The brass bell above the door chimed as Ezra pushed into the Whispering Pages, though the sign clearly read “Closed.” September rain drummed against the windows, and the scent of old paper and lavender tea hung in the air like a memory refusing to fade.
Behind the circulation desk, Marlowe looked up from a leather-bound tome, her silver hair catching the amber lamplight. She’d been expecting him.
“You’re early,” she said, though her pocket watch showed three minutes past midnight. “The transformation doesn’t begin until the autumn equinox.”
Ezra’s hands trembled as he approached. Dark circles shadowed his eyes, and his usually pristine cardigan hung wrinkled and coffee-stained. “I couldn’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see her face. Clara’s been gone six months, but I keep thinking she’ll walk through our door asking what’s for dinner.”
Marlowe set down her reading glasses. For forty-seven years, she’d served as the midnight librarian, tending to souls who wandered in after hours seeking more than books. Tomorrow, the library board would install digital kiosks and security cameras. Her kind of magic would have no place here.
“Grief is like hunger,” she said, moving to a section marked ‘Botanical Remedies – Fiction.’ “Feed it the wrong things, and it grows monstrous. But starve it completely…” She pulled a slim volume from the shelf. Moonflowers bloomed across its cover, petals seeming to flutter in the lamplight.
“This isn’t about moving on,” Ezra protested. “People keep telling me to ‘process’ my emotions, to find ‘closure.’ I don’t want to forget her laugh or the way she hummed while cooking.”
“Who said anything about forgetting?” Marlowe opened the book. Instead of pages, it contained a small glass vial filled with shimmering powder. “This is ground moonflower seed. Clara planted them in your garden last spring, didn’t she?”
Ezra nodded, tears threatening.
“They bloom only once, under the harvest moon. Clara knew this. She planted them as a gift—not to herself, but to your tomorrow.” Marlowe sprinkled the powder into a cup of lavender tea. “Drink this beneath the moonflowers. Listen.”
“Listen to what?”
“To what love sounds like when it transforms from ‘was’ to ‘is.’”
Ezra accepted the cup with shaking hands. The tea tasted of starlight and summer evenings, of Clara’s garden and possibilities he’d forgotten existed.
Outside, the rain softened to mist. Through the window, Ezra could see his moonflowers had begun to bloom, their white faces turned toward the hidden moon like prayers made visible.
Marlowe walked him to the door, her footsteps already growing translucent. “Take care of those flowers. And Ezra? When you’re ready—really ready—there’s someone at the community center who makes pottery. She lost her husband last winter. Her name is Ruth, and she could use a friend who understands that love doesn’t end; it just learns new shapes.”
The bell chimed one final time as Ezra stepped into the misty night. Behind him, the Whispering Pages began to fade, its magic relocating to wherever broken hearts most needed tending.
In his garden, the moonflowers sang Clara’s favorite lullaby in voices only love could hear.
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