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Briar

A wooden knife…

The words danced and blurred, the ink bleeding into the paper and disappearing in places—the shaky and indistinct lines laid bare the author’s fear—or maybe just her madness.

I sat at my desk, flipping through the yellowed pages of the journal.

What was I searching for? I fell against the back of my chair, giving up.

Most years, I looked forward to September and the start of spring with its new beginnings.

This year, the season took on a different meaning in the wake of my mother’s death two months ago.

I filled my lungs, feeling them stretch inside my rib cage, drowning myself in nature’s perfumes.

A tingle covered my entire body as though her presence were in the room with me.

If only that were true.

A breeze carried the salt from Byron Bay through the partially open window, mixing with lavender and jasmine from the garden before picking up hints of drying wood and the chamomile steam from my tea.

It sifted through my hair as its tendrils brushed my bare arms, cooling them.

If it weren’t for the book in front of me, I could easily fall into a meditative trance as the serenity of my surroundings embraced me.

My heart stilled for the first time in weeks, and the tightness in my chest loosened.

I squeezed my eyes closed, afraid to hope the peaceful sensation would stay.

A wooden knife … That was why my family was Australian, not English.

I turned to the window of the old garden-shed-turned-office.

Outside, a plethora of plants thrived, their green leaves and colorful flowers luminous in the midday sun.

The jasmine hung in a basket, its dark green foliage and white flowers trailing over the side, suspended from a shepherd’s hook.

How long would it be before someone purchased that particular one, and I’d have to prepare another?

I shrugged to myself. It didn’t matter. I enjoyed owning the holistic garden center and the excuse it gave me to sink my fingers deep into the dirt and cultivate a relationship with the earth.

The breeze stirred the leaves of the trees, allowing the sun to reflect off the window of what had been my mother’s bedroom in the house, and a pang of sadness crept into my heart.

I almost expected to hear a melody floating from the window in the silence—a ghostly harmony woven through the garden.

But there was only the ache of my mother’s absence as the quiet settled over me.

I would never hear the strains of her music floating from her window again.

I flipped the journal back to the beginning. There had to be something I was missing. I couldn’t fail my mother.

This past year, the garden center granted the most significant gift.

It meant I could stay close to my mother in her final months, allowing her to remain at home while I worked and checked on her.

Only a few customers shopped in the winter months, but I had to tend to the greenhouses daily.

When I timed my work correctly, I could sit with her for more days than not.

“Dammit.” My fingers shook as I closed the journal before crossing the room to throw open the sash, staring across the expanse at her bedroom window, wishing it were open too. My eyes burned as I wrapped my arms around my stomach, the memory threatening to overwhelm me.

My mother lay in bed; we both knew the end was near.

My chest tightened as I reached out and took her hand.

She struggled to curl her lips into a smile as she met my eyes.

Her frail fingers, the bones more prominent than the pads, pressed on mine, no longer having the strength for anything more.

But her eyes… Her eyes sparkled with the familiar, soft mischief that was the very core of my mother.

My heart swelled with pride as I fought the tears threatening to spill.

In her gaze, I saw defiance in the face of death—she would not let this world close around her without leaving a final spark.

That spark, so fiercely hers, was the thing I was terrified to lose.

“Do you want to know something, Briar?” she said. Her words shook.

“What is that, Mum?” I asked, my voice soft as though speaking to a child.

She had me later in life. I was the miracle child she never thought she would have, the result of a one-night stand with a stranger.

Such was life in our bohemian town. But it meant I never knew my father, and my only family was slipping away before my eyes. I swallowed down the lump in my throat.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about what would happen after I die. Is there an afterlife where I will finally learn the family history I never learned in this life?” She sighed. “It’s embarrassing to be a historian and to have never learned about my ancestors.”

I forced a chuckle, the sound catching in my throat so it came out almost as a sob.

She had always wanted to know more about the woman sentenced to live her life on this continent, but our story always took a back seat to the lives of others.

It was just like her to want to continue to follow the clues in her afterlife.

My voice was low. “There’s only so much time.

Think of the number of women you did research.

” If I’d just insisted she focus on herself. I stared at our joined hands.

“I should have spent time on our history; learned my story and yours.” She coughed. “You know, I have her journal in my closet.”

“You do?” I raised an eyebrow. A convict who knew how to read and write?

“Quite a fanciful story.” Her voice shook as she smiled. “You never were very interested.”

“Why don’t you tell me now?” I straightened the blanket around her lap.

She struggled to inhale, her chest heaving, while winning the battle to take in air. “The short story is she stabbed a man through the heart with a wooden knife.”

“What?” I sat forward. “Most of the women exiled to Australia were prostitutes or thieves. You’re telling me our convict was a murderer?”

My mother smiled. I shook my head with a slight inward laugh, knowing I had given her the reaction she sought.

She had always loved it when she could shock me with some tidbit of history, even as a child.

She continued. “The Lady Isobel Fitzwilliam insisted her victim was a vampire who killed her husband. You know how stories were back then—it could have meant anything. But, oh, to make it to England and search the archives.” Her eyes shone with wonderment.

I smoothed her hair back. “You don’t believe he was really a vampire?”

She chuckled. “No, I don’t. But maybe someday you can find out. Maybe you can learn what happened.” Her eyes closed, heavy with sleep.

I glanced at the clock. She had been awake for a few hours, reading and talking. I leaned into her chest and hugged her. “Consider it my promise that I will learn everything I can.”

Another gust blew through the window, catching the unfinished work on my desk.

The fluttering of papers pulled me back to the present.

Two months had passed since she left me the journal of Lady Isobel.

And I was no closer to finishing her story now than I had been when I read it the first time.

I didn’t have my mother’s training on how to accomplish this task.

I sat at my desk, reopening the book to the next page.

In this entry, Lady Isobel’s handwriting was steady and curved, not a hint of confusion in the unrealistic words.

The air cooled my throat as I took a long breath.

I had to keep this promise to my mother even though it made little sense now.

What good would it do? It felt foolish, grasping for someone’s life story to calm my grief.

But I had promised her, and I wasn’t about to disappoint her.

Her words still pressed against my chest, impossible to ignore.