Chapter 1: At Last

A Riot of Color

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by Daniel Sunflowers

Copyright 2025 Mr. Sunflowers Publishing

www.mrsunflowersbooks.com

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Chapter 1: At Last

Rose had always wanted to be married in the spring. That's why she was annoyed when a young man with bright, hungry eyes swept down the river from the mountains with the snowmelt, bouncing a ring on his palm.

It would have been better if he'd come in October. They could have spent the winter days wandering through whitewashed pines and snowshoeing the frozen lakeshore, and the nights painting and making music in the little earthen shack she kept in the woods behind Grandfather's farm. After the spring thaw he could have married her on the cliff overlooking the vast, sparkling expanse of Sapphire Lake, under a white arbor of bent birch saplings heavy laden with tulips and daffodils and wild lilacs and apple blossoms. They would have gone to bed in a bower under the willow tree by the river, drunk on the scent of damp soil pregnant with vibrant hope of summer's coming glory. Christmas would have found her cradling a new life in her arms, warm and safe beside the fire in the new one-room stone cottage he'd built her on the same bluff where he'd married her just nine months before.

But Jesse had not appeared in October. He'd arrived in April, several months ahead of schedule, and Rose was busy. Busy counting seeds, sweeping stalls, massaging the sour old mare's left foreleg, patching roof leaks, breeding chickens, and making social calls. Plus, now her wedding flowers would be zinnias and dahlias, celosia and sunflowers and even the odd cosmo or two. All of which she adored, as she adored all flowers, but which would serve as yet another reminder that things were behind schedule. And nothing annoyed Rose more than being reminded that she was late.

That's why, when she saw the hungry-eyed young man alone at the village market — the spring market — she was very put out. Because she knew, obviously, that she was going to marry him, and she had not scheduled time that day to fall in love, since it was April, and not October. But fall she must. Even if it would make her late.

Jesse, for his part, had no idea he was supposed to fall in love with Rose that day, so he was a little taken aback by the force of presence of the diminutive girl who'd barged straight into the bustling crowd, planted her feet, and demanded his name and where he was from and where he thought he was staying.

Jesse replied a little defensively that he'd grown up in a village not far off in the same valley, and that he'd spent the last ten years away becoming a man and making his fortune in the world, and now he'd swept down the river to the lake with the mountain snowmelt with the ring in his hand and a few other odds and ends that he'd left in a cave near the falls with his canoe. See, he knew he was supposed to fall in love with somebody that day, of course. That was the plan. That was why he'd come. It's what you do after you've become a man (and in some cases, quite a bit before). The problem was, the girl Jesse imagined sweeping off her feet didn't resemble Rose at all.

Since becoming a man the month before — somewhere beneath the canopy of a foggy forest marching up the slopes of a misty mountain lit only by searing sun and soft starlight — since becoming a man and beginning his long journey home by horse, foot, and canoe, he'd daydreamed quite a bit about the girl he was coming home to join his life to.

She'd gone through a few hundred iterations, but shortly before arriving to town, the woman in his daydreams stood five-foot-nine-and-three-eighths; she spoke to him in a voice as smooth and warm as late summer honey; her skin was as soft and fresh as new snow; she wore a tangled crown of hair as black as the sky on a stormy night; and her favorite food was peanut brittle.

"You didn't answer my other question."

Jesse blinked away the daydream and squinted at the sweaty girl in front of him. "What question?" Jesse wasn't quite sure if he should apologize, but also not sure what else she'd asked him, if anything.

"Where are you staying? You can't sleep in a cave when you're visiting a town."

Jesse looked around. It was past mid-afternoon now, and the village square was beginning to empty. Jesse turned a full circle, slowly, searching under every awning and peering down every alley and scanning every porch for some sign of the sparkling gaze of his beloved, fixed inexorably upon him, and him alone. There was none.

His eyes returned to rest on Rose, and he sighed.

"See, I swept down from the mountains after—"

"Becoming a man, yes. I see that."

"That's right. And I was going to find a —"

"To find a girl." Rose folded her arms.

"Correct, and then after I had—"

"Swept her off her feet." Rose tapped a foot. "You did mention that part."

"Exactly. And since of course her folks will love me—"

"Naturally."

"I-thought-I'd-stay-with-them." Jesse finished as quick as he could, wincing ahead of the interruption.

Rose just stared.

Jesse stared back.

Rose raised an eyebrow.

"So . . . have you seen any—"

Rose snarled, threw up her hands, and stormed off, clouds of dust puffing beneath her bare feet.

That might have been the end of it too, except for the fact that as she stalked away she passed through a beam of afternoon sun pouring through the ancient beech trees which ringed the village square. You see, the sun had been watching the would be lovers (as she often does) and decided that this young man needed a little help (as we often do), so as Rose stormed across the square the dirt-smeared, sweat-stained, thundercloud of a girl passed through a golden curtain, and Jesse caught a glimpse of her as she really was, bathed in the glow of eternity: a creature of extraordinary grace, clothed with the sun.

Jesse blinked as his paradigm shifted.

Rose hid a smile as she heard him running after her. She'd been ninety-percent certain the sunbeam would do the trick. She and the sun were good friends (that's why she was so tan), and they'd practiced this move before, in preparation for a moment just like this.

But in October! Rose groused. She slowed down for Jesse, who'd just caught up. "You can stay with me," Rose said, and took his hand. "My grandfather has an extra stable since our donkey just died."

"That sounds wonderful," Jesse replied, a little bewildered, but grateful nonetheless.