Chapter 9 erklärungsnot
erkl?rungsnot
Over the last month, I’d built a map in my head. I knew Lilymoor as well as anyone else who worked here. I knew where gardens met, and the hidden spaces behind them, and on the other side of this wall should be the Rose Court, a circular garden filled with all different kinds and colors of roses.
And yet on the other side of the door stood the abandoned garden.
It looked exactly as it had yesterday: unchanging and half formed, like an idea written on a Post-it note and forgotten behind a desk.
The old willow still sat on the far end, its boughs drooping low like dramatic curtains on a stage.
The gazebo was still half built, the seed packets scattered from the woven basket.
Impossible.
My gaze settled on a familiar man sitting on a stone bench against the wall, his head in his hands.
He looked like a forlorn Grecian statue, coppery hair with an effortless curl obscuring his face.
He still wore the same button-down charcoal shirt and black trousers, his suit jacket now folded neatly on the bench beside him.
“You again?” I mumbled, more to myself than to him.
Startled at my voice, he picked his head up out of his hands. His confused gaze found me, and he jerked to his feet. “You,” he echoed, almost as surprised as I was. His voice was broken and hoarse, as if he’d either been using it a lot or hadn’t at all. “Thank god, it’s you.”
Well, that was certainly different from yesterday. “Um, hi—”
“I’ve been shouting for at least half an hour!” he cried, waving his arms about. “Couldn’t you hear me?”
I blinked, startled at the sudden accusation. “No?”
Annoyance pinched his face, making the cobalt of his eyes go the color of a storm off the coast. He pressed his mouth into a thin line. “You’re not funny.”
“I’m not joking”—sir sounded too proper—“buddy.” I resisted the urge to wince. That was even worse.
His annoyance turned very nearly atomic as he stalked over to me. I had forgotten how terribly tall he was. “You locked me in here. You left and then ignored me screaming! Not only an unprofessional gardener, you’re a terrible employee—especially here. And Eula wants you to stay?”
I held up a hand. “I’m sorry, but you are being very rude right now. Stop shouting at me.”
“I’m—” He snapped his mouth closed, as if he’d just realized that he had been loud. He stopped a little more than a foot away from me. He carded his fingers through his hair, as if it released stress. “I’m sorry,” he said after a moment, his voice a normal volume.
“And the door’s not locked,” I added, crossing my arms over my chest. “You can’t lock any of the gardens here.”
“Well, apparently you can.”
“I assure you I can’t. Look, it’s open now. You can go.” I waved back at the door, and confusion flickered across his face.
“No,” he muttered, “it’s not.”
What? I glanced behind me, and sure enough the door was closed.
I didn’t remember closing it when I came in, but maybe the wind had blown it shut.
“Oh. Sorry, I thought I’d left it open—but it definitely can’t lock, and I promise I didn’t lock the door.
I haven’t seen you since yesterday, anyway, so I don’t know how I could’ve. ”
His eyebrows furrowed. “Yesterday? You just left an hour ago. Well, maybe not an hour, it’s still daylight, but you did just leave. I saw you.”
“No, I left yesterday,” I replied slowly. “When I heard the sirens?”
“Yes, today,” he corrected, his voice growing tight. He pushed his fingers through his hair again, as if it was a nervous tic.
I hesitated. Oh, he was much more confused than I thought. I needed to handle this a little more carefully. “Do you need help?” I asked gently. “Are you lost?”
“Lost?” An anger flickered through his gaze.
“It’s okay—”
“This is getting us nowhere.” He scrubbed at his face with his hands and took a deep breath. Then he said, “Look, it doesn’t matter. I have things to do. A party to excuse myself from. People to disappoint. I need to leave—at least to somewhere with cell service.”
“Well,” I said, wrestling down my own annoyance at his dismissive tone, “then I can escort you out.”
“I don’t need an escort, thank you. I just need it open,” he snapped in reply, folding his arms over his chest. “And like I said, it was locked. Now you say it isn’t.
So I think I will be going.” He returned to the bench, where he snatched up his suit jacket and shoved his arms into it.
The suit looked expensive now that he had all of it on together, perfectly tailored.
I wondered what kind of important he was.
As he came back, he gave me a once-over, frowning. “Weren’t you wearing a dress earlier?”
“No,” I replied, perplexed. I didn’t even pack a dress to Lilymoor.
He must have confused me with someone else.
Juliette, maybe? Even though we looked nothing alike.
I wasn’t sure if I was flattered that he mistook me for her or annoyed that he didn’t seem aware enough to care that we were two different people.
A rumble of thunder rolled over the garden. I looked past him, toward an incoming bruise-colored cloud. Had the weath-erman said it’d rain today? I couldn’t remember.
He went over to the door, grabbed the handle, and gave a push. It was wedged closed. He tried again to no avail. Then he inhaled through his nose and turned to me. “Unlocked, you say?”
I rolled my eyes. “Good grief,” I mumbled, and as I marched toward the door, I grabbed him tightly by the lapel of his suit jacket, and the door handle with the other hand, and pulled.
He stumbled on his feet, off-kilter as I dragged him with me. “Hold on—”
The hinges were a bit rusted, making it hard to move, but other than that I opened it with no problem.
“See?” I said as I stepped through, his jacket sliding out of my hand. “It’s unlocked.” I turned back around to him, triumphant, and froze. Because where there should have been a door and a man, there was only a heathergray wall.
“What?” I mumbled, and ran my hands over the smooth stones of the wall, thinking maybe I’d find the door somehow, but there was nothing.
And when I hurried around the wall into the Rose Court and pried the roses back from the other side of that same wall, thorns digging into my hands, all I found was lattice. Damp, dry-rotting lattice.
No door. No man.
No … nothing.
A cold raindrop fell on my cheek.
The storm swooped in with a vengeance, wind howling as a gust tore up petals and blew away leaves. It battered the shutters on the second floor of the house, so I quickly pushed my rising panic to the back of my mind as I hurried to go help everyone close the windows as the storm came in.