The return to Kirkwood Hall was silent but for the Minor’s growl, and Sorrel went straight up to Stella’s library with only the smallest smile at Andrew. She found Poppy sitting on the floor sifting through photographs.
“Ah,” she said, “have you come to regale me with tales of love and languor?”
“No, my mind is reeling with plant names and square centimeters, not Andrew,” Sorrel said and then slapped a hand over her mouth.
“Gotcha!” Poppy crowed. “I told Mum that there was something thoroughly coup de foudre happening between you two.”
“Coo de what?” Sorrel asked with her hands covering her burning face.
“Thunderbolt, love at first sight, fate, Kismet, lust!” Poppy leaned in and took Sorrel’s hand down. “Be happy, this is good stuff—for everyone. And if you ask me, even the garden will be pleased.”
“Would you stop,” Sorrel said. “We’re just finding our way, it’s all very new, like days new, so don’t start writing me into a fairy tale.”
“Ooooh, perfect segue,” Poppy said. “Look what I found in a shoebox, well, strictly speaking a boot box. Here.” She pushed the box over to Sorrel.
Sorrel lifted one of the photos; it was faded but clear, as was the subject: a tiny house of twigs and moss studded with chamomile blossoms and a single four-leaf clover.
“Mathilde’s fairy houses,” she said and reached for more. Picture after picture of houses, each different, some made of popsicle sticks, others of slate chips or pebbles, all covered with leaves and flowers, herbs and moss. They were, if not truly occupied by fairies, absolutely magical.
“I never knew her, but Dad always said I’d have liked Mathilde. Apparently she was both an adventurer par excellence and, as we can see from these houses, something of a lovely dreamer.”
Sorrel scrabbled, looking for a picture of the girl herself, but there were only more houses and the occasional snap of a squirrel or robin. She would have loved to see the face of such a charming creature.
“She must have brought in all the materials from outside that blasted garden,” Poppy said.
Of course, that made sense. Sorrel could just see the dark grit behind the houses, the gray dust and bareness that served as the backdrop.
“Well, if Mathilde’s enchanted fairy houses couldn’t call goodness back to the garden, I am in real trouble,” Sorrel said and stood, slipping a couple of pictures in her pocket. “Let’s have some lunch and then take a look at the gruesome tapestries again.”
They brought mugs of tea back upstairs with them and settled in for an afternoon with Thomas Kirkwood’s ugly legacy. They dragged two spindly chairs in from the portrait hall and sat like schoolgirls before the panels.
“Right,” Poppy said. “What are we looking for?”
“If I call out the names of each plant I can identify, can you write them down on this pad? I want to check them against the invoice from the nursery. There are a lot of specimens I can grow here but not back home with the salt and wind.”
Poppy stayed seated while Sorrel paced from panel to panel, saying the names and spelling the ones Poppy didn’t know. It was oddly pleasant if you didn’t look too closely at the snarling dogs or sneering hunters. In the sixth a clump of green was woven into the bottom right edge of the panel, and Sorrel had to bend over and come nearly nose to nose with one of the hounds to see the shape of the leaves.
“It looks like woodbine but without a bloom it’s hard to confirm,” she said. “And this brown behind it is clearly not a plant, but I couldn’t say what . . .” Sorrel stopped.
“Couldn’t say what, what?” Poppy asked and got up.
“Turn on the flashlight on your phone,” she said, sounding very much like the commanding Sorrel at the nursery earlier, and Poppy handed it over.
Sorrel focused the beam onto the panel. “Look at this,” she ordered.
“It’s a bush and a book,” Poppy said. “It’s a book in a bush. Holy Mother of Pearl, it’s Elizabeth’s book!”
“Yes, it is!” Sorrel cried. “It’s Elizabeth’s diary smack dab in the middle of a—let’s just call it what it is—a witch hunt.”
Sorrel brushed the tapestry with one finger. The diary seemed to spark under her touch. She crouched down and gently turned the panel over at the corner, as if more information, more of the book, might reveal itself on the other side.
“We need a seventh panel, it must exist,” she said to Poppy. “Or, failing that, some kind of sketch for it? Some study? A mention of it in the histories? I mean, it’s too much to ask for the book, the diary to turn up, right?”
“Right. No one’s seen it since . . . well, since this.” Poppy pointed at the tapestry.
“What do you think Delphine knows?” Sorrel asked. “She’s the one who found them. Surely she’s got a theory about a last panel?”
Sorrel stood and walked the length of the wall again. “Here,” she said pointing, “and here, this is our Shakespeare Garden, I know it. It’s all of a piece, this mystery, the dead garden, the loss of the diary, it’s all the same thing.”
“I’m glad you said ‘our,’ Sorrel,” Poppy said and slipped her arm through Sorrel’s. “Not to sound too crystal ball-y but I think you belong here, at least for now.”
Sorrel gave Poppy a hug and agreed. “Let’s find Delphine. We can pass by the garden on our way and see if Gabe is still playing gatekeeper.”
He was. Sorrel picked her way through the tools and tarps to the gate to find Gabe magically waiting for her, his hand already up in a stop sign. When he saw Poppy, he began shaking his head fast and hard.
“Gabe, you old so-and-so,” Poppy said, “we just want to have a wee look.”
Gabe signed no and drew his hand across his own neck. His hand moved again, and Poppy huffed out a breath.
“Apparently while you are to be granted access after all the shit’s been dug out and the better shit put in, I am forbidden entrance, ever.”
“By whom?” Sorrel asked.
Gabe tilted his head and looked at Poppy.
“Darling Daddy, naturally,” she said. “For heaven’s sake, Gabe. It’s not like I can break anything.”
She took Sorrel by the arm. “We’re going to interrogate Delphine, Gabe, and you’re not invited.”
Gabe’s eyes widened, and he watched the women follow the long path back to the house. He took out his phone and began texting.
Sorrel and Poppy rode bicycles into town, which made Sorrel wonder why she didn’t bike more back home in Granite Point. By the time they got to the Queen’s Hart, they were both flushed with good cheer and the warm sun that followed them all the way. In fact, it was Sorrel who suggested they get a drink and convince Delphine to sit with them in the little beer garden.