Page 34 of A Secret In The Garden

A devilishly charming grin took hold of his mouth. “Don’t you trust me?”

“No, I don’t, but don’t take it personally.” My eyes were light and filled with humor, but I meant my words as I moved back toward the comforting presence of the conservatory.

“Come on,” he said, grabbing hold of my hand and stopping me. At the contact, I felt a jolt of electricity, which, by the startled look on his face, he had felt as well. “The view is immaculate. I promise I’ll keep you safe…or at least I’ll keep you from falling.” He raised a dark brow in challenge, taking a moment to look down at where our hands were clasped as though he held the horn of a unicorn and not my blistered hand.

This was one challenge I was happy not to concede.

I snorted. “You’ll have to hold me at gunpoint if you want to get me out on that bench. I can’t even look out the balcony windows in my room,” I admitted abashedly. “I have it blocked with the settee.” I pulled my hand from the gentle grip of his, hoping I would think better without the contact.

His eyes brightened, causing him to look youthful and slightly like a rapscallion. His hand lightly touched the small of my back and he guided me back toward the conservatory, like he was inadvertently letting me know I was stable and safe from falling—or that he was close enough to push me.

“How will you ever see the twinkling city lights at night resting below the blanket of stars? It’s the only good thing about this manor. It’s worth a look if you’re abandoning all of your morals while you’re here anyway,” he said with calculating eyes. “No salmon ever?”

We stepped into the conservatory and moved leisurely into the main house, completely content in the gentle flow of conversation.

“No, we were a big tofu-and-rice house,” I answered. “And I wouldn’t say that I really abandoned any of my morals tonight, just my mother’s.” I should have stopped talking about this with him. I seemed to have a hard time filtering myself around him, and the last thing I wanted to hear was another person scolding me, telling me that I was an adult, that I didn’t have to deal with it if I didn’t want to. It was one of the reasons I’d stopped bothering to have friends. No one understood. How could they? When you didn’t experience it, it was simple to throw out solutions you didn’t understand wouldn’t work. I felt trapped, and when I reached for help, everyone chastised me for not simply walking away. No one seemed capable of understanding that I couldn’t simply walk out of this prison, not when I had built it unknowingly, bar by unbending bar, while the warden had tricked me, telling me I wasn’t a prisoner. As Dostoevsky said, the best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to never let him know he’s in prison. Unfortunately, I carried my cell with me.

“Don’t you live alone? Are you afraid of disappointing your family? You won’t even try fish out alone?” he asked, turning down hallways I’d never been…or at least I didn’t think I had. It all got confusing after a while. Especially when I found myself looking more at his face than the route.

“I live alone, but—” I stopped myself. I never spoke this frankly with anyone, ever. Not about my family. It was unnerving and enthralling all at once.

“But what?” he pushed gently.

Fine. I had wanted to keep myself away from Jasper Blackwood. This would do it. Men hated controlling mothers, and I had hit the apotheosis of controlling mothers. “But my mother drives thirty minutes every week to dig through every piece of my trash to see what I’ve done without her there under the premise that she is helping to recycle the things I didn’t correctly.” I hated how the words sounded out loud. I felt embarrassed and weak—as always. It was only one of the controlling things she did, and it wasn’t even close to the worst.

I looked away from him and took in the beautiful dark wood of the eleven-foot-high doors and the intricate moldings we passed. The manor was so large, it was impossible to take in every interesting detail, even though I’d been here for a few weeks now. Maybe I needed to do a little exploring on my own, see if I could find any of Hester’s or Darius’s old things, see if I could learn anything helpful.

He grumbled a little. Was it uncomfortable for him to talk about mothers?

“It sounds like she means well,” he said. They always said that. Usually, I told myself it was because they had normal, loving mothers and were inclined to see the positives in a similar way to something they had experienced, though I could guarantee none of it was ever similar to my mother.

“No,” I answered. Normally, this would have been far past the point where I would lock up and regret having said anything, but as always happened when I was around Jasper, I found myself unable to stop talking. “I don’t think so. I think she has some of her own issues. You wouldn’t understand; she has to control every aspect of my life. I’m surprised she hasn’t shown up outside the gates here already, honestly.”

There was a weird mumble from Jasper that caused me to turn to face him. He was suddenly turned away, avoiding eye contact with me, the oddity of which made me realize just how often he actually had his coffee brown eyes locked on me.

“Oh my god! She has!” I shouted, stopping in my tracks and praying the floor would open up and suck me down into a black pit.

“I didn’t know who she was. The security guys are under strict instructions not to let anyone in unless I tell them to,” he said. “I’m sorry. I will let her in next time. That is…if you would like.” I could feel his eyes tracing my profile.

“No, that’s okay,” I said abruptly, catching us both off guard. “I’m not very adept at setting boundaries with her. This is the first time I’ve had any sort of enforced distance, which is likely the only way I can get it, and honestly, the wine, salmon, space, and…guns have been fun. I’m not ready for the real world to find me yet.” I glanced at Jasper in time to catch him looking at me with a thoughtful expression.

After walking me to my room, he said a surprisingly polite good night and left me.

As soon as I was in my room, I ran to the locket I had left on my nightstand and opened it. After the dove had flown from it in the kitchen and caused such chaos, I felt it best to leave the unpredictable locket in my room for dinner with Jasper’s business associates. It was probably a good thing too; I didn’t think tonight could’ve handled any more chaos. Certainly, Hester would have something to say about everything that had transpired throughout the evening.

My exhale reversed in shock when I opened the piece of jewelry and the coppery scent of blood wafted forth and a dark, reddish-green viscous liquid began to drip onto my lap.

“Oh my god!” I proclaimed as the green liquid poured faster and faster from the locket, continuing even after I closed it. The surprisingly warm liquid covered my hand, dripping down my wrists and arms. Was it blood? But it was such a weird color.

What in god’s name was it?

Panicked, I ran to the sink and tried to wipe off the locket, but the green liquid continued to drip until I was forced to leave the necklace in the sink or be drenched in the substance that flowed from it. I gave up on figuring out what the coppery-scented liquid was and nervously got in bed. The taunting sound of the mysterious green-red effusion gurgled down the drainpipe like a lullaby from a nightmare throughout the night.

Sometime in the temporal breadth of night, the gurgling sound turned to sobs. I awoke in alarm to see the beautiful melancholy ghost in the same exact location at the foot of my bed as I had before. The woman I had assumed to be Hester, Jasper’s mother, though with the recent findings of the letters, I didn’t know what exactly to think. She wore the same billowing crimson gown as before, only this time she stood with a letter in her hand—a letter exactly like the ones from Jasper’s chest, the ones with the red wax seal.

She looked up at me with a cold stare that was so similar to Jasper’s notoriously glacial expression that I found it impossible to speculate for another second that this woman could be anyone but his mother. Eerily, she shook her head.

“No,” I said out loud, trying to understand. “No…no what?” The energy rolling off the ghost turned the peaceful room suddenly terrifying. My heart slammed against my ribs. I was sure that something bad was about to happen.