What Old Ren Does With the Bloom Nobody Bought

Ingathering closes tomorrow. Old Ren already sorts his stall for it, an hour before the second bell, no one asked him to start early.

Two piles. One: wreaths still tight enough to carry to tonight’s last buyers, root end in, loose at the crown. Two: wreaths gone soft, thistle-bloom losing its two-day argument with the sun, purple past the color a bride would want on her door.

He does not throw the second pile out. He pulls each wreath apart at the binding, keeps the thistle-heads in a sack for the Temple braziers — dried further, they burn slower than fresh oil, and Niko takes what he’s given and asks no questions about where it came from. The reed frames go in a bundle by the cart wheel, re-bent next Bloommonth when the new stalks are cut. The root ends go back to the wall he took them from, the same stretch by the north gate, so next year’s bloom has something to grow out of.

One wreath this week was bound wrong — a boy’s, stiff, snapped at the fourth turn when he tried to sell it anyway. It goes on the second pile with the rest. Old Ren didn’t scold him for it twice. Once was enough, he said, and the boy is back at the stall today doing it properly.

Under the stall board he keeps a tally, scratched in with a nail: how many made, how many sold, nine Ingatherings of marks layered one year over the last, half worn smooth. He doesn’t total it for anyone. He knows what he made. That’s the only account he keeps.

Word is the Archive checks its whole book against itself this month, first time in seven years. Old Ren checks his board against what’s actually left on the cart. Neither of them expects the other’s answer.