September 8, 1960

Thursday Night

Approximately 11:00 p.m. to 11:55

It was late. Gemma was alone in the flower shop, but she had an uneasy feeling she was being watched. She plunged her hands deep into the molasses saturated soil to create a hole large enough to repot the new sprout and pulled a Tacca Chantrieri from the crate. She gathered up the loose straggles of root and placed the ominous looking black bat devil plant into its new home. She was hoping her special soil mixture would make it grow double its normal size. When these plants bloomed, they would be used for the arrangement she was preparing for her Great Aunt Nova’s Grand Halloween Ball.

She glanced around the empty shop again to double-check that no one was there, trying to shake off her uneasy feeling and reached for another Tacca Chantrieri.

A storm was brewing outside, and the windows rattled behind the beams in her small shop. Over the past few weeks, Hurricane Donna had been ravaging islands in the Caribbean and was now moving towards the Atlantic Coast. It affected the weather in Boston more than anyone predicted, which had been getting steadily worse. Gemma felt nervous about getting caught in a heavy rain, but she had to finish repotting the two hundred black bat flowers from Southeast Asia and four hundred calla lilies from South Africa tonight. Neither could wait till morning. She glanced over at the 800 galaxy petunias. This last delivery sent plants spilling over every last bit of shelving and counter space onto the floor and piling up to the windowsills, all still waiting to be repotted. At least she could hold off on the petunias until tomorrow.

Gemma pulled another devilish looking plant from the crate and sighed, determined to finish. She defiantly stared down the beginnings of the dark purple bud that would soon have long tendrils curling out of a flower that looked like a sinister creature’s face. Her back arched to stretch briefly and relieve the ache in her spine. She had been working over three hours repeating the same precise, meticulous, but mechanical motions over and over: dig a hole, gather the roots, clean, massage, fertilize, position, pat, repeat.

These particular species were extremely delicate. Very high maintenance. Her Aunt Nova, one of the richest and most eccentric women in Boston had asked for them specifically; she discovered them during her travels for her last transcontinental art exposition and was very specific about which ones she wanted. Nova was high maintenance herself. She demanded the best, nothing less and Gemma needed the money, so she provided her aunt with what nobody else in the city could: exquisite, exotic flowers from all over the world. Gemma patted down the soil over her last black bat flower.

“There. You didn’t kill me. You are the last one. I’m done.”

She took a step back to examine the sprouts in her last pot. Gemma knew as they developed, they would inherit new tones and shape to unearth a stunning effect. A smile of satisfaction crossed her face with secret pride. So far, so good. Flowers were Gemma’s passion. She had a gift. Once she had a plant in her possession, she could produce blooms at their peak on almost any day she chose, and she knew this arrangement would be something special.

Gemma closed her eyes to envision what the finished product would look like. By Halloween night the violet, animalistic black bat flowers, moon white calla lilies, and bluish-purple galaxy petunias with starry white specks would be in full blossom. All together they would create an illusion of a cloud of bats fluttering across a full moon in a sky full of stars. She had considered using ghost orchids, but she knew the white calla lilies would work much better. It actually made her feel a bit spooky just thinking about it. The window above her again rattled gently from the wind, and the cold draft brushed past the back of her neck. A shiver went down her spine, it almost felt like another presence was in the room with her - like someone was lurking in the shadows.

She called out even though she knew he had already left, "Phlec, is that you?" Alphecca, or Phlec as she preferred to call him, was Gemma’s best friend who helped run the shop. He had gone home early because the shipment was supposed to arrive early the next day. But the driver showed up last-minute at Gemma’s door and she had no choice but to do the work herself.

No response came back. Just a sense of emptiness and a hollow feeling in her gut.

Then more quietly, she whispered, “Leo? Is that you?” She waited for a sign. The room was still. Almost too still. No wind, no rattling windows. In the quiet, Gemma pulled her sweater over her shoulders and waited. Hoping. Still nothing.

Aphelion Leonis, or Leo for short, was Gemma’s husband. He was a naval architect who designed large sailboats for racing but disappeared six years ago on a business trip to meet with a renowned shipwright in Italy. He was testing a new design involving moonsails that he believed would increase the speed of his ships significantly. He planned to meet the man in secret, and draw up a contract, but never returned. Gemma and Leo had been in a fight when he left, and she never even got the chance to say "goodbye." It was the only real fight they’d ever had since they first met as teenagers - and the last. She never regretted anything more in her life than that fight.

She thought again about how often he had told her he would die for her if he had to. Why did he always say that to her? Why did that trip turn out the way it did?

After the investigation, Gemma had been told that the ship he was on went down in the Bermuda Triangle, but it was never found, and no bodies were ever discovered. There was no real evidence to explain what actually happened, so for a long time, Gemma couldn’t make herself believe it actually happened - that her husband was actually dead. Until recently. About a month ago, Gemma started getting strong sensations that someone was watching her. And as time passed, she felt more and more convinced that it might be her husband’s ghost. Sometimes, like right now she felt almost certain he was with her. She quickly flipped on the radio.

Ever since he went missing, Gemma noticed that whenever she was thinking about her husband, she would hear a line from the radio which seemed like a response Leo would have given her if they had just been talking together. She had a secret theory that radio waves were a way spirits in the world of the afterlife could contact the living - a special way that ghosts somehow could reach out to the people they left behind to communicate things that they thought were important enough. Of course, she never told anybody this, she was sure anyone she told would just think she was crazy, but she still felt it, and she needed to check if Leo was here with her now.

The radio messages were often eerily dead on, clues to things in her life that only Leo could have possibly known. At this point Gemma was so familiar with the strange feeling, that she felt sure she knew when her husband’s ghost was present, watching over her, taking care of her. It felt like a breath of cool air descending upon her that penetrated right through her skin filling her up from the inside with soft light - the same way she felt whenever he kissed her. She wasn’t surprised at all whenever the words from the radio sounded like something that could have come directly from his mouth. It didn’t scare her. To be honest the idea of his ghost nearby actually made her feel safe, and it slightly eased the pain of missing him so much.

The feeling she had now didn’t quite feel like that. It was more of a queasy feeling in her stomach - like something foreboding.

She turned the dial on the radio looking for a news station and began to clean up the shop. “Severe thunderstorm warnings are in effect along the coast of Boston . . .” She glanced out the window. The sky looked the same as it had pretty much the whole week, congested with thick, grey turbulent clouds.

“So, what else is new?” Gemma scowled.

She was disappointed that the radio didn’t sound like something Leo might say. But then she thought maybe he was worried about her getting home in the storm. Maybe he was concerned about their kids. Gemma glanced at her watch, eleven minutes past eleven. Sometimes she felt like there weren’t enough minutes in the day to get everything done. She sighed again, and without meaning to, spoke aloud to her husband, "I wish you were here. I wish I knew if you were still alive." Realizing what she did, she suddenly felt self-conscious.

Remembering herself, she stumbled back into the land of the living.

Gemma picked up her pace with closing up shop and preparing for the storm as quickly as she could. She bolted all the windows and shutters, placed the last black bat plant on the shelf that she and Phlec had cleared out earlier with the insulated covering, swept the floor, cleaned herself up and closed out the register. Even though she moved like clockwork, a half hour passed before she was ready to go.

Gemma, you idiot. Why didn’t you watch the time? This is way too late. Think about your children. She felt awful leaving so late. Tonight she had promised her kids she would try to get home early. She had been at work since 7:00 a.m. this morning - over sixteen hours. She was exhausted. A delayed feeling of fatigue hit her as she brushed the loose hairs from her face to search for her purse.

“ I love my kids, and I love what I do.” she reminded herself, “I love what I do, and I do it for my kids.”

She flicked off the lights and flipped the door sign. The Fleur de Lit was now officially closed.

Gemma stepped into the unsettled brisk October air. The street was dark and unusually quiet. Tension from the oncoming storm seemed to crawl right into the marrow of her bones. Gemma fumbled through her purse and pulled out her keys to lock up. A swirl of dead brown leaves skirted past her feet. She couldn’t believe that she lost track of the time so horribly. The chill made her skin prickle, and she rubbed her icy hands together. She pulled out a pair of gloves she recently purchased from her pocket, and struggled momentarily as her ring got hooked in the threads from the embroidery inside. Ugh, she didn’t want to deal with this now. She tugged extra hard, heard a thread tear inside, but got them on.

"Great, my new gloves." She thought dryly.

A thin ribbon of thunder rumbled low in the distance, so she quickened her step hoping she would reach her car before the rain hit. Shivering under the thin layer of her silk blouse, she wished she had chosen something more to bring with her than a flimsy pale green sweater. She fastened the buttons and pulled it tighter over her shoulders. Then a few misplaced moments of stillness in the air seemed to warn of something much more than a thunderstorm.

Gemma wished her car wasn’t parked so far down the street. The click of her heels sounded hollow in the emptiness. She still had an odd sensation that she wasn’t alone, but now she was absolutely sure it was not Leo. For a moment, she thought she heard footsteps behind her and looked back but saw no one. Instead a gust of wind swept under her loose brown skirt and sent an escaped white plastic bag dancing in a flurry before her, flitting up and down the sidewalk like a ghost, blocking her path, taunting her. She reached out and snatched it from the air, crumpled it up into a ball and tossed it into a nearby garbage can hoping to throw away the uneasy feeling that she was being watched along with it.

The first drops of rain just started falling as she passed a green truck parked just a few feet from her 1945 rose colored VW bug. But the rain came so fast that she was already soaked before she got her door open and climbed in. Gemma turned the key and pressed the gas, thankful that her little car actually started. By the time she was on the road the rain was coming in sheets hard enough to make the feeble wipers on her 15-year-old car a little less than completely ineffective. As she picked up speed, she struggled just to keep the wind from pushing the car off the road. The wind was so strong, and the rain was coming harder. Gemma started to panic.

She turned on her brights hoping it would make a difference, but the street was just a wet blur. Trying to calm herself she reached down to turn up the volume on her radio so she could hear something other than the howling wind. As she shuffled through the stations, she wondered how her children were doing, hoping they weren’t still awake - hoping they weren’t frightened by the storm or worried about her. She glanced in her rear-view mirror and saw headlights in the distance. It looked like a truck. She wondered if it was the same one that she saw pull out behind her when she was leaving.

Nervously, Gemma flipped through the stations getting mostly dead air or static. She wanted something soothing, like the astronomy program she often listened to on Thursday nights. She finally got a sound and the voice of a local reporter announced, “The presidential race between Kennedy and Nixon is finally ….” she clicked past it quickly. She had listened to news about the upcoming election all day.

Finally Gemma landed on a station with a thick liquid male voice emanating from her speakers. “Are you lonesome tonight?” Elvis crooned. Gemma was incredibly lonely. She was so, so very lonesome. She felt extremely alone and extremely scared right at this moment. She missed Leo and desperately needed help with her children, and she decided she really didn’t need to hear someone remind her of that sad fact. She spun the dial again and the radio went dead.

“Oh, come on,” she said, “Not now.”

She pounded the steering wheel in disappointment driving in silence. She slowed and made a sharp left off of Sudbury heading south on Cambridge towards Tremont and her townhouse at the corner of Oak, thankfully this was the final stretch. Almost there. Aching for peace of mind, she tried to let herself feel somewhat reassured. She turned down the wipers and instantly the radio kicked in with the familiar nasal voice she had been looking for breaking through the static waves.

“… four hundred years now, scientists have been tracking the miraculous breakdown of this dying star. Mira, named for the Russian word for peace, speeds across our universe at the astounding rate of 291 thousand miles per hour creating a sparkling wake of carbon and oxygen four times the diameter of the moon. At 350 light years away from the earth, the remains of this star’s fading life provide the very foundation needed for a new planetary system capable of supporting life.”

Between the swishing wipers, howling wind and pelting rain, it was difficult to concentrate. Gemma’s brain shut off. She felt like she was just staring into blackness. She opened up the window and stuck her head out to let the cold spray hit her in the face trying to wake herself up. Rigid in her seat and bent close to the wheel, Gemma tried to stay tuned but found it impossible. She clicked off the radio. She would have to discover the emerging galactic world of peace some other time. Now she was just concerned with getting home safe.

Her foot was growing steadily heavier, and she kept speeding up without noticing. Twenty-five, thirty, forty-five miles per hour. What was she thinking? Did she just run that last stop sign? No. Did she? Gemma checked herself. She was way too tired to be driving. This was way too fast for the dimly lit side streets of the North End of Boston no matter how much she wanted to get home. She pumped the brakes reluctantly, skidding slightly. Deep down, the only thing she wanted right now was to be home kissing her children good night. She had to focus.

She glanced in her rear-view mirror. It looked like the same vehicle that had been behind her made the turn too. Was someone really following her? Was the ghostly sensation she had of being watched earlier actually real? The rain began to lighten up. She glanced in the rear-view mirror again, trying to see if it was the green truck, but then it turned. Gemma breathed a sigh of relief. She was just being paranoid now. Trying to relax and settle her nerves she rubbed her sore eyes with a slender wrist and brushed away a strand of long brown hair that had fallen loose from her bun.

As she looked back up, a flutter of white flew at her face and smashed right into her windshield. She ducked and swerved the car to the left instinctively. Skidding along the road sideways, she quickly tried to correct the wheel only to see a lamp post shoot past her, then a yellow roadblock barrier, and a tree approaching fast. Her reflexes took over as she slammed on the brakes and pulled on the wheel swerving to the right. The helpless rose-colored VW bug screeched, went crashing through a "CAUTION" sign, then spun off the side of the road, and skidded into a huge mound of dirt piled on the side from the construction. Gemma’s forehead hit the steering wheel with a hard thunk as the car came to an abrupt stop.

The stalled car, angled steeply in a ditch, looked like at any moment it could turn on its side. It seemed helpless. One of the rear wheels raised slightly off the ground was spinning free, and a bent “NO PARKING” sign stuck out pitifully from its rear bumper. Unconscious in the front seat, completely defenseless was the delicate limp frame of Gemma Perilune breathing lightly. She began to stir as a 1960 Ford pickup pulled up beside her, the very same green truck that had been parked behind her at the shop. A large, dark, looming, figure emerged from within and moved through the shadows towards her.

Next Chapter: The Babysitter