The afternoon stretched ahead, empty and daunting. I should unpack. Should start sorting. Should do literally anything productive. Instead, I found myself wandering, Dr Pepper in hand, reacquainting myself with the house I’d visited every summer as a kid.
The library was exactly as I remembered—floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed with everything from ancient encyclopedias to romance novels with absolutely scandalous covers. This was where I’d spent most of my summers, curled up in the window seat with a book while Grandma Jo worked in her garden. She’d bring me sandwiches and Dr Pepper—always Dr Pepper, never Coke, never coffee, like it was some sort of family tradition—and we’d eat in comfortable silence, surrounded by stories.
The window seat was still there, faded cushion and all. I sat down, muscle memory taking over, and looked out at the garden.
Or what was left of it.
Three weeks of neglect in August had not been kind. The lawn was more brown than green, and the flower beds looked like they were staging a botanical coup. Roses grew in wild tangles, their thorns catching the light like tiny daggers. The vegetable garden had gone completely feral—tomatoes rotting on the vine, squash plants attempting world domination, and something that might have been lettuce but now looked like it was planning to evolve consciousness.
But there, in the center of it all, stood Grandma Jo’s pride and joy: an elm tree that had to be older than the house itself. Its branches spread wide, creating a pool of shade where the grass remained stubbornly, impossibly green—untouched by the drought that had killed everything else. I’d forgotten about that. How the grass under that tree never died, no matter what.
That tree had always been weird. Even as a kid, I’d felt it—like it was watching, waiting, keeping secrets Grandma Jo never talked about. She’d tend to everything else in the garden, but that tree she’d just stare at sometimes, her expression unreadable.
My phone buzzed. A text from my best friend Kya back in Little Rock: “How’s the haunted house? Find any skeleton keys or mysterious journals yet?”
“Just a dozen lamps and a collection of dolls that definitely have souls trapped in them,” I texted back.
“Burn them with fire.”
“The dolls or the lamps?”
“Yes.”
I smiled despite myself. Kya had wanted me to stay in Little Rock, get therapy, not isolate myself in my dead grandmother’s house two hours away from civilization. She wasn’t wrong, but she wasn’t right either. I needed this—the space, the silence, the chance to figure out who I was when I wasn’t someone’s girlfriend, someone’s daughter, someone’s anything.
My last relationship had ended with me finding my fiancé in our bed with my supposed friend. Classic, really. So cliché it was almost funny, except for the part where it shattered my ability to trust anyone including myself.How had I not seen it? How had I been so blind?
Julian had been perfect on paper—successful lawyer, came from a good family, treated me well in public. Behind closed doors, he’d been slowly shrinking my world, commenting on my art (“It’s a nice hobby, but you can’t expect to make a living from it”), my friends (“Kya’s kind of trashy, don’t you think?”), my dreams (“Romance novel covers? Really, Elle? You’re better than that.”).
I’d been disappearing piece by piece, and I hadn’t even noticed until I walked in on him with Melissa and felt, beneath the hurt and rage, relief. Like I’d been holding my breath for two years and could finally exhale.
The locket grew warm against my skin, pulling me out of my spiral. I touched it absently, and for a second, I could swear I smelled roses. Not the dying ones in the garden, but fresh ones, impossibly fragrant, like summer concentrated into a single breath.
“I’m losing it,” I said to the empty room. “Three weeks of grief and I’m having olfactory hallucinations.”
But the smell lingered, and when I looked back at the garden, the elm tree’s leaves were moving despite there being no wind. They fluttered in patterns that almost looked deliberate, like sign language made of chlorophyll and shadow.
I stood up so fast I nearly dropped my Dr Pepper. “Nope. Not today, tree. I’ve got enough problems without adding ‘possibly sentient plant life’ to the list.”
The leaves stopped moving.
I stared at the tree. The tree, presumably, stared back.
“I’m talking to a tree,” I said slowly. “I’m standing in my dead grandmother’s library, drinking warm Dr Pepper, and talking to a tree.”
The house creaked around me, settling in the heat, but it sounded almost like laughter. Fond laughter, the kind Grandma Jo used to make when I’d say something that reminded her of my mother. My mother, who’d died when I was two. My mother, who Grandma Jo said had been special, though she’d never elaborated on what kind of special she meant.
My phone rang, startling me out of my staring contest with the elm. Dad.I let it go to voicemail. He’d been calling daily since the funeral, making sure I was “handling things,” which was his way of asking if I’d finally snapped without actually having to deal with the heavy lifting if I said yes.
Dad meant well, but he’d checked out emotionally when Mom died. He went through the motions—parent-teacher conferences, birthday presents, college tuition—but there was always this distance, like he was afraid to get too close. Like he was afraid I’d disappear too.
Maybe that’s why I’d stayed with Julian so long. I was used to loving people who kept me at arm’s length.
The sun was starting to set, painting the library in shades of gold and amber. The dolls watched from their shelf, glassy eyes reflecting the light in ways that definitely weren’t natural. One of them, a Victorian china doll in a blue dress, seemed to have turned its head slightly since this morning.
“If you’re haunted, at least have the decency to be helpful,” I told it. “Maybe do some unpacking while I sleep. Organize the kitchen. Something productive.”
The doll, unsurprisingly, didn’t respond.
