Had he realized the stone’s origin? There was nothing about it in the text of the book, and the Internet hadn’t existed then. I wasn’t seeing the association. But then I realized I was looking at a column of green, and not what Dad had seen at all.
Setting the book aside, I struggled to my feet and waded into the central bed, past where Gigi was snoozing, belly up, in the unkempt greenery. The crush of leaves was cool under my bare feet and the woody stems prickled my soles. Reaching the stone, I grabbed two handfuls of the covering vine and pulled, trying to part the broad leaves like a curtain.
It didn’t want to budge. The stuff was tough as rope, and clung to the rock like a lamprey on a shark. I changed my grip and tugged harder, tightening my teeth in determination.
Was the monolith at his family home why Dad found the standing stones in Britain so fascinating? And why hadn’t he taken the opportunity to tell me about this one while we were there? Again I felt a guilty stab of anger at Dad for keeping so many secrets. I gave a vicious yank at the vine, and the trailing stems slid through my fists, scoring my palms.
I yelped in surprise and pain, and stared at the red welts blossoming on my skin. Crap, that hurt.
It all hurt. Dad’s secrets; the weight of worry over the weirdness in my head and my heart; the aimless, adrift life raft of my existence. Cradling my burning palms, I surveyed the garden in frustration, over-whelmed by the overgrowth and unable to make heads or tails of the internal pattern. Whatever had been here was lost.
Resignation heavy on my shoulders, I sank to the ground beside Gigi, digging my fingers and toes through the leaves and stems of the plants, down into the earth. It stung the welts on my hands and cleared my head. Damn it, I hadn’t gotten to be the youngest soloist in the American Ballet Company by giving up when I felt overwhelmed. Hell, I wouldn’t be alive if I gave up when things were hard. I just had to figure this out – all of it – the way I learned everything else: step-by-step.
With renewed resolve, I climbed to my feet and stepped out of the circle of plants to fetch the book, picking it up gingerly. It slipped through my fingers and hit the ground. My heart dropped with it when I saw some pages flutter out. If the Colonel didn’t haunt me for ruining his book, Paula would kill me.
But when I retrieved the pages, and the book, I saw they’d slipped from the back, not from the binding. They looked like plain old paper. Fragile excitement fluttered against my ribs as I hoped, and then confirmed, that the sheets were covered with my dad’s handwriting. They’d been hidden among the end pages, like a note from the past.
On one page, he’d diagrammed the garden, in much more detail than I could make out from the photos in the book. Back when he was here, the pattern would have had twenty-five fewer years of neglect.
The second page was a list of plants, flowers and herbs that corresponded with the drawing. I could recognize about half of them easily, more with help from a book or the Internet.
Gigi raised her head suddenly, the jingle of her tags alerting me that someone was coming. Instinctively, I tucked Dad’s pages into the back of the book and closed it. They were too special to share just yet.
Rhys came through the gap in the hedges. He didn’t look surprised to see me, though maybe a little bemused at the way I was standing like a dope in the middle of the weeds, clutching Notable Gardens of the South to my chest like it was a holy relic.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked, eyeing me with suspicion.
‘Who says I’m doing anything?’
‘You have a guilty look on your face.’
I wasn’t feeling guilty so much as secretive, but I guess they amounted to the same thing. ‘I dropped the book, and I thought you were Paula.’
‘I see.’ Rhys looked amused, if not totally convinced. Gigi had run to greet him, and he squatted to scratch her ears. ‘I heard you went over to Cahawba today. Why didn’t you visit the dig?’
His equable tone surprised me. ‘You wouldn’t have minded?’ Tucking the book securely under my arm, I crossed the path to join him.
‘Why would I?’ He paused in petting Gigi to look up at me curiously, seeming genuine. For now.
‘Because you’re so touchy about your secret projects. You get all prickly when I mention them, and you start calling me princess in that infuriating way.’
A flicker in his eyes said I’d scored a hit, at least in regard to his favourite diversionary tactic. With a rueful expression, he stood. ‘Everyone knows I’m volunteering at the archaeological park. That’s not a secret.’
I cocked my head, like Gigi did when she was figuring out how to finagle a treat. ‘But the rock hunt?ing is?’
He grimaced, and his eyes slid away from mine, towards the stone and the vines I’d been molesting. ‘Let’s just say that’s an investigation I want to keep quiet.’
‘Oh!’ The startled sound burst out as the pieces clicked together. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before. ‘I know what it is! You’re looking for more bluestone.’
His gaze snapped back to mine, equally startled, but not nearly as pleased with my intuitive leap. ‘What?’
‘The Preseli dolerite, or whatever its name is. If you found some just out’ – I waved a nonspecific hand towards the woods – ’ lying around somewhere, it would solve the mystery of where my rock came from.’
He lifted his brows at my word choice. ‘Your rock?’
‘The Davis rock. Whatever.’
There was a pause while he formed his answer. I’d noticed that if I could take him by surprise, I usually discovered more than if he had time to think. ‘Finding the same sort of dolerite here in North America,’ he said, ‘would be a significant discovery. It would negate one of my dad’s Wales and Alabama connections, though.’
‘Oh.’ I considered that for a moment. ‘I think I see. You don’t want anyone else to scoop you on the find, if there’s anything to find, and you don’t want your dad to know you’re trying to disprove his theory.’
‘I’m not trying to disprove his theory. But still …’ He lifted his hands in a ‘what can I do’ sort of gesture.
‘OK,’ I said, feeling something ridiculously like a smile pulling at my mouth. A giddy smile. I’d solved another Rhys mystery, and it wasn’t anything bad or, more important, anything weird. It wasn’t even tragic, like the accident that I wasn’t supposed to know about. ‘ I’ll keep that on the down low.’
With one of his rare smiles, he put out his hand to shake on it. Automatically I put mine in his, heady relief making me forget about déjà vu and Rhys’s magnetism. My only sensation was the sting of his warm palm against mine.
I must have winced. In abrupt concern, Rhys turned my hand upwards, examining the welts, like rope burns, the vine had made. ‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing,’ I said, making light of my fit of pique at the plants. Not that I’m much of a poker player, either. ‘Grabbed the wrong thing and it slipped through my fingers.’
‘You should get that cleaned up.’ His thumb traced the edge of the score, and I shivered at the faint scrape of his finger on the delicate lines on my palm, and the care he took with my hand.
‘I was just headed in, actually.’ Though I made no move to pull away. He didn’t release me, either.
‘Listen, Sylvie,’ he said, holding my gaze as surely as he held my fingers. ‘I was thinking about last night.’
Wariness unravelled the moment. I suppose it was too much to hope that he wanted to discuss the scandalous fact of my being in his room in the middle of the night. ‘What about it?’
‘Just that maybe you should leave off wandering around outside after dark.’
‘Do you think—’ I broke off, because I wasn’t sure what to ask. Did he think the house was haunted? That there was something more pedestrian and earthly going on? Both ideas alarmed me, and neither would sound very rational. And I had to, even with Rhys, sound rational.
He seemed to consider his answer a little too long, looking a
s if he regretted saying anything in the first place. ‘I just think you should be careful where you go and who you go with. That’s the same in the city and the country.’
I finally pulled my hand from his, disappointed in his avoidance after we’d been – I’d thought – so candid. It stung almost as much as my cuts and made me cranky. ‘If you’re going to warn me about something, it might be more helpful if you actually, you know, warn me.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘What if I said, be careful whom you trust.’
I jabbed my fists on my hips, but the sting of my palms wasn’t enough to turn me from the headlong rush of frustration. ‘Why don’t you tell me anything until I drag it out of you? Like your rock hunting. Or your—’ I caught myself before I broke my promise to his father. ‘Or why you’re on a break from school. Is it such a big secret?’
He stiffened defensively, and parried my question with a thrust of his own. ‘You’re not exactly forthcoming yourself, princess. So I guess we’re even.’
‘Oh, we are so not even,’ I fired back. ‘What I’m not saying is nothing compared with what I suspect you’re not saying.’
His mouth dropped open wordlessly – I guess trying to find a reply to that convoluted argument – and finally he just shook his head. ‘That doesn’t even make any sense.’
Of course it didn’t. ‘Since I got off the plane, nothing has made any sense. Least of all you, Rhys Griffith. Come on, Gigi.’ For the second day in a row, I left him standing in the garden. Though I suspect the majesty of my departure was undermined by the Chihuahua prancing at my heels.
I went into the house my usual way, through the den’s side door, and stopped guiltily when I saw Paula at the desk, head bent over some paperwork. She looked up at the jingle of Gigi’s dog tags, and frowned.
‘I brushed her out and wiped her paws.’ I defended her preemptively, my held-over frustration with Rhys boiling back up. ‘She’s even had herbal flea treatment.’
Closing her eyes with a shudder at the mere mention of fleas, Paula said, ‘Fine. Just … not on the furniture.’ She didn’t wait on my agreement before adding, ‘I told Clara we’d be happy with sandwiches tonight. The Griffiths take care of themselves for dinner, and Addie is studying with friends.’
‘That sounds great.’ I saw Gigi heading for the love seat, and picked her up, not wanting to push Paula any further. ‘I’m OK with leftovers or whatever. She doesn’t need to cook every meal. At least, not for me.’
My cousin smiled wryly. ‘Food is Clara’s passion. The cooking part of this business didn’t just fall to her. It was her idea.’ Paula sighed and shifted her papers. ‘Provided we ever open. For real guests, I mean.’
The steel was definitely absent from her magnolia voice. I had no idea what went into starting an inn, even if you didn’t have major renovations. Paula seemed overwhelmed, maybe even as swamped as I’d felt in the garden.
I edged to the arm of the sofa, and half sat. ‘I was thinking about what I might do to stay busy.’ Her brows climbed, but she couldn’t have been more surprised than I was. I didn’t realize I’d been thinking about it at all, but it made perfect sense. ‘I want to work in the knot garden, get it cleaned up.’
She laid her pen on the desk. ‘Are you sure, honey? That’s hard work.’
I could point out that she’d said a productive occupation would be good for my mental health. Or that I knew how hard it was, since it had been my dad’s job. Or that I wasn’t an idiot. But I was trying to make nice, so I only said, ‘I’m not planning on attacking it with electric hedge clippers or anything. I just want to do some weeding, see if I can uncover the old pattern.’
I saw her weighing the pros and cons, and added, a little slyly, ‘It is a historical feature of the house. It might be nice if people could actually see the bluestone of Bluestone Hill Inn.’
Her tart look said my wiles hadn’t gone unnoticed, but after a moment she gave in. ‘All right. I think there are some clippers and some gardening gloves somewhere. But start tomorrow. You’ve already done a lot today, walking to Cahawba.’
With an unexpected flush of triumph, I thanked her and turned towards the foyer, Gigi still in my arms. At the threshold, though, I paused and pivoted back with a question. ‘Paula. I was wondering about my room. Who did it belong to?’
She looked up again from the desk, frowning in confusion. ‘You mean, originally? How on earth would I know that, honey? Is there something wrong with it?’
‘No, it’s great,’ I reassured her. ‘Well, the mattress has seen better days.’
That got a wry nod of acknowledgement. ‘It’s been that way since I slept on it. Every summer when your dad and I would visit.’ Her face softened, as it did when she talked about those halcyon days. ‘The room always smelled of lilac soap. I tried to find some for you, but had to make do with rose.’
‘Lilac?’ I parroted in shock. Paula looked at me strangely, and I schooled my expression to mild interest, while my mind spun in circles. ‘Is that why you put lilac potpourri in there?’
Her frown deepened. ‘What do you mean?’
Oh crap. Way to advertise your olfactory hallucinations, Sylvie.
I kept that out of my airy tone, though, as I tried to cover my slip. ‘Nothing. It must be the new detergent I used before I packed. I’m not used to Dr Steve’s stuff.’
With a wave, I ducked out before she could call me on this somewhat improbable lie. My relief, though, lasted only until I reached my bedroom door. I opened it with trepidation, worried what I would sense, expecting the smell to rush out and attack me. But there was nothing unusual about the air in the room. Rose soap on the washstand, my own dusting powder on the shelf. Warm breeze through the barely opened window.
Placing the garden book and Dad’s pages on the desk, I sank into the reading chair with Gigi in my lap. Either the phantom flowers were, for lack of a better word, real, because Paula had smelled them too, or I was somehow picking up a past scent that wasn’t there now.
Both ideas were impossible. But it was getting harder to ignore all the impossible things that kept happening to me.
‘God, what a day.’
Gigi whined softly, picking up on my distress. I drew a long breath, then let it out, centring myself the way I did before a performance. ‘Here are my options, Gee,’ I said, stroking her fur to soothe us both. ‘Either I’m crazy, in which case there’s nothing I can do about it, except try to keep people from finding out. Or there’s something … supernatural going on here, in which case I can investigate it and try to regain control over my senses.’
There. I’d said ‘supernatural’ out loud. And nothing snapped in my head. If anything, I felt better having decided to stay open-minded to the possibility that not everything that was true had yet to be proven.
Gigi barked and pawed at my right hand, and I nodded. ‘I agree. Anything that gives me an illusion of control gets my vote, too.’
Chapter 13
I might have worried that my new open-mindedness would show on my face, but dinner passed without incident. And without Welshmen; the Griffiths had gone out. Slightly disappointed, I figured it was for the best. My reactions to Rhys were always odd, and maybe opening the figurative door on the whole ghost idea was enough to handle for one evening.
After eating my sandwich, I soaked in a hot bath, walked Gigi, and retired for the evening. Then, ten minutes after Paula’s bedtime, I snuck back down to get my dog and bring her upstairs. At least my cousin’s regimented schedule was good for something.
Settling Gigi on the bed, I sat at the desk and opened Notable Gardens of the South, pulling Dad’s handwritten pages from the back. I’d barely glanced at them in the garden, and though I’d made my plan before dinner, I’d delayed more careful study for when the house was asleep, savouring my anticipation of this private father/daughter moment.
The diagrams were neatly drawn. I’d need to refer to them outside, but I didn’t want to get the originals dirty, so I traced Dad?
??s plot of the planting beds onto a fresh sheet of paper from the drawer. The thin, ladylike stationery was perfect for that, but I taped it afterwards to a sturdier piece of printer paper I’d scored from Paula’s desk.
As I’d guessed from the photograph in the book, the corner beds were a Celtic knot, but the pattern in the central circle was more interesting. It was more like a maze – Dad had even written Labyrinth on the side – but designed so that the pattern made pie pieces. Or, if you looked at it in negative, the spokes of a wheel.
There was a key, with a corresponding list of plants. I copied those, checking off the ones I recognized and marking the ones I wouldn’t know from a weed. Then I sat back and rubbed the crick in my neck, stunned at how long I’d worked.
I could stop for the night, but momentum had its foot on my backside, propelling me forwards. Still, I needed a book on plants. And if I wanted instant gratification, there was only one logical place to look. The study.
I didn’t want to give into my dread of an empty room. That seemed to be giving too much importance to a far-fetched possibility. So with a mix of resolve and resignation, I squared my shoulders and looked at Gigi, who was happily gnawing a rawhide bone in the middle of the bed. ‘Are you up for braving the Colonel’s study, Gee? Because I’m not going without you.’
She sat up at her name and gave a brave yip, as if she’d understood me. Now I had to go, or have her think I was a coward.
The hallway was all clear when I opened the door. The stairwell was dark, the foyer chandelier turned off, so I guessed everyone was in for the night. I left my door open for light, and padded in my bare feet to the landing, Gigi trotting beside me. At the corner I paused, then turned into the back hall, where there was nothing but moonlight at the window.
I gave my first sigh of relief, but I still had to open the study door. I did it quickly, not allowing myself time to be scared, and found nothing to be afraid of after all.