Page 52 of Bane Bloom

Thomas took a step toward me, and I stiffened, wary. He stopped, holding me with his gaze like a woman on the edge of a cliff.

“And you, Catherine.” His voice had lowered. “I know what your heart truly desires, and it has nothing to do with the apothecaries. You can’t have it, and any version of it you can have will only bring fresh sorrow. The Elfbloom—Mr. Carroll’s Bane Bloom—it’s no more than a trap. The kind fairies have been setting for centuries. Even more dangerous, because mortals helped them set this one.”

I stared at him, heat and pressure building in my throat. “How can you know what my heart truly desires?”

Holding my gaze, he said, “Because it’s written in almost everything you do. You wish for your mother to return. You wish to hear that her leaving had nothing to do with you. You wish her to see you and be proud. To see that you were worthy of her love.”

Tears streamed down my face, the hard ache in my throat threatening to seal off my breath. I had envisioned success in my bid to join the apothecaries, yet the spirit had given me a glimpse of something very different. I had no distinct memories of my mother, but my father had painted her, and the portrait hung in his studio. He kept it turned to the wall—except the one time he’d shown it to me, when he explained to me that she’d left us.

Even as a young child, I’d been desperate to understand. Why had she left us? Had I angered her? Had he? Almost any answer would have been easier than the one he’d given me: “I don’t know.” And she had packed and taken her things with her, so there was no room for even imagining that foul play or some tragic accident had been to blame.

Seeing how it distressed Papa whenever I brought her up, I had ceased to do so. And I never let him see my tears. Ours was a shared but silent grief. Sometimes when Papa was away, once I was tall enough, I’d return to the portrait, examining every inch of it in hopes of finding some clue to her decision, or to where she might have gone. I’d noticed that at times, a sliver of the darker wallpaper behind the portrait would be visible at an edge of the frame, and I thought Papa must have occasionally looked at it, too.

She had left us of her own free will, and I had never forgiven her for it. The idea that my heart’s desire could have to do with her instead of with Papa—me now being older than she was when she’d given birth to me—seemed an absurdity.

Yet it was her likeness the spirit had shown me.

Thomas watched me closely, assessing the effect of his words. “It is your choice, Catherine. Only think first how the granting of such a wish by a fairy might go wrong.”

After so many years, it was entirely possible that my mother was no longer among the living. This rendered Thomas’s thought experiment harrowing indeed. Perhaps, like Arthur Bane in his wish to be with his wife again, I, too, would be found peacefully floating on the lake. Or perhaps my mother would return, but in some strange form. A fairy changeling, or a wraith, or something worse. Even were I to see her alive and well, she might simply confirm the greatest of my fears—that she’d never cared for me at all.

“You’re dangerously cold, Catherine,” said Thomas.

I could see the fear in his face now. And I saw the idea that had crept over me when he’d arrived—that he wished to come between me and happiness—as the true absurdity.

He held out his hand. The dreamlike state I’d slipped into as I left the glasshouse now floated away like gossamer on a spring breeze, leaving me sober and slightly ill, a hard shiver rattling my bones. I lifted the hand covering the petal. My knuckles grazed the water, still agitated by the stiff breeze, but the petal rested safely in my palm. No longer looking like a candied violet. No longer looking like the Bane Bloom, in fact, but the narrow white petal of a water lily, gleaming dully in the cloud-muted light.

Slowly I submerged my trembling hand and watched as the water took what I’d held so fiercely only a moment ago.

Thomas’s hand was still extended, and I reached out and grasped it. Wordlessly we turned and trudged through the shallows toward shore.

Warming

Thomas held fast to my hand as we reached the shingle beach, guiding me toward the house. “Dangerously cold,” he’d said, and though I hadn’t felt it at the time, I did now. I tried to focus on the warmth generated between our joined hands.

He glanced at me, the lines around his eyes more relaxed now, irises bluer than ever. His hair had gone a deep mahogany from the soaking. “We’ll have you warm soon, lass.”

The gentleness in his deep voice had me well on the way.

“Thomas,” I said hoarsely, “why not destroy it? If it has caused so much harm.”

He grunted softly. “I did once. Ripped out every pad and root.”

“It grew back?”

“Aye. Then I drained the pool. The next morning it was full again, and the plant was back. I salted the water, and the next morning there were two blooms instead of one.”

“Oh dear.”

“Plants can be killed, and enchantments fade, but the Elfbloom is both, and nothing I’ve tried has worked. All I can do is try to keep people away.”

Thomas’s secrecy, as well as his behavior on my arrival, made more sense with every detail he revealed. He was as much guardian as gardener. I could only imagine what would happen if rumors of a wish-granting flower got back to the apothecaries.

“Go and change your dress,” he said as we reached the back door of the house. “I’ll light a fire in the dining room.”

“You won’t go away after that, will you?” His eyes met mine, and my cheeks flamed. “I . . . I have questions. But mostly I’m afraid to be alone.”

“I’ll not leave you tonight, lass.”