Page 61 of A Secret In The Garden

I shrugged, then inhaled sharply as he took a heavy step, smashing the small single rose, grinding his foot into the ground until it was nothing but a crimson smear against the gray stone paver, leaving it to look as though it had been stained with blood. I held my breath in the back of my throat, unable to stop myself from looking around for the ghost of Hester to retaliate. Instead of an angry ghost, a breeze swept in, causing the jungle of green leaves in the garden to rustle and shimmy like a roaring crowd at a concert.

The three of us exchanged glances, and I was relieved to note that both of them noticed the odd breeze.

“I thought the windows had all been fixed,” Jasper said as he looked around at the Victorian-inspired covering of glass.

“They were,” Sowerby mumbled with unease before clearing his throat.

“So, should I keep working?” I asked, feeling the pressure in my head from where yet another headache was forming. They were near daily now.

“No,” Sowerby announced.

“Yes,” Jasper snapped. “But not tonight. Please tell me we are still on for our dinner. We could both use some wine and a few hours away from everything.”

I agreed, still looking forward to dinner with Jasper and a distraction away from the garden for a bit.

Sowerby left to help Leah set up the wine cellar, and I left to get cleaned up.

I laid out one of the black dresses that Katya and Leah had brought for the business dinner. I was going to miss those women so much when I had to go back home. I chose the more professional of the dresses, not even attempting to try on the skimpier dress.

In actuality, it probably wasn’t really all that immodest, but I’d grown so used to wearing large, baggy clothes that anything without a cardigan or sleeves felt a little scandalous. But tonight was different; I wasn’t working, and I wasn’t sitting alone in my room scrolling through art feeds. Maybe I would wear the skimpier dress tonight.

I was growing tired of the constant tug and drop of tension between Jasper and me. If he and I had nothing to offer each other past a physical connection, I wanted to at least know before I had to leave and would be left to wonder. No matter what happened with the corpse flower, the party, or Hester, I knew I would be thinking about Jasper for a very long time after I left Blackwood Manor, even if it wasn’t reciprocated. Tonight would solidify if we really could be friends after I left, though, to be honest, even as I thought the words, my stomach sank. I wanted more, but it wasn’t realistic. He was a millionaire who traveled around the world on a private jet, and I was a botanist who liked to read in my bed when it rained and pretend I was someone else, anywhere else—even only as friends, he and I were so different.

I should have been happy with how things were between us and not want more. Was I even capable of giving him—or anyone—more? When I said I was lonely, I meant it. Embarrassingly, the last relationship I had been in was when I was sixteen, and that had promptly ended when I showed up at the house with him. My mom had been so mean during that hour that he broke up with me before he left. I was heartbroken, and my mother could only say that I should thank her for weeding out the bad ones. That was the last time I had ever really pushed for anything I wanted. From that point forward, I did the wild, absurd things she wanted, giving no pushback, no resistance. It was easier for me to go along with it, never having my own say. In my own way, I did this all to myself.

At least until Blackwood Manor came along. When I learned about the lore and the mystery surrounding the supposed hidden menagerie of rare plants at work one day, I couldn’t stop thinking about it; it consumed me. Pinehurst Botanical Gardens had always been a grand, beautiful place, but more than just the prospect of saving Pinehurst was the idea of doing something exciting on my own, away from her reach.

As if on cue, my phone rang, and her name popped up in bold letters. I moved the dress from the corner of my bed and sat down.

“Hey,” I said, hoping my nonchalant voice would derail any harsh words from her.

“Oh, Jesus Christ, Eliza. Are you still there? At the manor? You gotta get away from there; our name is already in all the papers. This is not the kind of thing you should be getting messed up in; you should be in the papers for helping save fauna and flora, not for fucking a seller of mass weapons. I’m finishing up something for work, and then I’ll be over to pick you up. You better—all the emissions I’m using to go up there⁠—”

“Mom.” I tried to cut her off. That familiar ebb of adrenaline rushed through my body as it did every single time she was like this. My body prepared for a fight, but my mind would tamp it down eventually, keeping it buried where it wouldn’t bother anybody but me.

“Eliza Nicole Arnold, don’t Mom me. What type of soil have you been using? Is it on our safe list? I saw everything at your apartment that was on the red list. You will have to be punished, Eliza. You can’t do that to Mother Earth and not expect to be punished.”

Her words crawled across my skin like tiny blades. I could feel the blood rushing to my face, making my cheeks red and splotchy. “I won’t be able to take any days off after being at the manor for three months. I know you’re upset with me, but it’s not really that big of a deal, Mom. People use plastic all the time; I didn’t have anything that bad.”

I sat on the edge of my bed, the sexy black dress in hand, wondering how I was staying as calm as I was.

That had been the wrong thing to say. I had known it before I said it, but still, I’d said it. It was like the mechanism that warned me, told me when to shut up and stop talking, had been broken.

“This is exactly what I was afraid of with you staying there without me. Your father and I are counting on you, Eliza. Who is going to care for this planet once we’re gone? You ungrateful child. It’s a good thing you’re moving back in with Dad and me. You’ll have five days in the cabin.”

My body jolted involuntarily. Bile rose up before I swallowed it back down.

“No, Mom, I don’t need to go to the cabin. I’m an adult; we don’t need that anymore.” A shiver latched on to my bones, and I shook for a second.

There was a shed-like hut in the back half of my parents’ wooded property. It was small and made entirely of trees from our forest, using no nails or man-made substances—and it was used for only one thing. When I was particularly forgetful or made a bad decision about something, I had to go to the cabin to learn how to reconnect with nature. My dad did, too, occasionally and my sister as well, until she moved.

We sat alone in pitch black with nothing to do and no one to talk to. You could have small amounts of water, and she would bring you a small vegan dinner, usually just a can of beans or a bowl of rice, but that was the only thing you got to eat for the day. You weren’t allowed to leave to go to the bathroom, as that was part of the lesson. As a small child, it had been horrifying, as an adult only slightly less. It had been a long time since I’d been in there—and I wasn’t ever going to go back in if I could help it.

“What…type of soil have I been using…in the conservatory?” I asked, my brows pinching together almost painfully as I struggled to calculate the best responses—the ones that would keep me safe. Of all the things for her to demand to know…

“Yes, Eliza! What do you think I’m talking about? Sometimes, you can be so stupid for such an intelligent girl. You’re using the kind with synthetic fertilizers, aren’t you? You are, aren’t you? If I get there and see that you’re using peat moss, I will lose it, Eliza. I’m serious.”

“I—I’m using good soil,” I mumbled. Already, my anger had gone away to the familiar space to hide, and the appeasing, easy-to-manage Eliza had taken the reins, doing her best to navigate the conversation to a safe place. Hearing how she talked to me after not being around her the last month or so had felt different.