Chapter Eight: 

The countryside had emptied. The funeral was done, the tea poured, the polite condolences folded and tucked away. Only the wind and the flowers remained, brushing gently against the stones like they had nowhere else to be. Mal stayed.

He sat cross-legged in the grass, jacket discarded, sleeves rolled to his elbows, the flowerpot of Malva moschata resting between his shoes. He stared at Claris’s grave. Or rather, just above it—his eyes had stopped focusing. There were daffodils on the stone now. A tin wind chime that didn’t quite chime but made a sound of sticks hitting shards of tin. Someone had left a postcard, old and rain-speckled, from a place called Thirsk. Childhood friend, maybe. Maybe more. The only thing Mal brought was the musk mallow.

“I watered him,” he said aloud, unsure why. “Like I promised.” The breeze shifted. For a while, nothing happened. Just clouds, grass, quiet.

Then— A low hum. A blur of gold and black. A bee zipped through the air, dipped once over the headstone, hovered, then darted—ignoring the daffodils, the foxglove, the orchids, the parsnips, the chime, the card—and went straight for the pot of Malva moschata. Mal blinked. The bee crawled into the soft pink center of the bloom, as if it had done this a hundred times before. Like it knew exactly where to go.

“Of course,” Mal whispered. “Of course you’d ignore the rest.” The bee buzzed contentedly. Then lifted off. One circle around the gravestone. A second around the flowerpot. Then—strange as it was—it flew a tight, deliberate loop around Malachai’s head. He watched it, unmoving. His lips parted slightly.

The bee zipped ahead. Mal stood slowly, the grass sticking to his trousers. He looked back once, at the name carved into the stone.

CLARIS JORDAN
they/he/them/him
“Even if I am no longer here, my flowers will stay with you.”

The quote hit him like a fist to the chest. He hadn’t known they’d carved it there. He had no idea who told them. But of course, it was Claris. Always saying things like that. Always leaving softness behind.

The bee danced ahead again.

Mal huffed. “Alright.”

He followed. Down the slope. Past a rusted fence. Through a thicket of hedges where the path blurred into wild undergrowth. The wind picked up, tugging his tight curls. His breath caught in his throat. Then—just over a dip in the land—the world opened.

A field. Wide. Open. Drenched in sunlight. And wildflowers. So many. Blues and yellows. Soft purples. Sprigs of white and bursts of orange. A whole meadow of stubborn, unruly life. And scattered through it, impossibly familiar—Malva moschata.

Everywhere. The bee disappeared into the blooms like it had come home. Mal took a shaking step forward, then another. The scent was sweet, earthy, warm. He stood in the middle of the field, hands loose at his sides, and—for the first time in days—he let the silence wrap around him like a blanket.

Not empty. Not hollow. Just quiet.

A breeze curled around his ribs. A memory surfaced—Claris stretching like a cat on the hospital bed, mumbling, “I think I’ll have time. Real time.” He hadn’t. But somehow, impossibly, he had left this behind. Mal closed his eyes.

And wept—not from guilt, not from rage—but from something softer. Something he couldn’t name yet. Something like peace.