The House on Wren Street

This is for Mikeydred's May prompt.

Discern...then follow.-Michelle Liew

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Every May Day, Fernvale unfurled like clockwork. Children touched the homes, scattering wildflowers from doorsteps to the forest edge.

The threshold of number 12, Wren Street, remained deadbolted, its windows sealed shut for decades. The doors of the nameless house stayed closed...because no one dared knock.

A hush covered the house like a shroud-but one little girl wondered why.

Kit was like the other children of the small town--she slipped through the sleepy streets to leave baskets on doorsteps every May Day morning. She sneaked past its closed shutters, clutching wildflowers in one hand and a note in the other. She'd bless number 12's doorstep with her offerings.

That year's May Day dawned with a difference--it came in the form of a violet, dutifully pinned on her basket ribbon. Beside the basket was a set of clear footprints, not hers--it was another pair of soles.

Her baskets vanished--unopened, unanswered. But that violet was a first whisper. Gratitude flew in on the wings of folded paper cranes. Thanks arrived in the form of a torn journal page.

There was no question- Number 12 was the town's eyesore. And the bane of Fernvale's town council, bound to face the wrath of the demolition derby.

Not everyone wanted it to face that wrath. Kit stormed into the council meeting, wildflowers in hand.

"Someone lives there. They returned paper cranes. Thanked me on journal pages. For these." She lifted the basket of wildflowers, her face drenched in tears.

The elders returned baleful eyes and scoffed. Kit fingered the single violet, bold, purple. She held it in front of her. "If you erase this house, you'll erase the thank you, and the person who comes along with it. "

A sudden creak echoed from beyond the windows as she spoke. Soft, but certain footsteps. Every eye darted towards the door.

Then, a shadow stood at the door. But not of someone expected.

It was no ghost, Nor anyone elderly. A young man, with a fading mark on his wrist---the same symbol as the violet pinned to the basket.

"They told me that if I stepped out before I returned the 100th violet, the curse would restart."

Kit stood, dumbstruck--then drew herself up. The violets weren't rebelling. They were freeing.

"We've shattered your spell. The curse of blind convention. Of following...doing nothing."

The elders remained, open-mouthed, at the table. They had embraced silence all those years--and lack. Not growth.

Tradition had sealed the door--curiosity turned its handle.

That evening. Fernvale's children gathered on the porch of Number 12, wildflowers in hand. The young man stepped out of the door, his hands outstretched to finally receive the sun.

And to finally ask "Why?"

Fernavale had, at last, answered.

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Original story by Michelle Liew. AI tags are coincidental.