Page 7

7

The garden.

As they resumed their car ride, Lowell talked about the garden with such wonder. That reverence would only grow with time. As for Rose, her relationship with the garden would go through many stages. Eventually, she’d come to spend more time there than anyone outside of the Hargroves. She’d see it as an oasis. A sanctuary. A lush, cozy bubble that insulated her from the stark realities of the rest of the world. And then she’d see it for what it really was.

But before any of that, she’d hear the lore that came hand in hand with any mention of Hemlock Hill, which was the official name of the Hargrove property. It was ironic that Lowell, who had never even set foot on it himself, would tell her so much about it, but he did. And he started with the parties. They were, as he described them, “the stuff of legend.”

“The Hargroves haven’t thrown a party in, like, a year, so this is a huge deal,” Lowell said. “One does not simply show up to a garden party at Hemlock Hill. You have to be invited. When I say they’re the stuff of legend, I mean that seriously. Everything I know about the parties is because of the stories people tell.”

And there were plenty of stories. But since no one ever filmed or posted anything from the garden, it was hard to tell what was rumor and what was fact.

“Total, unsupervised debauchery,” Lowell said.

“Debauchery?” Rose could not help the skeptical edge in her voice. “Really?”

“And orgies, probably.”

“Ew.”

“The point is,” Lowell continued, “everyone is dying to get into one of those parties, and few people ever do. But the lucky ones? They’ll tell you. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen.”

He told of drunken escapades in lush surroundings, of secret trysts behind hedges, and illicit party games shrouded by the protective canopy of trees that were older than the country itself. There were stories of kids who nearly caused wildfires with sparklers, and strange games of people getting buried alive in loose soil to see who could last underground the longest. One of the twins’ freshman classmates apparently got so lost in the surrounding woods on the Fourth of July that she couldn’t find her way out until dawn’s early light.

Some stories veered into the uncanny, involving costumes and rituals and songs that only those present knew the melodies to. Lowell said that the people who went to the parties did and said things they wouldn’t normally do or say in the real world. Things that would be impossible to describe to someone who didn’t see it for themselves.

Lowell said the Hargroves tried to nip the stories in the bud, but as soon as they did, new tales would spring up, over and over again, until they gave up trying to set the record straight. The Hargroves let people believe what they wanted. And people wanted to believe. People—Lowell included—lived for the stories that cropped up from the garden at Hemlock Hill.

“But nothing, like, out of control ever happens, right?” Rose asked.

“Probably not,” Lowell said. “Otherwise why would people keep going back?”

“And all of this happens in a garden behind a house?” Rose asked.

Lowell shook his head, scratching at the back of it. “Okay, we’re going to have to redefine ‘garden.’ Actually, let’s back up. We’re going to have to redefine ‘house’ too.”

Hemlock Hill was renowned as one of the most beautiful pieces of privately owned property in the state. The land had been in the possession of the Hargrove family for generations, and though the house was noteworthy, being the largest and oldest one for miles, no one ever spoke of it without also mentioning the landscape it sat upon. Its acreage was well documented in city records, but ask different people and they’d measure it in their own unique ways.

Some said it was so big that it would take more than a day to see everything in it. Others said it extended into the woods that flanked it, that it was impossible to know how much of it was part of Meadow Falls proper and how much was owned by the Hargroves.

“I mean, the garden is mostly special because the family doesn’t open it to the public—except for the parties,” Lowell said. “Imagine having the best botanical garden in the state, but it’s privately owned and they’re super selective about who gets to see it.”

“I guess I just got lucky,” Rose said.

“I bet it’s like a party trick for Hart,” Lowell said. “Probably shows girls his garden to convince them he’s really hot.”

“I would argue that the fact he’s really hot would be all the convincing we need.”

Lowell didn’t look like he agreed, but he didn’t belabor the point. “I have a theory,” he said. “That the garden is more than just a garden.”

“What do you mean?” It seemed to be the Hargroves’ entire social life. But that wasn’t what Lowell was implying.

“They’re so protective of it.” Lowell shrugged, pushing up his glasses. “And it’s like… why?”

The question was simple and seemed like something that should’ve been easily explained. It was just a garden, after all. Yet, since Lowell had unfurled the garden’s strange and lauded history, Rose couldn’t stop thinking about it. Like unruly weeds, Lowell’s stories permeated her mind, insidious and beyond her control. After dropping Lowell off at the community pool, Rose lugged her thoughts all the way to work, where she asked her favorite guest about the Hargroves and their property.

“Oh yes, Hemlock Hill,” Mr. Davis said. The eighty-six-year-old was always happy to talk about any topic, especially if it had to do with Meadow Falls townsfolk. All Rose had to do was steer him in that direction. She sat in a chair next to his bed, sketchbook propped on her knees and stick of charcoal sooting up her fingertips. “Their whole property is landmarked, you know. Which is all well and good but must be a pain in the behind whenever they need to make any sort of restorations.”

Rose smiled at the way Mr. Davis said “behind” so that it sounded more like “beehive.”

“A Hargrove has lived in that house since its construction, over two hundred years ago.”

“I’ve heard some things,” Rose said, “about their garden, specifically.”

Mr. Davis’s jowls sagged as he nodded. “I’ve only seen it in pictures, myself.”

“Really? You’ve never been?”

Mr. Davis’s shoulders jutted against the pillows that propped up his back. “Well, I knew a Hargrove back in the day. George Abernathy Hargrove. We were friendly some, and there were invites here and there, parties in the garden, socials, that sort of thing. But, oh, I don’t know, I just never saw any reason to go. With the stories that came out of those parties… well, I guess I just never felt the need to get mixed up in all of that.”

The charcoal slipped out of Rose’s fingers, and when she glanced down, she saw she’d inadvertently scratched a line across Mr. Davis’s portrait.

“You know the stories,” Mr. Davis said in a leading sort of way. “Don’t you?”

Rose felt like she was playing catch-up, her mind still on the fact that the parties in the garden weren’t a new phenomenon started by the twins. That’d they’d been happening for a long time. “Only rumors,” she said.

Mr. Davis nodded and folded his knobby fingers over his blanketed lap. “Yes, well.” He looked at nothing, farther down the bed. “The thing about the Hargroves is, they—their lives—may seem lucky and dazzling. Blessed, even. But they have had a lot of hardships, too. Terribly sad, what happened to those poor twins’ mother.”

Rose didn’t move as she strained to catch Mr. Davis’s every word.

“The parties and the garden, it may all seem alluring, but you can’t have the best of something without also getting the worst of it. You can’t have one without the other, see?”

Rose nodded, hoping Mr. Davis would keep talking. But he only smiled tightly and wrapped everything up with, “I always thought it best to keep a safe distance.”

Rose scooted her chair closer until her knees bumped the side of Mr. Davis’s bed. “But what does the Hargroves’ great life have to do with the garden? And the parties?”

Mr. Davis flicked a dismissive wrist. “Oh, that’s all folktales. The parties are just parties. Too raucous for my tastes. But everything else? Just a bunch of old wives’ tales. Now, are you sure this is my good side? This is not the first portrait I’ve sat for, but it is almost certainly my last.”

Rose’s mind teemed with more questions, but she obliged Mr. Davis, turning to a fresh page in her sketchbook.

Rose went to the staff room to change out of her scrub top and get her things. Heather was already there, sitting with her phone in hand, but when she saw Rose, she put it away. “I thought I’d give you some advice,” she said.

Rose’s first instinct was to check if someone else had just walked into the room, because Heather couldn’t possibly be talking to her. But it was just the two of them, and Rose waited to hear what Heather had to say.

“Don’t get attached.”

“What?” Rose asked.

“I saw you with Mr. Davis. Drawing him.”

Heather must’ve seen them through the open door of his room. “Were you spying on me?” Rose asked.

“Not sure you’re aware, but everyone in here dies,” Heather said. “No point making friends with the dead.”

Rose wasn’t sure which was worse, getting the icy, inexplicable cold shoulder from Heather, or actually talking to her. “They’re not dead, they’re people .”

“Mr. Davis will be gone soon, though Mrs. Pincher’s up first. I’d steer clear.”

Rose wasn’t sure if she’d heard right. She knew the stats: the typical life expectancy of the guests here was about six months. But it was the easy way Heather talked about people’s impending deaths. It wasn’t just callous. It chilled the blood in Rose’s veins. “What did you say?”

“You don’t know what it’s like to lose someone close to you.”

It was presumptuous of Heather to assume that. But also correct. Rose had never lost anyone to death.

“It’ll wreck you,” Heather went on. “And working in a place like this? It’ll wreck you over and over and over again. It’s relentless. Tidal waves. Tar pits. Get off the ride while you still can.”

Rose had no idea what Heather was talking about. But she could see through to the deeper subtext underneath what she was saying. Heather was talking as someone who was still hurt from losing a parent not too long ago.

“Also,” Heather went on, “you’re asking people about my family’s garden?”

So, she had definitely been spying.

“Hart invited me to the party.”

“I’m uninviting you,” Heather said simply. She crossed the room and left it before Rose could understand what’d just happened.