Skeletal bride with scythe and candles

The mending hall was full of candles again last night, which the foreman says is a fire code matter and I say is a wake. They sent the veil up from the Lower Ring with a note that said only "restore, not replace." Forty metres of bobbin lace, grey as ash under the lamps, and someone had stitched roses through it in black thread, one for each bolt of the old colony ships. I counted eleven before I stopped counting.

Mrs Okonedo, who taught me the flat stitch, told me the scythe was never meant to cut anything living. It was for prising open a cargo hatch when the crew had sealed themselves in. I didn't believe her until the third night, when I found a hatch code scratched inside the grip in letters so small I needed the loupe.

Here is what I did. I left the roses. I picked out the broken beads and replaced them with jet ones from Gran's box, the ones she never wore. I finished the hem at four this morning, and when I held it up against the window the lace went bright at the edges, like frost catching the sun outside the dock.

The courier comes at noon. I am not supposed to keep the scraps, so I have folded one rose into the pocket of this letter. Keep it somewhere dry. If the lights in the dock go out, light a candle and watch the flame lean toward the door. That is how you know which way the cold is coming from.

Love, Orla