Learning To Bloom In The Darkness (✔️)

Chapter Seventeen: Sub Rosa

(Amaryllis's POV)

I laid in bed trying to think of where it could be. I was racking my brain trying to think of everything he ever said to me that might give me a clue.

I came up with nothing and never went to sleep. I was up when the sun came up.

I called Vick as soon as I got ready for the day.

"Hello?"

"I want to go back."

"To the house?"

"There had to be something we missed. We had to have overlooked something. Anything."

"I'll be there in twenty. I'll call Harvey on my way."

Harvey was waiting for us with the door open when we arrived.

"Maybe if we didn't split up this time. We search every room together. Maybe of us will see something the other missed."

"Great idea. Let's get started."

We went room to room for hours, but still found nothing. Harvey fixed us lunch again and we all sat at the kitchen island to eat it. They talked about where else we could search while I kept repeating what the text said.

That's when it hit me.

"Sub rosa." I said out loud.

"What?"

"The text message."

"Didn't you tell Lincoln it meant in secret or whatever?"

"But what if it doesn't?"

"You lost me." Vick said.

"I taught Lachlan sub rosa. I taught him what it meant. I taught him the Latin version of it."

"Right......"

"What he didn't send it as the Latin version?"

"What other version is there?"

"English."

"I'm still not following." Vick said, scratching his head.

"Sub as a prefix means 'under' or 'beneath'. Rosa as a verb means a large genus of climbing prickly shrubs like roses. Combine those and you get something like under roses." I explained and Harvey's face lit up.

"He spent hours outside in the garden reading or working when he was tired of being in his office. He would also take Lincoln out there to eat lunch sometimes. Did it to get out the house and get some sun." Harvey said.

"You have roses out there?"

"Only in one spot."

Vick and I followed Harvey outside, making a pitstop by the gardening shed for some gloves and little shovels before we continued on to the roses.

There was a little table nestled between two large rose bushes.

"Vick and I will take one while you get the other." I told Harvey.

We got down on the ground and started digging around the base of the bush. Our gloves protected our hands, but nothing protected our arms from occasionally catching a thorn or two.

"Got it!" Harvey exclaimed, hitting something that sounded like metal.

We scrambled over to him and helped him pull out a medium sized box. It was wrapped in a plastic bag to protect it and the contents inside.

"See if the key fits." Vick said as Harvey took it out of the bag.

The key slipped right into the keyhole and the two of them cheered in excitement. I slipped the key back out and stuck it in my pocket.