He opened the door with his key and flicked on the lights. Nothing had changed: The panels marched along the wall, the hunters chased, the dogs tracked, and the mystery remained.
Gabe went to the last panel and pointed at the book.
“Yes, I know, we saw it, too.”
He traced his hand up, past the bloodied foot, past the woodbine, and beyond the line of linden trees to a particularly faded section at the edge of the panel.
“Pretty,” Poppy said. “Those trees are long gone.”
Gabe shook his head and took a small penlight from his pocket. He trained it on the worn spot, which was a pale green and white, with a hint of sky still visible.
Poppy was becoming impatient. “Just tell me, Gabe. I’m too short to get up close to that section.”
Gabe turned around and began to sign. Poppy was able to follow simple sentences, but Gabe was moving too fast for her. She was ashamed that she’d always counted on his lip reading, unlike Andrew, who’d made a point of learning to communicate with Gabe in his own language.
“I’m sorry, Gabe,” Poppy said. “I’m not getting this.”
She swore that Gabe growled before striding out of the room and into her mother’s library. He riffled through a stack of books until he found what he wanted and flipped through the pages. Finally he opened the book wide for Poppy. He pushed it toward her and jammed his finger onto a page.
“It’s the chapel,” she said. “Hold on! Stay right there.”
Poppy scattered papers until she found her mother’s giant scrapbook. She knew there were pictures of the tapestries in it, perhaps not as good at the ones Delphine now had but good enough. She flipped the book open and began leafing through the pages.
“There,” she said. “There’s the panel.” She grabbed her mother’s smudgy magnifying glass and peered through it at the picture. The tick, tick of her mother’s desk clock was loud, and the sound of her own breathing filled the room beneath it. Poppy could hear the tension Gabe held in his silence. Finally, she looked up.
“Oh Gabe, you clever, clever man!” she cried and lunged to hug him.
Gabe stood stiffly as Poppy squeezed him.
She beckoned him over to the scrapbook.
“You’re right. It’s here, just as you tried to tell me,” Poppy said, keeping her face turned to Gabe.
And it was. With proper lighting by the V&A team, the faded area came into clearer relief. The Kirkwood chapel stood at the end of the linden tree path. The fa?ade was pristine, not tumbled down as it had become, and the pale threads picked out a rustic stained glass window on the side facing out. It might have been a rendering of the Virgin Mary or some other female saint sitting in repose with a sacred text. But with a larger rendering of the window and an interpretation of its contents on the facing page, Poppy saw the image for what it was: a key. At the woman’s feet were blossoms and leaves, flowers and greenery of all kinds. Even Poppy could see the waving Solomon’s seal, and she recognized lily of the valley and rosemary, spiky and tall. The rest was a mystery for Sorrel to solve.
“Thank you, Gabe,” Poppy said. “You have no idea how you’ve helped us.”
Gabe nodded and for the first time since Sorrel had come to Kirkwood Hall, Poppy saw him smile. She skittered down the stairs in triumph.
Left behind, Gabe turned off all the lights and locked the door behind him. He was relieved to have shared this secret at last.
Of course, all Poppy wanted was to race off to the garden and show everyone what Gabe had uncovered; she might have, too, if Andrew hadn’t come through the front door with an armload of wood.
“Slow down there, cheeky monkey,” he said and steadied Poppy with his shoulder.
“I’ve got something, something real and useful and completely amazing,” Poppy said.
“If it’s not the cure for the common cold, I’m afraid I’m unimpressed,” Andrew said and dropped the wood into the copper tub beside the fireplace.
“Oh, this is so much better than that!” Poppy crowed. “Where’s Sorrel? And Mum?”
“I’ve not seen Sorrel since this morning,” Andrew said and blushed.
“Yeah, yeah, old news, you and Sorrel, got it.” Poppy held up her mother’s scrapbook. “I have the key to this whole garden, witch hunt, Elizabeth’s diary extravaganza!”
“You found something?”
“Actually Gabe found it. I’ve just purloined it,” Poppy said. “Let’s go tell the others.”
“Slow down. Can I just bring us back to the old news portion of the program?” Andrew asked. “What do you think you know about me and Sorrel?”
“Look, Dad shipped Sorrel in for the garden,” Poppy said. “Mum shipped her in for her morose brother. And I stole Patience’s remedy for a broken heart and dosed you.”
“Jesus,” Andrew said. “I’m such a pawn.”
“Actually, Sorrel is the real pawn, and we think she’s in trouble so if you want to continue this affair of the heart, let’s make haste to the cursed garden and save the damsel, shall we?”
“You know, sometimes I think your father’s high drama has rubbed off on you,” Andrew said.
“Let’s hope not or next I’ll be playing his game.” Poppy pulled at Andrew’s jacket. “Come on then, deep breath in.”
Poppy gave Andrew a précis of her father’s deceit as they walked. His face got tighter and tighter until the skin around his lips went white. The Graham Poppy described was unrecognizable to Andrew. With or without completely sharing in Graham’s questionable supernatural theory about the garden, or even the poisoned-ground one, Andrew had heard enough that his anger at his brother-in-law threatened to spill out onto Poppy.
“Let’s just replace ‘cursed’ with ‘toxic,’” Andrew snapped. “What kind of asshole sends someone into Chernobyl without telling them so?”
“That would be Dad,” Poppy said. “I don’t believe he’s malevolent, I really don’t. Just blinded by a misguided desire to protect us.”
“But not Sorrel, no care for her?” Andrew said. “That’s just plain selfish. And while I’m handing out labels, why on earth would you feed me some unknowable syrup de witch. I could be dead by now or, you know, have boils.”
“Or you could just be in love,” Poppy said, and Andrew shook his finger at her. “Now let’s not be judgy; Patience is Sorrel’s sister. She’d never send her off with something harmful.”
“We’re not done,” Andrew said to Poppy as they neared the garden.
All was quiet when they arrived save for the insects that rode the warm breeze. When Poppy stepped over the pile of disassembled bricks, Andrew stopped her.
“Just to be safe, you’ll stay out for now,” he said.