Chapter 40 viraha
viraha
As I pushed my way out the front door and down the steps, my phone vibrated. In the distance, a line of cars was already snaking their way up to the estate. They would be parked all along the cliffside road, more people here than ever before.
The sun was warm as it sank across the horizon, and the wind was coming up the cliffs in a chilly breeze. I just had to keep Cyrus away from the gardens until nightfall. Easy.
My phone vibrated again, and I pulled it out of my dress pocket. It was my mom, though she knew that tonight was the bicentennial. She wouldn’t call if it wasn’t an emergency, so I answered it as I made my way around the side of the house toward the Willow Grove.
“Mom? Is everything all right?” I asked worriedly.
“Whose dress is that?” She sounded distraught.
I didn’t understand. “What? Is everything okay?”
“And Sophie Magnolia Drear, are you really wearing tennis shoes with it?”
“What do you—” I froze and looked down at my attire.
Juliette had let me borrow one of her tea-length dresses.
It was a shade of reddish orange that reminded me of poppies, the design simple and A-line, and my work tennis shoes.
It was a little bit of a strange combination, but—“These are the only shoes I have,” I said helplessly, and then added, “How do you know what I’m wearing? ”
“Because you said Maine was pretty, sprout,” she replied, and I felt my heart leap into my throat, “and I figured I might as well see it for myself. Turn a little to your left. We’re in front of the lilies. Hello!”
I heard her down the path, and there she was on the way into the Lily Walk, in a pretty magnolia-themed dress, Eddie beside her in a suit jacket and cargo shorts. She waved, smiling brightly.
“Sprout!” she called, rushing up to me. She squeezed me tightly. “Oh, you’re so right! It’s lovely up here!”
“I can’t believe you made it. How—I just talked to you—you . . .”
Mom kissed my cheek, and then Eddie came over and picked me up in a bear hug. “It’s so good to see you, Sophie!” he roared. “I never thought I’d get your mom in an RV, but I finally did it!”
“Yes, dear,” Mom said, wilted, “we are living your National Lampoon dream.”
He mock-whispered to me, “We might even make this a yearly pilgrimage,” with a wink.
I was still flummoxed that they were both here, in front of me, at Lilymoor.
I hadn’t seen either of them since Christmas, and it had been a fairly bad Christmas, all things considered.
So the tears in my eyes were absolutely warranted, as was the moment I brought them both in for another hug.
I knew I missed them, but I didn’t realize how much I did until I smelled Mom’s perfume.
After a few minutes, I composed myself, pushing the tears out of my eyes.
“Oh, sprout, is something wrong?” Mom asked. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything is great,” I said, my voice too high for it to be true. “I just—I really missed you guys.”
“We missed you, too, sport,” Eddie said, kissing me on the top of the head. “And we would’ve been here sooner, but we were cut off by some jackass in a Lexus in the parking lot.”
Mom said, “Now, dear, it’s fine. You weren’t looking at the road, either.”
“How could he miss the RV? It’s huge!”
“Yes, yes, dear. It’s very big.”
I wondered if that jackass with a Lexus was a certain blond-haired Hale, but just as I went to ask, I caught sight of Juliette coming down the Lily Walk from the party, looking more frazzled than anything.
I excused myself from my parents for a moment, and met her a few feet away. “Is something wrong, Jules?”
“Everything! Nothing! I don’t know. I feel like I’m missing something, and the one time I want Oliver, he’s, like, vanished! I can’t find him anywhere.”
“I thought he’d be with Eula,” I said.
She agreed. “I thought so, too, but she hasn’t seen him today, either. I’m worried.”
A thought occurred to me, and I turned back to Eddie. “Do you remember what the guy who cut you off looked like?”
Eddie puffed up. “Yeah! Blond and kinda scrawny, why?”
Juliette asked, “Did he have, like, a revoltingly handsome face?”
“Yeah! That’s the jackass!”
Mom added, “You know, I saw him a few minutes ago, too, heading off that way with a tall redheaded man.” She motioned down the path toward the Central Garden. “He looked very charming—the redhead,” she said. “There are so many nice-looking men here, sprout.”
I knew what she was getting at, and I absolutely ignored it because the only part of that sentence that I cared about was—“They went off into the gardens?”
“Yes, why?”
Oh—oh no. “Oliver,” I groaned, and told Juliette I’d tell him that she was looking for him if she’d escort my parents to the party, and hurried in the direction Mom had pointed. It felt like I would spend all my life chasing after Cyrus Beck.
I rounded the path into the Central Garden, but he and Oliver were already gone. I ran through the Wildflower Garden and the Rose Court—I even peeked through the secret tunnel to the greenhouse—but they had vanished, so I looked the last place I could think of:
The Hedges.
After two wrong turns, I found Oliver sitting on a bench. It was the same corner I’d found myself in all those years ago, across from a bust of William Shakespeare. Breathless and desperate, I grabbed Oliver by the shoulders. “Where is he?”
He gave me a tired look. “Who?”
“Rus! Where did he go?”
He shrugged me off. “I don’t know, okay?
” He clenched his teeth in aggravation. “I don’t care.
I thought he was going to actually talk to me.
Say ‘Hey, man, how’s it been?’ But he just doesn’t fucking care.
Seems like he’ll trap me here forever if he gets his way. And he always does,” he added darkly.
Dread coiled tightly in my belly, hurting. I was going to be sick.
I stepped away from him.
I could still find Rus, I told myself.
I would.
Leaving Oliver there on the bench, I met every dead end in the Hedges. I didn’t give up, I never gave up, even when I probably should have. Even when I should have gone home. Even when the nurses told me to in that waiting room, as I watched the clock tick, tick, tick, waiting for the inevitable.
I held on to the hope that—that maybe—
I wouldn’t give up.
“Think,” I whispered. “Think.”
The wind that cut up over the cliffs was biting now, picking petals off flowers and sending them swirling into the air. From the Willow Grove, I heard people shriek and then laugh. A table probably blew over, or a tablecloth probably caught the breeze.
I turned a corner in the Hedges, and then another, going deeper and deeper.
There was a rattle behind me.
My heart burst with relief as I spun around.
The worn blue door was there, bathed in glorious golden light. Was it the real one? It had to be. It was the door he’d walked through, the one Lilymoor trapped him behind. “Rus,” I whispered.
A gust of wind swirled through the garden, and a cloud covered the sun—
And the door I was reaching for was gone.