Timber

Chapter Fifteen: Snow in the Rose Garden

Hazel's heart leaped out of her chest cavity as a chill ran through her bloodstream. Like icy fingers tracing her nerves, it was colder than the dream she'd woken from that morning. Her breath caught in her throat as she slowly spun to find herself meeting the stare of Senator Snow.

He stood a few feet away, his face half-shaded by the rose bushes, watching her like she'd wandered somewhere she didn't belong.

She'd heard the question. Pretending otherwise wouldn't help and the longer she went without answering, the more peculiar it must have seemed.

"They are beautiful," she finally managed to say through a vocal tremble. "We don't have many roses in seven." Her gaze shifted to the vast expanse of roses that stretched across a significant portion of the garden. "Only the wild kind. And they definitely don't look like these."

He trailed a gloved finger across one in full bloom, its magenta petals nearly glowing. He bent to smell it. "Wild roses can be the most beautiful. If they're handled correctly."

"Well, back home they don't come in all these colors," Hazel pointed with her chin toward a patch of roses streaked with orange and black. "And I've definitely never seen one with tiger stripes."

Snow gave a quiet, amused breath. "Those are a particular favorite of my cousin. We call them tiger lily roses."

"How creative," Hazel eyed the bizarre flowers. "Looks like the Castellans were fans too."

He paused for a moment, his attention shifting from the roses to Hazel. "They did have a particular fondness for these roses."

The way he described them in the past tense wasn't lost on her as a camera tucked in the vines winked. "Seems odd they'd just hand over their estate to district tributes."

Snow's reply came smooth, almost bored. "The Castellans are particularly generous. And while they are away on extended leave, they offered their home for this year's use."

Sure. She wasn't buying any of it.

Hazel recalled the zoo where tributes were previously housed. It's certainly a step up from that but the home basically oozed with wrongness. "How extended?"

Snow didn't look up. "Why the interest in the Castellans?" Snow queried, probing another buttery petal. "Don't you have more pressing things to be worried about?"

Of course she did. Like dying. Or worse, surviving.

"You're right." Hazel breathed. "Just curious, I guess."

Snow resumed his stroll through the garden, his long coat flowing behind him. He stopped by a bush of light lavender roses, plucking a petal and examining it closely.

"You know," he began. "I've always found it quite intriguing that different colored roses carry different symbolic meanings."

"I've heard that somewhere." She couldn't remember exactly where. Flowers weren't exactly on the forefront of her mind much back home. "So, do those tiger lilies represent large cat conservation?"

A corner of his mouth twitched, amusement crossing his face. "I'm not entirely sure what those represent, honestly."

He crouched beside the bush, still turning the petal in his hand. "But pink means gratitude. Burgundy for passion. Purple is enchantment, orange for desire. Yellow means friendship. Green for balance. Red, of course, is love." He looked up at her. "Straightforward. No games or tricks. They don't lie like people do."

She nodded toward his lapel. "And white?"

His gloved fingers drifted across the petals like he thought they might bruise. "White can mean many things," he said. "Purity. Innocence. Or, as I prefer, a clean slate. A new beginning."