I glance up at the home and feel a thud of sadness when I think of its heavy silence. Will opening the grounds again be enough to lighten the spirit of this place… to dispel “The Gloom,” as Marjorie calls it?
I’m still paused, considering, when I sense the lemony, herbal scent of catmint begin to warm the air, rising above all of the other scents in the garden. The aroma moves around me in that old, familiar way, glimmering and whispering against my skin. If this scent were for anyone else, I would ignore it, just as I have for ten long years. But I know this scent is for me, and me alone. Curious, I lean toward one of the long, feathery stalks of violet blossoms. I close my eyes and breathe in its earthy fragrance.
The scent ripples over my skin and tumbles through me, deeper and deeper still. And then I am no longer among the flowers of the Oceanview Home.
I am in the art studio in the Bantom Bay Community Center.
I sit on a floor pillow, my feet tucked below me, a book—Matilda—in my small hands. But I’m not reading; I’m watching my mother teach her painting class.
I watch her move through the studio, whispering to one student and then another. Everyone adores her; I can see it in their eyes, the hopeful way they glance at her, willing her to visit them next. I hear my mother’s long skirt swishing as she walks, the plink of the gold bracelets on her wrist. Her dark hair is lustrous around her shoulders. On a low table beside me, steam rises from her mug of tea and drapes around me—lemony and herbal and fresh.
“I can’t decide what to paint,” a woman tells my mother quietly, sounding embarrassed. “I’m not feeling inspired.”
“Just paint,” my mother tells her patiently. “Just enjoy the feeling of the brush in your hand, the paint sliding over the canvas. No inspiration. No expectations. You’ll never find what comes next if you don’t take the first step.”
And then my mother looks right at me, and I see the mischievous light in her eyes that I know so well, a shared secret between us.
“If you can’t find magic,” she says, her eyes on mine, “you must make it.”
I am in the garden of the Oceanview Home again. I press my hand to my chest and feel my heart racing. My vision blurs as I blink down at the purple catmint flowers, orienting myself. My mother has been dead for six long, terrible months, but I feel like I was just with her again. I lift my hand to my cheek and find my face is wet with tears. Oh, to have seen her again! To have seen my mother! To have heard her voice! I close my eyes and see her moving through the art studio, speaking to one student and then another, her encouragement shining like a light. She was so loved.
If you can’t find magic, you must make it.
I had not remembered that day. I had not remembered her saying those words to me.
Over and over again, I have heard my mother’s warning in my mind:Be careful with your gift, Lucy. Every action has a consequence.But I had never remembered this moment when she had looked at me, her gaze shining with playful mischief, andencouragedme to make magic.
I remember it now.
I blink up toward the home, so silent and solemn.
My mother’s words echo through my mind all morning long as I work my way through the garden, silver paths like wide, clean ribbons unspooling in my wake.
Why had I returned to that memory? What was it trying to tell me?
Chapter Nine
Hellebore: A flowering plant in the buttercup family with downturned blossoms whose loamy, sour scent carries a message of loss
I’m on a ladder the next day, carefully untangling vines from the branches of one of the lemon trees, when I hear someone call my name. I lean back out of the tree canopy and catch sight of a man and a little girl walking toward me. The man, I notice, has a tool belt slung around his waist.
He raises his hand in the air. “Lucy?” he calls. “I’m Adam Lewis. I’m here to take a look at the garden gates.”
“I’ll be right there,” I call back.
I climb down the ladder and step over the boxwoods that I clipped into a neat row this morning. The air is still and soft and laced with the bright scent of the freshly cut hedge. Gully is at my side as I greet the newcomers.
I take off my glove to shake Adam’s hand. Marjorie’s grandson is tall and broad-shouldered with a strong nose and a shaggy mess of dark hair curling around his ears. His intelligent, somewhat sadeyes are a rich shade of brown. And his scent? Sawdust and sunlight and dark chocolate… and below all of that, the slightest trace of something else… the lush, green smell of grass after spring rain.
He places his hand lightly on the shoulder of the girl beside him. “This is my daughter, Sophie.”
Sophie is maybe six or seven years old and very slight, with a heart-shaped face and tawny brown hair that curls like her father’s. There is something troubled about her—her downcast eyes flit around nervously as she works the edges of her cardigan with her thin fingers. She seems familiar to me, though I can’t imagine why. I’m sure I’d remember if we had met before.
“Hi, Sophie,” I say. I nod toward Gully. “This is my dog, Gully. He’s very friendly.”
Gully looks at Adam and Sophie in his calm, expectant way, tail moving over the path behind him, and Adam immediately reaches out to scratch under his muzzle.
“Are you sure he’s not a horse?” he asks, head cocked.
