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I gesture to the mirror, my throat too narrow to choke out even a word.
Catherine cranes her neck past me to see the mirror and gives an impatient huff. “Is this some sort of game? Don’t you think I have better things to do than drop everything and come look at your mirror for some whim of yours?”
Angry, I spin around and point at the mirror, ready to chastise Catherine for being willfully obtuse. But I drop my hand. The words that were just there, written as clear as day in the steam, are gone.
My mouth opens and closes, unable to produce any words while my mind sluggishly works to comprehend what I’m seeing. Then, “No! I don’t understand. I... There was writing on the fog on the mirror. It was just here...”
Catherine flicks her glance to the tub. “The water isn’t even steaming...how on earth could the mirror be fogged?” She shakes her head. “You need to get some sleep. You’re seeing things.”
But I know what I saw. The only thing I don’t know is what it meant.
With one last suspicious look at me, Catherine leaves me dripping there, the image of the fogged words burned into my mind.
You attract them. Some mean you harm. Prepare for what lies ahead.
7
MY HANDS AREstained and scratched, my back aching, but when I stand to stretch from weeding I feel better than I have in a long time about our new life in the middle of nowhere. The garden at Willow Hall is small, a scorched vegetable patch that hasn’t yielded much except a handful of misshapen tomatoes and some resilient squashes, but I’m determined to see it productive and beautiful. I wonder if my dream about the pale lady the other night wasn’t my mind’s way of telling me that I ought to pay more attention to the garden. I haven’t dared breathe a word about it to Emeline because I don’t want to scare her, or to Catherine because she would just laugh at me. It’s bad enough that Catherine saw me flustered and in a panic about the words in the mirror. The more I thought about it as I lay in bed last night, the more I’m convinced that, like the pale lady who has not reappeared, the words were nothing more than a figment of my imagination. Otherwise, how do I explain it?
Our flower garden with the lilacs used to be Mother’s pride and joy, but here she hasn’t shown any interest in the plot behind the house. When I told her I wanted to clean it up and start an herb garden—something she had forbidden in Boston—she had looked pained and told me she didn’t think it was a good idea, but in the end, she had not fought it.
I never understood Mother’s aversion to having a nice herb garden. I have vague memories of my grandmother’s house in Cambridge with an ambling garden behind it, full of every herb and healing plant imaginable. When I was little I used to love to rub my fingers into the bergamot flowers, releasing their spicy scent, and chewing on the leaves of lemon balm. But one day when I had brought Mother a remedy I’d concocted from some of the herbs for her chronic headaches, she had blanched and recoiled from me, telling me that I must never dabble with herbs. Apparently it wasn’t ladylike, or proper for young girls. I can’t remember now.
But now Mother has given up on that, I suppose, not having the energy or inclination to ensure that I’m a proper lady. My hands move automatically, pruning back the plants like mint and chamomile that like to spread, and encouraging the shier plants like hyssop and parsley. For all that I am lousy at arranging flowers and don’t know the first thing about wildlife, it’s almost as if herbs speak to me, telling me what they need. I wipe the sweat from my eyes and survey my progress with pride. Despite the scorching weather, the plot is lush and already teeming with eager plants. It’s miraculous really, like they sprang up overnight. I wonder that the vegetable patch and the flower garden are so withered and decayed, while my little herbs have grown and thrived so quickly.
The back door bangs open, shattering the peace. Emeline cuts directly toward me, little fists balled at her side, brow furrowed in distress. Snip bounds at her heels, wagging his tail furiously as she barrels on.
“It’s not fair!” she shouts before she’s even halfway to the garden.
I quickly wipe off the dirt on my apron and crouch down to receive her, but she stops short and glares at me.
“What’s not fair?”
Before she has a chance to enlighten me, Catherine comes out, throwing up her hands when she sees us. “Get back inside this instant, Emeline!”
“I will not! Lydia, tell her that it’s not fair.”
“Someone is going to have to tell me what’s going on, because—”
They start talking over each other, both acting like eight-year-old children, even though only one of them is, and the other a young woman of twenty-two.
Emeline gets her words out first in a triumphant rush. “Mr. Barrett sent a note along saying he and Mr. Pierce are coming over for a picnic and Cath says that I can’t come because it will be an uneven number and it has to be two men and two ladies but I don’t think it’s fair because I don’t know any other—”
“Mr. Barrett is coming today?”
Emeline stops, and they both look at me as if I have two heads.
“It doesn’t matter anyway, you’re too young,” Catherine says. Turning to me, she lowers her voice. “She’ll say something dreadful, I just know she will.”
She means that Emeline will say something about Boston, and then all the trouble Catherine has gone to with both Mr. Pierce and Mr. Barrett will be lost. “Emeline knows what’s appropriate conversation for company and what’s not. Don’t you, Emmy?”
Emeline glowers at us and then looks down, scuffing her shoe in the dirt. “Yes, I know.”
“There,” I say brightly. I’m already taking off my apron and trying to remember if Ada was able to get the stain out of my favorite cream silk dress. “When will they be here?”
“After lunch,” Catherine says. Crossing her arms, she juts her chin over my shoulder. “What are you doing out here anyway? I don’t remember there being plants there.”
I follow her gaze, having already forgotten the gardening in which just moments ago I was so absorbed. “Just doing a little weeding.”