Literally within a matter of minutes, we both knew that this was a story that had to be told, a story that compelled itself onto the page, a story that was bigger than we were. Perhaps you’ll agree with my editor’s comment of years ago and think all this sounds a little strange. Another editor once told me that authors were known to be somewhat of a peculiar breed, so maybe all this is in keeping with that!

But in all seriousness I say that there was a strong sense of truth about the whole (may I call it this?) revelation. It became extremely real, as if a true piece of history were being “revealed” to us, a story that our little wintry rose knew all about, because it knew the universal story of roses everywhere and was determined to tell us.

So it raised up its persistent head in the midst of the storm, and it beckoned to us. “Let me tell you of some of my brother and sister roses,” it said. “They are dead now, but their hearts are preserved, and some of their petals have been crushed, so that in death they might live on. For the aroma and bouquet of a rose never dies. If but one has smelled of its glory and sighed, or smiled, or thought of a loved one, that rose has been lifted into realms of the eternal. For those who love them, even the petals have fragrance. In the hope of giving such pleasure they expend their perfumes abroad over all the lands of the earth.

“In the heart of the rose is contained the tale of love universal. For what other purpose have roses been created than to assist in the telling of that saga and to offer faint, fragrant glimpses of that greater creating Love out of which are born and in which dwell all the loves of the universe? The reminders of its sachet can be bittersweet as well as jubilant, however. Love is no respecter of feelings. And that is why I, a winter’s rose, with a touch of sadness in my shriveled leaves, have come to lead you into this particular tale.

“I came out of the ground, not to tell you the story of the rose, but so that you might smell my sweet balm and behold the creating Love by beholding me. And, gazing into my wintry face, that you might seek and discover that story I would tell you if I could but speak of my brother and sister roses, who lived across the sea, in a time now gone and of the men and women who loved them.”

So I sat down at my typewriter the next day to see if I could discover the beginning strands of the mysteries our rose may have been thinking about.