by A. W. Exley
“My father brought it from China in 1740 as a gift for mother.” He plucked a single perfect bloom and tucked it behind her ear.
Dawn couldn’t imagine a more amazing love than a man who hunted out rare and beautiful flora specimens for the light of his life. Or a father who found a brilliant magenta orchid for his sickly child to bring a piece of beauty into her room.
“Did you know the flower is not made of petals, but sepals? With no flowers, she has no seed and must be propagated by hand. It is a gardener’s love that spreads her offspring around England. She may not be a showy beauty like other roses, but viridiflora has a quiet constancy about her.” Dawn admired the hardy rose. Practically evergreen, it kept going no matter what life – or Ava – threw in its way.
“Where would you put your arbour walkway?” Jasper asked.
Dawn turned and oriented herself. She raised her arms and gestured to one side of the enclosed garden. “Here, running back toward the forest.”
While her arms were outstretched, Jasper grabbed her from behind and pulled her against his chest. “I have you now.”
She laughed and turned in his arms, dropping her hands over his head. “Now you have caught me, whatever will you do with me?”
He dropped his head so his cheek brushed hers. “I have spent decades studying how to pleasure a woman, perhaps I could show you something of what I have learned?” The hot words sent a shiver down her spine.
“Did you have a tutor or was it all pictures in books?” she teased.
He growled and nipped at her neck, and she bit back a gasp.
“I knew I wasn’t imagining things. You did nip me the first night in the library. Terribly inappropriate thing for a lord to do to his head gardener.” She arched her neck, encouraging him to do it again.
He nuzzled closer. “If I would do that to my gardener, just imagine the things I would do to my landscape designer.”
The problem was she couldn’t imagine; she simply didn’t have the breadth of experience. Nor was it anything she discussed with her mother. Perhaps she should be borrowing quite different books from the lord’s library rather than the pile of botany tomes.
He exhaled over her neck and then lifted his head. “I have spoken to the Lord Warder who has a care for Whetstone.”
Dawn’s chest tightened. “Did he know my mother?”
The frown returned to his forehead. “Yes and no. He was aware of her when your family moved to Whetstone, hence the raven who watched. But he said she remained neutral and never contacted any other Elementals.”
She exhaled her disappointment. “I am no closer to knowing the truth.”
Jasper dropped a kiss on her forehead. “We just have to look deeper. It is entirely possible your mother lived her entire life neutral. Can you remember where you lived before?”
Her time before Whetstone was unremarkable. As a sickly child, she spent most of it confined to her bedroom with only very occasional forays to the outside world. “County Durham, by the coast and a few miles north of Sunderland. I didn’t like it. I found the ocean too loud and noisy, and I don’t like sand. The backyard was horrid, the salt air too unforgiving to grow much.”
He hugged her close. “Odd, County Durham is under my watch, but I have no recollection of your mother. I will ask Samuel who lives out there. We will find the answers you seek, I promise, no matter how deep they are buried.”
20
Jasper and Dawn parted company at the herbaceous border. Anxiety ran through her veins and she needed to sit and think before she checked on progress in the maze. Instead, she braved the suffocating forest walk to seek the refuge of the lake. Before entering the shadowy depths, she took a deep breath and fisted one hand in Mouse’s fur.
Plunging into the forest was a waking nightmare that enveloped her and pulled at both flesh and mind. How had Lettie endured it for forty years if this was but a fraction of what she felt? Dawn screwed up her eyes and tried to blot out the screams of dying trees, her fingers working deeper into the dog’s fur as she stumbled along. She didn’t need the steady wolfhound to halt when they made it through – relief washed over her as soon as she stepped into the clearing.
Elijah sat near the grass end of the jetty and turned to wave at her.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were here. I will go if you want privacy.” Dawn let the calm of the lake wash over her and remove the last barbed tendrils from her mind.
He shook his head. “I don’t mind company if you don’t. I usually come here to think.”
She sat on the ground next to the young man. “This has become my favourite place. As a child I hated the ocean, I found it too noisy and confusing. But this lake is quiet and serene, as though the flat surface reflects my thoughts back at me so I can consider them.”
“Aunt Lettie is the same, hates the ocean but loves the lake. In summer, you can’t keep her out of the water. But then—” His voice faltered.
“But then she is an undine, so not terribly surprising?” Dawn finished for him.
He glanced at her and then turned back to the reflective water. “I assume Uncle Jasper has been giving you the family history?” He dug his fingers into the soil to find pebbles to toss into the water. Each tiny projectile created ripples that destroyed the mirror surface and generated a thousand new reflections.
“Yes, although I’m still not sure if I believe it or if you are all part of a delusion.” As she watched Elijah throw stones she wondered what would it be like to immerse yourself in the lake. Would it wash away all your concerns and leave only the barest truth? It would be a brief moment of clarity for Dawn, and then she would probably drown.
“I envy Lettie, for I can’t swim.” As a child she had struggled to take short walks in their backyard. Swimming lessons in the ocean would have been impossible.
“We could teach you. If you wanted, that is.” He frowned and a fledgling line tried to wrinkle his brow.
Dawn reached out and smoothed the line away. “If you keep frowning, you will end up like your Uncle Jasper, with furrows in your brow deep enough to plant potatoes.”
The frown was replaced by the flash of a smile. “I don’t mind being like him and Father. We’re all Warders and part of something bigger than us. Aunt Lettie’s not like us, though. I wonder if she gets lonely, being the only undine here. From what uncle has said, she is similar to Grandmother. That’s why she built the lake, to have a quiet place for reflection.”
“Was your grandmother an undine too?” Dawn needed a reference book to keep track of the different types of Elementals and what they did. She had burning questions about which type of parental combination produced what type of offspring but didn’t feel comfortable discussing procreation with Elijah, even if he was older than her.
“No. She was a Meidh like you, but Uncle Jasper said she had a strong water affinity. Her name was Serena, and serenity was her trait. Uncle Jasper says she was very good at resolving arguments.” Another pebble was cast into the water and sank with a quiet plop.
“Serene also refers to calm water.” The attraction to still water might be a family trait, passed from mother to daughter. Dawn stared at her hand and the faint shadow left by the Cor-vitis. Was that why the plant chose her for Jasper, because she had the same affinity for this spot?
What of Ava, what sort of Elemental was she? There must have been some affinity for the land for her to become the heart. That was another question to ask Jasper. Dawn considered the young man’s sharp lines and tried to guess if he inherited any trait from his mother. She only saw his paternal line in him, not that she knew what his mother looked like. She must ask Marjory if there were any old family photographs or portraits.
“I just realised that because you age much slower, you have probably been trapped in the classroom for decades,” she said. He would be more learned than any scholar at Oxford by the time he was declared an adult.
The young man laughed. “My curriculum is rather advanced. Uncle Jasper has
high expectations that I master a myriad of topics and languages. Although he has promised that this year is my last.”
“Then what will you do? Will you be sent into the world to find employment, or is there some sort of Warder apprenticeship?” she asked.
His fist curled around a stone in his palm. “I will avenge my father.”
Dawn sucked in a breath. “Hasn’t your Uncle Jasper been trying to seek justice for many years?”
“Uncle Jasper is constrained by his need to guard our sanctuary, and he must serve Ava.” He threw the stone hard and it landed with a thunk way out in the middle of the water.
“What do you mean serve Ava?”
“The Lord Warder answers to the heart. If she refuses to let him leave Alysblud, then he cannot. He once described it as being an invisible barrier he cannot push through, as though he stood in front of an unbreakable window.” His fingers kept sorting through the earth, looking for another missile to hurl.
Dawn had assumed the earl commanded the estate, but in truth, he was its servant. Although Jasper mentioned that he kept Ava confined to the estate, perhaps they were chained together, both unable to leave? Everything kept circling back to the other woman. Surely a woman would want justice against those who killed her lover and father of her child? Unless she never loved him or had some complicity in his death.
Jasper had said the bond between Lord Warder and heart could only be broken by death. To replace Ava she would first have to die, yet she was Elijah’s mother. They were far enough from the maze that Dawn felt safe in uttering the woman’s name. “Your uncle Jasper wants me to replace Ava as the heart of Ravenswing, but has anyone sought your opinion?”
He piled pebbles in his hand. “She gave me life, and for that I will always be grateful. But she’s not my mother. Aunt Lettie and Nurse Hatton took that role. Ava has only ever worried about herself, she never wanted to see me. I doubt she ever loved my father but simply used him to get what she wanted.”
Dawn thought of her own warm relationship with her mother. She could not imagine growing up without gentle maternal guidance, patience, and support. What must it be like to have a mother who wants nothing to do with you, to turn to the woman who gave birth to you for comfort only to find cold indifference? At least there was some balance in Elijah’s life and he had a wider family who loved him.
She watched him hurl another pebble into the lake. “I will not do it, if it will cause you distress.”
When he turned, a tinge of sadness crept into his grey eyes. “She poisons us all, and we need you to save us. Ava is chaos and turmoil, and you will be the calm after the storm.”
How did a youth manage to reconcile feeling for his mother to the needs of the wider community? He did it with such grace and without any trace of bitterness in his tone. “You’re so mature for your age.”
A sly smile lit his face. “You forget I am nearly twice your age. I should be calling you missy.”
What would it be like to spend her short life span here, to wither and die while time barely caressed his youthful face? It would be the same with Jasper. How many women would he love and watch die as he endured for centuries? Life really wasn’t fair. She breathed in a deep sigh. It didn’t matter if she was allowed a handful of days or decades, what mattered was what she did with the time allocated to her. She would live every day as though it were her last, enjoying each moment and person.
“There are so many things I need to learn about the world of the Elementals. There should be books with your history in them.” Her wrist ached, and she rubbed her thumb over the scratch that stubbornly refused to heal.
He tossed the last stone and wiped his palm on his trouser leg. “You shouldn’t be afraid, you know.”
“Of Ava?” That confrontation most assuredly worried her. How did one battle the embodiment of a garden – did she need a hoe or hedge trimmers?
He gestured to her right hand. “Of Uncle Jasper and the vine. It’s probably scary to be told a weird plant has decided you are fated to be with someone you hardly know.”
“You can see it?” If everyone could see an invisible plant, was it really invisible? Or could only Elemental eyes see it?
He took her hand and helped her to her feet. “Not the Cor-vitis itself, only the shadow it casts on your skin.”
“This does all sound rather farfetched, doesn’t it?” That was the other tight knot of fear in her stomach. Jasper seemed so ready to embrace what the Cor-vitis meant, but it terrified Dawn.
Elijah shrugged. “I trust that Gaia knows us better than we know ourselves. Perhaps in a tiny way, this is the balance in your life. We can never replace the family you lost, but we can give you a new one who will support you and look after you. If you would have us.”
On impulse Dawn reached out and hugged him. “You really are an old soul.”
He returned her hug and then pulled a pocket watch out and flipped open the silver casing. He let out a groan. “Please remind Uncle Jasper how old I am when you see him. I have to go back to my studies.”
He ran off down the path toward the house.
Dawn patted Mouse’s head. “We should also be on our way. I am supposed to be supervising a workforce, not lolling around by the lake.”
Woman and canine walked back around the edge of the forest to find her workers. The herbaceous border progressed as men monitored the small controlled fire. The others continued to chip away at the monster holding the maze. She couldn’t wait to examine the map in the cottage, to see if the phantom hand updated the cleaned borders.
There was little Dawn could do to help with the manual labour, and it seemed rude to lounge around watching the men work. Especially once shirts were removed as the day heated. She couldn’t see bare chests without remembering the heat of Jasper’s torso as he pressed her to the cottage wall.
Leaving the men under Hector’s care, Dawn collected a few of the botany specimen books from the cottage to return to the earl’s library. She had the idea of changing focus from finding the larger genus of the Ravensblood tree to researching diseases and blights that affect large specimens. She might be able to pinpoint how or why the tree sickened, which would lead her to a course of action to remedy its condition. Rather like a doctor diagnosing a patient and recommending a treatment.
Clutching the books to her chest, she entered the silent house. Mouse poked his head through the door first and looked left and right, then he trotted through and waited at the bottom of the stairs.
“Library today, boy. Are you allowed in there?” She ignored the curved staircase and headed left toward the back corner of the house.
Dawn paused with one hand on the door knob. There were muffled voices from within, and she didn’t want to disturb the earl if he had company. A feminine laugh rang out, and curiosity overcame Dawn. Before she could call it back, her hand pushed the door open.
No sign of Jasper, but a laughing Lettie clung to the library ladder while Nurse Hatton wheeled her along the cliff face made of books.
The wolfhound took one look, heaved a sigh as though it were common place, and then he padded across the floor to hurl himself down by the cold fireplace.
“Dawn!” Lettie shrieked. “I am a librarian and I can fill your mind with knowledge.”
Less librarian and more circus acrobat, Dawn thought as she watched the other woman swing her body off the ladder. Even her gown was stripes of black, white, and red and reminded Dawn of a performer’s costume. She wore no bustle, but a simple style of dress with full silken skirts that swirled around her body.
“Put your feet back on the rung, or I will climb up there and fetch you down,” Nurse Hatton said.
“How is she today?” Dawn whispered as the nurse held onto the ladder.
Marjory smiled, although tired lines pulled around her eyes. “Today is a good day, and she wanted to pick a book to read. However, she seems convinced this is a gymnasium, not a library.”
Lettie climbed down a few rungs until she
was nearly level with Dawn. “What are you looking for?”
“Diseases and blights of large trees, if your brother has such a tome.” She placed the books to be returned on a wooden trolley, piled high with other books of varying sizes.
A smile lit Lettie’s face. She stuck out a hand pointing to the right and called out, “Starboard ahoy.”
Marjory rolled her eyes, but the smile remained. “Now it’s a pirate ship.”
The nurse rolled the ladder to the right. Lettie’s fingertips skimmed the rows of spines. She clambered up another rung, and then another. Then she reached out and snagged a book. “Found it!”
She let the book drop from the top of the ladder and Dawn leapt to catch it before it hit the ground.
It was a large book with a sage green cover. Dawn ran a finger over the title, picked out in faded gold. “Infectious Diseases of European Flora. Oh, brilliant Lettie, thank you so much.”
Lettie placed her bare feet on the outside of the rungs and slid down, using only her hands to slow her momentum. Marjory shook her head, obviously long used to her charge’s unladylike behaviour. As Lettie approached the floor, Marjory let go of the ladder so as not to impede her descent.
Once back on earth, Lettie wrapped a hand around Dawn’s arm and pulled her away from the books and toward the map of the estate. She leaned in close as though she wanted to share a confidence. “Jasper says you will not be scared away.”
“I am needed here, and I have nowhere else to go.” There was more to it than that. She glimpsed a larger world here and she wanted to be a part of it. If she walked away from this tale, she would never know how it ended.
“I tried to warn you. There will be consequences if you stay. You should be so very afraid of her.” Lettie’s hand tightened on Dawn’s arm until her fingernails dug into the fabric.
Dawn pried Lettie’s fingers loose and took her hand. “I am scared, but we cannot let fear stop us from doing what is right.”
Lettie’s eyes widened and she searched Dawn’s face. “I want to help but—” She tapped the side of her head and then placed a finger to her lips.
