Lost Among Flowers

Marten has not returned. We went out in search of him, but it seemed he had wandered off. There were no signs of a struggle, nor bandits from the road, but they gathered us together and ordered us to bolt the doors. It has been days now, and the villagers have taken to whispering amongst themselves. I did not speak of the flowers I saw where Marten had vanished, and how their color looked red in the dusk, as if drinking in the day's last rays. The flowers grow thickly there as they did at Adriaen's grave – and I have seen them elsewhere in the village as well. The men and women complain about them, how they choke the crops and seem to resist spade and shovel. They call them not flowers, but weeds – to me, they still have a beauty about them, and I am glad there is some trace of it on this isle, for there is little joy to be had. Kathrijn