“Oh God. Did she eat something?” Poppy asked.
“Might have, but Gabe is certain it’s more than that, and now he’s got me spooked.”
“What does Sorrel think? She’s got more experience with all this stuff,” Poppy said.
“What stuff?” Graham said as he came into the kitchen. “By stuff I hope you mean pancakes and grits or some such American delicacy. I’m starved.” He rubbed his hands together.
Poppy rolled her eyes, Stella sighed, and Andrew made a fist under the table.
“Honestly, Graham,” Stella said. “Sometimes you are such a cliché.”
Andrew explained his situation, and Gabe’s theories, including the fairy houses hidden away all these years. Graham’s brow lowered, and his expression darkened until finally he held up his hand to stop the story.
“Enough, I’ve heard enough,” he said with uncharacteristic force. “Stella, Poppy, you are to stay out of the garden until we’ve halted the newest assault on our happiness.” He strode out of the room without his breakfast or even tea.
Poppy convinced Andrew to let her come back to the Tithe Barn to see Sorrel, and Stella agreed to check on Delphine. If Gabe had already gotten to her, she’d need counsel. If he hadn’t, Stella might just spirit away a couple of croque-madames for lunch while Delphine was still in a reasonable mood.
Sorrel was sitting on the edge of the bed when Poppy and Andrew returned. She actually looked a bit better, but to Poppy, who hadn’t seen her the day before, Sorrel had never looked worse.
“We are here to help,” Poppy said. “Andrew has gotten us all in a swivet over the grotty garden and Gabe’s dodgy theories about Maggie and the fairy houses.”
“I almost wish I knew what you were talking about, but mostly I wish my head would just fall off and put me out of my misery,” Sorrel said.
“She doesn’t know?” Poppy asked Andrew.
“I didn’t know until I hit the garden with Gabe.”
Sorrel shuffled over to the chaise by the big window and lowered herself onto it.
“Start at the beginning,” she said. “Don’t assume I’ll believe you, but do start talking.”
Of all the people who should have believed in the innate evil, or good, of a garden, it was Sorrel. She knew in her blood and bone what ugliness could prevail, what history left behind in the land. But this story was exactly what she didn’t need or want to hear. The fact that Andrew had gotten himself all tied up in Gabe’s superstitions was almost more upsetting than the idea that her garden was as thwarted as Sorrel once was. Never mind Graham’s useless theories.
“You guys,” she said, “if you could hear yourselves.”
“I’m only filling you in on what’s happening,” Andrew said.
“And the fact that everyone’s gone bloody mad,” Poppy said.
“The only thing to do is go see what’s gone wrong,” Sorrel said. “Gabe and I were going to clear out that corner this morning anyway.”
“It’s not just the corner anymore,” Andrew said as he helped Sorrel off the chaise.
“Well, shit,” she said. “Let’s leg it, then.”
A ramshackle bunch, that’s what they were as Sorrel slowly walked between Poppy and Andrew. When they got to the gate, Poppy hung back, a sheepish look on her face.
“Your dad?” Sorrel asked.
“Yes, but now I’m going to ignore him,” Poppy said and stepped up.
“Actually,” Sorrel said and put a hand on her arm, “Let’s play it safe. If the garden is contaminated, I want to limit the damage to a party of one.”
Andrew hadn’t mentioned Maggie, party of two. He wasn’t sure if it was because her death was so heartbreaking for Gabe or because it would only upset Sorrel.
Poppy lingered at the wall feeling useless. It was another beautiful day, which seemed particularly insulting given how ugly everything was. She closed her eyes and tipped her face into the sun. Andrew’s shout came only minutes later, and Poppy skinned her elbows pushing off from the brick wall. She spun to run through the gate but Andrew barreled through first with Sorrel in his arms.
“She passed out, just out!” he said. “Call 999, and Stella and, Jesus, just get someone!”
Poppy did as she was told, calling emergency services and then running for her mother while Andrew half-carried, half-walked a now conscious Sorrel to the Tithe Barn.
“I’m feeling better,” Sorrel whispered.
“Excellent, Monty Python girl, I’ll just call off the dead cart, then.”
“Seriously, dehydration, flu, whatever. It’s not an emergency.”
But it was to Andrew. He’d seen the look on Sorrel’s face when she saw how the garden rot had spread. He watched what little color she had drain when she rustled the boxwood, letting loose so many mites it looked like snow. When she saw the fairy house, she gasped and put her fingers to her mouth. She’d turned to Andrew in that moment, and then she went down. There was an angry scrape from the gravel on her chin, she’d bitten her tongue in the fall, and her shirt was fouled with decay.
The ambulance arrived at the drive just as they did, so Sorrel simply sat on the edge of the open back while the medics tended to her.
“I have to agree with your wife, sir,” the EMT said.
Andrew and Sorrel spoke as one. “We’re not married.”
“In any event, while her blood pressure is a little low, and she still has a fever, this is a matter of dehydration and too much sun on top of a stomach bug,” she said. “Rest, fluids, and shade.”
Sorrel was so embarrassed that she agreed to everything and let Andrew lead her away. Poppy and her mother arrived shortly afterward.
“You do look wretched,” Stella said.
“She’s going to follow orders,” Andrew said. “Perhaps for the first time ever.”
They left Sorrel in bed, the long linen curtains pulled over the windows. She felt more than awful, although she’d never admit it. The enforced rest was welcome. As for the garden, it was so disturbing that all Sorrel could do was compare it to the state of the Nursery last summer. The combination of human destruction and whatever blight Patience’s state of mind threw over the whole town seemed much too close to what was happening here. She drifted off, determined to contact Patience when she woke.
In the living room Stella was handing out sandwiches from Delphine. She had in fact beaten Gabe into the village, probably because he was dawdling. No one enjoyed a tongue lashing from Delphine. Considering how sensitive the subject, Stella could only imagine that Gabe was putting off the confrontation.
“I think we should still call Patience,” Poppy said. “She should at least know that Sorrel’s not well.”