The walk was calm and soothing. It was a beautiful sunny day; cloudless, without a breeze. The heat could have been better. Both of us were sweating not even half an hour into the walk, despite our sun hats. Jane took off hers at some point to fan herself. “Hoo! I’m already sweltering, and we’re still within eyeshot from the village!” I believed it was better to keep mine on my head. Although, the stuffy heat was likely a silver lining, affording us a quiet and languid atmosphere to enjoy at our own leisure. Hardly anyone was out and about. Likely, they were indoors or sitting under the nearest shade they could find. We grew silent as the walk carried on, only speaking up occasionally about the countryside sights or catching up on the people in our lives. I did not have much to speak about the latter, which Jane seemed to notice. She proposed she could drag over an old schoolyard friend by the name of Owen for our Sunday tea, and I thought of it as a fun idea.
When I returned home, the spirit was already there. As per usual, I heard three soft knocks on the door shortly after I closed it. I wondered if she always waited until I went indoors before she approached. It was not a practice she needed to follow. For the time, I did not bother to ask. Since it was a while before supper, I decided to clean up house. Inspired by the tidiness of Jane’s cottage, I thought it proper to give mine a cleaning as well. The prospect of an unfamiliar guest spurred further reason to make the place more welcoming to a first glance. As I dusted the shelves and mopped the floor, Alice watched me with heightened curiosity. It seemed completely foreign to her, what I was doing. Seeing her trace circles around me as I mopped reminded me to wipe my feet and wipe hers as well, which had gone barefoot outside. Though, when I did, I reckoned they were probably cleaner than the floor itself. I went around the cottage, opening up all the doors and windows to hopefully get some of the dust moving out. The fresh air helped soften the pungent tang in the house from all the living and dead flowers alike. It was a refreshing change of atmosphere in the house, and reminded me how stuffy it was inside. I resolved to try and keep the downstairs windows open more often while we still had the lovely summer weather. By the time I stopped, I was exhausted; my wrists sore and my legs needing a rest. I had been moving around all day, after all, hauling plants from one part of the house to another, freeing up space for me to clean, before hauling the plants back to where they roughly were. I did not feel anywhere close to finished. Most of the cleanup was sweeping out all the scraps they shedded and pruning the bits that were decaying. Though it was a hard decision, I decided it was probably best I threw out some of the plants, or moved them outside, since they were likely dying from being cooped indoors, despite my best efforts to provide them with sunlight and water them. In a brief moment of hesitation, standing at the backdoor threshold, I asked the spirit if she could revive what I was holding, an interesting-looking fern I found and dug up from the forest clearing one day. She looked at it briefly and shook her head. After some follow up questions, I found out she could not save it because she could only interact with flowers, not because the plant was beyond saving.
Sunday tea was indeed a little more lively. When Jane and Owen arrived, I did recognise her a bit, remembering more about her. She was several years younger than Jane and I. That fact certainly did not stop them from playing together as kids. She had an older sister as well, Amelia, who was our age and the reason we knew each other. I remembered seeing her, Amelia, and Jane marching around the schoolyard, able to match Jane’s level of liveliness. It seemed she had retained that vigour all these years. She remembered me as well, and was impressed by this cozy haven I had to myself. Before we even settled for tea, she asked for a tour around the cottage. Though she envied my home, which she loosely referred to as an estate, she did admit it would be overwhelming to manage, a sentiment I could understand for a first-time visitor. I lived here for so long, knowing every which way through the cottage and the garden, that it has become small to me, with almost no stone left to turn over. She equated my dwelling to a mansion compared to the small shack she still lived in with her parents, reckoning there was enough room here to raise a family. It was indeed built with that intention, I told her, as I recited a history of why and how my father got this cottage built. I found out she was not married either. When we finally settled for tea, leaning back in our chairs whilst the breeze enveloped us from the summer heat, Jane and I sort of reintroduced ourselves and our lives to Owen. Jane had not spoken to her for several months, even though they work for two different bakeries just down the street from one another. I certainly did not see her for years, coming along a decade. Like Jane, Owen worked at a bakery for the past couple years. Her income, she complained, was poor, poorer than Jane’s, but just enough to help out with her parents’ household. If she were to find a man, she would certainly rely heavily on him, which did not make her happy. She stated in jest her low status was the reason she was still single. I initially struggled coming up with anything when telling mine. I did not feel like I was a very interesting person. At least Owen did more than just work and garden all day. She went out with friends, quite often, whether it was through the city or around the country. We had caught her on a good day, since most of her friends go to church. Somehow, however, my life did pique her interest, perhaps because of the unusual location of my home, and I was able to carry on talking, using her long-winded questions to start from.
That evening, after the spirit returned home, she had a curious request. The first since she requested a stay, I believe. She wanted to sleep downstairs, in the drawing room. It took me a while to understand her request, with a lot of pointing and head shaking for naught. Eventually, she got up, off the carpet, and retrieved the blanket she was borrowing from upstairs, mimicking, right on the carpet floor in front of me, how I would tuck her in every night. I let her have her wish, albeit perplexed as to what spurred her to sleep there. It was not worth the time to find out why.
The following day, I received yet another Monday surprise at the flower shop; this time, a welcoming one. Sophia, the old friend I ran into last week, did keep to her word and found my shop. She stopped by after a trip to the market, a fact given away by the basketful of bread and potatoes she had, along with a jug of milk. We did not talk very long. I did not let her, knowing she had some food that would perish in the hot summer weather. I did, however, give her an open invitation. Confident in opening my doors to guests, now that I had cleaned it up a fair bit, I invited her over to my cottage if she wanted to catch up some more. She excitedly took it, booking some time for that Thursday evening.