I dashed towards the exit while taking deliberate actions not to disturb customers. Thousands of questions raced through my head.

'Is it a weed?'

'Is somebody smoking weed?'

'Those are two very different things.'

I rounded the corner into the orchard, scanning my eyes for any signs of a black ball of fluff. After a couple minutes of doing so, I spotted it.

'God, I hope it's just weeds or something and nothing serious...'

I cautiously made my way to the fluff as I got my phone ready to contact the police if necessary.

Crunch

'Oh, crap...' I mentally cursed myself.

My body became instantly stiffened as I hear a faint gasp. The ball of fluff turned around and...

A boy not older than being in elementary came into view.

He flinched and immediately dropped all the flowers he was picking.

'Wait...'

My eyes darted towards his face, and towards the ground where the flowers laid after being dropped. Realization dawned upon me. And before he could run, I grabbed his wrist, firm, but not enough to hurt him. That would be bad, I could almost see the headlines in the news, ' local flower shop owner harasses kid after picking a few flowers from the garden.'

His eyes were glassy, and it looked as if he were about to burst into tears. After a few minutes of restraining, he stopped trying to fight me and slumped his shoulders in defeat.

"You better take me to the pretty girl you would've given these flowers to."

The pale boy looked surprised. Probably expected me to scream at him, or report him to the police. His eyes didn't meet mine, and he fidgeted a lot. His thick black hair fell over his eyes, and after what felt like an hour, he reluctantly agreed.

We started up the cobblestone path, passing the overgrown trees, over the bridge, and up the stairway.

'Where the heck is this child taking me?'

He leads me in front of a gate. He pushes it open, and we both go in.

I drop his hand.

There were thousands of graves, each with loving messages inscribed on the tombstones. Flowers, offerings, and bouquets were all scattered around the stones.

And only one had no flowers on it. 

A/N Y'all this chapter is rlly short but I think it's a nice start to the book lol