The envelope was hidden behind the fireplace mantle for decades. Somehow, it had fallen down a narrow crack where the mantle had pulled away from the wall. It was found when the new homeowners, Peter and Jessica, tore out the old mantle in preparation for having a new one put in.
The house was a Victorian cottage that they’d purchased at auction. It was badly neglected, but still had most of its gingerbread trim. Her mother was concerned it was a fire trap, but Jessica could see its potential through the decay and knew she and Peter were just the couple to give it the T.L.C. it needed. They hadn’t just wanted a house, they’d been looking for an adventure. Perhaps the story of the envelope behind the mantle would be the first of many charming anecdotes about things they found in the house while renovating.
The handwriting on the envelope was faded, but when Jessica held it up to the sunlight she could just make out the word “Rose” on the envelope. The letter was still sealed, so whoever Rose was, she never had a chance to read it. “What if it’s a love letter? How sad she never got it.”
“Or it could be something boringly normal, like a receipt from the plumber,” Peter said, as he went to the kitchen and came back with a knife. He reached for the envelope, but Jess held it up high, just beyond his reach. “Hey, hold on! It isn’t polite to open someone else’s mail,” she said. “Isn’t it, like, illegal even?”
“Seriously?” Peter’s eyebrows shot up towards his hairline. “Jessica, whoever Rose is, she’s probably been dead for decades by now. We don’t even know her last name.”
Jessica gave in. She handed the letter to Peter, who made short work of slicing it open. She wrinkled her nose at the musty smell of dust and old paper as Peter handed the envelope back, saying “You may do the honors.”
Jessica felt a little shiver of excitement as she carefully held the envelope open with two fingers and peered inside. “Oh!” She looked up at Peter in surprise, then upended the envelope and poured a small pile of seeds into her palm.
“The letter isn’t to Rose, it is a rose! Rose seeds, anyway,” Peter laughed. “I didn’t see that coming.”
The back garden was still mostly a wild tangle of weeds, but together Jessica and Peter cleared a small section of flower bed near the back wall of the house and carefully planted and watered the seeds. “Can seeds still grow after so long?” Jess mused as she watched Peter watering the small patch of earth. “We’re about to find out,” he replied, tipping the last of the water out of the can.
Jessica went to bed that night still thinking about the envelope and the seeds it contained. Were they actually roses, or had the seeds been gifted to a person named rose? She couldn’t wait to see what--if anything--would grow.
That same night, Jessica dreamed of roses. But not just any roses; these were huge, the size of cabbages with showy peoneyesque blooms. But even more impressive than the size and beauty of the blossoms was their fragrance. The luxurious velvety, musky scent of roses, stronger than any perfume, permeated the dream.
The scent got stronger, and stronger, until it woke her up. Her eyes popped open, blinking at the ceiling in the dark. She knew she wasn’t fully awake because she could still smell the strong floral scent of the roses from her dream. She sniffed once, then again. Her brow furrowed. Was she still asleep, dreaming of being awake? Or was she really smelling roses? She reached over and shook Peter awake. “Babe, do you smell that?”
Peter sat up, confused. “Huh? What?”
“I said, do you smell that?” Jessica said, sitting up too. They both sniffed the air together. Peter’s eyes widened, and he leapt out of the bed. “Oh my God! Smoke! Jessica, the house is on fire!” He grabbed Jessica by the hand and dragged her out of bed with him. He ran to the bedroom door and felt it carefully. “Crap, it’s hot.” He walked in a tight circle, muttering to himself. “We’re on the second floor. What do we do? How do we get out?”
Jessica ran to the window, her heart in her mouth. She, too, now smelled the smoke, but it was still strongly overlayed by the scent of roses. She opened the blinds, then gasped at what she saw. “Peter. Look!” She heaved the window upwards, allowing the moonlight and the even-stronger scent of roses to wash into the room.
The whole back garden was covered in a tangle of rose bushes. The blossoms were the size of dinner plates, silvery under the moonlight. The coiling vines had grown right up the side of the house, around the window to their room. These vines weren’t the tender green shoots of a newly sprouted plant. Rather, they were thick woody old-growth vines.
Peter and Jessica hurriedly climbed out the window, using their hands and bare feet to find purchase on the sturdy vines. They climbed down to safety--covered in scratches from the thorns--where they stood, huddled together, in the one patch of grass not covered in roses and watched the flames dance over the roof of the house.
It seemed like forever, but it wasn’t long before the fire trucks arrived. The fire department wrestled the fire under control, containing it to one area and eventually extinguishing it. A bedroom at the front of the house, and part of the living room under it, had sustained extensive damage from not only the fire, but from smoke and water as well.
The firemen had to hack through the woody roses to reach Peter and Jessica in the backyard, and make a path for them to walk out. The fireman who broke through into the clearing where they stood paused to lean on his ax and catch his breath. He pushed his helmet back and looked up at the house, then back at Peter and Jessica. “Damn! You wouldn’t have made it out, without all this overgrowth. Looks like years of neglect back here might have saved your lives. Crazy, huh?”
Jess and Peter exchanged glances, but didn’t say anything about the roses appearing overnight. They were still trying to understand it themselves, much less explain it to someone else.
After a lengthy insurance battle, the damage from the fire was repaired and renovations on the rest of the house resumed.
Bringing the cottage back to its former glory was every bit of the adventure Peter and Jessica had hoped it would be, and they had many anecdotes with which to entertain visitors over the years—but the story of the envelope, and the mysterious roses that grew over night, was never one of them. They could never quite bring themselves to speak of it, even to one another.
Yet every June thereafter, when the air was heavy with the perfume of the gorgeous antique roses that sprawled across the back garden, Jessica cut lush bouquets for the house and said a silent thanks for the mysterious envelope, and the magical seeds it contained.
#MagicalRealism
#Fantasy
#FlashFiction
