Page 75 of A Secret In The Garden

I knew what made her tick. If she wanted to pretend that this was nothing, then I would fucking push and prod her until she was so head over heels in love with me that she had no choice but to admit it…and to stay.

I would be patient with her—as patient as I could be. But I was going to win. She was going to admit that this was far from nothing.

I didn’t know what exactly it was, but it was something.

I left the craft store with no less than seven bags full of bright-colored shit. I had no idea what it was or what you did with it, but the sales associates had pointed out what I needed, and I had bought it all.

On the way home, I saw that I had missed a call from my attorney. Things were heating up, legally speaking. My father’s shithead lawyer had found some type of loophole, and they were running with it. When I had taken over the property, the whole world had assumed they were dead, and I had let them, even the lawyers, which was biting me in the ass now.

I was grateful to have Eliza in the house with me while all this was happening. Aside from Sowerby, I had done everything on my own up until now, but after having Eliza for even a short time, I couldn’t imagine ever going without her again.

I would do everything in my power to stop Eliza from leaving me and the manor behind. That meant I only had a few weeks left—until the corpse flower bloomed—to convince her that she should stay.

When I arrived home, Katya was buzzing by the door, eager to help me set up for the night. After that was all done, I went to my room and changed, surprised by how difficult it was to find a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. I hadn’t realized how much of my life I spent in suits.

My eyes snagged on the chest with all of my parents’ letters. How many times had I thought about burning that chest? Unable to peel my eyes away from it, I walked over and reluctantly pulled a letter out.

My father coming back had been a shock, perhaps more shocking than when he left; I had assumed he would be gone forever. After what had happened, I never thought either one of them would show their faces here again. I knew he was afraid, and he should be. He was delusional thinking that I would ever give up this property without a fight. I didn’t even want it, but I sure as shit wasn’t going to let them have it. I’d burn the place down before I let them take something from me again.

I ran my fingertips over the letter and my mom’s signature and felt something familiar sting in my chest. It didn’t matter how much time had passed, I still couldn’t get rid of how much it hurt that she’d left. I hated her. I hated her more than anyone in the whole world. She had been the only one on my side. How she could go from such a caring, compassionate mother to abandoning me? No matter how many times I tried to understand, I couldn’t.

Heat blurred my eyes and my teeth ground together painfully. My father shouldn’t have come back. If he knew what was really good for him, he would have stayed away from me and Blackwood Manor forever, like her.

I resisted the urge to crumple up the letter, instead carefully smoothing it out and placing it back inside the chest full of lies. I slammed the chest closed and took a step before I unholstered my gun and imagined shooting a thousand holes in it. The more my eyes blurred, the more furious I became. After pulling my pistol, just to feel the comforting steel in my hand, I turned to the mirror, watched three tears fall from my eyes before lifting my gun and wiping them away. I placed the tearstained gun on the dresser and pulled my favorite Blackwood Bladecraft knife from the drawer, adjusted it to its place hidden beneath my shirt, and took a long breath. Then, I checked my reflection in the mirror and left to get Eliza.

Chapter 23

Eliza

I stood waiting in the grand entrance of Blackwood Manor, where Jasper had asked me to meet him for dinner.

In an act of defiance and a way of further proving that there was, in fact, nothing romantic between us, I had opted out of wearing anything particularly fancy, an easy choice considering that the only nice dresses I had were the ones Leah and Katya had gotten for me. Even though some part of me wanted to dress up and show Jasper that I could be pretty and put together, I fought it away.

I waited, knowing I would sense when he approached. We couldn’t be in the same space without it feeling supercharged with electricity. I’d never felt anything like it, and in the deep, hidden parts of my soul, I knew I wouldn’t again. But it didn’t matter. No matter how much we might want to come together, to melt into the other, we had both been through far too much to be able to do that; it would never work out. One relationship could only hold so much trauma.

Not to mention, as the ghost of his dead mother reminded me, I still had some pretty important questions that needed answers. There were too many holes in everyone’s story, and as much as I really, really, really didn’t want to believe Jasper had murdered Hester, I still had an odd feeling in my gut that I couldn’t ignore when it came to Jasper and his innocence. I trusted him, but something felt off that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

I had been obsessively checking my—Hester’s—locket, wishing and hoping that she would give me something, anything, that would help me. I was running out of time to help her…despite my best efforts, the corpse flower’s growth was not slowing down.

Last night with Jasper, I had been reckless. I was never reckless. Every move I made was meticulously planned and thought out. It had to be. That’s how I’d survived. I wasn’t very beautiful or intelligent. I wasn’t charming. In fact, I never knew the right thing to say or when to say it. I wasn’t passionate about anything but trying to get my parents to like me, as pitiful as that sounded. I wasn’t an academic environmental juggernaut hell-bent on saving the earth as my mother and father had wanted; I preferred smutty fantasy books to ethics and orange Fanta to green juice. I was never the person I was supposed to be, but still, I read The End of Nature by Bill McKibben, Silent Spring by Rachel Carson and could quote A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold and all the other things I was told to—not because I enjoyed it, but because it was what I was good at.

Doing what I was told to.

Even at Pinehurst, I was barely cutting it. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed working in nature with the plants immensely; they were safe and predictable…relatable even, but if I could have done what I’d wanted, I wouldn’t have been in these clothes, manor, or garden. Essentially, I was doing what I was told to do, though I was grateful I ended up here with Jasper and Hester and the rest of the friends I’d made at the Blackwood Manor. It felt weird to think of my life without them now. It was nice to feel welcome.

My sister, Lucy, barely spoke to me. She hardly spoke to any of us anymore, and I never blamed her. In fact, I envied her ability to break away. It was really bad at home when she left and moved to the UK, and after she was gone, everything got worse. My mother viewed Lucy’s rebellious move as a personal failure and, in turn, was twice as strict with me. My sister had always hated me for being the goody-goody daughter, but she never knew that I had done all of it for her, stupidly believing that if I could take the brunt of it, they would leave her alone. They hadn’t.

I’d thought about calling Lucy several times since I’d been at Blackwood Manor. The peace of mind I’d experienced staying at Blackwood made me miss her even more than normal. She was younger than me by a few years, and I couldn’t help but feel my soul reaching for her, wanting to ask her advice about what to do about Mom. Lucy was the only other person who knew what I was going through. Mom had gotten so much worse these last few years.

Maybe I would call Lucy tomorrow.

A crackle of awareness drew my attention from my thoughts.

I turned to see Jasper striding toward me, holding a small green nursery pot with a burlap sleeve over the top, with a smile on his face that should be illegal. My stomach flip-flopped when his eyes traced over my body and his smile grew even wider.

Smile, you idiot.

Smile!