Night Bloom

CW: Themes of death.

Samara carefully tucked white lilies between the old woman’s clasped hands to hide just how waxy they still looked. Makeup could only do so much. The foundation was too yellow and sank into the fine lines etched across her knuckles. Samara weaved through the stems, splaying out the petals to better conceal the dead fingers that weren’t really holding the flowers, but had been molded around them. The clock above the casket thudded like a rusted metronome. Samara always hated that clock. It was meant for the guests—to remind family they only had thirty minutes left before all they had were the pictures they remembered to take when she was still there.

Another tick of the clock and she took a step back. Something was still off.

Analyzing.

The flowers—they should be more to the left.

“No one is going to be looking at her hands.”

A petal, its surface more fragile than the old woman’s, ripped from between Samara’s fingers.

She wanted to scream—not out of fear. It was just her assistant, Tom, who had silently been arranging the flowers around the viewing area, but because she had spent the better part of an hour getting the woman’s hands just right.

“Everyone looks at the hands,” she said while shoving the dead petal into the pocket of her perfectly ironed slacks.

“I’ve never looked at the hands all the times I went to a funeral.”

“That’s an unfair assessment. I would hardly consider you human.”

A high, brittle sound came from the vase of moonflowers as Tom set it down on a side table. Their white buds were still tightly closed. Ugly things—unfit for a funeral. This was the third funeral in a row someone had sent them. She didn’t need to look hard to see that the card was missing. Anonymously sent. Again. These flowers weren’t cheap either. A couple hundred for a single vase. On top of that, hardly any florists sold the things because they were rather useless. The flowers bloomed only at night.

“Me?” Tom’s voice drew out. “I’m not the one who’s spiraling because of some old woman’s hands. The lady is like… ninety. Her hands already looked like boiled leather when she was still alive. Relax.”

Normally, she would have kept the banter going. That’s how she and Tom got along. When you spend most of the day watching body fluids drain down the sink, serious conversations are usually off the table. But all she could think about were those damn flowers.

Tom must have noticed her staring, because his face shifted into something that made her want to double back to the joke. The heat from his hand radiated a few inches from hers. His was the only warm thing in the room.

Aside from herself, of course.

“Hey, I was only joking,” he said as if the viewing had already started.

It was kind of endearing. Maybe she should let him think he pushed the joke too far. Then again, that wasn’t exactly the type of thing normal people who drown in formalin fumes all day would consider.

Normal people also didn’t wonder if a funeral bouquet was not for the deceased, but for the one who closed the casket.

“Those flowers,” Samara said, her eyes staring down at the eyes she had personally stitched closed. “Was there a note?”

Tom shifted from next to her and she could practically hear the exaggerated shrug, the same kind he always did when he realized he’d lost her attention. “I didn’t lose it if that’s what you’re implying.”

She hadn’t been. But maybe she should have; that should have been the conclusion any normal person would come to first. “Are you certain? This is the third set that—”

His brows drew together at that statement, and Samara cut herself off. “Just… go check the back, make sure you didn’t drop it.”

She was sure that Tom had rolled his eyes before he stomped off to the receiving area, leaving Samara and those hands. Something about them still wasn’t right. She yanked the lilies from the grasp of the dead hands, and the snap of a stem cracked through the too quiet room like the rib of a frail corpse when forced into a coffin too small.

Hanging over the edge of the casket was a lily, the blossom hanging by the stem, with only a single green fiber keeping it from plummeting to the carpeted floor. She didn’t move. Then, when Tom opened the side door, a gust of wind made the pale petals of the lily shift, and the last strand broke. The white pile left on the floor, once such a lovely flower, looked more like a stain digested and left behind from something once living, especially after Tom blindly stepped onto it. Strange that he couldn’t feel the difference.

Arms crossed in front of his chest, Tom’s head lolled to the side. “No note.”

She wasn’t sure why—maybe because there was no note, no one would notice—but she snatched one of the unbloomed moonflowers and stuffed it between the woman’s hands.

And finally, her hands looked right. Alive.

***

Everything was perfect. Rays of the midday sun filtered through the shuttered curtains, making the crystal tissue box glitter in the light, and there wasn’t a single space left empty where flowers should have gone. She hated it when that happened. Not because she felt bad for the family or the deceased, though she wished that had been the reason. No, it was because it made her look unprofessional, like she somehow hadn’t done her job right. She had a closet full of silk flowers, just in case, but those never looked right.

Both Samara and Tom opened the doors as people, heads slumped low and adorned all in black, slowly trickled into the viewing room. Samara wore her best sympathetic smile. Soft eyes, brows drawn ever so slightly together. Tom wasn’t nearly as good at fabricating sympathy as she was. Each time someone passed him by, he pulled his lips in like he wasn’t sure what to do with them. Give him a few years, and he could fake it just like her. It would be good for business. Then again, it would be better if it were real.

A tall woman came up to the twin glass door and stood alone. It wasn’t entirely unusual for someone to attend a viewing alone, and Samara wouldn’t have given it a second thought if the woman’s heels and lips weren’t bright red. She held the door open for her and watched as those red heels sunk into the carpet.

Bright blue eyes didn’t look ahead, searching for family or zero in on the deep brown oak of the casket. Instead, they landed on Samara and didn’t so much as blink.

When in mourning, people had all sorts of strange reactions. Samara knew that. She had stock phrases memorized, tailored to each flavor of grief. The deep stare of those unblinking eyes, and the faintest smile across red painted lips, she wasn’t trained on what to do with that.

“The uhh… guest book is to the left of the hallway, and restrooms…”

Samara cringed. Restrooms? That was off-script. She wasn’t supposed to point out restrooms unless someone asked. Abort. Abort. “I mean, let me know if there is anything I can get for you.”

The woman still didn’t turn away. Just past her shoulder, Tom opened the door and greeted a family with a teary-eyed child pulled against the father’s legs. When they walked past, the woman fell in line with them, as if she had been among them the entire time.

“Tom,” Samara hissed between her teeth. “Did you see that?”

His gaze was lazy, and he raised a single brow as if she had just woken him up. “See what?”

“That woman.”

“You mean with the family?”

“No, with the red lipstick.”

He leaned past the doorway that led to the viewing room and shrugged. “Lot of ladies here with red lipstick.”

“The tall one, she had red heels on too.”

“What’s your point?”

She could tell by the drag in his voice that Tom had grown rather tired of her today. After the hands and now this, he had to have been counting the hours until he could just go home.

“My point…” She stared at the deep burgundy swirls of the carpet. Two holes that had been indented into the carpet where the woman stood, stared back at her. “My point is. Something was off about her.”

“So? It’s a funeral. Something is off about everyone.”

“No, I mean… You know those flowers that didn’t come with a note?”

His head twitched at the mention of the note as if he were rejecting a bit of fermented trash. “Not the note again. I told you I—”

“I don’t know why, but I think she sent the flowers.”

The stare she got back from Tom was certainly an emotion Samara had cataloged and studied well. The words “Yeah, and?” typically followed. Though he never actually said them out loud. After that response, she just dropped the whole thing. She was being weird. The stupid hands threw her off her game today. There was still a whole funeral to tend to, so she couldn’t dwell on one woman’s red lips and shoes. And maybe she wasn’t even staring. Maybe she only thought she was staring. Chances were, the lady was just scared to go in alone.

And that meant Samara had botched a tiny sliver of her job. That wouldn’t do. There was still time, though; she could go back in, check on her. Make sure the woman didn’t look lost or, worse yet, fall to the center of the floor sobbing. Still plenty of time to make sure everything went just right—no, perfect.

Once the last of the guests trickled in, Samara left Tom alone to tend to the doors. In the main viewing room, it was like a textbook funeral. Families solemnly paraded past corkboards displaying family photos, thumbed at the cards that came along with the elaborate flower wreaths, and finally, they observed the body—the result of her hard work. A young boy pointed a finger at the old woman’s hands (she would have to tell Tom later; people did care about the hands).

Flawless, just as expected.

Except… From across the room, light glinted off glossy red lips. No sobbing, not even a sniffle. The woman’s blue eyes were as dry as the ocular caps used to seal dead eyes. That was fine. Not everyone cries at funerals. Especially the men, always the men. That didn’t mean there wasn’t still something strange. With her hands clasped in front of her waist, she just stood there. Everyone else around her brushed past as if she weren’t even there.

Maybe that meant she wasn’t.

Samara twisted and glanced back at Tom, who was leafing through the guest book, something he did to act as though he were busy.

“Come here for a sec,” she said.

Tom turned the page far too slowly, and he didn’t look up right away either. Finally, hands shoved into his pockets and looking grossly unprofessional, Tom leaned against the doorway and gave her a dull “what?”

“See that woman with the red heels?” she asked, nudging her chin towards the viewing room.

She watched as his eyes bounced from person to person, then he shook his head. “No red shoes.”

“She’s right—”

Her eyes scanned across the room. No red heels. No red lips. The woman was gone. How? Samara had only turned away for a second. The heel to her own shoe caught on the carpet and her ankle twisted. If it weren’t for Tom’s arm, snatching her as if he had been steadying mourners for years, she would have hit the floor. And caused a scene.

She wrenched her arm away.

Error. Anomaly detected.

She had been working too hard, and those flowers… those fucking flowers were messing with her head. She just needed some air. Then everything would be okay. Back to normal. And she could get back to her job.

Tom’s voice calling after her was cut off by the front door swinging closed. Summer sun warmed the top of her head. The air outside was crisp and clean, not like the air inside, where the stench of flowers and the hint of something deeper that everyone pretended to ignore hung at the edge. This was what she needed. A moment just to breathe.

“You were staring,” said a woman’s voice that was like fresh tar poured over gravel. “Felt something strange?”

Leaning against the railing of the stair was the woman with red lips. When did she—this couldn’t be real. Samara would have seen her leave. The only emergency exits were in the back, where guests never went.

“You look pale,” the woman said. “Like you might have seen a ghost?” That last bit she said with a smile that made Samara want to puke.

Just a woman. Just hands. Just stress. Everything is as it should be. Except the error still screamed.

“Did you like the flowers I sent you?” the red lips asked her.

“You?—”

The lips smiled at her. “I was afraid it was a bit too cryptic.”

“What do you mean?” The words caught in Samara’s throat, and she had to force each syllable out.

Heels clacked against the pavement as the woman circled her. “You don’t know yet? Don’t worry. You’ll figure it out in time.”

Something was wrong with Samara’s head. Red words flashed in her head. She hated them, wanted to claw them out of her eyes. This woman, she was putting them there. Her fault. A car whizzed past. It looked like it might have been red. The tires were too big, and the exhaust spewing from the back smelled like her own breath.

She couldn’t take it.

System reboot.

She took a shaky breath in. Then out.

No more cars. No more words. Still the woman—the red lips watched her.

That was better. Not perfect. Perfect would be a funeral well done.

The crease of Samara’s perfectly ironed pants hung wrinkled where she’d clenched the fabric. Did she do that? That wasn’t like her. “Figure out what?” The words tumbled from her mouth like broken teeth.

The woman took a long moment to answer. She looked back at the doors of the funeral home, and a strange curl formed at the edge of her lip. “Surely, you’ve noticed by now. Small things maybe? You aren’t like the people inside.”

“Because of my job? Because I care for the dead?”

A red heel scraped against the ground as the woman turned. She only looked over her shoulder when she last spoke. “Not your job. Those people inside—they rot. You just break.”