In the autumn of 1998, Luna visits the garden behind Saint Jude's Chapel in the small town of Mercy, Ohio, to tend the roses planted by the sisters who came before. But one rose bush has grown strange — its blooms a deep black-red, its thorns curved like fishhooks, and its roots tangled around something that should never have been buried. As she digs, she uncovers a rusted box containing a letter from a novice who vanished in 1922, a lock of hair still tied with a silk ribbon, and a single pressed rose that crumbles at her touch. The garden is silent, the confessional empty, but Luna feels a presence watching from the window above. She leaves the box open on the altar and kneels to pray, but the prayer feels hollow — because what she found was not meant to be found, and what was buried should have stayed buried.