Days passed… but something had changed in Aria.
Grandmother felt it in the smallest gestures of her granddaughter:
her quieter mornings,
her tendency to gaze at the skies with a gentle melancholy,
or the way she pressed flowers between the pages of old books, as if each petal held a memory only she understood.
One evening, while they were alone, Grandmother softly closed the kitchen door, set down her ladle, and looked at Aria with tender but firm attention.
— Aria… you're hiding something from me, aren't you?
Aria looked up, surprised.
— No, I…
— Your hands are cold even in full sunlight. Your eyes shine like a child in love with a fire she doesn't yet understand. And you haven't left flowers by the edge of the clearing for weeks…
Aria lowered her eyes.
Her heart tightened. She knew Grandmother sensed everything.
— I saw him… she whispered.
— Not in a dream this time. In person.
A long silence stretched between them.
The old woman then placed her wrinkled hands on hers.
— Wilfred… she said simply.
— You saw him, didn't you?
Aria raised her eyes, shocked.
— You… you know his name?
Grandmother sighed.
— Long ago… before you came, even before Roy was born… I saw him once. At night. Wounded, crouched before a frozen cherry tree. I was young, careless. And at that moment, I understood that the pain I saw in his eyes was deeper than a thousand winters combined.
Aria shivered. A soft shiver, but heavy with meaning.
— Why didn't you tell me?
— Because some wounds cannot be told, Aria. They are felt, in silence… in absence… in the fear of losing someone you never really had.
She paused, then added:
— But you… you're not afraid of him, are you?
— No, Aria answered in a breath.
— He's not what people think. He's not only the shadow. He is… what he hides behind.
Grandmother slowly stood up, then took from an old chest a small engraved box. She opened it: inside was a dried flower, the color of blood and moon.
— A black rose, murmured Aria.
— Yes. The only one he ever left at my door. Thirty years ago.
That night, the wind was already whispering his name… Wilfred.
She held out the flower to Aria.
— If your heart still seeks him… lay this flower where you used to leave the others. You will see if he still listens too.
Aria took the flower, tears in her eyes.
The bond was not broken.
It had only… fallen asleep.