“Am I being unclear in any way?” Her full lips compress into a thin line.
Frustrated anger shoots through me. “You really expect me to ignore a sister abusing a woman who came here to worship?”
“That’sexactlywhat I expect, Tiss.”
“Wait.” I watch her swear softly and make her way toward the end of the tiny glasshouse. “How do you know my name? Whoareyou?”
Raised beds of winter flowers occupy either side of a narrow aisle. On her way down it, the woman stoops to snatch up two discarded gloves from the flagstones.
Beyond her, a pair of planter boxes with trellises occupies the structure’s rear. I give a sharp gasp when I notice the climbing roses.
Almost gaudy in their beauty, their bunches of creamy petals are streaked and striped with mulberry pink. They scramble up the lattice trellises and beyond, scaling the wall of windows and clinging to wood muntins. Their citrus-sweet perfume teases my nose through the thick air, carrying with it a nostalgia so powerful tears spring to my eyes.
No. Not just nostalgia. Familiarity flashes through me.
My breath strangles while I inhale again, Kerrigan and Rosalie fading to the background. I don’t know where the nebulous feeling comes from, or how, or why. I know nothing beyond the resounding sense ofbeforethat has me in its grip.
Stunned, I plop down on one of the two wrought iron chairs by the door with a huff.
Trying to remember, groping backward, is as instinctual as breathing. I don’t think before I’m chasing my own historythrough the corridors of my mangled mind. Like every prior attempt, the effort only intensifies the agony in my skull.
Blessed Aodh, Father of Creation.When the flash dissipates, I’m left gasping and stunned as my unknowable past trickles through my fingers.
I reach up to massage my temples, refocusing on the striking, albeit hostile, woman who’s made itquiteclear she expects me to ignore the horrid business I just witnessed. “I’m sorry, what was your name again?”
She’s kneeling at the roses with her back to me. “I didn’t give it.” Her murmur, low and rich like black velvet, stirs something unnameable up within me.
Tools are scattered on the floor around her. By her casual attire, she’s definitely not a sister.
My attention goes to the condensation-coated glass, the direct sight line to the compost shed. It’s obvious she was tending the spectacular roses when she saw what happened. She waited until I confronted Cara to fling off her gloves and stop me.
I incline my head, studying her.
That’s an awfully protective gesture for someone who won’t give me her name. Or tell me how she knows mine.
This notion, and the existence of the mysterious roses, emboldens me to linger. “Will you at least tell me if we know each other?”
She gives a quick shake of her head. “We don’t.”
I’m opening my mouth to ask another question when something snags, carving into the center of my abdomen.
It stretches between us—a taut wire wrenching me toward her with enough force that my muscles strain to resist. “Gods,” I hiss, one hand going to my midsection.
Like a fishhook lodged in my very essence, my first instinct is to wriggle against it. Something within me says if I try, it’ll only cut deeper.
“What’d you say?”
“Um— How old are you?” It’s the first thing that comes to mind.
“Thirty-six,” she sighs. “Why?”
“I’m twenty-five,” I say thinly, holding my abdomen and feeling like an idiot.
“I’m aware.” She hacks at the soil. “And I don’t remember asking.”
A simple ceramic stove glows in the far corner. The low creaks andpingsof metal expanding and contracting are the only sounds.
“You seem to know a lot about me for someone who says she doesn’t,” I finally say. “Might you have any idea why those roses seem so terribly familiar?”
