“The trouble is, I don’t know. It’s a long story, to be sure, but I’ll summarize by saying that I felt some sort of call. Some sense of unfinished business. And I had to follow it or else risk madness and all chance of happiness and peace. But I am totally blind. How do you find something–and know that youneedto find it–when you don’t know what you’re looking for?”
Freddie crossed her arms and leaned against the door frame.
“That sounds tricky, of course. But I will say that this place—this farm—is a good place for discovering. Not every sibling thinks so—and I have five of them—but for me, it brings answers. For me, the land is magical. Something in the soil. It’s why our food is so good. That and Rosemary’s cooking. She holds big dinners three days a week, and people pay out of their nose for it. That and our produce is our main source of income. And my brothers are handy—they make tables and chairs and knives and other necessities and sell them.”
“Necessities,” Marigold repeated.
“What?” Freddie asked.
Marigold shook her head.
“It’s nothing.”
“Come,” Freddie said. “I think you’ll help me gather and pick herbs.”
“I’d like that,” Marigold said.
They ambled out into the yard together, with Rosemary sparing them barely a glance and half a wave, so engrossed was she in her recipe-making, almost like a mad chemist. Freddie took Marigold on a walk to the garden where the herbs were kept. Freddie walked confidently, like one used to swashbuckling around nature. Marigold surmised that, in this kind of spring weather, it would be difficult to convince Freddie to come inside.
They knelt in the ground, Freddie getting her already-soiled pants even dirtier. With a decided motion Marigold knelt hard in the dirt as well. What was the point of being squeamish now? There were no standards for her to uphold, there was no kingdom for her to impress.
Freddie handed Marigold a pair of scissors and, seeing her attire muddied, gave a horrified look.
“Marigold, I’m so sorry,” she said. “We should have given you clothes to wear. Your dress is quite ruined, and it does look like a nice one.”
Marigold accepted the scissors and fell back from her knees to her bottom, crossing her legs and draping the stained fabric over them.
“You know,” she began. “It gives me pleasure to ruin this dress.”
Freddie smiled wryly.
“Then you are certainly in good company. I have soiled so many dresses, I no longer wear them.”
Marigold and Freddie spent an hour in the sunlight picking parsley, dill, mint, and cilantro. The smells were so beautifully overwhelming to Marigold that every now and then she had to bend over, pressing her face to the earth, to inhale the sweetness, the sharpness.
Once this was done and the sun was high, Freddie and Marigold carried their bundle back to the house, where the door had been opened to let the fresh air in. Rosemary was whipping a sauce together and there was a large wrinkle in her forehead.
“Don’t speak to her,” Freddie warned conspiratorially. “She’s solving some culinary problem. She’s truly a genius, but of course, as her sister, I could never say that to her face.”
Silently, Freddie and Marigold began to pick the herbs into bowls of cold water from the stream to wash away their dirt. When Rosemary swept from the room, the women began to talk again.
“Tell me about your family,” Marigold said. “There are a lot of you, I heard.”
“Yes.” Freddie laughed. “Too many, it seems. But no, I don’t mean that. I love my family. Three boys and three girls. One father, who is away just now on business. Our mother died when I was little.”
“Oh,” Marigold said. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Freddie said. “I hardly knew her. Rosemary was most affected, as the oldest. As you can see, she’s compensated, becoming a mother hen herself, though she has no children of her own.”
“Has she married?”
“No,” Freddie said decidedly. “And I think it’s a shame, but Rosemary is firmly against marriage. As you have seen, she’s a great beauty, and we are a happy, industrious family. So many men have come courting here. But Rosemary won’t have it. I think she sees herself as a kind of single mother–being the oldest in the family, with our father away so much. She says she won’t leave us and Lousy Thorn–our farm–for anything.”
Something gave Marigold pause. She set down the herbs she was picking.
“Lousy Thorn?” she repeated.
“Yes.” Freddie laughed. “Odd name, isn’t it? When we inherited it, the land was barren. Perhaps that’s why the previous owners called it ‘lousy’ and ‘thorn,’--thorn as in spiky–no rose, no blossom. But when my father and mother took it over, everything changed, as you can see.”
