“I’ll be fine,” he assured me. “More surprised than anything, I think. I heard you scream, rounded the corner, and suddenly you were falling. I didn’t really think after that. What were you doing climbing over the Hedges anyway?” he asked, perplexed.
“The Hedges?” I looked around. Wewerein the Hedges,near a William Shakespeare bust. I didn’t know how to tell him that I’d just climbed over a different wall. “Oh.”
“I’m surprised youcouldclimb over these bushes. They’re not very sturdy.” He stretched his shoulders out, wincing. “Who were you talking to? It sounded like . . .” But then his mouth twisted, like the name tasted sour, and he decided against voicing it.
Cyrus?
Suddenly remembering, I popped to my feet, spinning toward the wall. “Hey! Can you hear me?”
There was no answer.
Oliver looked at me in confusion. “Who are you shouting at?”
But I was already leaving the Hedges, through the Central Garden and toward the Wildflowers, walking at first, but by the time the sun disappeared below the tree line I was running. It took only a minute. The door should still be against the wall, and I could tell Cyrus that it didn’t work. That I, in fact, fell intoanotherpart of the gardens. By the time I made it to the Wildflower Garden again, my lungs burned. I slowed to a stop, staring at the empty stone wall.
The door was gone.
I remembered the dizzying, disorienting moment atop the wall. Then his hand passing through mine. I looked down at my own hand, the one that should have caught him. It was real and solid. His should have been, too.
I didn’t understand.
A moment later, Oliver caught up to me. “Hey! Hey, are you okay?” he asked, grabbing my shoulders. “Is something wrong?”
I couldn’t actually explain that his aunt’sothernephew was seemingly trapped in a magical secret garden. I imagined how that would go, and after watching him tear up Eula’s letter to Cyrus, and then his bitter words at Pinch … I decided against it.
“Yeah, I just … thought I left something over here,” I lied. “I guess I was wrong. Sorry. Thank you for catching m—”
He gently took my chin and angled my face to the left. “You’re bleeding,” he said.
I swiped at the burning sensation on my cheek, and my fingertips came away with blood. I winced.
He scolded, “Don’ttouchit. Come on.” He took my wrist. “I think there’s a first-aid kit in the kitchen.”
“Oh no, it’s fine. I don’t think it’s that bad—”
“Iinsist,” he interrupted, tugging me along, and I help-lessly let him lead me to the kitchen in the main house. He sat me down at the table and went to fish out the kit from under the sink.
When he came back over, he sat down in the chair beside me and started to clean the scrape.
“It’s really nothing,” I tried to protest.
“And if it gets infected?”
“I’ve had worse.”
“That’s not a reason to ignore this now,” he replied patiently. “Just be still. I’ll be done in a minute.” So I sat there quietly and let him clean up my cheek, feeling every bit as silly. I’d had worse cuts fromroses, but being doted on felt …nicewasn’t the word, not really.Flattering?I never really let anyone care for me, not like this. It was too intimate.
But his fingers were gentle, and I reasoned—what could ithurt to let him treat me? I sort of liked the closeness between us, the way I could count the wrinkles between his eyebrows, which he furrowed when he concentrated. The way the faded freckle on his lip deepened whenever he pursed his mouth. There were so many hallmarks of Eula in Oliver’s face, the angular cheekbones and the long lashes and the caramel eyes, so I wondered how her love for Lilymoor could get lost in a heart as big as Oliver’s.
“Do you normally go climbing over hedges?” he asked, applying antiseptic to my scratch. The sting made me wince, but he held my chin gently to keep me still. “Or is this a new hobby?”
“Ha,” I muttered.
He placed the Band-Aid over my scratch and then went about putting everything back into the first-aid kit, waiting for me to answer, but when it was clear I wouldn’t, he shook his head and muttered, “Then keep your elusive secrets, Miss Head Gardener.”
I would, if only because Oliver wouldn’t believe me.
As he put the first-aid kit away, I ran my fingers over the bandage, thinking back to Cyrus in the garden, and wondered if anyone was missing him. Surely someone was, right?
