The Girl and the Witch's Garden

by Erin Bowman

  Piper turned this piece of information over. “So what about my other anomalies?”

  The boy rubbed his chin for a moment. “How did you feel in those moments?”

  “Overwhelmed,” Piper answered. “Nervous or anxious. Like at school … When I was tardy, I was scared to get lectured in front of everyone. At lunch I was embarrassed no one wanted to sit with me anymore. I used to have Bridget, but even she’s bailed—says I’m always either angry or sad lately; that I’m no fun to be around.”

  “Hmm …” Julius thumbed his lip.

  “Granted, I feel overwhelmed here, too, and nothing strange has happened. I’m probably a hollow. It was silly to think otherwise.”

  “Piper, you saw the garden—the real garden—through my spyglass. You wouldn’t be able to do that if you were a hollow. We’ll figure out your affinity, and then you can train and study with us.”

  She nodded weakly. “Can I see it again—your spyglass?”

  He plucked the amplifier from his nightstand and they stepped onto his balcony together.

  It was a cool summer night, the moon high overhead. Fireflies danced near the tennis courts and carriage house, but they seemed to avoid the garden, as if they knew better than to venture there. Julius handed over the spyglass and Piper looked through the eyepiece.

  The live version of the garden appeared for her, but instead of feeling shocked as she had the first time she saw it, she felt … inspired. Like she was witnessing some beautiful secret. She believed Julius now—believed all of them. This was real.

  At night, the garden’s trees glowed and twinkled, their trunks and limbs woven with strings of white light. It was like a winter wonderland, without the snow.

  Piper scanned the head of the butterfly, where the Persian had been pacing the other day. The pedestal at the center of the pool held a metal sculpture shaped like an infinity symbol. Piper’s heart kicked in her chest. Her locket seemed to warm against her skin.

  An infinity symbol.

  An elixir of immortality.

  She continued to search the garden, following the paths, examining the various pools, not entirely sure what she was looking for. An entrance? It wouldn’t reveal itself to her randomly when Julius had been looking at this version of the garden for years.

  “If Teddy was stuck in the garden, wouldn’t you see him with this?” she asked.

  Julius shook his head. “The spyglass lets me see the truth before magi involvement, so basically: what this place looked like before the garden was concealed. A snapshot in time. If I want to see what’s actively happening in the hidden version right this second, I’d need to be a lot more powerful.”

  The two stag statues at the edge of the patio came into view, and Piper froze.

  Hovering above the right-hand stag at the garden’s entrance, perfectly centered between the beast’s antlers, was a shimmering disk of light. White and pearlescent, it rippled at the edges, like the surface of a pond being disturbed.

  “Do you see that?” she said, passing the spyglass to Julius and pointing. “Above the stag statue.”

  He brought the amplifier to his eye. “See what?”

  “There’s something rippling there. It’s white. Round.”

  “I don’t see anything.”

  She snatched the spyglass back and looked again. The pocket of shimmering light remained, clearer than ever. Why was she seeing it tonight, when she hadn’t yesterday? Maybe because she now believed; she’d accepted the secret of Mallory Estate.

  “Huh,” Piper heard herself saying. “It’s gone. Must have been a trick of the light.”

  It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Julius. But she knew what would happen if she was honest. He’d call a meeting, tell the others, and the children would all inspect the shimmering disk together.

  Piper said good night to Julius and slipped back to her room using the shared door. As she lay in bed—head resting on the pillow Theodore Leblanc had once used and staring up at a canopy that he’d once stared at—she wondered if she was following in his footsteps.

  If he’d found that same shimmering pocket.

  If, when she crawled through it tomorrow, she might not live to tell the tale.

  She should have been scared, but she was brimming with excitement. With hope. If the elixir was real, it would change everything. If the elixir was real, it meant her father could come home. And Piper would see that happen, even if it meant denying the others the adoption they craved.

  Chapter Nine Into the Garden

  When morning broke, Piper was no longer upset about being barred from Concealment Studies. In fact, not being allowed to join the class suddenly looked like a happy turn of events. When everyone was busy learning, she’d have the garden to herself.

  She snuck downstairs, grateful to be the only person awake. Not even bothering with breakfast, she headed straight for the patio and paused before the headless stags that marked the entrance. Their gold finish was dull and cracking, nothing like the pristine statues she’d seen through Julius’s spyglass.

  Piper had brought nothing with her for this excursion but the clothes she was wearing—her Yankees cap, a pair of jean shorts, and a tee from a 5K she’d run with Aunt Eva last summer to raise money for cancer research. Now, staring at the statues, she was wondering if she should have brought a compass or her notebook or at the very least some rope. How was she going to get through the shimmering pocket? When she’d looked through the spyglass, she could envision herself scrambling up the right-hand stag’s back, climbing his neck, and holding on to his antlers as she launched herself through. But the statue was headless; there weren’t any antlers to use for balance. And despite the fact that the stag was lounging, it was still quite large; its back was well above Piper’s hip, its neck level with her head.

  A mourning dove cooed in the distance, and Piper scrambled up the stag. Everyone would be waking soon, and the day’s lessons wouldn’t keep the kids from breakfast. The kitchen was dangerously close to the patio. She had to be fast.

  Piper made it up the stag easily enough—all those years of gymnastics had paid off—and soon she was standing atop the severed head as though it were merely a tree stump. This would be the tricky part. She tried to imagine where the antlers would be, eyeballed where she’d seen the shimmering disk the night before.

  If she dove forward, sort of like a dive off a diving board, she could pass through the disk and land in the garden below. But there was the trouble of the landing itself. She’d need to get her feet beneath her before hitting the ground.

  A front flip would do the trick, and the height of the stag statue meant she should have enough time to execute it.

  Before she could lose her nerve, Piper jumped—up and forward—then tucked into a flip.

  Her landing was sloppy, and she pitched forward, throwing a hand out to stop herself from face-planting. The grass beneath her fingers was green. She straightened slowly, and her mouth fell open. The oak alley stretched before her, a canopy of lush leaves casting the path in shadow. Alive, the trees seemed twice as large, twice as regal.

  She’d done it. She was in the garden. The hidden one.

  She glanced back at Mallory Estate. It was what looked dead now—gray and deteriorating. The ivy climbing the facade was brittle. The bricks, crumbling. Several of the windows were cracked and the patio was devoid of furniture. The place looked like it had sat empty for years. Above the statue she’d used to enter the garden, just between the stag’s antlers, she could make out the shimmering portal that would bring her back. For some reason she could see it now, in this version of the garden. Peering within its perimeter, she could make out the real version of the estate: clean, definitely not crumbling. She’d be able to climb the stag and scramble back through the shimmering doorway to return to it later.

  She thought of Julius and the others, likely waking in the other version of Mallory Estate right now. Would they come looking for her when she didn’t appear at breakfast, or would
they head straight to their studies with her mother and not think much of Piper’s absence until the lesson concluded?

  She was too excited to dwell on it. There was no Persian to bother her here, no chance of running into her mother. She had the garden completely to herself—unless she ran into Teddy.

  “Hello?” Piper called.

  Birds chirped from the trees. A dove cooed again in the distance.

  “Hello? Teddy?”

  Still nothing.

  Piper stuffed her hands in her pockets and started up the oak alley. Garden beds wrapped around the tree trunks, daffodils and roses and marigolds blanketing the floor in color. The path continued beyond the oak alley, and Piper stayed on it, following it into the center of the butterfly, where multiple pathways converged. Here, two long, narrow pools sat on either side of the central path. She’d seen these yesterday, but they were active now, their fountain spouts spraying mist into the air. And the statues atop each pedestal were pristine, gleaming, not a speck of discoloration on their golden finish.

  Piper continued, walking in a bit of a trance, until she reached the pool that held the infinity statue. Sunlight bounced off the crystalline water and danced over the sculpture. Like the women in the mirrored pools, the infinity symbol was perched atop a pedestal, and it spun idly in the breeze, rotating like a weather vane. It was actually a metal ring, she realized, warped and imperfect. It only looked like an infinity symbol when it twisted just so, when viewed from a certain angle. It was as if the sculpture had a secret, like it was trying to hide the truth.

  Piper stepped nearer, heart pounding in her chest.

  Positioned along the edge of the pedestal and curling down into the water were steps. A staircase. Leading into the pool. And there, at the bottom, set into the stone base, was a wooden door with a metal latch.

  This felt too easy.

  The pool wasn’t that deep. Maybe ten, twelve feet; no worse than the deep end of a swimming pool. Piper could hold her breath and swim down. How she’d get the door open against the water she had no idea. Maybe there was a way to drain the pool, a lever she couldn’t see.

  She’d search as she swam.

  Piper ditched her cap, kicked off her shoes and socks, and stepped onto the bricks that made up the border of the pool. She took a deep breath.

  But just before she jumped, a voice said, “I wouldn’t do that.”

  Piper yelped and her foot slipped out toward the water. Someone grabbed her wrist and yanked her to safety.

  It was a boy. A boy a few years younger than her—roughly Kenji’s age—with brown hair, blue eyes, and fair skin that had reddened with sunburn across his cheeks and limbs. He was wearing a Red Sox T-shirt and a pair of green cargo shorts that held a water bottle in one pocket, and he was squinting at her as though she were the one who’d appeared out of nowhere.

  “You’re Theodore Leblanc,” Piper murmured.

  “Yeah. Teddy. And you must be new.” He glanced at her baseball cap in the dirt, eyes narrowing. “When did they bring you in?”

  Piper blinked, speechless.

  “Peavey and Mallory,” he clarified. “When did they bring you to the estate?”

  “Two days ago,” she managed.

  “And you already found your way in? Wow. I’m impressed. What’s your affinity?”

  “You’re supposed to be dead.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you.” Teddy stretched his arms wide, making a show of himself. “Not dead. Very much alive, actually, and kinda concerned why anyone back home thinks otherwise.”

  He blinked at Piper, clearly waiting for an explanation, but she was still staring between him and the pool. “I’m sorry,” she said, waving a hand at the water, “but why can’t I go in?”

  The boy walked to the outer edge of the dirt path, where flowers grew, and plucked a pansy free. Then he tossed it into the water. Instead of floating, the flower sank like an anchor, swift and straight. Piper thought she even heard a muted thud as it hit the stone bottom.

  “It’s cursed. Protected. Whatever you want to call it,” the boy said. “I figured it out by accident. Was about to dive in myself when a bee landed on the surface and got sucked straight down to the bottom. From what I can figure, you have to do them in order.”

  “Do what in order?”

  “The trials. There’s three of them, and then the infinity pool drains and you can reach the elixir. I mean, at least I’m assuming that’s what’s beneath that trapdoor. The statue is kind of a giveaway.” He glanced toward the estate. “I told Mrs. Peavey all this. Didn’t she send you in with the first key?”

  “What key?”

  “The key for the first trial,” Teddy said, clearly getting frustrated. “I told Mrs. Peavey where to find it when I told her that I’d figured out how to get into the garden. I wanted to tell everyone, but she said she didn’t trust Mrs. Mallory and that we should keep things quiet. She told me to lie low for a while, stay hidden inside the garden. She promised she’d retrieve the key and send you guys in with it when it was safe.”

  “I don’t know anything about a key,” Piper admitted, trying to keep up.

  Color drained from Teddy’s face. “Did she at least say I could come home with you? I’m tired of hiding—and I’m running low on food.”

  Piper was struggling to follow. “Can’t you just leave through the doorway?”

  “What doorway? I used my amplifier to get in here.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a golden pocket watch with a dragonfly etched into the back. “I first discovered a way into the garden by bending time. I hid on the patio and went back to the very moment when the High Order of Magi created three trials to guard the elixir and hid the garden. I saw them bury the first trial key too, beneath the carriage house. But I didn’t go in then. I returned to the present and told Mrs. Peavey everything I’d discovered. I was going to tell the others, but Mrs. Peavey told me to hide in the garden—immediately—otherwise Mrs. Mallory would kill me and absorb my affinity so she could get in the garden herself. So I bent time again and slipped into the garden just before the magi concealed it. Mrs. Peavey said she’d send you guys in—with the key—so I’ve been waiting.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking about, Teddy,” Piper said. “None of the kids are sure where you are. Julius didn’t mention any key. He thinks you died trying to complete a trial in here. Camilla says you’re off helping Mrs. Mallory on an errand. Kenji has this crazy theory you were murdered.”

  “Mrs. Peavey should have updated you all,” Teddy said, shaking his head. “I don’t understand.”

  But Piper did. At least, she was beginning to suspect she might. “Teddy,” she said quietly, “I think she tricked you. I think she meant to trap you in here.”

  And that was when Theodore Leblanc fainted.

  Chapter Ten The Trapped Boy

  I didn’t faint,” he argued. “I just needed to sit down for a second.”

  Piper didn’t point out that sitting would have involved Teddy’s head staying out of the dirt; there were more pressing things to discuss.

  “She wouldn’t have trapped me,” he insisted, leaning forward to rest his sunburnt arms on his knees. “She seemed scared when she told me to hide. Terrified. She said Mrs. Mallory couldn’t be trusted. No way she’s that good of an actor. And also”—his gaze drifted toward her cap, eyes narrowing—“I really don’t think I should trust someone who wears Yankees paraphernalia.”

  Piper rolled her eyes. “Spoken like a true Sox fan.” She picked up her cap, put it back on, and crouched beside him. “Teddy, my grandmother has been missing since I got here. None of the kids have seen her in over a week. If my mom wasn’t lying to you—if she was scared of my grandma for some reason—she’s had plenty of time to update everyone. But they have no clue where you are.”

  “Hang on, back up. Your mother and grandmother?” Teddy’s eyes bulged.

  “Yeah. I’m Piper Peavey. Sophia’s my mom. Melena’s my grandmoth
er.”

  “Huh,” Teddy said. “I didn’t know Mrs. Peavey even had a kid.”

  That sounded about right. Fostering children? Totally cool. Mentioning your biological flesh and blood to those kids? Not in a million years.

  Teddy brushed a bit of dirt from his knee and glanced toward Mallory Estate. “There must be something else going on. Mrs. Peavey wasn’t lying. Maybe she didn’t update you fully.”

  “Teddy, no one knows how to get into the garden but you. You’re the only one who figured out how to access it, and none of the other kids have an affinity for time bending. So my mom was clearly lying when she said she’d send us to help you.”

  “Oh.” Teddy looked suddenly embarrassed. “I guess I didn’t think of that.”

  “Don’t take it too hard. Sox fans aren’t particularly bright.”

  His features hardened. “It was a very stressful moment, okay? Your mom had just told me that Mrs. Mallory would kill me and absorb my affinity so she could get the elixir herself! Of course I hid. I trust her, okay?”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t,” Piper muttered, then added, “And my grandma wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “Just forget it. We’ll talk to your mom, and she’ll explain everything. You’ll see. Now, how did you get in here?”

  “I saw a doorway—a glimmering pocket of light—with Julius’s spyglass.”

  “So your affinity is sight also?”

  “Beats me.” Piper shrugged. “Despite what Julius keeps insisting, I’m not convinced I have an affinity. And to be perfectly honest, I didn’t believe in any of this”—she made a sweeping motion at the garden—“until yesterday morning.”

  “But you still found an entrance that Julius couldn’t see. Impressive.” Teddy pushed to his feet. “Well, no use wasting any more time. Let’s go talk to your mom and get that key—it’s buried beneath the carriage house.”