Umogboh , Ayomide lives in Ikorodu, Lagos. TYWA stories may be slightly edited for grammatical accuracy and to better serve TGF readers. The originality of the story is 100% intact. - TYWA 2025
London, 1916.
The morning fog was thick, clinging to the cobblestones like secrets. Evelyn Ashford adjusted her nurse’s uniform, slipped the letter into her coat pocket, and stepped into the gray.
The letter had no return address—just her name, written in a hand she hadn’t seen in two years.
Arthur.
He had died in France, they said. His body was never found. She wept in the rain that day, clinging to the final telegram as if grief could reverse it.
But now, a letter. Postmarked five days ago. No explanation, just twelve words: “Meet me where the roses bloom. Bring no one. Trust no one.”
She knew the place, Regent’s Park, west garden. He used to sneak her there during training drills. Said it made the war seem far away. She arrived just after noon. The garden was empty but for a man feeding birds by the fountain. Evelyn waited, heart in her throat.
Then she saw it, a single red rose tucked into the bench slats. Their signal.
She sat.
A minute passed. Then a shadow fell beside her.
“You came,” said a voice she half-recognized.
He looked like Arthur. Older. Leaner. A scar traced his jaw. But those eyes... “Is it really you?” she whispered.
“Yes,” he said. “But I can’t stay.”
He handed her a small envelope. “Names. Locations. They're using wounded soldiers as couriers. Spies under the Red Cross.”
Evelyn stared, stunned. “Why me?”
“Because you’re clean. And you’re brave. And I had no one else.”
A whistle blew in the distance. He flinched.
“They’ll be watching,” he said. “Burn this once you memorize it. And Evelyn, thank you.”
She wanted to ask a hundred things. Where he’d been. Why he hadn’t written sooner. But when she blinked, he was already walking away, swallowed by fog.
That night, Evelyn read the list under candlelight. Names she’d tended in hospital beds. Men with broken bodies and guilty eyes.
She didn’t burn it.
She copied it.
By dawn, MI5 had the list. Evelyn said nothing of the man with Arthur’s eyes.
But every year after, she left a single rose on that park bench—hoping, somehow, he’d still be watching.