“Stop it,” she said, holding the phone behind her back. “Isn’t there someone else who needs you?”
“Gabe and Delphine are at the chapel. They seem to think—”
Poppy interrupted him. “Great. Go help them, and I’ll sit with Sorrel while we wait for Patience.”
Andrew handed off Wags, and the two parted. Poppy could see by the slump of Andrew’s shoulders that he was struggling. As for herself, she found it unsettling that Sorrel was not in charge. Poppy had gotten used to her calm certainty, the way she tilted her head as she listened to her plants, the sound of Sorrel’s ethereal humming as she moved from parterre to parterre, music that seemed to call the birds to the garden and the bees to the blossoms. Poppy was a sensible sort, so this kind of musing was so out of character that she mimed a quick slap to her own cheek before she entered the Tithe Barn.
Sorrel was still asleep. Her skin was pale, but her cheeks were red, as if Poppy had actually slapped her. Poppy straightened the sheet and coverlet over Sorrel, and Wags jumped up on the foot of the bed.
“No!” Poppy hissed. “Get down, silly.” She reached to scoop Wags off the bed.
Wags growled low and long. She bared her teeth, and Poppy saw her hackles rise into a ridge. She’d never seen Wags do anything but smile and cuddle, and she stepped back with her hands up.
“Steady, steady,” she said. “I’m leaving.” Poppy backed out of the room.
Wags turned in a circle before settling in the crook of Sorrel’s knees with a sigh.
Poppy waited in the living room, leafing through Andrew’s unspeakably boring church stuff, checking his fridge for Delphine leftovers, snooping in cupboards for biscuits to have with her tea. When her phone rang, she jumped.
Patience didn’t even greet Poppy, just started talking.
“Have you got a pen and paper?” she barked.
Poppy grabbed Andrew’s pad and a pen and sat as if ordered, her hand poised for note taking.
“Ready?” Patience asked.
“Quite,” said Poppy and bent to her task.
Twenty minutes later Poppy had two pages of instructions, lists of herbs and proportions, and a bunch of doodles along the margins that now made no sense. Thankfully, Patience had agreed to Skype with Poppy while she made the remedy.
“It won’t be mine, exactly,” Patience said. “But at least I’ll know you won’t kill her.”
The last thing Patience asked was what Sorrel smelled of.
“I beg your pardon?” Poppy said. “I don’t fancy sniffing for whatever it is you think I should sniff for.”
“No, no, jeez, you people are so literal,” Patience said. “Just tell me what the air around her says.”
Poppy crept into the bedroom thinking that Patience was probably the rudest person she’d ever encountered, and the strangest. That was saying something lately.
Yet there it was, a scent that lay atop the air, a breeze of it that Poppy inhaled and tried to identify. She ran back to the phone before she forgot.
“Marigolds, she smells like marigold leaves,” Poppy said. “Sharp, acrid but also kind of nice.”
“OK, that’s helpful,” Patience said. “Come back when you have everything.”
“Wait, wait,” Poppy said. “I’m not supposed to go into the garden.”
“Really?” Patience said. “You’re going to follow the rules now?”
“Right, right, I’m off,” said Poppy and put down the phone.
Poppy did tie a scarf around her nose and mouth while she worked: a Hermès silk scarf that belonged to her mother, which was very soon coated in fine grit and damp with Poppy’s breath. It was alarming, the garden, so Poppy moved quickly, keeping her list held high as she stopped to cut the herbs. It seemed as if the rot was claiming plants like a wave on the shore. The physic patch was close enough to the wall that, while scraggly, it was for the most part intact. Poppy threw everything into the Pyrex bowl she’d brought and ran back to the Tithe Barn.
IF GRAHAM HAD seen his daughter even pass by the garden gate, he would have lifted her by her shirt collar and carried her away. But Lord Kirkwood was in his library surrounded by family history, desperate to stop the disaster he saw coming. Of course, had he paid any attention at all to his current family or, to be more exact, if he had told them the truth from the start, the disaster might have been averted altogether. At least that’s what he thought. Instead, Graham sat at his desk, his hair standing on end from being scrubbed back and forth, a scattering of hives already climbing his neck. He blamed himself for everything, as he should have, and for the life of him, he could see no way out. It wasn’t that he expected a plague to take his family one by one, it was that however this most recent failed attempt at garden saving ended up, Graham knew his family might never forgive him for his part in it. Nor should they, he thought as he ran his hand through his hair again.
IN THE CRYPT Gabe was on his knees beside Thomas’s sarcophagus. He was digging around in the space between the stone and the stone wall with Andrew’s sponge pole, minus the sponge and with the addition of a hook made of baling wire. The scraping sound made Delphine cover her ears and Andrew wince. Finally there was a muffled thump and a dry dragging as Gabe snagged the tapestry roll.
“Don’t tear it,” Delphine shrieked, but Gabe was turned away. The thought of the sharp wire ripping through the delicate threads, the linen and silk and perhaps even gold embroidery, made her shudder. But she also knew why they were all in this suffocating place and she closed her mouth.
The roll was wrapped in a muslin drop cloth so that the sound Delphine heard was only the hook in the muslin. Gabe and Andrew carried the tapestry out between them and laid it on the widest part of the transept at the foot of the altar. They pulled the muslin off bit by bit, sending plumes of stone dust into the air.
“Before I open this,” Andrew said, “have you seen it, Gabe?”
Gabe shook his head and bent down again, waving an impatient hand at Andrew.
“Fine, I’ll do this with you but whatever it shows, can we agree not to blame Graham? We can be pissed that he’s been so secretive, we can be irritated that even in the face of your certainty, Delphine, he denied it was here, but we can’t blame him for the subject matter, right?”