He didn't belong there.
It had been years since he had the heart to return, let alone the courage.
The place had not yet been returned to the world of the living. It felt odd to be among the ashes, a living breathing thing where there was nothing but death to surround him.
There was no grass sprouting from the ruins, no sound of birds or crickets. There was only dead silence, and the sting of the wind against the strange intruder's face.
Something colorful caught his eye, and he knelt down to pick it out of the ashes.
It was a scrap of cloth, burned around the edges and faded with age. Blue silk and a bit of creamy lace, hardly bigger than his palm.


She was stunning. Standing in the doorway, glancing up shyly with a barely contained smile, and eyes that rivaled the stars in the sky for sheer brilliance.
A simple nightgown did more for her beauty than all the jewels she could ever dream to drape about her graceful neck.
She turned on her heels, arms up above her head in a scattered, childlike dance across the room, laughter erupting as she collapsed onto the bed beside her fiancée.
"You know, if I could wear anything for the rest of eternity this would be it."
"Well, should you meet a tragic end…I'll keep it in mind."
"Cheeky."

He stood up and removed a small notebook from his pocket. He carefully placed the cloth scrap inside, and put the notebook back into his pocket. It was bitterly cold, the leaden clouds overhead looked like snow was coming and the wind bit at his face and exposed hands. His gloves were lost somewhere, much to his disappointment, so he shoved his hands back in his pockets and began to walk.
Gone was the ballroom, where VFD volunteers had once danced the Grand Waltz, where once he had appeared costumed as a cattle rancher and once as a duke. And the staircase where he had stolen his first kiss, when they were both barely more than children.  Broken tiles crackled under his feet.

 From the ballroom, he was sure.


She was costumed as a flamenco dancer, black skirt flying up around her thighs as she turned in a perfect pirouette and kissed her fiancée on the cheek. The candlelight flickered off her hair, turning into a brilliant, firey halo around her head. Almost every other couple had vanished, the lights were growing dimmer and outside, the sun had long gone.
"Your brother's been harassing me. He wants to know why you haven't talk to your sister in over a month."
"I need to know what side she's on." He replied.
"What are we going to do?" She asked.
"We could just slip away from the party, run away together. Elope."
She had her serious look. "Everybody's taking sides. Sooner or later you'll have to pick a side too."
He dipped her backwards, as she came up she kissed her fiancée again, this time on the mouth.
"Think about it." She said.

A few thorny looking flowers were struggling up out of the ruins, brilliant scarlet blossoms standing out against the blackened earth. So something had taken root after all.
He pulled hard on one of the blossoms, it came off in his hand.
Lenten roses, not really roses but Hellebore, one of the only plants to bloom in winter. The thorns dug into his fingertips, drawing blood and making him curse, dropping the flower.


She was turned away from him, staring out the window at the bleak twilight falling over the landscape.
"Beatrice, I came as soon as I knew it was safe-"
The raw scrapes on her hands were evidence enough of how close he had come to losing her forever.
"Olaf told me all about what you did."
"You can't possibly believe anything he says."
"You almost killed me. That's what you wanted, isn't it?"
"How could you think-"
"You want my money, that's all you ever wanted. Everything my parents left behind, that's the only reason you proposed!"
"Olaf has been lying to you all along, Beatrice-"
"How dare you burst into my bedroom when I specifically told Jacques you were not welcome in this house."
There was a long silence. "I just wanted to bring you flowers."
At last, she turned to face him. Another scrape, deeper and thicker, marred her cheek just below her eye. Her voice was shaking with fury and hurt.
"If you ever come here again, I will call the police. Do you understand?"
"You have to be kidding. Bea-"
"I said get out!"

The blackened, twisted frame of a canopy bed told him he was standing somewhere in the middle of what had once been a bedroom. A scorched patch of ground must once have been a rug, and as he carefully stepped over a pile of snapped and broken boards, he found a box among the rubble, half burned away to nothing.
He gingerly lifted the lid, and it crumbled in his hands. Inside it was disappointing. Jewelry, necklaces and bracelets were melted together into a shapeless mass.
At the bottom was a picture he could have gone his entire life without seeing, had his brother not shoved it in his face one morning, and a ring. A simple silver band, a sapphire and two diamonds. He turned it over and over in his hand, squinting to read the inscription inside the band.
Of course.
The world is quiet here.

"You heard."
Wordless, he nodded.
"I've never been happier."
"He's intelligent, and ambitious, and…" She smiled. A real, genuine smile, something he hadn't seen from her in so many years he had nearly forgotten what it looked like. "I really do love him. Honestly and truly, this is everything I ever dreamed of."

Slowly he sank to the ground. A sick feeling inside made his stomach twist, as hot tears began to slip down his cheeks, stinging even more in the cold. He hurriedly wiped them away on his sleeve.
God, he was tired of crying.
"You!" A harsh voice brought Lemony out of his reverie, back into the blackened reality around him.
He hesitated, looking back at the ruins of his fiancée's mansion before looking to the woods behind him.
"You, come back here!" The bearded stranger cried, holding up his hand.
Lemony did the only thing he could think of.
He turned and ran. The ring slipped from his fingers into the snow.

He had never seen her more stunning.
Her silvery wings glistened in the light that streamed though the window, the same light that fell on her face and across her shoulders, lighting her features against the darkness of the night sky behind her. Fifteen years had done little to dampen her beauty.
"I really do love him."
"Honestly?"
She gave him a sad smile. "Honestly and truly."
"Will you answer me one last question?"
"One."
He leaned forward and whispered his question, the one thing that had haunted him for fifteen long, lonely years.
There was a long silence. At last, she gave her answer. Her lips brushed his earlobe, the heavy scent of her perfume enveloping him as her arms wrapped around his waist.
He had no idea then, of course. They were the last words she would ever speak to him.
"Oh, Lemony. Always. Honestly and truly, always."