The Ring of Quiet Bloom- Child’s ring

Lerwick, Shetland, 1961— Dawn. Elspeth Murray held the rose-handled spoon to the pale morning light, turning it slowly between her fingers. The silver was cool, and the carved petals along the handle caught the shadows like frost on the windowsill. It had once stirred thick porridge and tea, passed carefully from hand to hand at long breakfasts in her small kitchen. Later, the spoon was coaxed into a ring. The petals remained, curved gently around the band, delicate but unbroken. Elspeth slid it onto her finger and felt its familiar weight settle, a quiet pulse against her skin. The light caught the silver in shifting patterns, revealing the depth of the carving as if the rose were blooming again. Strength, she realised, did not need to shout — it lived in care, in attention, in the patient shaping of something ordinary into something enduring.