Chapter 18 psithurism #2
But my hands tightened into fists, my tongue tasting the sourness of it all. I didn’t believe in magic—I couldn’t—because how was I supposed to exist in a world where magic was real, and Harriett no longer was? But there was really no other explanation for the secret garden, either.
And that was the sort of truth that made me hate Lilymoor just for a moment, just long enough to excuse myself from Eula’s bedroom before I said something I regretted, and return the watering can to the kitchen. I took a deep, steadying breath by the sink. Exhaled.
At least I had figured out one thing: the reason no one was worried about Cyrus was because Cyrus Beck was not currently missing.
It seemed like he wasn’t the only one running into closed doors.
When I arrived at the Willow Grove, because of Wykofski’s maintenance of the field, it was simply an overgrown lawn in need of a good mow, an eviction notice to the voles currently running amok, and some fertilizer.
The grove was framed by a dozen tall weeping willows, moss hanging from their boughs.
It was a beautiful, dreamy place. On the far left side of the grove was a soft heather-gray stone wall, marred with fire damage, though ivy had covered much of it in the last sixteen years.
There were a few vole mounds, but Wykofski had said he’d get to that.
From my pocket, my phone began to vibrate. I took it out and, seeing it was Mom, answered it. “Made it to the beach?”
“Sproouuuut!” she singsonged. In the background was a chorus of my name.
Evidently she had absolutely made it to the beach house somewhere on the coast of North Carolina—Vienna?
Venice? Something like that—with her and Eddie’s vacation friends.
Mom and I never took vacations when I was a kid.
We moved so often, she said that our life was just one big vacation anyway.
I failed to see how. Especially the year and a half we lived in a camper.
Mom and I caught up as I walked the length of the Willow Grove, taking note of all the things I had to repair or tend to before we could open the area to the public.
Mom was more interested in the bicentennial party of it all and decided that I was in over my head.
I hated to admit to myself that she might’ve been right.
“Five hundred guests?” she said. “Sophie, have you even looked at this Willow Grave—”
“Grove.”
“—yet?”
“I’m walking through it right now,” I replied.
“With Wykofski’s help and a new blade on the mower, we should be set.
Eula told us to steer clear of the greenhouse, and it’s hidden behind an old wall anyway, so it’ll be a lot easier than it sounds.
And besides, if it’s for her retirement . . . I can’t say no.”
Mom sighed. “This is becoming more work than you thought it would be.”
“I don’t mind.”
“What does your head at the Botanical Garden think of all this?”
I hadn’t told Jeff, though I suspected he would advise me to keep my head down and finish my work here. Of course I was going to—but then back in New York, I had a decision to make, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to make it yet. “He thinks it’s doable,” I lied, kicking a mushroom over.
“Then I’d trust him.”
Evening had settled on the gardens. Fingers of pinkish orange crawled across the skies. They were showing off so much I had to snap a photo.
I sent it to Mom, and she gasped at it. “Oh, that’s gorgeous! Eddie, Eddie, look at this. Isn’t it pretty?”
A muffled agreement came through the phone.
“It’s like real magic,” she said with a wistful sigh.
There it was again—magic. That made me think of the door in the hedge. “Can I ask you a question?”
“What is it, sprout?”
“What would you do if you found a secret garden that kept mov—”
“Oh my god!” Mom cried with a shrill laugh. “Stop farting, Eddie, or I swear I’ll Glade you!”
She excused herself from the cards table and went out onto the porch. Wind battered the receiver, but at least I didn’t have to fight to be heard over my stepdad farting anymore. “I’m sorry, you were saying something about a garden?”
“Never mind,” I said, feeling embarrassed to have even brought it up. “I’m just a little stressed, I think. From all of this. I knew it would be hard work opening all the gardens back up since Eula had closed most of them over the years, but . . .”
I heard her light a cigarette and take a long drag. “That’s how I can tell it’s worth it.”
“Is it?”
“I think so.” She exhaled smoke. “Do you remember when we were living on Lake Michigan? You were, I don’t know, maybe seven? And you could walk to school?”
“Even in the snow,” I confirmed. “Vaguely, why?”
“I had come home from a twelve-hour shift and there was this mostly dead houseplant on the counter. You were adamant about saving it, though the roots were rotten and there was some sort of mite infestation in the leaves.”
“The snake plant—I remember her.”
“You fussed over her for weeks. You refused to give up.”
“To be fair,” I pointed out, “snake plants are almost impossible to kill.”
“It didn’t matter. You still tended to her like she was some sort of prized succulent.
You checked her soil levels. You monitored her watering.
You even bought expensive plant food—I don’t know if any of that made a difference in the end.
But the fact is you still committed time and care.
” She took another drag of her cigarette.
“I’m sure this anniversary-retirement party will go off without a hitch wherever Evie—”
“Eula.”
“—decides to throw it. And I’m sure anyone could make the Willow Grove look acceptable.
But you’ll make it look magical, because that’s just who you are.
It could be easy, but you’ll commit your entire self to it anyway.
You haven’t done that in a long time, committed yourself to something with your entire heart. Not since …”
Not since Harriett died was the sentence she didn’t say.
“It’s just hard,” I admitted. “I feel like I’m wasting time.”
“I know, and you know how I feel about hard things.”
I snorted a laugh. “Mm-hmm.”
“Stop, you know what I meant!” she chastised me, though I could hear her smiling through her words. “Things that are hard are usually the ones that are worth it.”
“The snake plant wasn’t hard,” I pointed out, ducking under a curtain of willow vines. Under the shade of the tree, there was a fold-out chair that wasn’t very old at all. If I’d had to guess, I’d say that Wykofski came here sometimes. I wasn’t sure who else would.
“No, but you having cared for it was, especially when you didn’t have to. When you were already swamped with catch-up work from school. When we had to boil our water because the house we were renting had rusted pipes. And the plant died anyway, remember? It was too far gone.”
I sat down in the chair, and it creaked. This was a nice spot, the golden sunlight sending pinions of light through the waving willow vines. “I know. But I had to try.”
“Exactly. So it’s not wasted time. If you’re doing something you care about, it never is.”
But that didn’t stop me from feeling like I was wasting it all. I was in my prime, and instead of spending summer in the city, going out and meeting people and burning memories into my brain, I was here filling up vole holes and being chased by geese.
I missed sitting down on the back porch with her and talking over coffee or sweet tea.
Phone conversations were nice, but home never felt closer than when I closed my eyes and imagined the smell of the Virginia Slims Menthols that she smoked, and the soft murmur of her phone game, as we sat in uncomfortable wrought iron chairs on the back porch.
“I hope you’ll still be saying that when you finally come up here to see this place,” I said, deciding to change the subject. I picked a bur off my sock. “I think all of the lilies will be in bloom soon.”
“Oh, sprout, about that . . .” she said hesitantly. “We’ve all been talking here at the beach, and we all agree that maybe it’d be best if I didn’t come visit.”
My heart fell. “Ah.”
“It’s just such a far drive and you know how Eddie feels about planes . . . it’s not very feasible. And what about the dogs? We can’t leave the dogs.”
“It’s fine,” I said, swallowing my real feelings. “Are you sure?” she asked.
As I sat under the boughs of the willows, the psithurism of the leaves in the wind was soothing and gentle, dampening my disappointment.
“Yeah, it’s a long drive,” I agreed, though Harriett and I had taken that same drive ten years ago. It was also a beautiful road trip. I wouldn’t have traded it for the world.
“I just—I feel awful,” Mom went on, “but Eddie really doesn’t have the vacation after this trip, and he needs to start getting the budget for the next quarter ready and . . .”
“Damnit!” someone shouted. That wasn’t Wykofski or Oliver, and Yafir wasn’t working today. One of the volunteers? “Get—stay away—stop it!”
No … I knew that voice.
“Mom, I’m sorry, I have to go,” I said, pushing myself up from the fold-out chair and grabbing my shovel. “I think someone is chasing the goose.”
“The goose? I thought the goose chased people?”
“That, too,” I amended, and said my goodbyes to her before I hung up and hurried out of the Willow Grove and toward the Moon Bridge. I scanned the grounds, looking for a door—
There, against the fence that hid the Reservoir. It was ajar already. I ducked through it.
And found Cyrus standing atop a stone bench, hands out toward the goose as it snapped at his shins. “Ow—ow! Stop it! You know me, you awful thing!”
“That means nothing to her,” I said, staking the end of my shovel into the ground and leaning on it. He snapped his attention up to me. His eyebrows rose. I said, “Hi.”
“Hi,” he murmured, eyes wide, as if he wasn’t quite sure if I was real or a mirage. “I thought you’d never—argh!”
Damnit nailed him directly in the shin. He let out a string of expletives. I winced, because I knew how much that hurt. “Why do you hate me? I was the one who saved you!” he cried.
Damnit spread her wings wide and snapped at him again.
I had to get her away before she murdered the man. The things I did for people I wasn’t sure I even liked. Steeling myself, I clicked my tongue to the roof of my mouth and poked
Damnit in the behind with the tip of my shovel.
Affronted, the goose whirled around to me, absolutely enraged.
“There’s a good girl,” I told her, dragging the shovel toward me. It made metallic plinks on the ground as it slid over the rocks on the dirt path. The goose hissed, pink tongue darting out, and snapped at the shovel.
Then she pecked at the shovel again.
Slowly, I led her away from the bench.
Cyrus wilted with relief.
“I don’t want to hold this over you or anything, Rus,” I said as I led Damnit back toward the door, “but you definitely owe me.”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “Name your price.”
I raised my gaze for a gambling moment and locked eyes with him. “Anything?”
His eyes glittered. It sent a shiver down my spine. “Within reason, Sophie.”
I liked the way he said my name, soft at the front, a rum-bling breath at the end.
I wished I could have lingered on the sound, but Damnit apparently hated the idea, because she hissed again and spread her wings and—dear god, she remembered she could fly.
With a scream, I dropped my shovel as the terrible goose chased me out of the doorway again and into the gardens.
“I’ll come back soon,” I promised, shouting over my shoulder, hoping he heard me.
Damnit gave up halfway across the lawn, but by the time I dragged myself back to the Moon Bridge, the door was gone.