Here, Marigold stops. She had no intention of leading Lottieto her meadow, a place that she intended on keeping secret—sacred, even—for her and her grandmother alone.
Frozen still, with the sketchbook held to her chest, Marigold feels entirely exposed. Lottie takes advantage of her state and snatches the book out of her hands. She begins to run through the field before realizing that Marigold is not chasing her back.
Lottie tries to catch her breath. “Are you quite well?”
She stares back at her with wide eyes but says nothing.
“Mari,” she says, her tone taking a serious turn. “What is it?”
“I didn’t mean to bring you out here.”
Lottie looks around at the meadow before her, taking in the beauty of it all. She moves closer to Marigold, keeping her sketchbook close, as if she suspects this is all a clever ruse that Marigold is playing just to take the book again. “Where is here, exactly?”
Her jaw feathers and her eyes shut tightly for a moment. “This is where my grandmother and I performed my ritual to become a witch. This is the last place she saw before we left.”
“Oh, Mari, I’m sorry…”
“It’s my fault,” she interrupts. “I was being silly with all that nonsense, taking your sketchbook.”
Lottie looks upon the field, then back at Marigold, who is lost in the vision of the wildflowers swaying in the wind. She then opens the book, the thick parchment making the most satisfying crinkle. She pulls a piece of charcoal from the pocket of the book and begins to draw.
At the sound of coal scratching on paper, Marigold glances at her. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t move,” she says.
“What?”
“Shh. Don’t speak.”
Marigold stands in silence, listening to the wind carry the sound of scribbling charcoal on dry parchment. She finds a moment of peace, of calm, of stillness. They have the entire world waiting on tenterhooks for what they might do next.
“Almost done,” Lottie says. Marigold remains perfectly still—atrait she mastered sitting for many portraits. When Aster was first learning the art of the brush, she would always practice on Marigold. Every time she would move, Aster would threaten to splash her with paint-stained water and ruin her dress. She followed through with it once, peppering splashes of bright blue across Marigold’s new white gown. Their mother did not allow Aster to paint again for an entire season, and her artistic skill never truly recovered. She is as good at painting as Marigold is at singing—that is to say, not very.
“And, finished,” Lottie says as she turns the book around. “This is the face you make when you speak of your grandmother.”
Marigold stares at herself on the paper, thinned into a graphite line of every truth she had been trying to hide. She sees her own eyes for the first time, swelling with love and light, with memories and dreams. This drawing is a reminder to her that this is the girl her grandmother would want her to be—happy.
“You’re smiling,” Lottie says, and Marigold touches her own cheek.
“I didn’t realize,” she says.
Lottie’s eyes soften. “I know it is certainly not the best portrait of yourself you’ve ever gotten, what with you being a Bardshire lass and all. But I feel like it was a moment worth capturing. A moment with her,” she says.
Marigold looks back at the open meadow and feels the embrace of the air.
Yes, a moment with her. Althea is here now, in the yellow flowers.
“Lottie, it is by far the best artwork I’ve ever possessed.”
Lottie shakes her head, but Marigold insists. “You have true talent.” She starts to flip through the book but stops herself. “May I look through it?”
Lottie contemplates for a moment before surrendering. “Yes, but I have a confession to make first.”
Marigold nods and Lottie stutters through her response. “This may not be the first time I’ve drawn you.”
Marigold turns red as a summer rose. Slowly, she flips through the pages of the book, working from the back to the front.
There is a drawing of her in her kitchen, wearing her patterned apron and yellow ribbon in her hair.
