Elf Wood: Midsummer Magic 1 | 🔮 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐄 ✓

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐅𝐢𝐯𝐞

Danielle went upstairs to get dressed. In the short time she'd spent in the house, Danielle was surprised by how at home she already felt.

It felt like her home.

Putting on a pair of shorts and a crop top, she stripped the sheets off the bed and dumped them over the railing before she went into the master bedroom and stripped the sheets in there, too.

Tonight, she'd try sleeping in the master bedroom. But there was a lot of work to be done in the house before then. If she still wasn't comfortable sleeping in her great-aunt's bedroom, then she would go back to the other room. Danielle went downstairs and took the sheets to the laundry. Thankfully, her great-aunt had a pretty decent washer and dryer—it was a Maytag from the late nineties—and it still ran like it was brand new.

Grabbing her bucket of cleaning supplies, she hurried back up the stairs and grabbed her phone. Hopefully she still had enough data on her phone to play some music—she hadn't seen a radio anywhere in the house—she'd need to get one. Something that fits in with the decor around the house. Danielle had seen some adorable radios that looked like old radios from the nineteen twenties and thirties that were Wi-Fi enabled and had Bluetooth.

Danielle used the empty boxes she had to pack away Estelle's clothes and any other personal items from the master bathroom before looking around the room. She felt better about her surroundings as she started to dust and vacuum the big rub beneath the bed. There was something haunting about the way her aunt liked to decorate. Nothing about the house seemed to fit into this century, but Danielle liked it. She'd tried to accomplish something similar in her apartment, but with the rules about not putting any holes in the walls, she'd had to find other ways to decorate. She wasn't even allowed to put curtains up because it would leave screw holes in the walls.

By noon, Danielle was pleased with the work she'd put in. There were still several rooms she couldn't get into because the doors were locked—this she found both peculiar and fascinating—Danielle tried peeking through the keyholes, but the drapes were pulled closed on the other side so all she saw were vague shadows. She was feeling hungry and tomorrow would be her first day at the library, it would be nice to know where it was and she needed to pick up a few groceries from the store because she didn't have anything fresh in the house except for the eggs and bacon that her new neighbors brought this morning.

Freshening up, Danielle found her car keys and hopped in the car to drive down the hill, her eyes wandering over the overgrown lawn as she backed out of the driveway. She would need to do something about the yard soon, but right now, her primary focus was making the house livable before she went to work tomorrow, and she didn't even know if Estelle had any lawn equipment. She didn't imagine that Estelle would do much yard work anymore and by the state of the yard, this mount of growth had been accumulating for a while now.

Mystic Springs was a pretty straightforward town. Everything was central in the town center and from there, Danielle was able to find the library and the market. She drove by the pub and the flower shop that Irene told her about this morning when Danielle had an idea. Irene said that she ran the flower shop during the day, so she knew she would be there. Pulling into a parking spot, she got out and hopped onto the sidewalk, looking at the display in the storefront's window. Danielle wondered if Irene also had a nursery somewhere—where did she get all her flowers?

"Well, hello, stranger."

Irene was straightening a vase full of lilies when she heard the bell ring over the door and she looked over her shoulder to see who had entered.

"Hey," Danielle greeted, walking over to smell the lilies, and humming in appreciation. "I was just getting to know my way around town and I decided I'd like to take some flowers to my great-aunt's grave, so... I need some flowers. And I also wondered if you might be able to direct me to the cemetery and her headstone." Danielle said, scrunching her shoulders up slightly. She didn't like the way it felt, asking for this information. As a family member, Danielle should have known where Estelle's final resting place was—but her whole family was estranged—but that was going to change. Danielle was not going to be like that—well, she could certainly love her mom and sister from a distance, but she planned to invite her dad for visits—if he warmed to the idea that the town was full of fairytale folk.

"Of course, I can. That's really thoughtful of you, Danielle. I can give you directions to the cemetery. Estelle's grave is all the way at the back with the big statue of the fairy headstone. It's hard to miss." Irene smiled. "Do you have any idea what kind of flowers you would like to take?"

Danielle looked around the shop. There were so many that she didn't know which ones to choose.

"Did Estelle have a favorite?" she asked.

"Sunflowers. Estelle loved sunflowers." Irene said and immediately headed to the display full of thick stalks of sunflowers and began to pluck some out before wrapping the stems.

"That's so odd." Danielle remarked, taking her purse from her shoulder to retrieve her bank card before Irene stopped her.

It was on the house.

"If you don't mind me asking, what's odd, sweetie?" Irene asked

"It's just that... well, sunflowers are my favorite, too. I always wanted to have a little garden area, but it was against the rules at my apartment, so I was never able to grow anything." She remarked as she put away her wallet.

"Well, now you can, and if you need any help planting or you have questions, you can call me anytime." Irene smiled, grabbing a card from the stack next to the register and slid it over the counter before tying the sunflowers in a bright yellow ribbon.

"Thank you, Irene. I'll probably need it. I've never had much of a green thumb." Danielle chuckled as she took the flowers, and Irene told her how to get to the cemetery. It was right at the end of town. If she found the library, all she needed to do was keep following the road east and Danielle wouldn't miss it.

Returning to her car, Danielle placed the flowers in the passenger seat. She would go to the cemetery first. Estelle had waited long enough to get her here. She should be Danielle's first stop. Besides, she would figure out where the library was in one trip.

Unlike most cemeteries, which made Danielle feel dark and gloomy, this one was bright and open despite how old it was and the many headstones popping up out of the ground like gophers. Danielle could spend hours here, wandering around and reading the names and dates. It seemed to Danielle that Mystic Springs was celebrating its past residents instead of mourning them. They lived long happy lives and instead of viewing their deaths as sad occasions, they were happy. Blessed events because their loved ones went on to their next adventure. There were fresh flowers everywhere, some wild, others were purposeful, the headstones were kept clean instead of dingy and forgotten.

Irene wasn't kidding when she said that Estelle had a big fairy headstone. It was massive. There was no way she would have missed it.

Estelle Gloria Flowers

Beloved Friend

12-08-1920 to 07-29-2022

It didn't name any children or spouse—how sad—somehow, Danielle hoped that maybe Estelle had married at some point and maybe her husband had just passed long before her. She was one hundred and two years old.

"Irene said sunflowers were your favorite," Danielle said, awkwardly holding them out as if the stone fairy's eyes would open to look at them or reach down to take them from Danielle's hands. "I wanted to come see you, to tell you thank you for the house. It's beautiful and I intend to take good care of it, I promise. I wish we could have gotten to know each other better. From what everyone tells me, you were an incredible person to know."

Danielle sighed. For whatever reason she kept expecting some sort of sign—but none came. It was just a cemetery and the stone fairy was just stone. She unwrapped the sunflowers and placed them inside the plant holder mounted at the bottom of the stone below Estelle's name.

It occurred to her as she was walking back to her car that Estelle's middle name was Gloria—like the flower—just like Danielle. Her middle name was Rose.

Flowers for the Flowers.