Grandmama puffed. “Look, Thomas. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. You do not have the financial means to support Floralie. Either you hand her over willingly, or I will, unfortunately, but ethically, be forced to stop funding both you and Floralie all together.”
“You can’t!” cried Floralie as she threw open the door violently and dove into the sitting room.
“Oh my.” Grandmama huffed, straightening out her dress, as if Floralie’s presence had put a wrinkle in it.
Floralie looked from Grandmama to Tom, then back to Grandmama. And when she spoke, her voice grew soft, like her breath was clinging for dear life to her throat. “You just can’t.”
Grandmama gave no sign of emotion. “Clearly, things have got worse since I’ve seen her last, Thomas. Far worse.”
“But you can’t just take me!” pleaded Floralie. “I’ll never be happy. I—I’ll run away.”
Floralie looked to Tom, whose face had gone an even paler shade of white. His lips parted, but no words came from them. After a moment, he whispered tentatively, “Floralie . . . that’s enough.”
Tom’s eyes were hollow, and somehow, so different from the eyes Floralie knew. Like a stranger’s. “You want me to leave?”
Tom clenched his jaw. “I said enough. Go to your room.”
“But—”
“Go,” he repeated, an edge to his voice this time. “I will be up shortly.”
Floralie gaped at Tom, then shook her head and turned for the door. As her fingers traced the brass doorknob, Grandmama’s voice sounded from behind. “In time, you will come to thank me, Floralie.”
Floralie squeezed shut her eyes, hand wavering on the doorknob. She did not feel—would never feel—any gratitude toward Grandmama. Not Grandmama who sent away her mother, not Grandmama who surely would take her away from her wonderland. Without a glance back, Floralie crossed the hall to the staircase. Before ascending, however, Floralie wiped a blanket of dust from the nearest window and gazed out at her soon-to-be home.
It loomed in the distance, a thundercloud of a thing at the edge of the hillside. Gray and built of unforgiving stone, this was the home of unwanteds and lonelies, lost-hopers and dreamless-sleepers. This could hardly be called a home at all. This was the Adelaide Laurel Orphanage for Unfortunate Children.
The coffin rested at the front of the chapel. The service ended, and the guests meandered off to eat chocolate-covered strawberries; the preacher went to his daughter’s violin concert, and the organist smoked a cigar outside the church. Floralie and Tom stood at the double doors at the back of the gold-gilded chapel, watching Grandmama crumble over the coffin laced with white lilies. “My baby,” she wept. “My baby boy.” No one understood her except Floralie and Tom of course; everyone else at the funeral spoke only French.
The man who had taken Mama away came that day with a bouquet of bay leaves apparently from Mama—the first and only time Floralie had heard from Mama since she left. The leaves came with a note: “You change only in death.” The flower arrangers threw the leaves away.
Three minutes later and two staircases up, Floralie sat in the corner of her room painting her wallpaper. Today she painted forget-me-nots, shy and soft, and just a little scared. In Floralie’s mind’s eye, blue jay feathers floated down to rest upon the tiny petals, like silk against Floralie’s gentle touch. She breathed out fear, breathed in love. She remembered how it felt to be loved. How it felt to be cradled in Mama’s arms, how small, how safe, how close she had felt. Somehow, the forget-me-nots let her feel that way again, and she flew to her wonderland for but just a moment, catching a glimpse of the shadowy gardener lurking behind a bush of azaleas.
BANG.
Floralie dropped her paintbrush, spiraling back to reality.
“Tom!” she gasped, whirling around.
“This is the problem. This is it, Floralie,” sighed Tom, shaking his head. “This is the reason for everything. Your obsession with paint and flowers and fantastical nonsense!” His voice grew into a roar, but then crept back into its softness. “This is what got you kicked out of Mrs. Coffrey’s school. This is what’s getting you kicked out of your very own home. I’ve tried, Floralie.” His voice broke on a sneaking tear. “You know I didn’t raise you like this, and neither did Papa.”
“Mama did.”
Tom closed his eyes and said, “This has gone too far. I have entertained your imagination for too long, and look what it’s done.”
Floralie’s stomach dropped. “No . . . no, you can’t . . .”
Tom’s face scrunched into a pained expression. “I have no choice. If, someday, you can find a way to make this whole painting thing work without succumbing to the same fate as Mama, by all means, do it. But right now, it’s destroying our family. It’s destroying us, and it’s destroying you.”
Tears stung at the back of Floralie’s eyes. She could barely speak. “You said nothing bad would happen.” She coughed away the lump in her throat and fired, “You were there—you lived at her orphanage for eight years before I was born. You know how horrible it is; how can you let her take me there? Last time, you said no to her. Last time, you made sure I didn’t end up there. And this time, you promised!”
“Luck saved us last time,” said Tom, sighing. “If I hadn’t turned eighteen the day after Papa died, you would’ve been sent off to Grandmama then. But I can’t count on luck this time, and to be perfectly honest, I think we’ve run dry.” Tom twirled a finger through Floralie’s curls. “I care about you,” he whispered, but then he stepped back and tensed the muscles in his neck. “I’m tearing down this wallpaper, and—and”—he straightened up, though weakly, as if trying to muster up the anger both Floralie and Tom had seen in Papa so many times—“for as long as you live under this roof—whether one week or one decade—I forbid you to paint.”
And Tom began. The wallpaper fell like withered rose petals. By five o’clock, the little room had become an island of shredded paper, and Floralie was in the middle of it. She sat cross-legged on the wood floor, breathing in the dust. She uncurled one of the wallpaper scraps and laid it flat on the floor. It had a painting on it—or rather, part of a painting now. Floralie had painted this one a year ago after finding a cherry tree still in bloom, even though it had been nearly July. Usually, the wind swept away all the cherry blossoms in mid-May.
A great tear crackled from the wall as another wallpaper scrap fell to the floor. Tom shook a piece off his fancy leather shoe. And then Floralie’s eyes trailed up to Tom’s fingers.
“Not that one,” said Floralie at once. Her voice snagged at the back of her throat.
Tom’s fingers were pinched over the corner of Floralie’s most treasured painting. It was of a saffron flower from a bouquet Mama had received after a performance with Le Ballet Royale de Paris. It was also the first flower Floralie had ever painted on the wall.
Floralie’s heartbeat quickened. “Tom.” She stared at his hands. The hands that had written her secret letters just so she would have mail when she was five. The hands that had held her own as they skipped through puddles one rainy day in Paris when she was seven. The hands that had stroked her hair as she knelt by Mama, whispering good-byes when she was eight. The hands that had carried her through the door of their new home when she was ten, even though she was far too big to carry. The hands that had squeezed hers tight when she was dropped off at Mrs. Coffrey’s but a few weeks later. Floralie closed her eyes. “Please.”
Tom sighed. “It’s for your own good, Floralie.” His voice was stern, but steeped in regret.
Floralie watched his fingers. Part of her wanted to grab them away from her paintings, but another part of her didn’t want to touch them at all.
“Grandmama’s right. You can’t be a child forever,” continued Tom, “You’ve got to start getting used to the real world.” He peeled the saffron flower from the wall.
Floralie’s heart sank as she let the cherry blossom fragment slip from her fingers and curl up l
ike a roly-poly bug.
Tom crossed the room. “It’s about time you grew up. Later, we’ll clean up, together, and it will all be past. But for now, I expect you down in the village, tidy and pleasant. There’s a new batch of tulips to sell, so be sure to pick those up at the shop. Twenty minutes.” He cracked open the door, but paused before stepping through. “I’m sorry,” and the door swished behind him.
Floralie swallowed her tears and gazed around. Her room looked a little like the way it had when they had first moved into the cottage. Actually, it looked a little like the way her heart had felt that day. Stripped bare, nothing but scars where there used to be flowers. The floor had once felt like sun-kissed soil against the soles of Floralie’s feet, but now it was like London pavement. The cold and callous numb of it slithered from the floorboards through her toes, up her calves, shivering her knees.
But Floralie did not blame Tom. How could she, when it was she who had—who had . . . Floralie bit her lip at the memory. It was she who had gotten herself expelled. Daydreamed, doodled, painted at odd hours in the night, then slept during class. Floralie brushed away the thoughts. She still felt nauseated just remembering the disappointment in Tom’s eyes as he led her out the front door of Mrs. Coffrey’s school for the last time.
It simply was all her fault. She was the destroyer of her own wonderland. In fact, it had been the very tools that had built her wonderland that tore it down. Imagination. Daydreams. Beauty. They were the wonders of the world to which she had gotten too attached. And as those wonders dwindled, so did Floralie. She was the undoing of her own heart.
Floralie felt a sudden thankfulness that her paints were hidden away; she didn’t want to look at them. It was over, done with. All of it. And now she had to go to work. She had to be a good girl, like Tom said. Today was the day she would finally grow up. Tom would be happy. Grandmama would be happy. Everyone would be happy. At least, almost everyone.
Floralie got to her feet and tiptoed to her wardrobe, careful not to step on any of the wallpaper scraps. She pulled open the wardrobe doors, took the brush from a shelf inside, then turned to her mirror and combed through her hair. She had the sort of hair Tom would call “difficult” and Mrs. Coffrey would call a “rat’s nest.” So, Floralie kept to tying it at the nape of her neck with a blue satin ribbon.
Floralie then reached for her lacy white dress, which she normally reserved for Sundays (her former uniform was now soggy with tearstains), but her hand lingered over the hanger. Something in the mirror had caught her eye. Something that hadn’t been there before. Reflected in the mirror was a small, dark mouse hole in the corner of the wall, precisely where a painting of irises had been an hour ago.
Floralie turned and crept over to the hole, a most ingenious idea sprouting inside her. She brushed aside a few wallpaper scraps, laid her head on the floor, and peered inside. Yes. It would work splendidly.
Floralie sat back up and unrolled one of the wallpaper scraps from the floor. It was the gardenias she had painted on her tenth birthday over Easter break. She rolled it back up, carefully slid it into the hole, and then nudged it over to the left so it was perfectly concealed.
As Floralie withdrew her hand, she glanced to her door, half expecting Tom to be standing there, arms crossed, eyes solemn. She took a breath, and her fingers trailed along the saffron painting.
One last childish whim, and then that would be it. Forever.
Floralie’s excitement tingled down her fingers as she sifted through her wallpaper for her favorite pieces. Within minutes, she had hidden away her twelve favorite paintings into the wall. The cherry blossoms were the last to go in, and she had to stretch her arm all the way into the hole to make the painting fit without being visible.
“Floralie! Are you almost ready?” called Tom from downstairs.
Floralie caught her breath and dropped the cherry blossom painting. “Oh yes, just a minute,” she called back.
Now, it was just as Floralie was about to withdraw her arm from the hole that her hand brushed against something cold and oddly smooth compared with the rest of the splintery wood.
She ran her fingers along it, stretched her hand, and pulled it out. It was a box, mahogany wood and about half the size of a loaf of oat bread from Mr. Pottridge’s bakery. In one quick breath, Floralie blew off the dust and examined the inscription. It was not written in elegant, swirly script but, rather, childlike letters carved haphazardly into the wood.
If you want my secrets.
—V.A.C.
Floralie didn’t recognize the initials, but assumed they belonged to the room’s previous occupant. She pulled on the top, but it wouldn’t open. Floralie frowned as her fingers traced a small keyhole on the side.
“Floralie, it’s time to go,” called Tom.
Floralie sighed, tucked the box under her cot, and hurried out of the room.
Mama made daisy chains, wrapped them round Floralie’s head like a crown, and called her queen of the universe. “The stars are yours, the moon is yours, the trees are yours, the rivers, yours, the rain, yours, the sunshine, yours.” Mama laughed, but Floralie took off the crown, wrapped it round her wrist thrice as a bracelet instead, and said, “I lose things too easily. I’d rather be a peasant.”
And Mama said, “Your innocence is beautiful.”
Five minutes later, Floralie arrived at the flower shop, the aroma of perfume filling her nostrils and the dulcet lilt of sparrows’ twittering soothing her ears. As the sunshine filtered in, specks of dust lit up like fairies waltzing through a bog. Floralie could see them now, wings beating slow, and carrying baskets of sweet-smelling fairy fruit . . . No, I’ve got to grow up, she thought. Grow up, grow up, grow up. And the daydream wilted.
Tom appeared from beneath the counter with a large wooden box labeled LES TULIPES VIRIDIFLORAS on all sides. He placed the box on the counter, pulled open the latch, and flipped back the cover. Immediately, Tom sprang back, three flowerpots from a shelf behind him smashing to the ground. “Ugh!” he cried, face scrunched like a shriveled-up carnation.
“What?” said Floralie, and she peeked inside the box, and then leaped back, too. For inside was a graveyard of viridiflora tulips, all chewed up and rotting, covered in a colony of spiders, caterpillars, and slugs.
“It’s like Pandora’s box in there!” exclaimed Tom, and he peered into the box again. “Dead.” He breathed a sigh of relief. “All those bugs, dead, dead, dead, thank the heavens. Floralie, carry this up to the attic,” instructed Tom, shoving the box to the edge of the counter, “and then pick out some tulips from a different box for your basket and sell at the bridge. Be back in an hour. All right?”
Floralie nodded. “Okay,” she said, but then added, “The attic? We never go in the attic. Someone lives there, don’t they?”
“Not anymore. Didn’t I tell you? The hospital came to retrieve the body weeks ago,” said Tom, grabbing a broom and sweeping the broken flowerpots to a corner.
“Oh,” said Floralie. “All right, then.” She shivered with the thought of the bugs, but heaved up the box anyway and disappeared into the dim back room. She crossed the room to a door at the back left-hand corner with a staircase inside. In the pitch-blackness, Floralie’s foot found the first step, and she climbed.
With each step, the floorboards creaked, and for some reason, Floralie thought she heard scurrying above her. Her head filled with visions of ghosts, floating like feathers overhead, mist trailing behind their translucent skirts—but she built a stone wall in her mind’s eye. They’re echoes of my footsteps, nothing more; she forced the thought to the forefront of her brain.
When she reached the top, Floralie pushed open the attic door and pulled on the light string. As her eyes adjusted, the room came into view. It was small, bare, and—
Floralie gasped and dropped the tulip box. As it landed with a thud, a yelp escaped Floralie’s mouth.
Kneeling behind a stack of old iris boxes was a boy. Floralie’s hand zoomed for the doorkn
ob, but the boy leaped up and took her hand with gentle (though admittedly grimy) fingers. Floralie turned back, and the boy held up a note: Wait. A shuffling echoed from below, and Tom’s voice sounded: “Floralie, are you all right?”
“Oh—yes. Perfect!” called Floralie. “Just—er—stubbed my toe.” Then she turned to the boy. “You’ve got thirty seconds to explain to me—” But as her eyes adjusted to the light, she took in the boy’s features. Tattered clothes, disheveled hair, crooked smile. “You’re the poem boy I met on the bridge yesterday,” she breathed. “What are you doing here?”
The boy eyed her, and then carefully let loose her hand. He disappeared behind the iris boxes and emerged with his pen and notebook.
I live here, wrote the boy. What are you doing here?
Floralie took the pen. It’s my flower shop. I thought George Duncan lived here—or at least until he died a few weeks ago. But it’s mine now, or it was mine—I mean, it will be “was” in a few weeks when Grandmama—but Floralie scratched out the words—Never mind. It was all terribly confusing. What are you doing here?
Saw the obituary in the paper. Moved in after Mr. Duncan, wrote the boy. Been hopping around the library, some churches, and the like. But this place was unlocked and empty so . . .
You live here alone?
The boy nodded.
What’s your name? wrote Floralie.
The boy’s mouth twitched. Can I trust you?
Floralie nodded. Yes.
Konstantinos. Nino, for short. And then he quickly added, But you can’t tell anyone.
Why not?
Can’t say. But you said I could trust you.
Floralie nodded. I won’t say a word. Nino. Floralie liked the way the name looked on paper. Where are you from?
Nino’s mouth twitched. Everywhere. At the moment, anyway. My real home, I can never go back to. I used to live in Greece. I had a family there. It was just us: me, Ma, and Pa. Nino paused for a minute, and neither he nor Floralie wrote a word. At last, Nino wrote, That was a long time ago. The words were faint, as if someone had blown them out of a tobacco pipe.
The Flourishing of Floralie Laurel Page 3