Ratri and the Grieving Botanist

An elongated shadow drifts across the valley and tightens about the cottage. Moonlight seeps through a grimy windowpane.

The botanist stirs fitfully in her sleep. In a dream, the handsome face of a collapsing ghost whispers his final goodbye; he sinks, brightly, into the soil of her heart.

Suddenly awake, the botanist spies a translucent orchid on the pillow beside her; dew catches against the touch of her trembling hand. Outside, the four arms of Ratri plant more orchids. Starlight shines through her silhouette.

Joy takes root within the botanist’s heart, for the orchid is unknown to science. She thanks the gods for their gift, then grabs her Rig Veda and presses the bloom between its pages—a specimen she’ll take to the local herbarium and name, taxonomic epithet immortalizing the man she loved.

Ratri smiles, lifts into the cool predawn air. There she breaks over the cottage like a startled mass of black moths and returns to the arena of night.

First published in Eternal Haunted Summer in 2021.