The Flower That Grew from Ashes novel Chapter 208

It was mid-morning by the time the truck pulled back into Old Town.

Contractors were unloading the batch of iron flower racks while Sophia directed them from the doorway. Emma stood on the steps, frantically waving a brown envelope at her.

"Anne! You got a letter! It's from Paris!"

Annelise parked the truck and walked over.

The envelope was made of thick cream paper, featuring a French postage stamp in the top right corner. The handwriting was elegant and forceful.

The sender's name read: Madeleine.

Annelise's heart gave a gentle flutter.

Madeleine was the most senior instructor at the Paris Floral Art Academy, nearing eighty years old.

Twice a year, when Annelise did her residency at the academy, the old lady personally took her to explore the city's oldest flower markets.

The old woman was famously eccentric and had an incredibly sharp eye. Out of all the young designers at the academy, only a handful ever earned her approval.

Annelise tore open the envelope.

Inside were a few pages of handwritten stationery. The old woman wrote with a fountain pen, her strokes sharp and deeply etched into the paper.

Standing by the arched window of the studio, bathed in that 9 AM light, Annelise read the letter word by word.

In the letter, the old lady wrote that she had reviewed all of Annelise's online work from the past two years.

She had looked at the *Midnight Blooms* series over and over again.

"Child, you have a god-given gift for floristry," the old woman wrote. "But for the last two years, you've been hiding behind the signboard of a tiny shop. You've been keeping yourself in the shadows."

"You call your style Zenith & Borealis. That's wonderful. But an artist with such a distinct style shouldn't be confined to a simple shop name."

Annelise's fingertips paused over the paper.

She continued reading.

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