Chapter 25 Eliza
Eliza
I don’t know what to do,” I shrieked. “I’ve already lowered the temperature, shielded its light, and reduced its water; I don’t know what else to do. I still have one bed left to plant before the conservatory is done.”
“Well, looks like you better get to planting, then,” Nick sang into the receiver.
“Oh my god,” I breathed, trying but failing to get a grip.
“Yeah, Eliza, can you hear me?” my boss shouted loudly over the speakerphone. “Press your nose against the spathe and tell me what you smell.”
It was a carrion flower, so that only meant one thing. If it had a scent, it wouldn’t smell good. Their blooms smelled like rotting animals to attract pollinators and scavengers.
Struggling to make my limbs move in my panicked state, I stepped over the freshly swept stone walkway and border, and into the central flower bed.
It took up the center of the conservatory, wrapping itself around the towering rock waterfall and koi pond that splashed happily, cascading down to the left of the corpse flower’s bed.
There had ended up being three corpse flowers in total, but only one was healthy and in a blooming cycle, the others in their leaf stages.
Dark-red-and-black orchids peeked out from behind the towering structure of the large eight-foot Amorphophallus titanum.
The other two were small, and I had to carefully sidestep the rippling bird’s-nest ferns and balance between the various clumps of rabbit’s foot ferns before reaching the bare perimeter surrounding the corpse flower.
I moved close, grazing my nose against the pleated-looking furls that pressed against the long spadix, and took a giant inhale. My stomach lurched over more than just the smell as my heart sank into the dirt beneath my feet.
“Well?” both Nick and Lithgow asked, prompting me.
“It’s horrible. Decaying flesh and rotting meat mixed with urine and a musty basement,” I answered. It was the signature scent of the corpse flower when in bloom.
“Well, it looks like we’re having a party in two days, Eliza. I’ll tell everyone here and pass it on to the philanthropists I’ve been in contact with,” Lithgow said with a bit of excitement in his voice.
“Email me the list, and I’ll call the other people coming,” Nick added helpfully.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he answered. “You don’t have time. Finish the last bed. I can’t wait to see it all. If you want, I can take some of your stuff back to our house after the party, so you don’t have to stay at Blackwood Manor.”
It suddenly felt like my world was caving in around me.
“And, Eliza?” Lithgow’s voice grew clearer as if he’d grabbed the phone from Nick.
“Yes?”
“We’ll see you the day after tomorrow. Do you have the propagations ready for Pinehurst?
Really, Eliza—I have to admit, I never really thought you’d be able to pull this off.
In all transparency, after speaking to your mother so many times while you’ve been gone, I started to wonder if a job with us was the right fit for you.
I figured it would sort itself out if you took all that time away from work and came up empty-handed,” he said in a chipper voice.
“Okay, get to planting. See you soon. I can’t wait to snoop around that place; I’ve always wanted to see the inside. So mysterious.”
I hung up and sank to the ground in front of the corpse flower, careful not to squish anything, pulling my knees up and resting my pounding head on them.
There was no way I could be finished in two days. I still had an entire bed to plant, and I needed to move the last few rabbit’s foot ferns from around the corpse flower and mulch everything.
Seeking any sort of comfort I could find, I stuck my hand out and ran my finger over the furry silver-brown rhizomes that crept out from under the green foliage of the rabbit’s foot ferns in front of me.
This would all work out. It had to. I was so close now.
I looked around and took in the months of work I had put into the conservatory.
It was unrecognizable from the ruinous, wild garden I had first walked into.
This garden had my blood, sweat, and tears in it.
I had given it my all, and I was so close to success, I could taste it.
I would be given a substantial raise at the botanical garden, and we would be able to stay open.
I might make enough to start saving and get my finances in order.
Things were looking up. This was all good. I needed to focus on the good.
Jasper—
I’d have to leave him in a few days. I wasn’t entirely sure where we stood since he’d caught me snooping in his office and then angry finger-banged me. Were we anything? Would he miss me?
The locket, back in my pocket, began to vibrate.
I pinched my eyes closed and ignored it, unable to look at it, knowing I’d probably have to leave Blackwood Manor having failed Hester.
I wanted to throw myself down on the soil and cry thinking about it.
It wasn’t fair. She didn’t deserve this.
She deserved to be free and happy. Whoever did this to her had gone unpunished long enough.
I swallowed the emotion away. I still had a few days.
Petting the furry rhizome under the dark-green fern, I noticed one of the three-inch-long offshoots felt weirdly smooth, unlike the others. I stroked it a few times, absently wondering why that was.
Warmth hit the bottom of my chin and the side of my face, and I looked down to realize the locket inside of my overalls was now glowing gold and heating up.
Lately, I carried the locket everywhere, ready and waiting for Hester to give me another clue.
Now that my time at the manor was nearly up, I had grown obsessive over checking it, sometimes opening the locket every few minutes.
Nothing had changed, it remained completely empty and blank, with one side a dark scarlet-colored velvet and the other shiny gold without so much as a scratch.
I pulled it from my pocket.
“Agh!” I sucked in air through my teeth, dropping the hot necklace to the ground as soon as my fingers touched the burning metal.
It landed in the dirt, trembling as it glowed brighter and brighter until several inches of the surrounding soil was illuminated almost blindingly.
The delicate fern leaves and the other plants around us shivered and swayed.
Something had changed in the energy of the conservatory; it was like the space itself was preparing for a cataclysm.
The locket in the dirt snapped open with a sharp click.
I didn’t have a chance to look at it before something to my left moved, startling me.
Hester stood a few feet behind me. Her deep-red dress moved softly, like seaweed underwater, but everything else about her remained eerily still.
She wasn’t crying, but she looked sad, though in a much different way than I had seen before.
She kept her dark eyes on me, waiting and still with one of her pale arms across her chest, gripping her throat as she frequently did.
“I don’t know how to help you,” I murmured, feeling the heat of tears prickle behind my eyes.
“Help me! Tell me what to do!” I shouted.
My frustration boiled over. “Who did this to you? Was it Jasper? Darius? Help me!” I scrambled to stand, intending to walk over to her, but as soon as I stood, my nerves failed me, and I remained frozen where I was.
Her eyes were not full of tears but something else—something softly hopeful.
Help me, her cracked lips mouthed, slowly removing the hand from her throat to reach out, slowly flaring her fingers wide before folding them down. I stared curiously.
What was she doing?
The light from the locket grew much brighter before dimming again, momentarily drawing my attention away from Hester. When I snapped my head back to her, she was gone.
I wanted to scream. I was only one person, and the pressures from everything were breaking me.
What would I do if I was unable to find out who had murdered Hester?
And with the corpse flower about to bloom and the last of the garden needing to be worked on, there was no time to dedicate to digging around the manor looking for clues.
Nearly at a breaking point, I dropped to my knees on the ground in front of the glowing locket to see if there were any clues inside.
I realized that this was almost exactly where I had found the locket buried initially.
Abruptly, the long, furry feet of the rabbit’s foot fern nearest the illuminated locket moved and stretched up from the ground as if trying to push through the soil.
With a gasp, I froze before I moved closer—there was something tucked under the overhanging fronds of the fern. And it was moving—or trying to.
The soil cracked, and the chain of the locket fell in, ready to fully disappear.
I grabbed ahold of it without thinking. The brilliant glow dimmed instantly.
I pulled at the locket to remove the chain from the crack, but it wouldn’t budge.
It was as if something had snagged it and refused to let it go.
Growing panicked at the thought of losing the locket, I pulled the necklace out from the crack under the ferns and moved to close it, catching the inscription on the shiny gold interior right before it clicked shut.
Digging deeper, we uncover both secrets and soil.
She wanted me to dig? Literally dig?
The blood pounded in my ears and through my heart so powerfully that my vision pulsed with the movement. I tucked the necklace back in the safety of my pocket, reached behind, and grabbed my trowel. Fear rushed like a river through my system as I carefully moved closer to the fern.