“Tomorrow,” Sorrel answered. “I want to give it a little time to adjust. It’s like bringing a new baby into the house. Everything and everyone has to find a new way of being.”
“A new way of being,” Andrew mused. “I think that is exactly what I need as well. You can’t do all the work yourself, surely?”
“The heavy lifting I’ll leave to Gabe and his guys but all else, yes, I do it myself, alone with the plants.” Sorrel looked at her hands. “It’s essential that I touch everything that will live here.”
“I would like to help.”
“I don’t mind a visit once I’ve found a rhythm,” Sorrel said. “Why don’t you come later in the day tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Sorrel,” Andrew said. “Your faith in this process is inspiring.”
With Graham due the following morning Sorrel guessed there’d be a lot of heated talk before the Kirkwoods let cooler thoughts prevail. Andrew might well need the peace of a garden afterward. He’d certainly need to consider that Graham’s less than honest performance of late came from a harmless place in his heart if not a completely harmless spot on his land.
“Come back to the Tithe Barn?” Andrew asked.
“I have some research to do,” Sorrel said.
“Do it with me. I’m terrific at research,” Andrew said as he took her hand and brought it to his cheek. “It has recently come to my attention that I rather like sitting with a beautiful woman poring through papers.”
“Computer research.”
“I actually have Wi-Fi, you know. I may live in a former wheat depository manned by chanting monks in hooded robes, but it has all the mod cons. Also, Wags.” Andrew smiled uncertainly. “Are you sure everything is all right, Sorrel?”
Everything would be once Sorrel had a chance to consult Patience. She might play off everyone’s concern about the Heart’s Ease remedy but what if, what if? How real was Andrew’s infatuation, or hers for that matter? Sorrel had seen how Patience’s remedies had a ripple effect and Sorrel did not want to be the ripple in this case. She wanted to find her heart’s ease without her sister.
“WHERE ARE YOU?” Sorrel asked.
“At the Nursery,” Patience said. “Where are you, Castle Hedgerow Warthog?”
“Since when do we have Internet at the Nursery?”
“Since Ben Avellar decided the Sparrow Sisters Nursery needed to be introduced to the twenty-first century,” Patience said. “How are you, Sorrel? You look a little peaky.”
“I am piqued, that’s for sure,” Sorrel said. “What did you pack in my suitcase?”
“What did I pack? You packed it,” Patience said and looked away from the computer.
“Nice try, Patience,” Sorrel said. “I found the Heart’s Ease.”
“Oh, that,” Patience said.
“Yes, that,” Sorrel said. “What is it? What’s it meant to do?”
“Well, now that’s entirely up to who takes it, isn’t it?” Patience said. She was sitting at the tall counter in the Nursery, and Sorrel could see a row of bottles just like hers lined up beside her sister.
“And if I take it?” Sorrel asked.
“Hmm,” Patience stalled.
“Spill,” Sorrel snapped. “There’s some crazy shit going on here, and I need to know if you started it.”
“ME? I’m like a million miles away, Sorrel,” Patience said. “What kind of crazy shit?”
“First, there’s some seriously bad blood buried in this garden and it will be a struggle to save it.”
“That’s not good.”
“Yes, thank you for that science of the obvious,” Sorrel said. “I think now that I’ve dug it out and replaced the soil I can fix it, but I’ll only know when the plants go in.”
“And I have something to do with the hoodoo in the garden?” Patience asked. “Because I’m really pretty done with that kind of situation.”
“No, Patience, you have something to do with the hoodoo you hid in my bag.”
“Did you take it?”
“No, as a matter of fact, someone else did.”
“Whoa! Who?” Patience leaned into her computer, distorting her lovely face.
“Back up,” Sorrel said. “You look like a nightmare clown.”
“Sorry,” Patience said. “So whose life have I changed this time?”
Sorrel told Patience about Andrew. She skated around the more intimate details, but she knew that she couldn’t hide her growing feeling from her sister. Even separated by a screen, and an ocean, Sorrel could tell that Patience was reading her face and voice.
“So here is a terrific guy who seems to find you quite wonderful and you are doubting every move he makes?” Patience asked.
“I am because he’s the one who took the Heart’s Ease so, again, what is it for?”
“It does exactly what it says on the bottle, Sorrel,” she said. “Like Alice in Wonderland.”
“That is not comforting, Patience,” Sorrel said.
“No, no, wrong reference,” Patience said. “OK, here’s what’s in it and why I made it.”
Patience picked up her tattered notebook and leafed backward through it for a minute.
“Don’t you remember what you put in it?” Sorrel asked.
“I do. I’m making sure I give you everything. Show me the bottle, will you? I just want to see how much is left.”
Sorrel realized that she didn’t have it. Clearly Poppy did and just as clearly she’d been dosing Andrew for days.
“Poppy has it,” Sorrel said.
“Poppy? Do we have a secret English sister?”
Sorrel hadn’t thought of that, another flower name, another woman gathered into the Sparrow circle. She explained Poppy as best she could to Patience, which only served to excite her sister even more.
“That girl is definitely one of us,” she said. “Who else would slip a remedy to someone? I don’t think you need to worry too much. I mean look at Henry. I threw my whole arsenal at him in secret and he still loves me. This could be good, right?”
“Patience, what is it and what is it made to do?” Sorrel was losing patience, and the little thrill of anxiety that had been living in her chest since Poppy’s confession began to grow.
“Clematis, star of Bethlehem, Sweet Chestnut, Melissa, and hawthorn berries,” Patience rattled off the ingredients. “I made a strong tincture; just a drop or two daily in any liquid will do it.”
“Do what?” Sorrel asked.
“Look, after Matty and the trial, and then all the relief of bringing the Nursery back to life and Nettie and Henry and me . . .”
“Patience, get to the point.”
“I sensed an emptiness in you, Sorrel. I felt that even though you were happy for all of us, happy for Simon and Charlotte, there was still this, I don’t know, thwarted feeling coming off you.”
“Thwarted? Terrific, you make me sound all Miss Havisham.”
“Not like that,” Patience said. “You smelled of carnation, you know, cloves, pepper, and too intense, which is what caught me.”
“Patience, I was happy, I am happy, for all of you,” Sorrel said. “I never begrudged you a single moment of joy.”
“Of course you didn’t, Sorrel. You couldn’t. But what I sensed made me want to make sure that your heart softened, opened to someone else, someone who isn’t us.”