Chapter 3 cafuné
cafuné
The garden was small and strangely shaped—an irregular rectangle, with a longer wall on the south side where the door was, across from a narrower archway at the other end, where the garden walls encircled a beautiful old willow tree. Oddly, I’d say it was shaped like a keyhole.
But maybe that fit, considering the garden itself was . . . unusual, to say the least.
If I didn’t know where I was, I wouldn’t have guessed it was at Lilymoor at all. It wasn’t overgrown or weed infested like some of the closed areas I had been tending to this last month, which was all the more strange.
Dogwoods and pin cherry trees sat in flush garden beds, their leaves gnawed on by some hungry caterpillar, while the soil at their roots was a soft and rich brown that told me it was somehow still fresh, even though it very much seemed like this place hadn’t been touched in a long time.
There was a half-built gazebo, and an overturned wheelbarrow in a barren garden bed, packets of seeds scattered from a fallen wicker basket, seeds, not yet sprouted.
While the rest of Lilymoor hummed with life and colors, this place had … a lot of brown, a lot of dirt, and a lot of ideas that were never planted.
Unfinished, I realized.
How could I have missed this?
The willow tree itself was enormous up close—I wondered how I couldn’t see it from any of the other gardens—but maybe the angle of the walls prevented me. It had to have been here for years. A decade, maybe longer.
But what startled me most was the man asleep beneath it.
He lounged against the trunk, head lolling against his chest. His copper hair curled loosely around his ears, and his white skin was brushed with soft brown freckles.
He wore a charcoal button-down shirt with the top two buttons undone, sleeves rolled up quarter length to reveal muscular forearms, and black trousers that matched the suit jacket hanging on a jutted-out brick in the wall.
He was so still, it didn’t surprise me that I hadn’t seen him at first.
He was asleep, wasn’t he?
Quite sure that he was—I mean, he didn’t look dead—I knelt beside him.
His black leather penny loafers were polished and expensive looking, as was the gold-plated watch on his right wrist, and the college ring on his left hand.
By the look of him, he was in his early thirties like me, but unlike me, he looked so utterly misplaced here—like he’d been dropped out of his very comfy, luxurious life and onto this patch of clover without his consent.
I gently placed a hand on his shoulder, hoping that would wake him. His chest gently rose and fell, eyebrows bunching together, like he didn’t want to wake up.
Fine. A little rougher, then.
“Hey, friend,” I said, and shook his shoulder, “you need to wake up. The garden’s closing soon.”
He shifted ever so slightly, murmuring something under his breath, and then went still again. A copper curl came loose and slipped onto his forehead. I resisted the urge to push it off, and then immediately chastised myself for even thinking it.
“Wake up,” I said, louder, and shook his shoulder again. Probably harder than I needed to, annoyed with myself.
That did the trick, at least. His eyes fluttered open, blinking in the hazy orange evening light, and focused on my face. They were a stormy shade of blue, framed by long coppery eyelashes that matched his eyebrows and his hair.
“You,” he murmured sleepily, pushing himself up against the tree trunk with a deep inhale, as if to bolster himself. “Hello.”
“Hello,” I echoed. Did he know me? Because I didn’t know him. “I think you fell asleep for a little bit.”
His drowsy gaze studied my face, his eyebrows furrowing with confusion, and suddenly kneeling here in his private curtain of willow boughs felt much too intimate—something we both realized at the same time, because as I leaned away, he cleared his throat. “Just resting my eyes, actually.”
“Right,” I replied skeptically. If I hadn’t woken him up, he’d probably have slept until nightfall. Which reminded me—“The garden closes at sundown. So you should probably get going.”
His mouth twitched. “Ah. Right. Being kicked out already?”
I gave a start. “You can come back tomorrow morning—”
“I doubt the party will last that long.”
My mouth dropped open. “Party?” I echoed, confused, watching as he pushed himself to his feet.
He swayed a little, and I caught myself reaching out to help him, but he steadied himself on the trunk of the willow instead. “I’m fine,” he said too quickly, and I forced my hands down at my sides, and watched him pull his cell phone out of his back pocket. He cursed under his breath.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” he repeated, annoyed, as he punched something into his phone. “I told you before, I don’t need a babysitter. I know these gardens better than you,” and then he brought his phone up to his ear as he turned away to ignore me.
And with his back to me, I got the very distinct impression that I was already forgotten when I wasn’t in his line of sight.
A sudden flash of anger burned in my belly. The next thing I knew, I was grabbing his arm and forcing him to turn around to face me. “Excuse me,” I bit out, glaring up at his surprised face. It would have been handsome if he weren’t so awful. “But you do need to leave. Now.”
His gaze settled on my hand on his arm. “Everyone hates me that much?”
“What? No, but—”
In the distance, there was a faint, high-pitched wail. As it got louder, it began to sound like . . .
My eyebrows furrowed. “Do you hear that?”
He wrenched his arm out of my grip. “No.” Then he muttered something to his phone and tried to make another call but apparently couldn’t. “What’s wrong with this thing?”
I didn’t care. I knew that sound now: sirens. “I—I have to go.”
He dismissed me with a wave of his hand, not even looking up.
So I left him.
I hurried out of the garden, and in the Hedges the sirens were louder still. I feared that meant that they were coming this way. Had something happened? Had someone gotten hurt? One of the volunteers or—oh no, one of the visitors?
I dropped my gloves on a mosseaten bench in the Hedges and followed the gazes of the statues to the exit. I didn’t have time to worry about that rude man in the garden.
He’d find his own way out, anyway.