Chapter 10 Eliza #2
I hung up the phone, completely drained and defeated.
After almost two weeks, it was hardly evident I’d done anything to the conservatory if you didn’t know where to look, and to make matters worse, after sending pictures of the corpse flower to Dr. Lithgow, he believed I only had two months until it bloomed—I’d thought three when I first got here, which meant I had two fewer weeks than I’d originally thought.
I was defeated physically and emotionally. I had nothing left to give and I could feel myself breaking even as I stood on the stone path and looked around. My mother was right. Everyone at work was right. Jasper was right. I couldn’t do this.
There was no way I’d be able to restore the entire conservatory in two months. I’d hardly begun and already I was failing. My chest thumped uncomfortably, the stress growing painful as it ate at my sore body.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt lonelier or more defeated, which spoke volumes.
I thought about trying to take the drive into town to meet with some friends from work, but the truth was, I didn’t really have any friends.
I had people that drained my energy and unloaded on me.
People who would complain to me but never cared how I was doing or wanted to hear what was bothering me.
I had no one that I could lean on. So I worked another few hours into the night, fighting away the burn of hot tears in my eyes until I knew I didn’t have another hour left in my body.
Slumping down into the weeds, I let the tears fall into the soil.
I had nothing and no one. What had I been thinking to even attempt something like this?
Who did I think I was? Why was I even fighting for Pinehurst Botanical Gardens so hard?
Things would be easier if I stopped trying to go against the grain and just worked with my mother.
Maybe things wouldn’t be so hard then, maybe she’d finally lighten up on me.
Even as the thought filtered through my head, I knew it wasn’t true and never would be.
My mother would never be nice to me and things would never change.
This was just my life. Some people got families that were kind and sweet and gentle…
and others didn’t. A wave of guilt rippled through me, knowing I was being selfish.
Things could be so much worse—things were so much worse for other people. Some people didn’t have parents.
My damp face burned as I rubbed the cotton of my sleeve over it and let out a sigh. I needed to grab something to eat from the kitchen and go to bed. I didn’t want to be awake for another second.
On my way to the kitchen, I tried to move as quietly as possible.
But my legs were sore, the sharp kind of ache that stabbed and ripped.
My back was stiff from hunching over, and my swollen, blistered fingers protested with a throb every time I flexed them.
I knew I was pushing myself beyond what was reasonable, but I wasn’t sure I could stop even if I wanted to.
Maybe I should quit and run off, away from everyone. It was a fun fantasy until I remembered I needed to eat, and food and housing weren’t free—and I couldn’t leave without helping the ghost of Blackwood Manor.
For a few seconds, though, as I walked through the dark house, I let myself imagine what it would feel like if I did pack up and run away from everything.
I wouldn’t be a botanist anymore. No, I’d do something I wanted to do, something creative, like be an artist. I loved painting, even if I had only ever done it in secret.
As a botanist, the book I used to sketch plants was called my botanical sketchbook or field notebook.
Botanists typically used them for recording observations, drawings, and notes about plants we encountered in the field.
I always chose to paint my specimens. It was the closest thing to becoming a painter I would ever get to experience, and that was okay.
It was late; the house was still and quiet; save for the faint hum of the wind outside and the occasional creak of the old timber beneath my feet and the soft sound my Vans made when they hit the marble floor of the kitchen.
I thought I would be alone in the kitchen, but as I reached the threshold, I tensed and froze.
Jasper.
He stood in the doorway on the other side of the kitchen, his broad shoulders outlined by the dim light coming from under the cabinets.
His eyes flickered to me, and for a second, neither of us spoke.
The air between us felt like it was still holding on to the remnants of our argument from a few days ago.
The disagreement that had been hanging over us, unresolved and jagged.
I wondered if he even cared. Probably not.
I swallowed, trying to make the discomfort fade, but it lingered.
“Didn’t think anyone would still be awake,” I said, my voice rougher than I expected; the words were clumsy in the quiet of the room.
There was a bite to them. I was too tired to fix it.
Let him fire me—at least I wouldn’t have to fight staying here anymore.
His gaze ran over me, lingering as if he was making certain that I felt the trail of his brown eyes.
He’d probably noticed the exhaustion on my face, the way my hair had fallen loose from the tie at my neck, the way I was carrying myself like I was about to collapse.
I wished I could say I was too tired to care about how I looked or much of anything except getting some peace for a few minutes, but the truth was, I hated that he was seeing me so run-down.
For some stupid reason, I found myself wishing I looked prettier, which only caused me to grow more irritated for feeling that way.
I needed to keep far, far away from him while I worked to unfold what happened to the ghost or else I might join her.
It was easy to see how one got tangled in his dangerous web.
“I didn’t think you’d still be out there,” he said, his voice quieter than usual. I could hear the hesitation in it. “With the garden.”
I nodded. I didn’t trust my voice enough to say anything else. I should’ve turned around and left.
He looked at me, and I felt the depth of it—the questions that hung between us.
I knew he could tell I’d been crying. I couldn’t stand for another second without leaning on something, so I moved to the kitchen sink and pressed my body against it and turned on the faucet.
The cool water was a small relief to the burning ache in my hands.
I rubbed my palms together, working the dirt away, but it didn’t come off.
Not all of it. There was something in that, I thought.
The way I couldn’t seem to wash it off, no matter how hard I tried to get rid of it.
There were a lot of things I felt that way about, especially in this kitchen, right now.
The silence and the tension were too much, and eventually my resolve cracked.
“I’ve hardly made a dent in two weeks, and my boss thinks the corpse flower will bloom in two months, not three,” I rambled, my quivering voice quieter than I intended, barely a whisper over the sound of water running.
I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t look at him just yet.
Not when the tension between us was still sharp, still raw.
I was afraid I’d burst into tears. Had he not been standing in this kitchen, I wasn’t sure I could’ve kept the sobs inside.
My heart thumped again, and in the stillness of the room, I realized that it wasn’t my heart that beat so loudly.
The gold locket moved and twisted under my shirt, violently thudding as it landed back against my chest.
It felt like the blood in my veins stopped.
What should I do? Do I grab it? Open it?
Jasper was standing right there. What if he recognized it?
It was still for another minute and then lifted and twisted angrily under my shirt, as if something were trapped inside the brass oval.
Jasper didn’t move for a long moment, and I wondered if he was going to say something else.
He probably thought I was crying, hunched over like I was.
But instead, he sighed—low, like he was trying to let go of something.
His footsteps were slow when he finally stepped a little closer, the sound muted against the cold marble floor.
Fuck.
“I never meant to…” His voice trailed off, and I could tell he was wrestling with the words, unsure of how to finish the sentence. He exhaled deeply, like it was a struggle to get the words out at all.
I could feel him moving closer behind me. What if he saw the locket move?
“I shouldn’t have said what I said about your family,” I said, cutting him off nervously.
“I don’t know why I—You were right. It’s unbelievably lonely here.
I’m sorry I—” Words left my brain as the locket moved, making a sound as it rattled from under my shirt, louder this time.
I needed to get him away from me before he realized I had what I suspected was his mother’s locket in my hand.
Panicked, I turned to see if he noticed. Thankfully he’d turned around, facing away from me.
Keeping my back to him just in case, I hurriedly pulled the chain out from under my shirt and grasped ahold of the locket.
It rolled slightly in my palm. Something was inside, desperately struggling to get out.
With a quick glance backward to assure myself that Jasper still wasn’t looking, I opened it.
I swallowed my scream as a white dove flew out of it and whipped past my face, flapping its wings wildly as it soared directly toward Jasper. The dove painting was no longer a painting but a real-life dove, gliding through the kitchen of Blackwood Manor.
I whipped around to watch the chaos unfold, unsure of what to do.
“Holy…shit,” Jasper said as he fell back away from the bird. “The fuck?” He moved the crisp button-up he wore to grab a sleek black pistol tucked in the waistband at the back of his dress pants.