Flower (4 page)

I walk out onto the deck, which has big tubs of lavender under the kitchen and dining-room windows. “What do you think of my walled garden?” Gran asks. She doesn’t wait for me to answer, but it’s actually perfect–the way I imagine the Secret Garden looked. “We get all kinds of birds sheltering here,” she continues. “They’re as good as an alarm clock in the morning. Come upstairs now; I’m longing for you to see your room.”

We walk up the spiral staircase. The sun shines through a rose-colored stained glass window. Even the wood glows pink. I hate pink. The back of my neck feels hot. I’m thirsty and tired and wonder what’s for lunch.

“The main bedrooms are on this floor.
The Carpenter’s
is ours and
A Garden View
and
The Lilac Room
are guest suites. Your room is on the top floor, traditionally where the servants, nanny, and children used to sleep. We thought you’d like the privacy. I’m just going to find some towels for you. Go on up, dear, your door’s open.”

I climb up the last few steps to a narrow hallway. There’s a bathroom on one side, and three rooms next to each other with their names painted on tiles beside each door:
The Attic, Nursery
, and
Katie’s Room.
I take a quick look into the first two. They’re both empty except for tins of paint and rolls of wallpaper, stacked in the
corners. The nursery is the biggest room and has bars across the window.

The door of my room is open. There’s a window seat, which follows the curve of the wall. I can see the apple trees in the garden. One of them has a swing hanging from a thick branch. An old shed behind it is covered with climbing ivy.

A narrow wardrobe stands against one wall. A small chest of drawers, with a china basin and jug on it, stands against another, and, in a low alcove, there’s a shabby old-fashioned trunk. I can just make out a couple of faded letters on the lid–an
I
and an
L
.

The single bed has a brass headboard. I pull my copy of
The Secret Garden
from my backpack and put it on the table beside my bed. That’s what this room reminds me of. Almost everything does. This might be Martha the maid’s room. That’s the cane chair, where she’d fold her clothes at night, and in winter she’d shiver with cold, her bare feet glad of the cotton mat on the floor in front of the bed. The blue-and-white patchwork quilt might have been sewn by her mother, though I don’t know how she’d have time with all those children to take care of–I think it was twelve.

Gran comes in with the towels over her arm. She picks up my book. “I loved that novel when I was your age. Still do.”

“Me, too. We’re doing it for the school play next term. This is a great room, Gran. Is that trunk one of Grandfather’s bargains?” He loves going to auctions and flea markets.

“It belonged to your great-aunt Millicent. I use it for storing extra quilts and blankets. Are you ready to eat, Katie? Lunch will be spoiled if we don’t go down and have it soon.”

Grandfather sits at one end of the long kitchen table, tossing salad in a wooden bowl. Gran slices a baguette, and brings a brown earthenware casserole to the table.

“Cheese soufflé made with six eggs, especially in your honor, Katie. Help yourself.”

I put some salad on my plate. “I think I’ll stick to bread and salad.” There’s no way I’m going to eat that eggy stuff. I try not to look at it.

“Have just a little. Pass me your plate, dear.”

“Gran, I guess I should have told you … I’ve sort of developed an aversion to eggs lately I’ll eat bread and salad, if that’s alright.”

“I’ve got some cold ham, or how about a piece of cheese? You’re not dieting are you, Katie?”

I can’t stand this interrogation.
When did Gran turn into someone so–I don’t know–grandmotherly?
“I’m not dieting. Cheese is fine, thanks.” I keep my eyes on my
own plate while they eat their eggs. You can call it anything you like–soufflé, whatever–it’s only dressed-up scrambled eggs.

Lunch is finally over. “I’m away to my workshop,” Grandfather says. “I’ve got a sign to finish by tonight. I thought we’d have a house naming ceremony. I’ll expect you to do the honors, Katie.” He used to teach woodworking at the high school. He’s really great at making things and refinishing stuff. “It was a delicious soufflé, Norah, my dear. My favorite.”

I wish I’d gone to camp with Angie.

“It’s warm enough to sit outside. Take this please, Katie.” Gran hands me a plate of chocolate brownies and puts two glasses and a pitcher of lemonade on a tray. I hold the door open for her.

“Try that old rocking chair, dear–wonderfully relaxing. It used to belong to Mr. Macready His daughter told us she remembers her father sitting out here after dinner and smoking his cigars.”

It seems ages since I left Toronto. Dad and Stephanie must be more than halfway to England by now.
I sip my lemonade, and eat a brownie. “Good brownies, Gran.”

“You always did like them. Now tell me what you’ve been up to. Is school going well? Are you and the lovely Stephanie getting along? It
is
exciting about the baby, isn’t it? I’m sure you’ll enjoy being a big sister.”

A truthful answer is liable to give Gran a bit of a shock. “School’s okay. I haven’t thought much about the baby yet. It’s not due till Christmas. Is it fun being retired?”
Brilliant Katie, change the subject.

“Retired? We’ve never worked so hard in our lives. But I always wanted to run a bed-and-breakfast. We’ve already been getting inquiries.”

“That’s great. It’s a terrific house. I’ll go up and leave you in peace, Gran, and put my stuff away.” I escape. I’ve got a bit of a headache.

Before supper Grandfather hammers the new driftwood sign into the front lawn. I take a deep breath and, feeling a bit like the queen naming a ship, say, “I name this house Carpenter’s Rest. Bless all who live here.”

“Well done, Katie. This calls for a toast.” We go inside and he and Gran have champagne.

Dinner is by candlelight in the paneled dining room. There’s a seafood pie, with chunks of Nova Scotia lobster and scallops in a cream sauce topped with mashed potatoes. I have two helpings.

A door bangs upstairs, making the candles flicker. I say, only half seriously, “Captain’s making his rounds.”

My grandparents tell me ghost stories. Gran says there’s supposed to be a resident ghost in the Spring Garden Library. “It’s rumored that the ghost is a former
librarian who prowls the corridors, angry because she’s been fired. I always hoped I’d see her, but I’ve never caught a glimpse.”

“I think we might be in for a bit of a windstorm,” Grandfather says. “I’ll check the windows in a minute.” He finishes his rice pudding.

I put down my spoon, and try to stifle a huge yawn. Gran suggests I go to bed. I offer to help with the dishes, but Grandfather says, “Go along, Katie. It’s my turn tonight.”

I run a bath in the deep claw-footed tub and soak for ages. When I finally get out, my bedroom is filled with moonlight. I sit on the window seat and look out at the garden.

When I was little, I’d kneel down beside my mother in our backyard and dig holes in the dirt, like Mary Lennox wanting her little “bit of earth.” The swing moves back and forth in the wind. The moon dips down behind the shed. I climb into bed, too tired to read or write.

Wind billows the curtains into my room. A shadow appears on the wall of the alcove…. It looks like a girl holding a flower.

My mouth is too dry for me to cry out; my heart’s pounding. I fumble for the switch and finally manage to turn the light on. The wall is blank. Everything is exactly the way it was this afternoon.

I jump out of bed, almost too afraid to let my feet touch the floor. I close the window and huddle under the quilt.
Grow up, Katie. Just because the house is old doesn’t mean there’s a ghost here. It was a shadow–that’s all.
But I pull the quilt over my head and lie awake for hours.

S
omeone’s calling my name, but the voice is a long way off: “Breakfast, Katie.” A radio’s on. There’s a clatter of dishes.
At this hour?
It feels like the middle of the night. I roll over and go back to sleep and don’t wake up again for hours.

My headache’s gone and I’m starving. I jump out of bed and open the window wide and lean out. There are long tendrils of ivy creeping up the wall.
That’s what I saw last night in the moonlight–ivy looking like arms, holding a flower.
It reminds me of the shadow puppets we used to make when I was small.

I check the alcove, run my fingers over the creamy wallpaper, and lift up the lid of the trunk, which is packed with neatly folded quilts. Not a ghost in sight.

There’s a note for me downstairs, propped up against a jug of flowers on the kitchen table:

Honestly, as if I can’t make coffee … I’ve been making it for Dad since I was eight.
I start the percolator and wolf down two muffins, which are delicious. The orange juice is freshly squeezed. After I’m done, I carry a mug of coffee down to the shed. The door’s propped open. Grandfather’s perched on a stool, gluing a tail on a beautiful old rocking horse with flashing eyes, black forelock and mane. I put the coffee beside him on the workbench, and sit down on an upturned barrel.

“Coffee smells good. Thanks, Katie. Handsome old fellow, isn’t he?”

“Amazing. Where does he come from?”

“That’s the astonishing thing. He was standing in that corner, covered with a piece of old sacking. I touched up his coat, gave him a new mane and tail, and
he’s good as new. How about giving me a hand?” Grandfather holds out a soft rag and a tin of saddle soap, and I start to polish the harness and saddle. He takes down the glue pot from the shelf. The whole shed looks like a miniature hardware store, with its assortment of paints, varnishes, tins of nails and polishes and dyes. He puts another dab of glue on the tail.

“Where’s the horse going when he’s finished?” I ask.

“I thought in the nursery, which is probably where he started out. One of these days that new grandchild of ours will ride him, and maybe our great-grandchildren. A wooden horse like this will last for another hundred years.”

“I like that–stuff being passed down through the family. Like Great-aunt Millicent’s trunk. I wish I knew more about her. I’ve only ever seen one faded photo. Why don’t I know any stories about our family? It’s like there’s some deep dark secret that no one talks about. Is there?”

Grandfather looks up from his work. “Not really. You know that Millie passed away before you were born, and that she had to bring me up when Mother died.”

“Yes. It’s very sad. I’m sorry.”

“I never knew Mother at all–I was just three days old when she died in 1935, so Millie was the closest thing to a mother I had. She was the eldest–only twelve years old–so she took over the running of the household:
my father, my ten-year-old brother, Hamish, and me. It was the middle of the Great Depression, and there was no money for hired help. Millie was forced to drop out of school. She didn’t complain, as far as I know, but it can’t have been much of a life.”

“I wish I’d met her.”

“I wish you had, too.”

Grandfather hands me a brush and puts the tin of varnish between us. “Let’s start on the hooves and then do the runners.”

“Okay, but what about your father?”

Grandfather wipes the edge of his brush on the tin and says, “My father, your great-grandfather William, was an orphan, a Home boy who was sent to Canada on the
Sardinia
in April 1907. I found his name on the passenger list of Dr. Barnardo’s boys in the National Archives of Canada. The names for that year weren’t released until 2001.”