“And that’s what made Sorrel, and the others in the past, ill?”
“I don’t know. I’m just thinking out loud,” Patience said. “And to be honest, I don’t care about the others or the damn garden. I only care about my sister.”
“I’m with you on that,” Poppy said. “But, to be clear, no one other than a Kirkwood has ever succumbed to the garden.”
“Don’t you see?” Patience snapped. “The minute Sorrel fell for Andrew, the minute she took you all into her heart, she became a Kirkwood.”
“Oh dear,” Poppy said.
“Yes, oh dear,” Patience said. “Now, let’s get back to the remedy.”
Poppy strained the remedy through the finest sieve in the Tithe Barn kitchen. There were still bits floating but Patience assured her it was fine and besides, there was no more time to fiddle. She instructed Poppy on the dosage and told her that under no circumstances was anyone to go into the garden again. Poppy dreaded sharing that news with the others. Then she decided she didn’t give a fig.
“Let that steep for one hour,” Patience said, “before you administer it. Then after the first two doses, call me back.”
“I’m on it,” Poppy said.
“And, Poppy,” Patience said, “Sorrel had better recover, fast.”
“HERE’S A THOUGHT,” Andrew said after he and Delphine left Gabe to re-roll the tapestry. “What if we reinter Anna properly in the chapel?”
“Don’t you need permission for that?” Delphine asked. “Certainly you can’t go burying people willy-nilly.”
“No, not like, say, Thomas did to the midwife,” Andrew said sourly. “But given that the bishop is joining me for the consecration at the solstice, I’m pretty sure I could convince him that Anna deserves a Christian burial.”
“Even though she’s a witch?”
“Well, she’s not, obviously, so that’s not an issue.”
“How do you explain her then?” Delphine asked.
“We just spin a story about the garden restoration uncovering ancient human remains and take it from there.”
“We don’t even know if she’s there,” Delphine said.
“One way to find out,” Andrew said. “I’m going to Sorrel. If she seems stable, we’ll get Gabe and excavate together.”
“And Graham?” Delphine asked.
“He’ll be right there with us.”
CHAPTER 21
Morning Glory
Andrew sat by Sorrel’s bedside waiting for a sign. Poppy had given her the first dose and was anxious to give the second. Sorrel was awake but utterly wiped out.
“I wish you wouldn’t stare at me like that,” she whispered.
“I wish you weren’t so ill,” Andrew said. “I wish you’d never undertaken that garden.”
“If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here with you.”
“Precisely,” Andrew said. “I mean; you wouldn’t be laid out like a flounder.”
“Lovely,” Sorrel said. “Fish.”
“Henry thinks it’s a mold thing,” Andrew said.
“You talked to Henry?”
“No, Patience did. I guess she’s covering all the bases.”
Sorrel nodded and put her arm over her eyes.
“Of course, Gabe has his own idea,” Andrew said. “Do you want to hear it?”
“I guess.” Sorrel sighed.
Andrew told Sorrel the story of the last tapestry. He watched as her eyes widened and her mouth opened in surprise or shock or disbelief or all three, he couldn’t tell which without words. Poppy sat by the window holding the remedy as if it were the grail and checked her watch repeatedly.
“This is beyond spooky,” Sorrel said.
“Or,” said Andrew, “it makes complete sense.”
“Either way, the revival was false, the garden is a failure and so am I,” Sorrel said. “I’d cry if I had the energy.”
Poppy stepped in with Patience’s remedy. Unlike her sister’s beautifully clear and clean concoctions distilled and decanted in the peace and comfort of the Sparrow Sisters Nursery, this jam jar was full of a murky liquid, and Poppy had to shake it to redistribute the sediment.
Sorrel was smart enough to take it without protest, but she gagged all the same.
“You needn’t be so dramatic. I’ve been taking my Heart’s Ease for a month now without a single blech,” Andrew said.
“Your Heart’s Ease?” Sorrel asked. “And, how long?”
Poppy attempted to slip out but Sorrel stopped her with a puny clap.
“Don’t blame it all on Poppy, Sorrel,” Andrew said. “She may have started it, but I’m the one who kept it up.”
“I can’t trust either of you,” Sorrel said. Then she looked at Andrew. “Can I trust your feelings for me or is this just another story I’m being told?”
Poppy turned away and eased out of the room.
Andrew climbed onto the bed with Sorrel and put his arms around her, pulling her into his chest.
“I have never felt anything like the love I have for you,” Andrew said. “It was not engendered by potions or nurtured by anything more enchanted than your love for me. You must know that, Sorrel, here,” he thumped his heart.
Sorrel nestled into Andrew’s arms, and he felt her nod against his chin. In minutes they were both asleep.
SORREL DREAMT OF the garden, or rather she dreamt of a Shakespeare Garden that was resplendently in bloom. She dreamt that her sisters were with her and that they were as happy as she. Patience carried a basket and plucked herbs and flowers with her tiny, sharp scissors. Nettie had a canvas bag slung across her chest. She began to pick vegetables and slip them into the bag, all the while telling her sisters what she planned for dinner. Sorrel had already gathered a bouquet of sweet peas so fragrant the bees were drunk on the nectar and were compelled to alight in the branches of a dogwood to sleep it off. She planned to put them at her bedside. Nettie already had a bushel basket of pears and passion fruit, and out of nowhere Patience had lined up her blue bottles around the sundial.
There was a wood just beyond the garden walls. Sunlight played through the leaves, and birdsong floated in to the girls. Strangely, a rill ran right through the garden, bending around the sundial and disappearing into a small opening in the brick wall. The sisters had left the gate open as they worked so that Wags and Maggie wandered along with them, drinking from the rill, nibbling at the grasses that grew amidst the gravel. Sorrel bent to pat Maggie as Nettie tsked over her malformed leg. Maggie was not the least bothered, and Wags nudged her along as they snuffled.
“Everything is just right,” Sorrel said. “All the hard work has paid off handsomely.”
“If only Anna were here to see it,” Patience said. “She promised to come, but it’s too late for her now.”