Where The Ash Tree Blooms.

** “Beneath the Ash Tree”**

The first time they met, the world was loud.

It was late spring, the village fair spilling laughter and the scent of warm bread into the air. Music threaded between the stalls, pulling strangers together, weaving their footsteps into the same tapestry. She was standing near the old ash tree that shaded the cobblestone path, her hands wrapped around a cup of cider. He was passing by, almost too quickly, when a sudden gust of wind tugged her scarf into the air.

It caught on his shoulder.

He could have kept walking. But something—perhaps politeness, perhaps the quiet magnetism between two souls—made him turn, catch the scarf, and meet her eyes.

For a moment, all the fair’s noise faded. Her eyes held the sort of stillness you find in water just before it reflects the moon. He smiled, handed the scarf back, and almost walked away. Almost. But she thanked him with a voice so soft it felt like the air leaned closer to hear it.

They met again by accident, though in hindsight, it felt more like fate than chance.

The ash tree stood in the center of the square, as it had for decades, and they found themselves drawn to it in the weeks that followed. Sometimes he would be there first, sketchbook in hand, capturing pieces of the world in graphite. Sometimes she would arrive ahead of him, book open, reading words she would later forget because she had started listening for his footsteps instead.

Their conversations began with the obvious: the weather, the fair, the people passing by. But slowly, they began to trade pieces of themselves. He told her about the old farmhouse where he lived, how the wooden stairs creaked differently depending on the season. She told him about her mother’s garden and how lavender always reminded her of home.

There was no rush in their knowing of each other. It grew like moss—quiet, patient, steadfast.

Summer softened into autumn.

The ash tree turned gold, and the air tasted of rain and woodsmoke. One evening, they sat beneath it as the sky bruised with twilight. A lantern from the bakery across the square cast a warm glow over their faces.

He asked her what she feared most. She hesitated, then said, *“Wasting time on things that don’t matter.”*

When she asked him the same, he said, *“Never finding the person I’m meant to spend my life with.”*

Silence followed, but it wasn’t empty. It was the kind that hums quietly, like a string plucked in the dark, still vibrating.

That night, he walked her home for the first time. The streets were wet from an earlier rain, and the reflection of the ash tree stretched across the cobblestones like a shadow that refused to fade.

Winter arrived like a held breath.

Snow brushed the branches of the ash tree, soft and deliberate, as though it feared waking the world. The square grew quieter. Fewer people lingered. But they came still, wrapping themselves in scarves and stories, their laughter misting in the cold air.

One evening, the wind was sharp enough to sting, and she didn’t appear. He waited longer than he would admit to anyone. Days passed. Weeks.

When she finally returned, her cheeks were pale, her voice thinner than he remembered. She told him she had been unwell. Something in her tone told him there was more to it, but he didn’t press. Instead, he offered her his coat, even though it left him shivering. She smiled faintly, as if she knew it was more than warmth he was giving.

By early spring, the ash tree began to bud again. She grew paler still.

He noticed the way her hands trembled when she held her cup of tea, the way her steps shortened as though every pace took more effort than the last.

One day, as petals scattered like snow, she told him the truth:

She was ill. The kind of illness people speak of quietly, in doorways. The kind that teaches you the weight of days.

He didn’t speak at first. He reached for her hand, and when he held it, he understood that love wasn’t only about joy—it was also about the courage to stand beside someone when the ground begins to crack.

They began to measure time differently.

Not in weeks or months, but in mornings when she felt strong enough to meet him, in evenings when she leaned against him beneath the ash tree and let the silence hold them.

One warm afternoon, he found her already there, sketching the ash tree’s roots. She told him she was afraid she wouldn’t see it bloom again. He told her he would draw it for her, every spring, for as long as he lived.

It was not a promise made lightly.

When she was too weak to walk to the square, he came to her. He read to her in her mother’s garden, the air heavy with lavender. Sometimes she would drift to sleep while he spoke, and he would keep reading, so that her dreams might carry the words somewhere safe.

She passed in early autumn, when the ash leaves were just beginning to turn.

The following spring, the ash tree bloomed as it always had, unbothered by absence, unaware of grief. He came to the square with his sketchbook. People walked past, carrying baskets and bread, but he barely noticed.

He sat where they had first spoken, where the scarf had caught on his shoulder, and he began to draw. His lines were slower now, deliberate, as though each one was an act of remembering.

In the corner of the page, he wrote her name. Not because he would forget it, but because he wanted it to live in the open air, beneath the ash tree where they had met.

And when the wind shifted and the blossoms shivered, it almost felt like she was there again, watching.