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“Yes?”
“I’m sure someone’s already mentioned it, but just in case, feel free to explore, it’s safe as a nursery everywhere out here except the northern end, past the Italianate—there’s a ravine near there, earth’s crumbly around the mouth. Wouldn’t want you to fall.”
The ravine. The place Mrs. Hughes had died.
I could barely bring myself to nod.
With a touch of a gloved hand at the brim of his flat cap, Rodney turned behind a hedge and disappeared.
I stood there for a long time after he left, the sun no longer warming me.
Chapter 9
The rest of the day passed without incident, and I spent the majority in the gardens, hunger and the early sunset eventually driving me inside. Dinner was another quiet affair, and I didn’t enjoy it, too conscious of one less person in the house. The disquiet turned my stomach, and I picked at my plate, eating little and deciding to call it an early night.
When I arrived to my room, the fire roared nicely, and eager for my weariness to carry me into a deep, dreamless sleep, I prepared for bed. As I began to unbutton my blouse, someone knocked at the door.
It had become a nightly ritual arranged by Professor Hughes for Felicity to bring me tea before bed, but exhaustion and the dark kaleidoscope of my thoughts had made me forget to expect her. I’d tried a few times to turn her away, telling her she shouldn’t worry about me, but my attempts were consistently rebuffed. She insisted it was bad manners to allow a guest, staff or not, to go to bed with a cold belly. I opened the door with some weariness, meeting an unusually cheerful maid.
“You didn’t eat, so I brought you some shortbread. Ms. Dillard made it and it’s nice and fresh. I made your tea a little stronger tonight too. Extra honey.”
“How nice of you,” I said, grateful.
She set the tea tray on the table by the fire and poured a cup. We chatted easily, and I found myself happy for her company after all.
“You’re in good spirits,” I said conversationally. “Ms. Dillard was less grumpy today as well.”
“Oh,” Felicity said, offering a bashful shrug. “The professor is away, that always takes a bit of the pressure off.”
Her candor warmed me to her further.
“He’s intense.”
“Yes…” Felicity buttoned up at my observation, and I suspected I’d gone too far. I attempted to rejuvenate the previous easiness.
“I met your brother today.”
“Rodney?” she asked as though she had more than one brother working at Willowfield. “Oh no. Did he bother you, miss? He’s an unapologetic flirt.”
“He is,” I agreed with a grin. “I didn’t mind. He seems to love this place.”
“He does,” she sighed. “And even after everything, I do too. It’s home.”
Not for the first time, I was sorry I’d never seen Willowfield in its glory days. Why did I always find myself with the ashes of something once extraordinary in my hands?
Felicity said her goodnights, leaving me in solitude. The sight of the shortbread made my stomach feel its lack of dinner, and I ate several bites one after the other, the dusting of white sugar on the top making a mess of my fingers. I wiped the powder from my fingertips then took a sip of tea, its high sweet notes tickling my tongue. It truly was more potent than usual. After a cup, I changed into my night things. As I put away my day clothes, the journal I’d discovered in the greenhouse fell to the floor.
I stared at it, shocked at myself anew for having taken it, but they were only botany notes. I picked it up, abandoned my clothes on the foot of the bed, and sat to drink another cup of tea and pore over the pages. I opened the journal and began where I’d last read.
CALLUM
The following entries were more of the same: hastily drawn flowers and weeds with their attributes, many of them toxic, written underneath. Underlined several times were the wordsbitterandsmall lethal dose. Mrs. Hughes’s fascination with poisons disquieted me, but as I sat back and admired the fire, I worked out her purpose. As a fledgling botanist and the new empress of a perfume empire, it was likely in her best interest to be familiar with which flora on her property posed a risk. I would have wanted to know the same.
Once, as a child, I’d wandered to the kitchen garden to steal cherry tomatoes growing red and enticing. While plucking a pocketful of my ill-gotten snack, I’d spied beautiful purple berries growing at the house’s foundation and indulged myself in these as well. I was dangerously ill a whole week following, with only my father coming to check on me in my worst bouts of cramping. The doctor diagnosed me with pokeweed poisoning, and I never stole from the garden again.
I shook my head at the memory, finding it a fond one despite my illness. It had been one of the only times my father had openly lavished me with affection, as typically doing so induced the wrath of my mother, who was selfish of his attention. I pushed away the final memory of him, lying prone in his bed, my graduation notice clasped in his hand, my mother’s body on the floor.
I took a fortifying drink, and the tea was still too hot. It burned. I focused on the pain as it scalded down my throat, and my breathing returned to normal, my heart rate slowing. The next entry came with no pictures, only a block of words.
