The Jasmine Bloom

I had never believed in anything I couldn’t touch, see, or explain. Ghosts, spirits, the lingering dead—they were just stories for people who needed a scapegoat for their own fears. I was a man of logic, of reason. That was before the jasmine.

It was a road trip meant to clear my head after a breakup that had left me feeling hollow. I’d driven from the flat plains of Texas, down through the humid bayous of Louisiana, and into the sun-baked sprawl of Florida. My destination was Key West, the southernmost point, where the road ended and the ocean began. But exhaustion had set in, and the highway stripes had become a hypnotic blur. When I saw the flickering neon sign for the ‘Gulf Breeze Motel’ with its promise of a 24-hour diner, I pulled in without hesitation.

The motel was a relic of another era—a single-story, L-shaped building with a cracked asphalt parking lot and a faded sign that looked like it had been there since the 1960s. The diner attached to the office was a glass-fronted box, humming with fluorescent light. Inside, the air was thick with the smell of stale coffee and fried food, but it was the other scent that hit me first: jasmine. It was cloying, sweet, and utterly out of place in that greasy spoon. A wiry old man with a bald head and a face like a dried prune stood behind the counter, wiping a glass with a gray rag.

‘Room for the night?’ he asked, not looking up.

‘Yes, please,’ I said, sliding onto a cracked vinyl stool. ‘And a cup of black coffee.’

He poured the coffee, set it in front of me, and then reached under the counter to produce a brass key with a plastic tag shaped like a fish. ‘Room 13, end of the row. The bed’s clean, but the lock’s a bit sticky. Give it a jiggle.’

I took a sip of the coffee—it was bitter, but it did the job. ‘That jasmine smell,’ I said, ‘is there a garden around here?’

The old man’s eyes flicked up, meeting mine for the first time. They were pale, watery, and held a glint of something I couldn’t read. ‘That’s the night bloomers,’ he said. ‘They only open after dark. Ain’t been able to get rid of ’em since I bought this place.’ He shrugged. ‘They say the last owner’s wife loved jasmine. Planted a whole fence of it out back. She died in that room you’re in, actually. Heart attack.’

I felt a prickle at the back of my neck, but I forced a laugh. ‘Well, as long as the sheets are clean, I’ll be fine.’

‘Oh, they’re clean all right,’ he said, and went back to wiping the glass.

I finished my coffee, grabbed my bag from the car, and walked to Room 13. The key stuck as he’d promised, but with a jiggle, the door swung open. The room was musty, but not unclean. The bed was made with a thin, flowered spread. The window looked out onto a dark courtyard where I could just make out a dense hedge of jasmine bushes, their white blossoms glowing eerily in the moonlight. The smell was stronger here, seeping through the window screen.

I lay down, intending to rest for just a moment, but sleep came quickly. I dreamed of nothing, which was a relief.

I woke to a whisper. It was soft, barely audible, but it was followed by a giggle—a girl’s giggle, light and playful. I sat up, heart thumping. The room was dark, but the moonlight cast a pale glow through the window. There, in the corner, stood a girl. She couldn’t have been more than nine or ten. She wore a white nightgown and her hair was long and dark. She was holding a single jasmine blossom up to her nose.

‘Hello,’ she said. Her voice was sweet, but it carried a strange weight. ‘You’re in my room.’

I fumbled for the lamp, but it wouldn’t switch on. ‘Your room? This is my room. Who are you?’

She giggled again. ‘I’m Lily. I used to live here with my mommy. She loved the jasmine.’

‘Where’s your mommy now?’ I asked, my mind racing. The old man said the wife died in this room. Heart attack. But there was no mention of a child.

‘She’s in the ground,’ Lily said, matter-of-factly. ‘She always told me the jasmine would grow over her grave. They buried her right under the fence.’

A chill ran down my spine. ‘When… when did she die?’

‘Long ago. But I visit her every night. Would you like to come with me to see her?’ She held out her hand. In the moonlight, her fingers looked almost translucent.

I shook my head, backing toward the door. ‘No, no, I think I need to leave.’

‘The door is locked,’ she said, and indeed, when I tried the knob, it wouldn’t budge. The feel of the cool metal was all too real.

‘You can’t leave yet,’ Lily said. ‘You haven’t said hello to my mommy.’

I turned to face her, and she was right in front of me, so close I could smell the jasmine on her breath. Her eyes were dark and deep, and I saw something in them that I had never seen before—a terrible, patient emptiness.

I screamed, or I tried to, but no sound came out. The room seemed to constrict around me, the walls pressing in. The moonlight flickered, and I saw her mother’s form appear behind Lily—a woman in a stained white dress, her face a blur of decay, her hands reaching for me.

I don’t remember how I got out. I only remember waking up in my car, the engine running, the parking lot empty, and the first light of dawn breaking over the Gulf. The motel was gone. In its place was a weed-choked lot, and in the center, a single jasmine bush, its white flowers trembling in the morning breeze.

I drove to Key West. I never stopped for gas or food until I hit the Atlantic. But even there, among the bright lights and tourist crowds, I could smell jasmine. It followed me for weeks, months. It’s with me now as I write this. And every night, when I close my eyes, I see Lily’s face, and I hear her giggle, and I know that she is still waiting.

I was the person who never believed. Now I believe. I believe in the jasmine that blooms in the dark, and in the little girl who tends to her mother’s grave. And I believe that some doors, once opened, can never be closed again. If you ever see a motel with a 24-hour diner and a smell of jasmine in the air, don’t stop. Drive on. But if you do stop, and you see a little girl holding a flower, do not—under any circumstances—take her hand.