The garden looked just like it had the other afternoon, though I took it in with a bit more skepticism this time, trying to figure out what this place was. I couldn’t see any landmarks—not the Willow Grove or the old oak in the Central Garden—and I decided that it wasn’t because the walls were too high. I couldn’t seeanythingpast the walls, actually. I couldn’t hear anything, either, as if nothing existed on the other side.
How strange indeed.
The door creaked shut behind me. “Hello?” I called, stepping farther into the garden. Then, a little quieter, as if daring myself to be right, I added, “Cyrus?”
Still there was no answer. Could he have left? My chest felt tight, which was odd because I should’ve been relieved, but all I felt was anxious.
I wandered over toward the half-finished gazebo, large trumpet vines slithering down from the roof, growing wherever they pleased. From there, I could see all the way back to the willow. The garden’s shape gave the illusion that it was much larger than it really was.
As I stepped into the gazebo, looking up through the crowded trumpet vines that laced across the rafters, I heard a voice behind me.
“So, do you believe me now?”
Startled, I whirled around.
The stranger stood a few feet away, in the same charcoal dress shirt and dark trousers, coppery hair slowly coming dislodged from its slick style, as if he’d run his hands through it afew too many times. He looked so similar to the boy in the photo, though a decade and a half older, with wrinkles around his mouth and eyes. The windswept curl of his hair was gone, as was whatever lopsided smile came with it; he’d traded them both for something refined and tame.
He was definitely Cyrus Beck.
“I think I do,” I replied.
His mouth pressed into an agitated line, and I’m sure he had something snarky to say, but it was like all of a sudden he ran out of the energy it took to stay annoyed. His shoulders dropped, and he pushed his hand through his hair again. “It’s been hours—I’m suresomeone’smissing me by now.”
Hours?I shook my head. “It’s been days. I saw you last week.”
A muscle in his jaw feathered. “You’re not funny.”
“Am I laughing?”
The annoyance flickered into worry as he studied me a little longer, his gaze dropping down the length of me. “Youarewearing a different shirt . . . but you could’ve changed it outside. I would remember being here fordays.” He folded his arms tightly over his chest, but he didn’t seem to believe himself, either. “Wouldn’tI remember?”
“I don’t know,” I muttered.
He sat down heavily inside the gazebo and put his head in his hands. “This can’t be real. I can’t be stuck here. Ican’t. What the hell ishappening?”
I sat down beside him. “I’m sorry,” I said, because it was really all I could think of.
He said, a note of hopeful desperation in his voice, “Maybeyou can tell someone. The authorities? Yes! The coast guard—anyone. They’ll find me. Airlift me out.Something.”
That was something I had already thought about, tragically, and it was a great plan except—“The garden keeps moving.”
His eyebrows furrowed. “What?”
“The door doesn’t appear all the time. It just appearssometimes. And never in the same place. I first saw it in the Hedges, then the Wildflower Garden. I tried telling Eula about it already, but she doesn’t know anything. She kinda laughed at me, actually.”
Eyes widening, he sat back against the railing. “Well, shit.”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
That didn’t leave us with very many options. I was certainly coming up short.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated.
He studied me quietly, a crease troubling the skin between his brows. It felt like this was the first time he really lookedatme. His face was so close, his eyes so stormy, not quite blue and not quite gray, perfectly framed by those long, coppery eyelashes. There was the faintest mirage of freckles across his nose and cheeks that quickly darkened as a blush rushed up from his throat to his face.
“It’s not your responsibility,” he said, and there was a softness there that surprised me. “It’s mine. I shouldn’t have come. I just thought …” He trailed off, then shook his head. “I don’t know what I thought.”
As I sat beside him, I noticed the faintest red mark on his forehead. It looked like it might come up a bruise. I hadsomething of the same mark the morning after I ran headfirst into a glass door in college. I hadn’t even been drunk, just absentminded. Without thinking, I reached up and touched the red splotch.
