pochemuchka
A few days had passed since I mailed the letter to Cyrus, and I hadn’t seen the door since. Which meant that, maybe, it had worked. Then again, most evenings had been overcast. I wasn’texactlysure how this garden magic worked, but I was mostly certain I only found the door on sunny days. This evening was very sunny, at least, and there was still no sign of it. So maybe the letter worked, and he decided not to come to the party. That also meant that I’d never see him again. (Or, nevermeethim? Too confusing.) There was no reason for him to visit Lilymoor if not for the bicentennial, and I was gone the day after.
Ships passing in the night. Never meant to meet.
Sad, but one less thing on my plate, I decided.
Sitting down in the Hedges, I staked my shovel into the ground beside me and took a break. The sky slowly shifted from robin’s-egg blue to a soft pink to orange, and the breeze coming up from the cliffs was heavy with brine. I rubbed at my left hip, because it was still a little sore from when I fell off the wall. The cut on my cheek was healing nicely, though, which probably had nothing to do with Oliver but I was sure he’d take credit anyway.
I wondered, if Cyrus had never been trapped in the garden, whether he and Oliver would’ve spoken at the party. Cleared the air.
“Doesn’t matter now,” I mumbled to myself, and just as I was deciding to call it for the evening, there was a sound. The creak of—a door?
I glanced around, but I didn’t see it.
Wind rippled through the boxwoods, and there it was again. Soft but real. I popped to my feet, leaving my shovel and sun hat by the bench, and quickly followed the sound out of the Hedges and into the Central Garden.
There, pressed into an old stone wall, was the blue door.
So the letter hadn’t worked.
I stepped into the garden, the same, as unchanging as always.
“Damn,” I whispered, and dropped onto the stone bench beside the door, and leaned my back against the vine-covered wall. I let out a hard sigh.
Cyrus was lounging in a patch of clovers by the willow, arms tucked behind his head, eyes closed. As I rose and approached him, he cracked open an eye and waited for me to say something. But I had nothing to say. I felt foolish, being so sure that letter would work, that it’d be that easy.
The door was still here, and so was he.
He was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, “It’s not your fault I’m stuck here, Sophie.”
“No,” I admitted, sitting down beside him, “but I don’t understand why it didn’t work.”
He hesitated. “It … justdidn’t.” There was a frustrated note in his voice, and I studied him, waiting for him to go on.He didn’t at first, and then with a huff he sat up. “It actually made me furious, okay?”
Thatwas a surprise. “What part of that made you furious?”
He gave me a knowing look.
I threw up my hands. “I don’t know, Rus!”
So he planted a hand in the clover as he leaned toward me, eyes narrowing. “Sophie,” he said in a low voice, “you said it’d waste my time. What did youthinkwould happen?”
“That you’d agree, Rus.”
Silently, he massaged the bridge of his nose.
My cheeks burned with embarrassment.Oh. “So how was I supposed to know you’d take that as a challenge?” I argued, flustered, thinking maybe Ishouldhave gone with the Cancún letter. “This is seriously unfair. Why didn’t you tell me it wouldn’t work when I mentioned my plan?”
To which he replied, “I told you I wasn’t sure about it.”
But I had already realized—“Youknew,” I accused, jabbing a finger at him. “You knew I’d write something to piss you off! And you let me anyway!”
He rolled his eyes toward the sky. “And yet hope springs eternal.”
“Well, you should have told me that it wasn’t going to work! Maybe if I hadn’t sent it at all, you wouldn’t have come! I mean, Eula said you werethinkingabout coming, not that you were. So what if me sending that letter is the reason you’re coming?” I said aloud in growing horror. “Oh god. It’s my fault.”
“It wouldn’t have pissed me off if I thought the message came from someone I knew,” he explained, and dread coiled in my belly.
