Chapter 3
Sage
Spring mornings off were strictly for lazy plant walks, in my opinion.
Tipping my head toward the sky, I took deep breaths as I walked.
There wasn’t much out this way anymore, but it was peaceful, and it was easy to find parking.
If you went just up the lane, there was a small trail leading to a waterfall.
In spring, it was especially pretty, and there were always wildflowers along the way that I could press for my journals or craft projects.
This was one of my favorite ways to go in the mornings because it led right past the Castleton greenhouses.
I parked along the road and fairly skipped as I walked, soaking up the sunshine even if it was still dewy and wet.
I planned to get a few cuttings for my journal and maybe some to press.
During this time of year, it was always fun to see the wildflowers bloom. It
Yesterday, I’d made a page for one of the flowers from the bouquet left on the counter.
Years ago, the Holts had started taking me to a therapist who suggested various methods of journaling.
I wasn’t much for writing out my feelings, but we agreed I’d write one word.
At the time, Maggie had been indulging me with flower pressing.
I’d just come to the Holts as a placement, and she knew how much I loved nature.
It was something we could do together. Eventually, I’d incorporated the two. One word for the day and one cutting.
Yesterday it was ‘collywobbles,’ and I left a space for the violet dahlia. They were hard to press because of their high water content, but you had to be patient and take your time.
Even after I talked to Cedric, we still didn’t know how it had gotten there. It creeped me out. A good walk would shake me out of it.
The Castleton property had been vacant for a long time, at least since I’d come to Wildwood Meadows and been adopted into the Holt clan.
I’d once asked Maggie about the greenhouses here, and she said she knew Ed Castleton a long time ago.
Apparently, he’d moved away to Florida to retire in the sunny weather.
When I was in high school, my brothers, East and Kipp, would bring me up to the falls this way.
There’d always been a for-sale sign on the gate, and it grew more faded every year.
But the property had greenhouses. Two Victorian glass monstrosities that called to me through the iron bars of the fence.
Every time I came, I stared at them like I had a hundred times before, through the back gate.
Now the gates bowed a little, as if the years of neglect pressed too hard, and ivy curled around them in a way that made my romantic heart pitter-patter.
The front had a grander entrance with a double gate and gorgeous pillars.
With my hands shoved in my back pockets, I stared through the bars like I had a hundred times before.
Early April sunlight filtered through the trees in slanted beams, catching on the glass peaks of the two greenhouses beyond the main house, turning them into fractured prisms. The glass was smudged with age, roof panes cracked in places, frames rusted into lacework—but even from here, I could see the bones of them.
There was something romantic about it, and I could imagine some woman years ago begging her husband for a space for her plants.
The very first time I’d ever seen them, I’d probably been around nine years old.
Even now, I remember that first glimpse of the glass peaks shining in the sunshine, and the gardens already looking overgrown.
I’d imagined velvet curtains and long, fancy tables still set for guests who had never come home.
The Holt family was a patchwork of stories.
Maggie and Levi’s collection of strays. They’d taken on foster placements for years until Maggie said that they decided they couldn’t bear to have some of us leave.
Many of my siblings had stories filled with heartache, neglect, or worse.
Some of their earlier placements before the Holts hadn’t been kind, but they all remembered theirs.
My beginning was only filled with amorphous shadows and a blank space.
Sometimes I’d wake up gasping for breath, feeling like I needed to get outside where I could breathe, or other times I felt like there was just something on the tip of my tongue that I wanted to say.
That was what we practiced when I was younger: pressing one flower or leaf into my journal and writing one word below for how I was feeling that day.
Last night was one of those times when I woke up, breathing hard under my weighted blanket, with my plants tickling my face, wondering where I was—the shadows crouching in the corners. Sometimes I wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t.
Now, I stepped closer to the gate, my hands dropping from my pockets as I grasped the bars and let my gaze drift toward the far greenhouse, where the roof dipped slightly on the left side, as if bowing under the weight of more ivy creeping from one of the oak trees that had been planted too close.
I’d read about an eccentric botanist once in a book that Lila had ordered for the bookstore, who believed plants held memory if you treated them gently.
I liked that idea more than I liked most people.
It’d be fun to rebuild the greenhouses and collect rare plants in there.
A sound rumbled somewhere in the distance, and it took me a second to realize it was an engine, actually coming from the property.
My heart was pounding hard in my chest when I saw dust actually lifting into the air and a flatbed truck with lumber on it.
Were those men in neon vests? Shuffling to the side to look through the hedge, I watched as a few of them worked on placing down orange survey flags. What in the world was going on?
My boots crunched over gravel as I jogged back toward my delivery van, which I had parked farther down the road.
My fingers trembled slightly as I shoved the key into the ignition.
I swung around and drove toward the front entrance and the gates.
From this angle, it was easy to see the white SOLD sign on the pillar, its bold black letters making my stomach drop.
I should be excited about the estate being sold, but somehow I felt only an overwhelming sense of anxiety. What if they didn’t understand how special it was?
Pulling up in the circular driveway, I killed the engine and looked around uneasily, realizing I was suddenly inside the gates.
Pushing my door open, I stepped out, the scent of fresh-cut wood curling toward my nose just before I inhaled in surprise at the man who was at the base of the front steps.
His back was turned, with his broad shoulders flexing against a charcoal T-shirt that fit perfectly. Damn it to hell and back.