Suspicion

by Alexandra Monir

  I shrink back, unsure what to say. The room feels oppressively cold.

  “Will that be all, Your Grace?” she asks, returning to a businesslike tone.

  “Y-yes. Thanks.”

  I watch Mrs. Mulgrave stride out of the room, with the disturbing feeling that she was trying to convey a message in her carefully chosen words. But what the message was, I don’t know.

  Carter assures me that he’s fixed the window and it can’t possibly open by itself again, but I still enlist Lucia’s dog, Teddy, to sleep at the foot of my bed. Even though his ten pounds of fur won’t be much help fending off malevolent forces, I somehow feel safer with the cuddly little creature keeping me company overnight.

  When I wake the next morning to sunlight streaming through the curtains and the sound of Teddy’s soft snores, my fears of the previous night seem like a faraway dream. I feel slightly awkward when I see Mrs. Mulgrave at breakfast, but she is perfectly polite, leading me to wonder if I could have read too much into her comments.

  After breakfast, I find Max waiting for me in the Marble Hall.

  “I thought we might go over the state of the grounds,” he explains. “Is now a good time?”

  “Sure.”

  But even as I agree, I have the sinking feeling that I’ll be forced to revisit the garden I never again wish to see. I’ll just have to be honest and tell Max that’s the one place I can’t return to.

  The rear doors of the Marble Hall open onto the sprawling Fountain Terrace, decorated with statues and topiary. A promenade curves southward from it, lined with yew trees that resemble giant gumdrops, and banks of daffodils and bluebells. Multiple gated gardens snake outward from the grassy lane.

  “This is the first of the gardens that we allow visitors to tour,” Max says, leading me through a gate with a plaque above it reading THE FRENCH GARDEN. “We just planted new pink roses for the summer season.”

  “They’re beautiful.”

  I can feel Max watching me intently as I wander the perimeter, taking in the blooming flowers and lush orange trees.

  “Do you approve?” he asks.

  I can’t help giving him a funny look. He’s the Rockford’s landscape gardener—what does he care what I think? But then, as I constantly have to remind myself, he and everyone else on the staff now answer to me. If I wanted him to plant cacti instead of roses in this garden, Max would likely have to bite his tongue and do it. How strange, to be in a position of power when I’m such a novice, so out of my element.

  “Everything’s perfect,” I say with a smile.

  “I thought you might say that.” Max looks at me questioningly. “What’s strange is … nothing looked perfect until you arrived.”

  His words don’t make any sense, but I still feel a shiver of foreboding.

  “What do you mean?”

  Max shakes his head, perplexed.

  “This land was once so easy for me to cultivate. But after the fire, the earth seemed to—to go into a depression. Flowers struggled to bloom, the grass yellowed, and even when the grounds looked presentable from afar, you could see when you looked closely how they were a shadow of their former self. The Rockford Manor gardens used to be our number one tourist draw, but it hasn’t been that way for years. Now most visitors bypass the grounds in favor of the house.” He fixes his gaze on me. “But since the day you arrived, it’s been as if … as if the land was waking up. I haven’t seen such beauty in seven years.”

  My throat is suddenly dry. I inch away from Max.

  “It’s obviously a coincidence.” I force a lighthearted chuckle. “What could I have possibly done?”

  “Sometimes I wonder,” he says softly, “if you might be like …” He stops himself before finishing his sentence.

  “Like who?”

  “Never mind.” Max shakes his head and his face relaxes into a smile. “Forgive me, I’m being a foolish old man. I’m just so terribly glad that the marvelous land I love is … back. Now, let me show you the Rose Garden.”

  I stare at Max’s retreating figure as he moves forward. What was he about to say? He clearly suspects something about me, but … what? I’d give anything to disappear, to get away from Max and the unnamed fear he is filling my mind with. But I have no other choice than to follow him into the next plot of land. As I gaze at the bowers of red, white, and pink climbing roses and at the little swing beneath the vine-covered pergola, I am distracted by a memory.

  “This was my mother’s favorite garden. She used to sit here and read on the bench while I played in the grass. We always ended the day with her pushing me on that swing.… I loved it here.”

  I am so immersed in thought, I don’t realize I’ve been speaking aloud until I hear Max reply.

  “That’s right. You were so little, I wasn’t sure you would remember.”

  “I remember almost everything,” I answer. “I just choose some memories over others.”

  A hollow ache settles in the pit of my stomach as I look around. This garden is radiant, just like my mother once was. But without her, it seems forlorn, like a great home emptied of its inhabitants.

  While Max inspects one of the plants, I make my way to the bed of roses at the center of the garden, encircled by the long brick bench Mum used to occupy. I sit down, my hands absently skimming the flowers as I let myself remember her. And then I freeze, my body seizing with terror, as the same vibrating energy from long ago fills my fingertips.

  I cry out, springing off the bench in alarm. But I can’t stop myself from glancing back at the flower bed, and what I see renders me speechless.

  Little cracks are forming in the dirt where my hands just were, moving before my eyes and creating space in the flower bed. From the cracks a new rose suddenly bursts forth, more vivid and more frighteningly beautiful than all the others.

  I jump in front of the rose, shielding it with my back. Whatever it takes, I can’t let Max see it. But he already heard my yell.

  “What’s wrong, Your Grace?” He hurries toward me, and I hold up a hand to reassure him.

  “I’m fine, I just—scraped my knee on the bench,” I fib.

  “Are you sure? Let me check the brick—”

  “No, no!” I interrupt, my voice a little too loud. “I’m actually ready to get out of here, if you don’t mind. I’m … eager to see the other gardens.”

  Max looks perturbed, but he doesn’t question me further.

  “Of course.”

  I wait for him to move toward the exit first, keeping my back in front of the unearthly rose until he is out of sight. That freak flower is all I can think about as Max shows me around the rest of the grounds. I’m oblivious to the waterfalls surrounding the Rockford lake and bridge; I barely notice the animals grazing on the home farm. I just nod and smile at Max on autopilot, while the entire time I’m wondering What the hell is wrong with me? Who am I? What am I? My touch didn’t create anything or cause anything remotely out of the ordinary while I was in New York these past years … so why now?

  As we head back in the direction of the house, we come upon the plot of land I’ve been dreading. I know, as soon as my feet hit the gravel leading toward it, that we are on our way to the Shadow Garden. I stop in my tracks.

  “Max, I—I can’t,” I blurt out. “I don’t want to see it.”

  He looks at me in confusion.

  “You don’t want to see what?” And then his brow clears as he realizes what I meant. “Oh, no, I certainly wasn’t planning to take you there. That garden, and the Maze, haven’t been in use since … then.”

  “What?” I stare at him. I should be relieved, but I feel oddly unsettled. “Why not?”

  He hesitates before admitting, “It’s been the biggest puzzle of my career. The Shadow Garden of course burned in the fire, but then, when I tried to restore it, I simply … couldn’t.” He looks at me with wide eyes. “The rest of the grounds fell into decline after the fire too, but I was still able to produce some semblance of a presentable landsca
pe. In the Shadow Garden, however, nothing I planted grew. The earth refused the water and the seeds. After two years trying, I finally gave up, told His Grace that it was no use. He didn’t push further—I don’t imagine he wanted any more to do with it after that awful tragedy.” He wipes a bead of sweat from his forehead and gazes at me. “Although perhaps … perhaps now the Shadow Garden might be different—just like the rest of the grounds.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I say, although I have a distinct idea. “And I have no desire to ever reopen the Shadow Garden.”

  My stomach lurches as a crazy thought enters my mind. Is it possible for gardens to be … possessed? Could that be the explanation for my hands causing flowers to suddenly bloom on the Rockford grounds? Is there something enchanted about this land? Could the gardens be responding to me, bringing my unwanted abilities out from hiding?

  “What about the Maze?” I ask, my voice wobbling.

  Max shakes his head in bewilderment.

  “I can no longer get through it.”

  “What?”

  “I mean, I can enter the Maze, but I used to know the entire outline of it, all of its twists and turns and how to get through to the end. But something … changed. And now whenever I go in, I get lost.” He laughs nervously. “You must be thinking I’m too old for this job, that I’ve gone senile.”

  “No.” I struggle for breath. “That’s not what I’m thinking at all.”

  “If I can’t figure out the Maze, then it’s not safe to allow children and tourists in. And after the dear late Lucia died right outside of it … well, we had to close it up,” he says sadly.

  “There’s something hidden in the Maze.”

  My father’s words automatically return to me, filling me with fear. If I ever want to discover what he meant that day, how can I—if the Maze is impenetrable?

  “Max, I’m not ready to go back to the house just yet,” I say abruptly. “I want to see my parents. I mean … I want to visit their graves.”

  In all the madness of the past hour, I’ve somehow gained the courage to face my pain. Now I’m filled with longing—to be near them, to ask them what’s happening to me, and to know I’m as close to them as I’ll ever be.

  IX

  I slowly climb the grassy hill toward the small, picturesque Rockford Chapel and Cemetery, holding a bouquet of geraniums in my trembling hands. I asked Max to cut them for me, to avoid touching the earth myself and creating another phantom flower. He left after that, handing me a map to find my way back, understanding that I needed to be alone.

  My feet move forward of their own will, my eyes hurriedly scanning the names on the gravestones, bypassing ancestors—until I see them.

  Two marble headstones lie side by side, rose stone for my mother and gray for my father. They link in a carved heart.

  I sink to my knees in front of them, the geraniums I brought falling to the ground as I wrap one arm around my father’s grave, the other around my mum’s. I no longer care if my touch sparks or conjures anything—this is the closest I will ever come to hugging my parents again.

  The hollow pit in my stomach deepens, and I can feel the force of my pain pulling me down, drowning me in the darkness I’ve been running away from. But I can’t fight it anymore.

  “I miss you,” I whisper through my tears. “And I’m sorry … so sorry.”

  I look up, murmuring aloud the words carved on their headstones and breaking down again as I read FATHER & MOTHER TO THEIR BELOVED IMOGEN. I rest my head on my father’s grave, and as a breeze ripples through my hair, I imagine that it is Mum, stroking my hair the way she used to when I was a little girl. I raise my face, my hands still pressed against the marble, and watch in amazement as a forceful gust of wind carries the fallen geraniums, lifting them into the air and gracefully placing them at the feet of my parents’ graves. It seems my unwanted gift is resurfacing at full strength—but in this one instance, it doesn’t scare me. I find it beautiful.

  Hearing the sound of shoes crunching on leaves, I wipe my eyes and hurriedly stand up. Before leaving, I lean over to kiss both headstones.

  “I love you. I’ll be back.”

  Turning around, I come face to face with the person I least expected to see. Sebastian Stanhope stands under the cemetery’s archway entrance, his green eyes watching me with surprise. I walk toward him as if in a trance, wondering how much more surreal this day can possibly get.

  “Hi. What are you doing here?” I blurt out. As soon as the words leave my mouth, I realize. “Lucia. God, I’m—I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay,” he says. As he looks at my tearstained face, his eyes soften. “Are you all right?”

  I manage a smile.

  “Yeah. Thanks.… What about you?”

  Sebastian merely shrugs. Our eyes meet, and for a split second, we are connected in our grief.

  “Where—where is her grave?” I ask timidly.

  “I’ll show you.”

  I follow Sebastian to the other side of the cemetery, across from where my parents lie. He stops in front of a rose-colored marble gravestone, just like Mum’s. Only this one reads:

  LADY LUCIA ROCKFORD

  THE MOST HONORABLE MARCHIONESS OF WICKERSHAM

  FEBRUARY 11, 1995–OCTOBER 25, 2013

  “Isn’t it strange,” Sebastian says as I stand motionless in front of her grave, “how this is the last place the three of us were together?”

  I cover my face with my hands. The memory is unbearable, and I hear myself gasping for breath in an effort to hold back my sobs. Suddenly Sebastian’s arms are around me, my face pressed against his shoulder. The odd combination of grief and comfort at being in his arms has me dizzy, my knees trembling.

  “I’m sorry, Ginny,” he says, his voice hoarse. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  I glance up, looking into his eyes while still in his arms.

  “I’m still Ginny to you?”

  He nods slowly.

  “I’m the one who should be sorry.” My words tumble forth. “The last time I saw you both, I was … scared and stubborn and all messed up. You don’t know how badly I wish I could go back in time and do things differently—stay in touch with you both, be there for Lucia …”

  Sebastian gently releases me, his face tensing. I wonder if my apology came out wrong, if I made a misstep, but as I watch his eyes drift back to her grave, I realize he simply wants to be alone with her.

  “I—I should get back to the house. Do you want to come in after, for tea or something?” I ask, my cheeks flushing as I make the offer.

  “Thanks, but I can’t stay long.” He gives me a fleeting smile. “I’ll see you soon, though, for dinner at our house this weekend.”

  I nod.

  “See you then.”

  “Take care, Ginny,” he says quietly, before moving closer to Lucia’s grave.

  Ginny. Hearing Sebastian call me that gives me a sprig of hope, makes me feel that somehow everything will work out. But as I descend the hill back to the gardens, I remind myself that I shouldn’t—can’t—indulge in any of these romantic feelings. Not when Sebastian is standing in the cemetery, mourning my cousin.

  When Lauren’s face pops up on Skype that night, I couldn’t be more relieved. It’s been less than two weeks since I arrived in England, but I feel changed already, and I need my best friend to remind me what my world used to be like.

  I feel a pang of homesickness as she fills me in on the start of her summer in New York, from the downtown party scene to weekends in the Hamptons. I used to be a regular fixture in her stories, and now it’s strange, listening to them as an outsider.

  “I really wish you were here,” I say wistfully, after she finishes cracking me up with her tale of a bikini-shopping trip gone wrong.

  “So I can embarrass myself in person?” she jokes.

  “I just miss you,” I admit. “I know I won’t ever find another friend like you, especially not in England.”

  Lauren gives me
a perceptive look.

  “You okay, girl? You seem more … down than I’d expect for a newly minted duchess.”

  “I’m not down, it’s just been a long day.”

  I ache to tell her about visiting my parents’ graves, seeing Sebastian, and discovering my reawakened gift—if you can even call something so undesired a “gift”—but I can’t find the words. The experiences feel too personal, too close to discuss, especially over Skype.

  “When do you start your summer class at Oxford? Maybe you’ll make some friends—or meet a hot British guy,” Lauren suggests with an impish grin.

  “Not for another few weeks,” I reply. But my mind is miles away from summer school, and I find myself blurting out the question I’ve been asking myself all day—despite how crazy I know it will sound.

  “Lauren, do you think it’s at all in the realm of normal for someone to have a seriously green thumb? Like, able to grow flowers at the touch of a hand?”

  She stares at me.

  “Uh, what? Where did that come from?”

  And just like that, I chicken out of telling her everything.

  “Oh, it’s nothing.” I force a breezy tone. “I’ve just discovered some serious … gardening skills here.”

  “Growing flowers at the touch of a hand isn’t a skill. That sounds supernatural,” Lauren says, giving me a strange look. “You’re not, like, on drugs, are you?”

  “No.” I roll my eyes. “I was exaggerating, it’s not at the touch of my hand. I just have this ability to grow things … kind of fast.”

  “O-kay.” She laughs. “Well, then I expect to see some bad-ass gardens when I come to visit.”

  I quickly change the subject, asking for the latest on her brother, Anthony, before I can let slip anything else that makes me sound like I’m taking hallucinogens. But her words keep echoing in my ears. “That sounds supernatural.”

  As soon as we hang up, I Google “Growing flowers from your hands.” If I expected to find an online support group for people with my same freakish talent, I’m sorely disappointed. Most of the links that turn up are New Age websites, where growing flowers from your hands is apparently a metaphor for self-improvement. I find a dozen different dream forums with people asking what it means to dream of growing flowers with the touch of their hands—but no one has actually done it. In every link I click, the idea is treated like a fantasy.