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Otherwise, I could get lost walking in a straight line. My brother always joked it was my superpower.
It wasn’t whatIwould consider a superpower, but whatever.
I stepped out into the sunshine and smoothed out the skirt of my dress. Esme would definitely be home as she was washing her hair. I’d laughed at that, and even now, I smiled as the thought crossed my mind.
I doubted I’d be smiling soon if I couldn’t find her cottage.
When.
When I couldn’t find her cottage.
“Okay,” I said quietly to myself, stopping at the vibrant, blue hydrangea bush. “Right at the hydrangea bush, keep going to the purple and white rose bed and turn left, immediate right, then left, then left again until you reach the farm gates near the goat barn, then take the right road until you get the cottage.”
I hoped I’d remembered that right.
Right, left, right, left, left, right.
I could remember that.
Okay.
I set off to the right of the hydrangea bush. They had to have a team of gardeners here because the gardens were gorgeous. Every flowerbed was full and bursting with life and colour, and I smiled as I walked. It felt like I was in a fairy meadow.
That, or I was wandering into a Disney movie.
I took the left turn at the roses and then the right, then the left, then walked to what looked to be a small pond with a duck house and a gate and took a right.
That was it now, wasn’t it? Left, right, left, right, left.
Like a military marching band.
Yes, I was sure. I just had to look for the gates near the goat barn now.
The path was a little uneven, and the flowerbeds slowly turned to banks of wildflowers that had bees and butterflies buzzing and fluttering around them. My lips curved up as a wild rabbit darted out a few feet in front of me and disappeared again into the overgrowth on the other side of the path.
Aw.
I did like rabbits.
From a distance.
One had bitten me when I was six and I’d never quite gotten over it.
I kept walking, but there was no sign of a cottage. In fact, the opposite was in front of me—it was woodland. I stopped on the edge of the trees just as a cloud passed over the sun, momentarily sending a chill through the air.
Huh.
Had I taken a wrong turn? I could swear I’d gone in the right direction.
I should have written it down. At least this was a long, relatively straight road, so I turned around and retraced my steps back to the spot I’d turned onto the path.
Or was this where I turned?
Wasn’t there a duck pond? There wasn’t a pond here.
Oh, no.
I was lost. I didn’t know where I was supposed to go. The last thing I needed was to end up in the middle of a random field without signal.
