WHERE ROOTS REMEMBER YOUR NAME

The Premise:

In a coastal town where gardens grow memories, 34-year-old floral genealogist Aris Thorne can touch plants and see their owners’ hidden traumas. Her gift thrives in the greenhouse of Saltwick House—a crumbling estate where flowers bloom from buried secrets. When widower Silas Vale hires her to revive his wife’s poison garden, Aris uncovers a root system preserving his late wife’s final words: “He didn’t mean to kill me.”

1: The Language of Wounds

Aris’ hands sank into the rosemary bush.

Flash: A woman’s laughter. Sea spray. A shove.

Flash: A body hitting rocks.

Silas stood behind her, unaware. “Lena loved dangerous plants. Wolfsbane. Belladonna.” His voice cracked like dry soil.

Aris wiped soil from her palms, hiding her tremor. Why would a botanist “accidentally” fall from cliffs she knew since childhood?

That night, Saltwick’s gardens whispered to her:

Midnight hydrangeas leaked blue tears onto the path—grief.

Foxgloves chimed like muffled bells—warning.

A corpse flower bloomed by the greenhouse, reeking of almonds—murder.

“Find me,” the roots hummed.

2: The Bone Orchard

Aris followed the corpse flower’s roots underground. They led to:

A buried journal: Lena’s sketches of toxic hybrids.

A lockbox containing soil tests—arsenic levels 200× safe limits.

A dried poppy: Its memory showed Lena confronting Silas. “You’re poisoning the wetlands!”

Silas found her. “I loved her. But the resort… it needed that land.”

Aris’ gift backfired. Vines snaked around her ankles as Silas advanced. “Lena understood sacrifice. You will too.”

3: The Resurrection

Trapped in the greenhouse, Aris pressed her palms to a century-old wisteria.

Flash: Lena’s grandmother, Isobel, hanged here in 1923 for “witchcraft”—her real crime: exposing industrial pollution.

The wisteria remembered. It shattered the glass roof, tangling Silas in thorned blooms.

Police found him raving about “sentient plants.”

At Lena’s grave, Aris planted memory orchids. Their petals unfolded, replaying Lena’s voice:

“Tell Silas I forgive him. Now tell the world what he did.”

4: The Unmarked Greenhouse

Aris transformed Saltwick into a memorial garden:

Arsenic-ravaged soil → sunflowers that detoxified the earth.

Silas’ tools → melted into sculptures weeping saline water.

Lena’s poison garden → now a sanctuary for endangered healing herbs.

Visitors left handwritten confessions in the soil. Morning glories bloomed in the ink’s color, absorbing their shame.

One note read: “I killed my brother.” Aris placed it near the wisteria. The next day, a crimson orchid bloomed—its scent like forgiveness.

Final Scene: Roots in the Tide

Aris waded into the sea where Lena died. Saltwater stung the cuts Silas’ thorns had left. From her pocket, she scattered Lena’s ashes mixed with sea pea seeds—a plant that thrives in poisoned shores.

As the tide pulled her deeper, the seeds sprouted in her wake:

First: Bioluminescent stems.

Then: Flowers glowing like drowned stars.

Lena’s voice echoed through the roots:

“Some loves are burial grounds.

Others become compost.”