Novellas

The bell above the door at Swanson’s Flower Shop rang with a tone that seemed almost too delicate for the world outside. Evansville, 1910, a town that smelled of river water and coal smoke, where the streets held the quiet rhythm of a place that thought it knew all its people. Everyone knew of Vera Swanson, but few could say they truly knew her.

She was always kind, always precise. Her gloves never smudged, her smile never faltered. The shop itself was an orchestra of color, violets leaning into morning light, hyacinths whispering their perfume into the wooden beams, and lilies so white they made the air itself seem cleaner.

But it was her blue arrangements that no one could forget. Shades of Blauw, she called them. Cornflowers, delphinium, forget-me-nots, blended so perfectly they almost shimmered. Folks swore those bouquets stayed fresh for weeks longer than any other.

When asked her secret, Vera only smiled and said, “It’s in the soil.”

And it was true. Her flowers grew stronger, taller, more vivid than any others in the region. The soil around the Swanson property was dark as ink, soft and rich, as if the earth itself was grateful.

At the back of her shop hung a small painted sign:

“All things return to the ground and the ground remembers.”

No one thought much of it then. Not the travelers passing through, not the lovers buying blooms for weddings, not even the men who disappeared every few months on the long road toward Crimson’s Apple Orchard.

In Evansville, things grew. And that was good enough.

• Chapter I: Shades of Blauw
• Chapter I (continued): Shades of Blauw
• Chapter I (final): Shades of Blauw
• Chapter II: Shades of Brzoskwinia
• Chapter III: Shades of Natura
• Chapter IV: Shades of Violaceous
• Chapter V: Shades of La Couleur Bleue
• Chapter VI: Shades of Brun
• Chapter VII: Shades of Noire
• Epilogue: The Geddes Report

The first man to vanish was a salesman from Chicago.

A talkative sort, always tipping his hat too quickly and trying to charm every lady behind a counter. He’d stopped in Evansville for the night, roomed at the boarding house and spent the next morning buying flowers. A dozen blue stems wrapped in soft paper, tied with a navy ribbon.

Mrs. Landry, who ran the boarding house, remembered his last words clearly.

“Heading out east, through the orchard road. Might stop by for apples if time allows.”

He never did.

A few weeks later, Sheriff Dalrymple came calling at Vera’s shop. The bell sang the same delicate note. She looked up from trimming the stems of an indigo bouquet.

“Afternoon, Sheriff. Something the matter?”

He asked his questions, polite at first. Travelers missing, last sightings, that sort of thing. Vera listened carefully, hands folded in her apron, nodding at the right moments. Her answers were clean and unhurried.

“Yes, he bought flowers. Blue ones. Said they reminded him of Lake Michigan.”

“No, I didn’t notice anything odd.”

“No, he didn’t seem in a rush.”

The sheriff thanked her and left with a handful of daisies she insisted he take, “For your wife’s table.”

When the door closed, Vera stood in the quiet for a long while. The scissors in her hand glinted under the lamplight. She exhaled softly and turned toward the back of the shop, where the faint smell of apples drifted in through the open window.

Behind the counter, a small journal lay open on her desk. The page was dated two nights prior.

Blauw, soil mixture holds well. Roots strong. Fragrance deepens after rain.

And beneath the note, pressed between two waxy leaves, was a scrap of fabric, navy cotton, the kind used for traveling coats.

Outside, the sky was turning the same deep blue as her flowers.

• Chapter I: Shades of Blauw
• Chapter I (continued): Shades of Blauw
• Chapter I (final): Shades of Blauw
• Chapter II: Shades of Brzoskwinia
• Chapter III: Shades of Natura
• Chapter IV: Shades of Violaceous
• Chapter V: Shades of La Couleur Bleue
• Chapter VI: Shades of Brun
• Chapter VII: Shades of Noire
• Epilogue: The Geddes Report

Evening came slow over Crimson’s Orchard.

The trees were heavy with fruit, pale red with veins that shimmered almost violet in the dusk. The air was sweet, the kind that clings to your throat and leaves a taste behind.

Vera parked her wagon near the edge of the grove. No one came this far anymore, not after the county closed the road past the 30-mile mark. The dust settled around her boots as she stepped down, pulling her shawl tight against the chill.

She walked between the rows, her fingers brushing the low branches. Every few steps, she paused, listening. The orchard was alive with whispers: wind moving through leaves, faint shifting in the soil.

At the center of the grove stood an old wooden table, half sunk into the ground. Jars and clippings covered it, neatly arranged. Beneath it, a small pit. The soil inside was darker than it should have been, rich, damp, breathing.

Vera knelt, humming something soft. The tune was old, her mother’s, perhaps her grandmother’s before that. From the satchel at her side, she drew out a folded bundle wrapped in blue linen. She didn’t look inside. She never did.

The offering was gentle, almost reverent. A motion practiced a hundred times. The ground accepted it without sound.

As the last of the twilight faded, a faint shimmer rolled through the orchard. The apples above her glowed faintly, like lanterns behind a veil. And from the soil, new stems began to rise, small blue shoots unfurling their first petals.

Vera stood, brushed her hands clean, and smiled.

“Good to grow,” she whispered.

Then she turned back toward Evansville, where her shop waited, and another bouquet would soon bloom, the perfect shade of Blauw.

• Chapter I: Shades of Blauw
• Chapter I (continued): Shades of Blauw
• Chapter I (final): Shades of Blauw
• Chapter II: Shades of Brzoskwinia
• Chapter III: Shades of Natura
• Chapter IV: Shades of Violaceous
• Chapter V: Shades of La Couleur Bleue
• Chapter VI: Shades of Brun
• Chapter VII: Shades of Noire
• Epilogue: The Geddes Report

By the spring of 1914, Swanson’s Flower Shop had become the talk of Evansville.

Every table at the Elm Street Tea Room boasted one of Vera’s bouquets, soft peach roses and apricot carnations wrapped in cream paper and tied with silk ribbon. They seemed to glow even in dim light, and people swore they carried the scent of sunlight itself.

No one could explain how Vera kept her flowers so vivid, how they stayed alive far longer than any others. Some said she had a greenhouse up by the old orchard, others whispered about her late-night wagon trips toward the edge of town. But when asked directly, Vera would just smile that gentle smile and say, “It’s the soil. You just have to know how to talk to it.”

It was around then that Mr. Whitaker went missing.

He’d been a traveling seed merchant, the kind who’d steer his cart from state to state, swapping stories and samples. He came into town boasting he had found a new breed of rose that would put Swanson’s to shame. He stopped by the shop twice that week. The second time, he didn’t leave.

His cart was found thirty miles east, near Crimson’s Orchard, a basket of half-eaten apples in the back.

Still, the bouquets kept coming.

The new arrangements had a warmth to them, soft, almost blushing shades that brightened any room. Customers said the scent changed depending on who held them, sweet for some, bitter for others. Those who left the flowers too long in water claimed the blooms pulsed faintly beneath the surface, like breathing.

When asked about the new hue, Vera said it was called Brzoskwinia.

A foreign word, one she said came from her grandmother’s tongue, “It means a blessing for good weather and good fortune.”

That spring, Evansville had the longest bloom season anyone could remember.

The days were warm, the nights were soft, and only one person ever mentioned the faint hum that came from Swanson’s greenhouse after dark, like bees in glass jars, or whispers beneath the floorboards.

• Chapter I: Shades of Blauw
• Chapter I (continued): Shades of Blauw
• Chapter I (final): Shades of Blauw
• Chapter II: Shades of Brzoskwinia
• Chapter III: Shades of Natura
• Chapter IV: Shades of Violaceous
• Chapter V: Shades of La Couleur Bleue
• Chapter VI: Shades of Brun
• Chapter VII: Shades of Noire
• Epilogue: The Geddes Report

1917

The war had made its way into every home, every parlor table, every newspaper, every whispered letter folded and sealed with trembling hands. Evansville had grown quieter; the young men were gone, and the streets echoed with ration wagons and church bells.

But Swanson’s Flower Shop never lacked for beauty.

While gardens across the state withered under drought and dust, Vera’s blooms thrived. She began selling what she called Natura Bouquets, vivid greens and soft ivory petals woven through with strange, unfamiliar vines. The leaves shimmered faintly in the sunlight and their scent was fresh as rain after thunder.

Customers said the bouquets brought calm, that keeping one in the home soothed nightmares, eased headaches and made the air feel lighter. Even soldiers’ widows claimed the flowers whispered in the night, saying names that were long gone but still remembered.

When asked about her success during such lean times, Vera laughed softly.

“Nature always provides for those who listen,” she said. “But she asks for something in return.”

Few knew that Vera had started visiting Crimson’s Orchard again. The path there was overgrown now, the trees heavy with fruit that never spoiled. She took her cuttings in secret, always at night. Locals who lived near the county road said they sometimes saw a soft green glow drifting through the fog, moving slow between the trees.

That autumn, a doctor from Indianapolis came to study her soil. He praised its fertility, calling it “unnaturally rich.” He left town the next day, leaving his equipment behind. The people assumed he’d returned to the city.

Vera’s new arrangements began to show faint streaks of deep green in their stems, like veins beneath translucent skin. She called them living stems. And though few ever said it aloud, the bouquets were more beautiful than ever, alive in a way flowers shouldn’t be.

By winter, the shop’s window display was filled with the Natura collection, a lush, breathing portrait of impossible life in a dying world.

It is whispered and has been confirmed as fact that through the coldest most bitter winters in Evansville, the ground behind Swanson’s Flower Shop, refuses to freeze.

• Chapter I: Shades of Blauw
• Chapter I (continued): Shades of Blauw
• Chapter I (final): Shades of Blauw
• Chapter II: Shades of Brzoskwinia
• Chapter III: Shades of Natura
• Chapter IV: Shades of Violaceous
• Chapter V: Shades of La Couleur Bleue
• Chapter VI: Shades of Brun
• Chapter VII: Shades of Noire
• Epilogue: The Geddes Report

1921

The war had ended three years earlier but Evansville still wore black. The air carried a heaviness, the kind that lingers in empty rooms and half-read letters.

Only one place felt unchanged: Swanson’s Flower Shop.

Vera no longer came to town as often. Her apprentices handled the day-to-day, cheerful young women who never seemed to stay long. Each one arrived wide-eyed and eager, and each one left suddenly, their departures quiet, without goodbye.

The shop window displayed a new series that year: Shades of Violaceous. Deep violets, soft indigos, and midnight hues so rich they seemed to drink the light around them. People called them mourning bouquets, but Vera disagreed.

“They’re not for grief,” she said softly. “They’re for remembering.”

Those who brought the Violaceous arrangements home swore they dreamed differently, of lost faces glowing faintly violet, of voices calling from beneath orchard trees. Some said the flowers wept at night, their petals damp with dew though the windows were closed.

A traveling photographer came through town that spring and offered to capture Vera’s famous blooms on film. He stayed at the boarding house across the street and spent hours in the shop’s greenhouse. On the third day, he vanished. His camera was found near the orchard path, film undeveloped.

When questioned, Vera only said, “He was chasing color. Sometimes it doesn’t want to be caught.”

By then, the stories had begun to spread, from Evansville to Vincennes, to Terre Haute, to the border towns and beyond. People claimed the Swanson flowers could not die, that they drew life from something older than soil. Some whispered that Vera had made a pact with the orchard itself, that her blooms were the voices of those who’d gone missing.

But the shop remained open. The bouquets remained perfect. And when people asked how she kept them that way, Vera would tilt her head and smile, eyes shining faintly violet beneath her lace veil.

“It’s the care,” she would say.

“Everything that grows must be cared for.”

• Chapter I: Shades of Blauw
• Chapter I (continued): Shades of Blauw
• Chapter I (final): Shades of Blauw
• Chapter II: Shades of Brzoskwinia
• Chapter III: Shades of Natura
• Chapter IV: Shades of Violaceous
• Chapter V: Shades of La Couleur Bleue
• Chapter VI: Shades of Brun
• Chapter VII: Shades of Noire
• Epilogue: The Geddes Report

1937

Evansville had changed. Electricity hummed through its streets, the first cars lined Main Street, and the new department store towered where the elm trees once stood. Swanson’s Flower Shop still kept its modest window display, but the name on the sign had changed.

Now it read: “Swanson & Daughters.”

Vera had grown older, though time seemed to move more gently on her face than others. Her hair had silvered, her hands trembled faintly, but her eyes, those deep, cool blue eyes, still carried a brightness untouched by the years. Her eldest daughter, Marianne, ran most of the business now, while Vera tended the greenhouse behind the shop.

That summer, Marianne began a new series of bouquets inspired by her mother’s travels to France long ago. They called it La Couleur Bleue, an exploration of rare blue petals and forget-me-nots, woven through ivory lilies and lavender sprays. The blooms shimmered like frost under lamplight, delicate yet strangely resilient.

People adored them.

They said the color brought serenity, that holding the bouquet stilled the mind, as though one could hear the ocean in the quiet between breaths. The bouquets became a sensation in Louisville, Chicago, and even as far as New York. The Swansons opened a second shop, though no one could say exactly how they managed to cultivate so many flowers so quickly.

Marianne would only smile and say, “Mother taught us well.”

Still, whispers lingered. Workers who handled the soil said it was unlike any they’d touched before, cold to the touch, yet full of life. A few complained of restless sleep, of hearing faint music from the basement when no one was there. One night, a delivery boy swore he saw the faint outline of roots moving beneath the floorboards, like veins pulsing in slow rhythm.

When Vera passed quietly in her sleep later that year, the town mourned her as a saint of beauty, a woman who had brought color through war and depression alike.

At her funeral, the air was thick with the scent of lilies and violets, and though no one could explain it, a single blue petal drifted down from the rafters of the chapel, landing on her folded hands.

That night, the greenhouse lights burned brighter than they ever had before, a deep electric blue radiating into the fog. And in the morning, the La Couleur Bleue blooms had all turned toward the east, toward the long road that led back to Crimson’s Orchard.

• Chapter I: Shades of Blauw
• Chapter I (continued): Shades of Blauw
• Chapter I (final): Shades of Blauw
• Chapter II: Shades of Brzoskwinia
• Chapter III: Shades of Natura
• Chapter IV: Shades of Violaceous
• Chapter V: Shades of La Couleur Bleue
• Chapter VI: Shades of Brun
• Chapter VII: Shades of Noire
• Epilogue: The Geddes Report

1959

America was blooming again, in chrome and neon, not roses. Downtown Evansville was a grid of glass storefronts and clean sidewalks, and the Swanson name had outgrown the family shop.

Now, it was a company.

Swanson Floral Supply Co.

Marianne’s sons had turned their grandmother’s legacy into a quickly expanding business. They sold fertilizers, greenhouse equipment, soil enhancers, all under the promise of “growth guaranteed.” Across the Midwest, florists swore by the Swanson method: a secret mixture of organic matter, pH balance, and “rare mineral infusions.” The advertisements showed smiling housewives holding peach-colored carnations under the words:

“It’s Good to Grow with Swanson.”

No one asked about the source of the formula. The ingredients were labeled “proprietary.”

In truth, the family kept a single vial in a locked cabinet, thick, brown, and faintly luminescent. The label had long since faded, but family legend said the mixture came from Vera’s final harvest at Crimson’s Orchard. Once a year, under a sliver moon, a Swanson heir would take the vial from its shelf and pour a few drops into a new batch. Always the same words, whispered like prayer:

“Good to grow.”

That year, one of the family’s younger heirs, a chemist, named Ellis Swanson, began asking questions. He was a quiet, bookish sort, obsessed with genealogy. He traced the family records back through ledgers, diaries, and faded photographs until he reached the year 1910. That’s when he found the missing pages, entries torn neatly from Vera’s earliest ledger, replaced with pressed petals of a strange, brown flower no one could identify.

He took all of his findings with him to the orchard site, now little more than dirt and trees swallowed by vines. But the ground there still pulsed faintly when disturbed. He collected a sample of the soil and sealed it in a jar. He intended on sending it to the university in Bloomington for analysis.

Three days later, his car was found abandoned thirty miles out of town, near the old orchard road. The soil was not listed in any official reports.

When the family gathered to discuss his disappearance, Marianne, now an old woman in widow’s black, sat silently, hands folded. Finally, she said only:

“He shouldn’t have gone digging.”

That autumn, the company rebranded its premium line of products.

They called it Shades of Brun.

And its slogan, printed in gold on every label, read:

“Rooted in tradition.”

• Chapter I: Shades of Blauw
• Chapter I (continued): Shades of Blauw
• Chapter I (final): Shades of Blauw
• Chapter II: Shades of Brzoskwinia
• Chapter III: Shades of Natura
• Chapter IV: Shades of Violaceous
• Chapter V: Shades of La Couleur Bleue
• Chapter VI: Shades of Brun
• Chapter VII: Shades of Noire
• Epilogue: The Geddes Report

2023

The name Swanson was now just a logo, a clean serif font, silver on black. The company owned florists, perfume brands, seed lines, and luxury greenhouses from London to Tokyo. Its heritage campaign, “Over a Century of Growth,” ran during spring fashion week, pairing pale pink petals with runway models in translucent gowns.

No one remembered Evansville.

No one remembered Vera.

But every so often, in a rare catalog or late-night collector’s forum, an older bouquet would surface, pressed, preserved, still impossibly vibrant. They were called the “Century Arrangements.” Each bore a small embossed tag with a name: Blauw, Brzoskwinia, Natura, Violaceous, La Couleur Bleue, Brun. And one more. Noire.

The Noire arrangements were different.

Deep black blossoms with undertones of garnet and plum, their petals soft as silk, their scent subtle and addictive, like damp earth after rain. They were said to have been cultivated only once, from the last living cutting of Vera’s original greenhouse stock.

The public loved them.

Collectors paid thousands for a single preserved stem. Celebrities posted them on social media with captions like “Beauty reborn.”

Very few people know but deep inside Swanson’s corporate archives, tucked beneath decades of acquisitions and patents, there existed one final, unlisted file, Project Noire: Soil Replication Trials. The research logs described a recurring anomaly: test subjects exposed to the enriched soil reported auditory hallucinations, heightened empathy, and vivid dreams of an orchard “filled with red light.”

The lead researcher resigned. Her replacement scrubbed the record clean.

The flowers, however, continued to grow, thriving in conditions no one could reproduce.

In one leaked image, quickly removed from the internet, a cluster of Noire blossoms appeared to have faint, vein-like threads beneath their surface, arranged in delicate spirals resembling fingerprints.

When a journalist from an environmental magazine tried to trace the company’s oldest property records, she found one deed still active, a what seemed to be forgotten plot of land, listed as Crimson’s Orchard, Evansville County, IN. The file had been updated three months earlier.

No one knew by whom.

That winter, a small shipment left the Evansville facility, six crates, unmarked, bound for distribution centers across the country.

By spring, Shades of Noire appeared in flower shops everywhere. The blooms glowed faintly under moonlight. Customers said they lasted forever.

And on the back of each black tag, etched so faintly it was almost invisible, were three words:

Good to grow.

• Chapter I: Shades of Blauw
• Chapter I (continued): Shades of Blauw
• Chapter I (final): Shades of Blauw
• Chapter II: Shades of Brzoskwinia
• Chapter III: Shades of Natura
• Chapter IV: Shades of Violaceous
• Chapter V: Shades of La Couleur Bleue
• Chapter VI: Shades of Brun
• Chapter VII: Shades of Noire
• Epilogue: The Geddes Report

Filed: April 14, 2025, Superior Township, MI
Investigator: Dr. Elara H. Winslow, Horticultural Research Division, University of Michigan

Voice Memo Entry One:

Passing reference in an archived trade journal, “Swanson’s Floral Methods,” 1912. Citation incomplete. No public patent record found. The product line, Shades of Noire, is still active under Swanson Bioculture Holdings (London).

The company declined my interview request.

I’ve located one of their original soil suppliers.

Evansville, Indiana.

A decommissioned orchard listed on an 1899 map as Crimson’s.

Voice Memo Entry Two:

The orchard is gone.

But the soil… the soil is wrong.

It’s richer than anything I’ve seen, dark as ink even in dry light. When disturbed, it emits a faint sweetness, not decay, not chemical, something living. The readings show low oxygen levels, yet the samples pulse microscopically, as if breathing.

The land is quiet. Too quiet.

No birds. No insects.

Found fragments of porcelain, maybe from planting jars, and the outline of an old foundation. There’s a small engraving on one shard: “S.F.S.”, Swanson Flower Shop.

Voice Memo Entry Three:

I’ve recreated the blend using a portion of the sample.

Control seeds sprouted in thirty-six hours. Leaves exhibit faint phosphorescence. The scent in the lab has changed, heavier, like overripe apples and wet wood.

I dreamt last night of a woman standing among rows of trees. Her shawl was blue. She whispered something I couldn’t understand, except for three words:

“Good to grow.”

Voice Memo Entry Four:

I’m driving home now. The samples are sealed. I’ve left a backup at the lab.

It’s raining hard, and the wipers can barely keep up. The GPS just rerouted me, something about roadwork. The new route takes me down Geddes Road.

There’s an orchard sign ahead. Faded, but the name

*Recording cuts out here. The rest of the report was never filed.

Dr. Winslow’s vehicle was found abandoned along Geddes Road, in Superior Township. The car was undamaged. Inside were soil containers, each empty but damp to the touch.

Her phone was recovered from the passenger seat.

Its voice memo app was still recording.

In the final seconds, a woman’s voice can be faintly heard through the static, humming softly.

And over it, a whisper.

“Everything that grows must be cared for.”

• Chapter I: Shades of Blauw
• Chapter I (continued): Shades of Blauw
• Chapter I (final): Shades of Blauw
• Chapter II: Shades of Brzoskwinia
• Chapter III: Shades of Natura
• Chapter IV: Shades of Violaceous
• Chapter V: Shades of La Couleur Bleue
• Chapter VI: Shades of Brun
• Chapter VII: Shades of Noire
• Epilogue: The Geddes Report