“That’s poison, Brie. You’ve just killed my mother’s roses.”
He sits on the ground, knees to his chest. I’m unsure of what to do. If he were still angry with me, I’d be able to defend myself. But this is closer to grief. It feels too personal.
I’m wondering if I should just leave when I hear Grace’s car return. She parks her Mercedes outside the garage and comes towards us, a coffee in hand.
“What’s going on?” When neither of us replies, she picks up the plastic tub from the ground. “What’s this doing here?”
“Brie dug it into the flowers,” Bradley says, after taking a deep breath. He stands and brushes his hands on his pants. “Apparently, on your instruction.”
“Nonsense.”
“You said to use whatever’s on the bench in the barn,” I say. “That was the only thing there.”
“That’s not at all what I said. I said to use plant food.”
I can’t believe it. She’s going to blame this on me. “You said?—”
“Enough.” She raises her hand for us to follow. “I’ll show you.”
We walk across to the barn. I look forward to being vindicated, but when we get there, the bench is lined with a range of products, all clearly labeled, including a large bag of plant food.
“These weren’t—” I start to protest, but trail off when I see Bradley’s expression. It’s not anger so much as pity. I can already tell he won’t believe a word I say.
“We’ll need you to be much more careful, Brie,” Grace says. “We’re trusting you.”
Bradley nods in agreement, and they both leave me standing in the barn, astonished. I see it wasn’t enough for Grace to warnme off Bradley. She had to make him hate me. And from the look in his eyes just now, it seems like mission accomplished.
CHAPTER NINE
With no phone and no one to talk to, my first week at Pine Ridge Homestead is slow. Like, talking-to-myself slow. Like, wondering-if-I’ll-keep-my-sanity slow.
Every morning, I make oatmeal and coffee on my camping stove, then use the outdoor toilet. The path to the outhouse is blocked by two small trees that have fallen over each other, and it always costs me a scratch or a bruise. The toilet itself is permanently filled with insects, so I go as quickly as I can, praying that nothing will fly inside my mouth or nostrils. Or anywhere else.
Then, I get to work.
I’m almost entirely ignorant about gardening—we never had much of one growing up—but it doesn’t matter. The vegetable garden, as Bradley calls it, is completely overgrown and needs to be replanted from scratch. That means my job is to dig out weeds and throw them into a waste pile in the woods.
By Friday, I’m finished. I have dozens of scratches up both arms, and the occasional shooting pain in my lower back, but the garden is transformed. I spend an hour pushing their lawnmower around the front of the property, leaving four large rows of black soil.
It’s an achievement, but now that it’s done, I wonder what else there is to do around here. It looks like they have a cleaner for the house, and the property is mostly forest. I’m no handyman, and I’m not even much of a gardener.
Still, I guess they hired me for a reason.
At noon, I put away the tools in the old barn and decide to explore the trails around the property. I pack some water and set off on a trail following the course of the river. After about 10 minutes, the trail forks. At the entrance to the right-hand trail is a sign, barely visible under the overgrown branches.
Keep out! Trespassers will be shot without warning.
This must be the way to Don the hermit’s property. I wonder how someone ends up like that. But then, who am I to judge? Look at my life with Neil, or with Mom. Our lives always appear more malleable from the outside, more full of choices. But when we’re living them, it’s hard to see any choices whatsoever. Change can feel impossible.
But it isn’t, I tell myself, feeling a surge of pride after my first week.I’m living proof.
I keep on the main trail for another hour until I come across an enormous waterfall with an old bridge extending across its face. The bridge looks ancient, but there’s no other way across. I take a few steps, then make the mistake of looking down. It must be thirty feet at least, with rocks along each side of the riverbank, continuing under the surface of the water. It’s not beautiful, exactly; it’s violent and immense. To avoid vertigo, I have to crouch down and crawl back to the trail.
“Watch yourself, girl.”
I look up and find a thin man with long grey hair and stubble. He’s dressed in filthy blue jeans and a black shirt. If we were inthe city, I’d assume he was homeless. There’s a bottle tucked into his belt, and I can smell the whiskey from ten feet away. His eyes wander down my chest to my legs, and I suddenly feel exposed. No one knows I’m here—and given that it’s Friday, there’s a chance no one would know I was missing for days.
“I’m fine,” I say. I hear the sound of a truck. There must be a road nearby. “It’s just vertigo.”
