White and Black Pearls 3 - Ten Pearl Strand

Chapter Nineteen

He sat there silently, awake for the first night since her death. His arms were wrapped around his knees and his chin rested on his arms as he stared at the black ground. A slight frown creased between Jack’s brows as he watched something strange happening, something he hadn’t seen happen before on this island and didn’t recall ever hearing of before. From the black ground, up from beneath the crumbling charcoal, little green sprouts began to rise. They pushed the charcoal aside so that their tight little buds could stretch up higher as their vines and leaves spread out slowly. The leaves sprung open like the canvas of freshly dropped sails and the vines curled along the ground quickly, as more and more buds rose. There was soon a carpet of green covering the black, as though there had been no fire.

Jack reached out and touched one of the buds. Nothing happened. He squeezed it experimentally, and again nothing. It was just some weird plant, and nothing more.

A disappointed look flashed on his face as he returned his arm up around his knees and put his chin back down on them, though he did lift his gaze then when he saw the edges of the trees before him starting to glow with the moonlight behind them. The first moon after the New Moon was to rise tonight, just a slender little crescent, but a moon nonetheless, to cast its light down upon everything, including Jack.

Dark brown eyes remained fixed upon the sky and the stars as he waited and watched the fingers of moonlight drifting down lower and lower, slowly descending until the light touched his head and moved down his arms and legs, capturing him in its spotlight. As the moon rose higher, the light traveled over to this new carpet of vines, leaves and buds, and Jack startled visibly when the light hit one of the buds and it sprung open in a flash of white. He startled again when it happened for a second time, to another bud as soon as the moonlight hit it, and soon Jack couldn’t even look up at the sky any more, he was too bewildered with what he was seeing.

These must be moonflowers, he realized, as they each opened the instant the moonlight touched them, until the moon was directly above and what had been scorched black ground was now green with a field of soft white, and hundreds of flowers all pointed up at the sky. Reaching out again, Jack brushed his fingertips against the soft petals of one of the flowers. He recognized these now; they were the flowers that had been embroidered on the corsets and bodices of Celestiana’s dresses, along with sunflowers, and now he knew why. They were her flowers.

On impulse, he plucked the flower he’d been caressing, and brought it closer, staring at it for a moment before lowering his head into his arms and closing his eyes. Finally, he broke, and he was able to mourn properly, alone in the small clearing on this wretched island.


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The cool fingers on his heated skin felt wonderful. They stroked along his cheek and jaw and they touched his hair, sending pleasant tingles across his scalp and body. In all of the last month he had not rested this well, but after crying himself to sleep, he’d finally gotten the deep rest he’d needed, weary from everything.

Those fingers brushed along his cheek again, down his jaw, and Jack’s eyes flew open with a gasp. He sat up and turned quickly to see who was there, but there was no one.

Jack looked at the scorched patch of land. There were no vines, no flowers. The moon was low on the other side of the sky, about to set for the night, but it appeared as though he’d slept through its entire ascent and peak.

There was a soft rustling noise.

“Wah!” Jack wailed, lurching to one side and away from the source of the heart-stopping noise, startled like he hadn’t been in a very long time. He grabbed his chest where his heart was hammering hard, but froze as he stared down at what had made the noise.

He looked over at the land once more. No flowers, no vines. Yes, he was sure. That had been a dream. The hands on his face had been a dream. But this…

Jack reached out slowly and touched it, then shivered.


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