.”
“It’s okay,” said the boy. “You’ve been dead for a long while. I would be more concerned if you did bleed.”
“I’m dead?” Marie rested her hand upon her chest and for the first time realised she could feel no heartbeat.