They grow in a tidy cluster, with upright stems. Even now, in late summer, when darkness falls earlier every night, the touch-me-nots are covered with blooms. The bell-shaped orange-yellow blossoms droop under the broad leaves, like ladies shading themselves beneath green parasols.
On calmer days, the reddish spots on their petals have made me think of the golden freckles that would bloom on Jessamine’s skin after a walk in the sun. Right now they remind me of other things: scarlet pinpricks left by a hungry bite. A spatter of fresh blood on dry earth. The mottled flush of a killing fever, dappled across a pale, beloved cheek.
I step around the prickly heath and stretch out on the soft peat. I watch the speckled blossoms bob and dance, and feel my clenched fists loosen.
“The forest is angry with me,” I say. “Everywhere I go, I am scolded.”
The touch-me-nots murmur sympathy, then fall silent. They were made to offer balm. It is why I seek them out.
“Tell me,” I say after a while. “Tell me what is happening at Hulne Abbey.” Not often, but sometimes, the touch-me-nots have news for me. From Jessamine’s kitchen garden at the cottage, the potted lilies on the altar at her church, the sheep meadows that cover the slopes of Hulne Park where she walks, the morning glories that twine around the shutters of her bedchamber window – now and then they send word, whispered from one plant to another, until it arrives at my ear.
Each time the news has been the same. She is well. There is a changed hue to her eyes – they were once a soft, trusting blue, but now they are the colour of ice. There is something unyielding in the carriage of her spine. But she is alive, and strong.
If she were not, Thomas Luxton would be a dead man. But as long as she thrives, I will accept my fate. I will obey Oleander’s command and stay away. I will live like an animal, or a beggar. I will spend my life among the plants, or alone. It does not matter. As long as she is safe.
“Any news at all?” I ask again. With less murder in my voice, this time.
The touch-me-nots do not answer.
“How is Jessamine?” I demand to know. “Where is she?”
“If you wish to know, why not go and see for yourself?” They say it without ire. I shake my head.
“I cannot go back among the humans again.”
“Because of the girl?”
“I am ruined by what I did for her sake. I killed a man, a foolish man who wished me no harm, and the change of seasons will not bring him back. The humans will never forgive me for that.”
“Death is final among them.” They say it as if understanding, but they cannot understand, really.
“It has not been easy for you, living in the forest,” they add, after a while.
“No.”
“It is not easy for the forest, either.”
“I ask nothing of the forest, except to be left alone.”
The light is fading. A scatter of leaves blows across the moor, red and yellow and brown.
“It is time for you to go back, Weed.”
I do not wish to hear this.
“The forest marches slowly, in step with the seasons. All is rhythm, patience, stillness…”
Their true meaning remains unspoken. But I hear it, plain as the chilling wind that even now rushes across this hilltop moor: It is better to be like the plants than like me. For I am rootless. Angry. Abrupt. Alone.
“You are a disturbance to the world of the forest,” they say, in that gentle, tinkling voice. “You are unsettled, and filled with passions we do not understand. You must return to your own kind. Go back to the humans. Settle your affairs with them, in whatever way they do. Pay the price for your deeds.”
“I came to you for comfort. Instead – more banishment.” I stand, but where can I run to this time? From this high outlook I can see across the forest canopy to the turrets of Alnwick Castle in the distance, perched on the embankment, overlooking the twisting river Aln. The stone battlements blend into the grey sky. Torches burn in the watchtowers, glowing like red-hot coals.
“I cannot go back,” I say, my voice cracking. “Oleander made me swear I would not go back. On Jessamine’s life, I swore.”
“Oleander!” The touch-me-nots tremble in rage. “The human apothecary has done this! He brought the wicked plants together. He gave them a home where they should not have a home. He let them twine together in a way nature would never have permitted. Oleander was one of us, once. Now he is a great danger to you. To you. To all of us.”
A gust of wind whirls across the flattened hill, making all the plants quake. After it passes, the touch-me-nots continue to shiver – now, it seems, in fear. “You must go back. Go back to the place you call Hulne Abbey. To that doomed place, where the dreadful garden grows.”
“Is it Jessamine? Has she been harmed?”
The flowers sound panicked. “Go. Go see for yourself.”
30th August
I have made an early start today. I have already packed a satchel with lunch and water, for I am off to go collecting, in the distant fields and along the woodland edges. I expect I will find everything I need there.
It seems odd that I must walk for miles in search of the specimens I need, when so many of their kind grow in abundance close by. But to take what I need from Father’s garden is too dangerous; he keeps the key on his belt, and the theft would never go unnoticed. I will not risk detection now.
I am not afraid. I am, to be honest, excited. Tonight at supper, I will do what I have sworn to do.
Then my mother’s death will be avenged. And – if Oleander keeps his word – my own life can truly begin.
IT IS LATE AFTERNOON when I return, though the sky is so grey with clouds it seems more like dusk. I bathe the filth of the day from me, for I am as covered in earth as a grave-digger, and change into a fresh gown. Everything I do is ordinary, yet extraordinary at the same time. Never have I gone about these everyday tasks knowing what I now know, or planning what I now plan.
Once dressed, I prepare to do the most ordinary task of all, one I have done all my life: make dinner for my father.
I take my time, for it is a special pleasure to cook during the harvest season, when every ingredient is at its peak. I prepare small game hens, poached in a seasoned consommé of my own devising. Herbed new potatoes, creamed spinach, and a clove-scented pudding. I set the table as if for an honoured guest.
When everything is ready, I cover the food and retreat to my kitchen garden to pray. I know there is no god who would condone what I am about to do. But the spirits of the dead might feel otherwise.
“Was it for love of him that you did it, Mother?” I murmur into my folded hands. “Did it blind you to the truth, and make you willing to endanger yourself, and your unborn child, just to please him?”
The breeze blows but bears no answer. None is needed. I already know how passion can drive one to do the unthinkable. I myself am proof enough of that.
“Forgive me,” I whisper. “I know vengeance cannot bring back the dead. If you loved him, you must despise me for what I now do. But the living need justice, too.”
I brush the dirt from my knees and return inside. There is a man in the parlour.
“Miss Luxton, is it? I remember you. My, you’ve grown up a bit over the summer, haven’t you?”
He turns, and my heart freezes. I could never forget that face. It is Tobias Pratt, proprietor