The Petal Fall

I was thirteen when my grandmother passed away. The news came on a bitter January morning, but I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the Wisconsin frost. I wrapped myself in three blankets and sat by the radiator, shivering despite the heat.

The funeral was a blur of black coats and murmured condolences. The only vivid memory was the casket spray: a cascade of white lilies and deep purple irises, my grandmother’s favorite. When the service ended and the crowd dispersed, I asked the funeral director if I could take the flowers. He hesitated, then helped me bundle them into trash bags. I took them home and laid them out on my bedroom floor, planning to press them in my scrapbook.

I didn’t know that flowers need special treatment. Within days, the petals turned brown and brittle, crumbling to dust at the slightest touch. I tried to save a few by placing them between the pages of an old dictionary, but they disintegrated into powder. Finally, with tears in my eyes, I swept everything into the trash.

A month later, on a snowy evening, I was reading in my room when a single purple iris petal drifted down from the ceiling and landed on my book. I looked up, half-expecting to see a draft, but the air was still. I picked up the petal, and it was surprisingly fresh, as if just picked. I laughed it off as a prank, but then another petal fell, and another, until a small pile sat on my pages.

Over the next weeks, the petals kept coming. They would appear in my hair, on my pillow, even in my pockets. At first, it was eerie but almost comforting, like a sign from my grandmother. But then the petals started to decay as they fell, reeking of rot and damp earth, and the air in my room grew heavy with the smell of mildew.

I told my parents, but they dismissed it as my imagination, perhaps grief. I tried to ignore it, but the petals became more frequent, and I began to feel a presence in my room at night. I’d wake to find petals scattered on my floor, and once, I saw a shadowy figure in the corner of my eye.

One night, I woke to find the petals forming a shape on my ceiling: a heart. And in the center, a single word: ‘REMEMBER.’ I was terrified, but also felt a pull, a need to understand. I dug out the old dictionary and found the pressed petals I had placed there months ago. They were still intact, but they had a strange, oily sheen.

I set the dictionary on my desk, and as I did, a petal from the ceiling spiraled down and landed on the open page. It began to change color, from purple to red, and the letters of the page began to shift, forming new words: ‘TAKE THEM ALL.’

I realized then that the petals were not a message from my grandmother, but something else. They were trying to bring the flowers back, to make them whole again, but they needed a vessel. And I was the only one who had held them.

I gathered all the petals I could find, and in a desperate act, I burned them in the fireplace. The flames turned an eerie blue, and a scream echoed through the room. When the fire died, I thought it was over.

But the next day, a single purple iris petal appeared on my breakfast plate. And this time, it was covered in a fine layer of frost, even though the house was warm. I knew then that the petal fall would never end. It would follow me, grow with me, and eventually, consume me.

I moved out when I turned eighteen, but I still find petals in my belongings. They appear in my shoes, in my car, and sometimes, in my food. And each time, they are less like a memory and more like a warning. I have learned to live with them, but I never pick them up anymore. I just let them lie, watching them flutter down from nowhere, reminders of a loss that is not done with me yet.