The Petals Came With A Card This Time

They arrived on the fourth Thursday of March.

White roses. Twelve of them. Fresh. Unmarked. Wrapped in brown paper.

No note or name in sight.

But I knew who they were from.

Everyone else forgot. The police moved on. Reporters found newer tragedies. But I remember.

Because it’s not the first time the flowers came.

The first bouquet arrived five years ago — three days after Ava died.

Same flowers. Same wrapping. Same absence of a note.

And just like that, the monster became a gardener.

Ava was my sister.

She was twenty-two, loved cardigans and crime novels, and always put cinnamon in her coffee.

She also died screaming in our bathtub — throat slit so wide the coroner said it “smiled.”

We didn’t find her until the next morning.

There were no fingerprints. No forced entry. No sign of a struggle. Nothing, except the clean slice and the trail of muddy petals leading out the back door.

The police called it a “personal kill.”

Which is what made the flowers worse.

They arrived after the funeral. After the reporters left. After the town collectively sighed and moved on.

They came once a year. Always in March.

Always white roses.

I showed the first bouquet to Detective Halley.

She examined them like they might explode.

"They’re just flowers," she muttered.

But she kept the paper they were wrapped in. Said she’d send it to forensics.

She never followed up.

And every year, when I called again, her voice got colder.

“This isn’t evidence, Ms. Thorne.”

“This is harassment at best. Or grief. Maybe both.”

Last year, I burned the bouquet in the kitchen sink.

To me it felt like-

The petals hissed.

The stems screamed.

This year, I didn’t call the police.

I called the florist.

They hadn’t sold white roses in three years.

I called every florist in a 60-mile radius.

Same answer.

No one had filled that order.

No one had delivered anything to my address.

So I waited.

I put the bouquet in the living room. Center table. No vase. Just the paper.

And I waited.

Three days passed.

Nothing happened.

No calls. No knocks. No notes slipped under the door.

Until I opened my closet on Monday morning and found a second bouquet tucked between my sweaters.

This time, there was a single word on the paper wrapping:

“Closer.”

I should have screamed.

Should have called Halley.

Should have burned them again.

Instead, I took the flowers and laid them next to the first bouquet. Side by side. Like offerings.

Then I sat on the floor and cried into my knees.

When Ava died, people said all the expected things:

“She’s in a better place.”

“She wouldn’t want you to suffer.”

“Time heals.”

“You need closure.”

But there is no closure when a killer leaves you flowers.

There’s only distance.

And then... less distance.

I woke on Tuesday to the sound of breaking glass.

My bedroom mirror — shattered from the inside.

White petals scattered across the floor.

On the largest shard, someone had written:

“Soon.”

I packed a bag.

Not clothes.

Not money.

Just a camera. A flashlight. And a knife.

Then I waited by the window.

All night.

---

At 3:47 a.m., the motion light clicked on.

A figure stood at the edge of the garden.

Still. Straight. Familiar.

He held no flowers.

He held nothing at all.

But I recognized the coat.

It was Ava’s.

I didn’t scream.

Didn’t run.

I opened the front door.

And followed him.

He didn’t move fast.

He walked like he knew I would follow — like he’d been walking the same path for years.

Past the streetlight. Through the woods. Over the rusted gate into the old greenhouse behind what used to be Weller’s Nursery.

No one goes there anymore.

Too many vines.

Too much rot.

Inside, the air smelled of cut stems and slow decay.

And he was gone.

But the table remained.

And on it—

White roses. Dozens. Piled high.

A forest of grief.

I stepped forward. Reached out. Touched one.

Soft. Cold. Fresh.

Then I saw it.

Not written. Not carved.

Grown.

A message etched into the petals themselves:

“I never left.”

That’s when I knew.

The killer never left town.

He never stopped watching.

He never stopped planting.

I don't know what I was going on in my head but I took the flowers home.

This time, I didn’t burn them.

I pressed each one between the pages of Ava’s favorite novel.

Every March, I open the book and read them again.

The petals are browning now. Drying out.

But the message remains.

He’s still here.

And I’m still waiting.

Thank you for reading. If this story lingered in your mind, follow for more stories that bloom from darker roots. 🌹The Petals Came With No Card This Time