“Our advisor Phillip Bullock, or as Brooke called him Full of Bull Shit, was a devotee of New Criticism, studied under John Crowe Ransom himself at Kenyon College. So, of course, he insisted that consideration of a text had to be independent of biographical or historical context. He demanded Brooke revise her theory.”
“You studied literature?” Etta’s voice was sharper than she expected it to be. “You said our advisor. You have a Master’s degree in literature?” Etta cringed at how accusing her voice sounded. It was a graduate degree, not a prison record. But why had Carl never mentioned his knowledge of different literary schools of criticism, not to mention Brooke herself, or Violet, who apparently had piles of Carl’s clean T-shirts in her drawers next to her herbal oils?
Carl lowered his voice. “Not exactly. Brooke could go from polar to red hot in under a minute. She thought Bullock was a world-class idiot, and she refused to stay in his department. Of course, I couldn’t stay either, which was just fine with me. It turns out not too many people pursue a graduate degree in literature because they like to read. Most of ‘em just like to scrutinize the written word to ashes.”
Etta stared at him and tried to make sense of his words. Not about him, not about Brooke. But about what he was really saying, about the story. Grief. Death. Blood started to course through Etta’s neck and face. “He wrote it for Sakura,” she whispered.
Carl didn’t hear her. He kept talking, but all Etta could hear was Galen’s words. He kept his Jap geisha and her half-wit son down the road dressed in silk and pearls. She blinked. Sakura Tanaka must have come back to the United States, like in ‘Cherry Blossom.’ But she stayed. Did she and Buchanan have a child together? Etta tried to swing her legs over the side of the bed. They smacked against Carl. He jumped up to move out of her way.
Etta stood up and recoiled at the iciness of the air on her arms. She swirled around, searching for her bag and clothes, for the jacket of Carl’s that she’d been wearing. She shuffled into the living room.
Sunlight slanted through the muslin curtains. Carl’s jacket hung on the coat tree next to the door. Etta staggered to it and groped at the pocket. She seized the crumpled paper and stared at the last two lines: It’s winter in the garden of his summer. And I left truth behind her marking stone.
Carl stood in the middle of the room. His jeans were creased down the middle of each leg, as freshly laundered as his tee-shirt. “You told me Vincent Buchanan was buried in that cemetery.”
Carl stared at her.
“Why’d you say that? He was buried in Portland.”
Carl shrugged. “I don’t honestly remember saying that.”
“Tell me about “The Garden of My Summer.” Etta crouched down, grabbing her shoes from next to the coat tree. “Everything. Everything you remember.”
“What are you doing?”
Her shoes were a little damp, but someone had washed them. Etta pushed them on over the rag wool socks that Violet had lent her the night before and yanked the laces tight, rolling up the cuff of the wide-legged pants. She glanced up at Carl. “This sepulcher Payne Moore was building for his lover, what did it look like?”
Carl cocked his head. “Rhododendrons,” he finally said. “Payne obsessed over the smell of them, had dreams about them. Cinnamon and nutmeg—that was the smell.”
“What else?” Etta stood.
“Where are you going?”
“What do rhododendrons look like?” She’d never paid much attention to plants.
Carl gazed at her. “They’re all over out here, like plumbago in Texas. Listen, what I was going to say is that I’ve got to call the sheriff. Report the accident. You need to explain why Mills might have come after you with a gun.”
Etta grabbed Carl’s coat off the hook and pulled it on, zipping it to her chin. It was still damp. She reached for the brass lock, jerking back when the fat tuxedo cat came out of nowhere, jumped up on the door and stretched its tufty paws up to the doorknob. “Go away, kitty,” Etta said, surprised by how sharp her voice sounded. She reached down and tried to push the cat away.
The floorboards creaked behind her, and she sensed that Carl was standing only inches from her. She pushed herself between the cat and the door, wincing at the yowl the cat let out. She twisted the lock and pulled the door open. A blast of cold air cascaded across her cheeks.
“Jesus Christ, you can’t just leave. I’m coming with you.”
Etta pushed through the screen door and spun around when she was on the other side. The first thing she saw was Carl’s bare feet then the silhouette of Violet standing in the doorway of her bedroom, her long bare legs, the pile of thick hair atop her head. “Carl?” The tall woman strode to Carl and wrapped her arm around him, her hand settling on his hip.
Etta blinked back tears and jogged down the two porch steps. She made her way across the stone pathway to the fence, which was made of stripped willow branches. She focused on the gravel road in front of her. Douglas Firs loomed up on each side of it. A few branches were strewn across the road.
Etta halted where Violet’s road met a wider dirt road and looked both ways. Which way was the lodge? One thing was sure and her certainty of it stole her breath for a minute—it was near enough that Carl could slip away late in the night to knock on Violet’s door.
=
The sun was low in the sky when Etta approached the clearing. Sunlight filtered through the cedar grove, slender beams plunging into the thick rug of moss, ferns, and ivy carpeting the forest floor. Etta dropped to a crouch, rolled up Violet’s wide-legged pants, and tried to catch her breath. Something rustled near her. Her gaze went to a patch of mushrooms sprouting from the bark of a downed cedar. A grey squirrel stared back at her then darted into the brush.
Etta winced against the pangs in her hamstrings and quadriceps. She dragged herself across the clearing, climbed the three steps, and rapped on the door. Her heart thumped against her rib cage.
She knocked again.
Was it Sunday? Etta wasn’t sure of anything. She glanced across the clearing. Then she sensed something behind her—a noise, a motion?—and spun around.
“Poppy,” she called out, unsure how loud the name came out or whether it came out at all. A woodpecker hammered its beak into a tree trunk. The sound echoed across the clearing. Etta’s gaze shot to the doorknob, as the door creaked open a slit. Poppy appeared, blinking, the corners of her eyes heavy with sleep.
“Please get dressed. You’ve got to come with me. I’ll explain on the way.”
Poppy stared at her. Her head fell to one side, and her ponytail flipped from one side of her face to the other. It was all Etta could do not to grab her friend’s shoulders and shake her. She slid past Poppy into the dim cabin, and blinked, trying to adjust her eyes to the light, pulling the door shut behind her. “We’ve got to go to the cemetery. Can you identify a rhododendron? Please hurry. Please get dressed.”
“I’m a charlatan.”
Etta jumped. The voice was deep and familiar. “Reed?”
Reed rose from behind Poppy’s bed, clutching Poppy’s pink comforter around his chest and torso. His glasses sat crooked on his face.
“Reed?” Etta whispered again. She stepped backward. “Oh god, were you . . .”
“I’m so sorry.”
Etta gazed at him then raised an eyebrow at Poppy. Poppy stared at the floor.
Reed pushed his glasses up and sat down on the edge of the bed, clutching the comforter at his collar bone. Lines creased his forehead. Etta glimpsed his khaki pants crumpled next to his foot and what might have been boxer shorts. She looked away. “Please tell me you’re not hurt,” Reed whispered.
Etta blinked. “Hurt? No, of course not. Just surprised.”
Poppy’s laugh interrupted Etta. “Did you sleep in the free box at a thrift store?”
Etta glanced down at Carl’s corduroy coat, which came almost to her knees, Violet’s purple pants were rolled up to her shins, and the wool socks were mostly saturated
with mud.
“You look . . .” Poppy didn’t finish the sentence, but Etta could tell by her pursed lips that it wasn’t going to be a compliment. Then Poppy’s face changed. “There were two men at your cabin last night.
“We watched them with Reed’s infrared binoculars.” She nodded toward a pair of camouflage binoculars propped on the windowsill.
Reed’s face grew long. “They were plain-clothed FBI.”
Etta gasped. “How do you know that?”
“They weren’t wearing FBI jackets.”
“But how do you know they were FBI?”
“They had forty-caliber Glock semiautomatics. Standard FBI issue firearms.”
Etta’s mouth fell open and then panic convulsed through her. She reached for the wall. “I’ve got to go.”
“Wait. I’ll get dressed.”
Etta snapped her gaze to Poppy. “No. You might be in danger.” An ache radiated through Etta’s arms, surged into her chest, and for a moment, she wondered if something terrible was happening, except then a surge of energy followed, pulsing through her. She stepped toward the door then whipped around. “What does a rhododendron look like?”
Poppy narrowed her eyes. “Don’t they have rhodies in Michigan?”
Etta shrugged.
“Well, there are over a thousand species in the genus.”
“Do any of them smell like nutmeg and cinnamon?”
Poppy stared at her for a long time then shrugged. “Only rhodies with white or pale flowers are fragrant.”
“Okay. So I should look for pale flowers?”
Poppy’s thin eyebrows came together. “Sure. In April or May—when they’re blooming.”
Etta’s heart raced.
Poppy moved toward her bookshelf, which was crammed with horticulture tomes. “It could be fragrantissimum. It’s the most common fragrant variety. I’ve never thought it smelled like nutmeg and cinnamon, but I suppose. The flowers are large.” Poppy held up her hands to indicate the size of the flowers. “Mother planted them. She loves smelly things. The bush itself is rather uninspiring, kind of straggly.” Poppy’s gaze lifted to the ceiling. “This time of year, they’ll still be green, with dark, sort of hairy leaves. Fragrantissimum is sparse. A lot of gardeners use it for trellises and walls.”
“Yes,” Etta whispered. “For walls. That’s it.” She spun around, grasped for the doorknob, and hurled herself outside, bringing her hand to her eyes to block the sunlight. She propelled her aching legs forward one step at a time.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Etta Would have assumed that nobody else had visited the cemetery for decades—even a century—if she hadn’t known that Galen and Carl had both been there in the past month. Within a couple of steps, ivy, ferns, and shrubs tangled around her feet. The paths had long given way to foliage, which was now gnawing away at the graves themselves. She halted, blinking at the beams of sunlight that eased through the gaps in the canopy.
A fallen Douglas fir lay decomposing over a family plot in front of her. A wooden grave jutting from the remains said Baby Mary in rudimentary carved letters. Etta knelt and cleared the vines from a granite face in front of her. Moss had filled the hand-carved letters, making most of them unreadable. She traced her fingers along them, making out only Sarah, wife of and the year 1843.
Etta sat down on Sarah’s headstone. Her chest ached with each inhale. Everywhere she looked were dark green leaves—coiling, climbing, and tangling. She might have sat for a long while mesmerized by them, watching the way the breeze made them dance, as though they were teasing her.
The voices brought her attention back to the forest’s chatter—the low groan of the trees, the birds and squirrels scuttling through the branches, and Reed and Poppy arguing.
“She’s okay,” Poppy said.
“Betrayed persons often experience post-traumatic-like stress symptoms.”
“What are you talking about?” Poppy let out a high-pitched laugh. “You seriously think she’s in love with you?”
Etta stiffened. Reed either didn’t respond or his response was smothered by the sound of the bird warbling far above.
“She’s not in love with you . . .” Poppy struggled to speak through her laughter. “She’s in love with Carl,” Her voice echoed through the cemetery.
Etta cringed and pushed herself to her feet, spinning around to face the gate. Poppy straightened her lime green jacket and glanced up then caught sight of Etta and jumped backward. Poppy’s buggy eyes swept back and forth across the cemetery. “This place is spooky.”
Etta followed Poppy’s gaze. A beam of sunlight fell on a crude statuette of an angel. Its wings were eroded, half of its face eaten away by lichen. Reed stepped to Poppy’s side. “Is Galen here?” he whispered.
Etta’s pulse swelled into her temples at the thought of Galen—his nervous tick, his stammer, the crack of the dissertation striking the wall, the gun against Carl’s jaw, the explosion of the airbags, the car spinning around and around. She tried to focus her eyes on something, anything. The jungle of plants seemed to have multiplied in just the last minute. “We’ll never find it.”
“Where’s the garden?” Poppy asked.
Etta stared at her.
“Fragrantissimum doesn’t grow wild.” She wrinkled her forehead and glanced around.
“No. Vincent Buchanan would have planted it. The year he wrote “The Garden of My Summer,” which was . . .” Etta looked at Reed.
“1967,” he said.
Poppy’s eyes grew wide. “Well, I guess some rhodies do have a long life expectancy. The species that grow wild here are Pacific Rhododendron, or macrophyllum.” She pointed to a thick shrub on the other side of the gate. “That’s one. With the spotted leaves. They bloom bright pink in the spring. Fragrantissimum looks different . . .” Poppy moved forward, weaving around brambles and headstones, picking her way through the undergrowth, pausing occasionally to touch a leaf, to lean over and examine a plant, her ponytail swinging behind her. Etta and Reed followed. They walked for awhile, stepping around graves and trees, meandering through the undergrowth. It quickly started to feel like a labyrinth with no end.
Had Matthew Lowther walked this path thirty years before, looked for the same plant? They halted in front of an iron fence. It was smaller than the fence they’d entered through, but everything else looked the same. Poppy bit her lip and turned in a circle.
“They look like monsters.” Reed pointed to some deciduous trees a few feet away from them. They’d already lost their leaves, but thick moss clung to their claw-like limbs, dangling like fringe. Ferns sprouted from their mossy bark.
“They’re Big Leaf Maples.” Poppy stepped toward the trees, “Oh my gosh. Look.” She weaved through the cluster of maples, ducking under the moss hanging from the low branches. Etta and Reed followed.
Poppy moved toward another tree. It stood alone in a clearing—skeletal, a tangle of barren branches twisting from a gnarled trunk.
“Sakura,” Poppy whispered. Etta snapped her eyes to Poppy’s, but Poppy just stood gazing at the tree. “It’s a sakura.”
Etta pushed down a wave of dizziness. “I don’t understand.”
“Sakura means cherry blossom in Japan. They’re kind of like Japan’s official tree. They grow over three hundred species of them. I’d guess this one’s a weeping variety.” Poppy stepped back and looked around. “Cherry trees require a lot of sun. Someone probably cleared the area to plant it, which might be why that cluster of Big Leaf Maples grew. They like land that’s been cleared, like clear-cut areas.”
“Someone planted it?” Etta whispered.
“The cherry tree, I mean. No one would have intentionally planted Big Leaf Maples in a cemetery. The roots destroy whatever they come into contact with—patios, foundations, sidewalks. Gravestones, coffins.”
Etta tried to push away the image of coffins being ripped apart by twisting roots. “When was it planted?”
Poppy squinted at the cherry tree th
en brought her hand up and touched the bark. “It’s lost some limbs and the bark’s cracking. It’s near the end of its life. Some cherry trees don’t live long at all – fifteen to twenty years. Others live nearly a century.”
“They symbolize death.” Etta jumped at the sound of Reed’s voice. He stepped toward her. His glasses were sliding down his nose. “That’s why the Japanese celebrate them. They represent the transience of life. The blossoms burst into brilliance and die only days later at the pinnacle of their splendor. Just like soldiers. During World War II, they painted them on the side of their kamikaze planes.”
Poppy stepped toward the maples. “If they started growing shortly after the cherry tree was planted . . . They don’t look full grown. But they can live for three hundred years or so, so I guess that doesn’t say much.”
Etta thrust her fingers into her pocket and grabbed at the crumpled paper, trying to steady her hands enough to smooth it out. The paper was worn and disintegrating at the corners, but the typewritten words were still legible. She tried to find words to explain where it had come from, and then gave up and read it aloud:
Winter comes to the garden of dead dreams
Rain puddles on yesterday’s lives decayed
Wilts azaleas once lovingly displayed
Turns decay to life with relentless streams
Washes away September’s pale sunbeams
Winter clouds above and memories fade
Moss coats barren bark in the season’s shade
Here, truth is more enshrouded than it seems.
I have searched the deserted forest floor
Have hunted secrets sleeping with the souls
Have sought out stories about peace and war
and pondered the men who once dug these holes
The garden of his summer you must score
The truth is there behind her marking stone
The Garden of Dead Dreams Page 21