Chapter Thirteen
THIRTEEN
There is a hot, sultry madness to following Laurence Lennox-Hall into the gardens, a mistake being made between the rush of cicadas and rustling leaves and the pulse of summer.
Outside, the world smells relentlessly of green wood and musky earth, fresh blossoms and thick shrubbery.
Evander must have a death wish, either that or he’s lost his goddamn mind.
But it’s as if this boy has put hooks in his ribs.
Or maybe Evander, alone, is to blame for this decision. He is Icarus with wings of swan feathers, who chose to fly into the sun because it looked like a pretty boy.
He hates himself, just a little, as he steps into the garden.
Laurie has already walked away as if Evander’s choice to follow or not is of little concern.
He navigates the path with ease, headed deeper into the lithe greenery of the garden.
It’s hard to ignore the fact he chose to do this while all the adults are busy bickering, but he carries nothing that could be used as a weapon.
When Evander thinks of Laurie bent double in his bathroom, salt in his voice from the pain of his ruined wrist, he is fairly sure he can escape if Laurie tries anything. But this still feels like a terrible idea.
If he could cut this obsession out of himself, he would.
Instead, he follows.
The garden path narrows between beds of roses so overgrown and twisted that the thorns pierce their own petals. Laurie stops and it takes Evander a second to realize why.
Oleander’s quavering personal assistant is on her hands and knees, using tiny pruners to haphazardly trim the leaves.
A floppy straw hat seems the start and end of her gardening gear and she’s still dressed for office work in a white blouse and creased pants.
For some inexplicable reason, she’s been sent out here to garden.
“The hell?” Laurie folds his arms and looks down at her with disgust. “Go back inside.”
Jessica shrinks. “Mrs. Lennox-Hall sent me out here since the garden needs work and—”
“No,” Laurie says. “Just … no. Tell Oleander I started harassing you and drove you back indoors or something. Or make up whatever shitty story about me you want. I don’t care.”
Evander edges forward, confused by this sudden interest Laurie has taken in the miserable assistant. It looks like scorn, with the derisive eye roll and scathing words, but maybe this is pity, shown the only way a sour, awful boy can.
“I can’t lose my job.” Jessica sounds like she might cry as she stares down at the dirt staining her blouse. Her cheeks have flushed bright red from the sun and she looks so out of her depth. She can’t be much older than they are.
“Then quit,” Laurie says. “Pretty sure your sanity would last longer if you waited on tables. Oleander eats live mice as a snack.”
This makes Jessica almost laugh between pitiful sniffles and, to Evander’s surprise, she does what Laurie says, packing up her meager gardening supplies and limping back inside.
Evander swats a bug and frowns. “That was almost kind.”
“No, it wasn’t.” Laurie flicks a hand dismissively and starts down the path. “You don’t mess with Hazelthorn’s gardens. Not worth the risk of getting lost and bit.” There’s something odd in his voice, frustration maybe.
“I haven’t seen any snakes,” Evander says.
“There’s plenty of time.”
Evander carefully picks his way past the rosebushes as they claw thorny fingers for his sleeves, and he hurries after Laurie, who is fast disappearing around a stone garden wall.
“Also,” Evander says, trying to sound fierce, “if you’re luring me out here to do something wicked to me, you can quit it right now.”
“Define wicked,” Laurie says casually. He doesn’t turn around, but the smirk is in his voice.
“I will fight back,” Evander says, low and wretched.
Laurie sighs and ducks under low-hanging birch branches. “I’m not touching you. Stop fussing and catch up.”
This is nothing like Evander’s previous headlong rush into the garden after the will reading.
This is a cautious exploration. A pause before choosing between split cobbled paths.
A moment of letting go as the garden whispers for them to come deeper.
Heat beats at the back of his neck and he feels overdressed, his waistcoat suddenly constricting his ribs and his cuffs rubbing at his wrists.
But it’s best to wear layers, to have something between his scars and the world.
Everything around him pulses with lush, vibrant life, and there are so many sounds that he can’t parse them all.
They pass under a stone archway and onto a checkerboard mosaic of turquoise tiles, riddled with moss and lichen that feels spongy underfoot.
Evander is so entranced by the lone Corinthian columns strangled with brambles that he trips on the uneven tiles and scurries to right himself with a flush of embarrassment.
Ahead, Laurie waits under a row of plum trees gone wild, the jewel-toned fruit so glossy it looks unreal. He raises an eyebrow.
“Shut up,” Evander mutters, dusting himself off.
“I very literally said nothing.”
“Well, your eyebrows are raised and very loud.” Evander folds his arms and tries to look dignified. “I’m not an outdoor person.”
Laurie picks a plum and then pauses. “You are not an outdoor person?”
It hurts, this offhand blow, how so much of Evander’s life is folded away in unmarked, unreachable boxes. How people like Laurie know him better than he knows himself.
Laurie takes a bite of the fruit and shakes his head.
“What kind of person was I?” Evander wishes the longing wasn’t so evident in his voice.
“You’re supposed to be remembering.” Laurie is already moving. He throws the plum over his shoulder and Evander catches it.
It’s an insult, of course, that he should eat Laurie’s scraps. He thinks he’ll throw it at the back of Laurie’s head.
But he doesn’t. When Laurie is far enough ahead, Evander fits his mouth over the place Laurie’s was and he bites down like a secondhand kiss.
Juice splits free of the sun-hot skin and runs in a bloody line down his chin.
He eats the whole thing. He craves more.
Though he isn’t sure it’s the fruit his mouth waters for.
The deeper they wander into the gardens, the more Evander’s neck prickles.
No logical layout presents itself, no cohesion from one section of the gardens to the next.
The entire estate is walled off like a fortress, the inner garden walls built like a honeycomb.
Thickets grow so densely across some of the arched bowers that they’re impossible to get through, and honeysuckle and jasmine compete to drown the world in their overpowering perfume.
It takes a while for Evander to notice the plants have grown unrecognizable. Oddly shaped flowers. Berries so vivid and glossy they look toxic. Ivy leaves tapering to arrow tips. Trellises bending under the weight of inside-out daffodils and things that should be bluebells but look somehow wrong.
He should have brought the field guide.
Trying to be surreptitious, he snaps off a few samples and sticks the sappy cuttings in his back pocket. A green stick, a cluster of flowers, a verdant shoot.
Put it in your mouth.
He breathes in, sharp, his heartbeat picking up. Not his thought. Not him. The overabundance of sunshine is messing with his head. He’ll end up with a sunburn and heatstroke and plenty of reasons to blame Laurie.
The laurel hedgerows bend and a long pool appears ahead.
Laurie waits at the edge and looks down with revulsion at the black, stagnant water.
A few ancient wicker sun beds are decaying beside the pool, and four horrible-looking gargoyles stand at each corner with mold blooming in their cracks.
When Evander pauses at the edge of the pool to look down, a strange vertigo takes hold of him.
The shape of his face undulates and turns inside out.
He knows it’s vanity to care about how he looks, but there are no mirrors in Hazelthorn, and every time he finds a reflection to check himself, it conspires to warp his features.
He only wants to be sure his expression is right, that he is doing his best to be normal. To fit in. To act like everyone else. He wants—needs—to figure it out.
“I don’t remember this.” Laurie sounds frustrated, unusual for someone who doesn’t care about anything. He paces the edge of the pool, turning in circles to stare back the way they’ve come. “Maybe we should have gone left at that fountain.”
Evander drops onto his stomach at the edge of the pool and reaches toward the thick clusters of lily pads.
Algae oozes between them. A few dragonflies take off in offense at his presence, but he wants those black lilies.
The pool must be ancient, built entirely of concrete that’s now mottled green, and the water level is so low Evander is halfway to tipping in before he manages to reach a flower.
“Maybe,” he says, wriggling backward from the edge with his prize, “you have amnesia too.”
“It’s been a long time since I was out here,” Laurie says flatly. “I just got turned around. Also, what the hell are you doing? Stop picking things.”
Evander has handfuls of his gatherings now, the wet lily nestled amongst the rest of his pleasing collection.
He is actually, he realizes, having a good time out here.
The garden isn’t so terrifying when it’s full of sunshine and bees and the sweet smell of plums …
and no one is driving a shovel through his middle.
“You’re like a kid stealing flowers,” Laurie says.
Evander gives him a magnanimous sigh. “Except I own—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Laurie rolls his eyes and turns away.
“—everything out here.” Evander’s smile is so obnoxious, but it lights him up, in warm and strange ways, when he wins a round.
Though his smile slips as he watches Laurie stalk off toward another ivy-smothered wall, subconsciously holding his wrist to his chest as if to ease the pressure.