The screams tore through the bone orchard like a living thing, twisting into something worse than pain. Eleanor stumbled forward, her thorned fingers slipping on the chalice's rim as the tailor's widow convulsed before her. The woman's spine arched unnaturally, her body bending until vertebrae popped with wet cracks. The roses blooming from her tear ducts had grown thorns that now curved inward, piercing her own cheeks and lips in a grotesque embrace. Blood ran in thick streams down her neck, soaking her dress black.
Eleanor grabbed the widow's shoulders, and the vision struck like lightning.
She saw the widow as a young girl standing in Blackwood's kitchens, trembling hands holding a platter of meat. Lord Richard's voice slithered in her ear, "Serve it to your parents first. The ones who love you best." The memory shifted to choking sounds, bulging eyes, then Richard stroking the child's hair as he whispered, "Good girl. Now you'll never tell."
The widow's mouth stretched into a rictus grin, her teeth cracking under the strain. "I remembered," she gurgled through bloody lips.
Then the thorns yanked free.
They tore from her face in a spray of blood and petals, leaving ragged, empty sockets behind. The widow collapsed like a broken doll as the roses floated midair, their roots writhing before shooting toward the bone chapel to embed themselves in its walls.
Chaos unfolded around them. The field hand with thorn-nails clawed at his own throat, fingers moving against his will. The midwife's hair had woven itself into a noose that tightened with each panicked breath. Even the children jerked unnaturally, their small bodies puppeted by invisible strings.
Mira stood apart, her black eyes fixed on nothing. "He's here," she whispered.
The ground shuddered in response.
The gardener appeared without footsteps - one moment absent, the next standing among them. Tall and gaunt, his face hid beneath a hood of living vines. His hands were the worst - skinless, with fingers fused into rusted shears that dripped amber fluid.
He moved with terrible purpose.
The field hand came first. The shears flashed, and the man's thorn-nails fell away, followed by his fingers, then hands. The cuts left no blood, as if removing parts that never truly belonged. The severed limbs dissolved into roots that slithered toward the chapel.
The midwife collapsed as the gardener snipped her hair-noose, her body unraveling into strands of memory that he collected in a ribcage basket.
Eleanor tried to move, to intervene, but her legs had rooted themselves in place. The crown of vines in her skull pulsed, whispering, "Watch. Learn."
Mira stepped forward, small hands outstretched. "You missed a spot," she said.
The gardener tilted his head before pressing his shears to her cheek, clipping free a single vine Eleanor hadn't noticed growing there. Mira smiled. "Thank you."
By dawn, the orchard stood quiet.
The transformed villagers were gone - not dead, but replanted. Their essences thrived in the chapel walls, memories blooming across bone arches in living script. The gardener tended each one with rose-growing care.
Only Eleanor and Mira remained unchanged.
The crow had vanished.
"He's pruning the story," Mira murmured, tracing new growth on the chapel's exterior. The bones had rearranged overnight into something resembling a proper church, with peaked roof and stained-glass teeth windows. "Cutting away the rot so the truth can grow."
Eleanor touched her face, surprised to find no vines or thorns.
The gardener appeared beside her soundlessly. Up close, she saw his hood wasn't fabric but skin - the same bark-like texture her arm had taken. He extended his shears.
The message was clear.
Your turn.
The first cut hurt most.
Eleanor took the shears with trembling hands. The blades smelled of rust and untended graves.
Mira guided her to the chapel's newest wall - living vines whispering with villagers' voices. "Start here," the girl pointed to knotted memories. "This is where the story went wrong."
Eleanor hesitated.
Then she pruned.
The shears moved with their own will, slicing through falsehoods. With each cut, the chapel breathed, its structure settling into cleaner truth. Forgotten faces emerged from chaos, features sharpening as lies fell away.
Mira watched with endless black eyes. "Now you understand. The gardener isn't one person. It's a role. A duty."
Eleanor looked at her hands. The bark-like skin had spread to her wrists, thorns glistening with not-quite sap.
At dusk, the crow returned, landing on her shoulder to whisper:
"Welcome home."