Aunt Rosemary lived in a glass house in the gardens, at the southend of the keep. Since the roof of the west chapel collapsed the only way into the gardens was the long way.
It was so much simpler before, cutting through the chapel, now I had to take the passage from the back of the kitchens, follow it along the branching hallway that skirts all around the Great Hall and climb briefly through the tower of silent prayers. That place will always unnerve me. Though father doesn't keep prisoners there anymore, years ago they used to, and sometimes I can hear voices trapped inside the tower.
I worry what I might see still waiting in the hollow courtyard. Silly tricks my mind plays. I know it is only the wind. From the tower I can at last make my way into the gardens, at the east end. It is only a matter of walking through them to find Aunt Rosemary's glass house. That morning I walked all that way, bearing with me the apple blossom branch I'd found.
Honey and apples. That was how I remember the gardens, never mind what season we are in; this half-winter, half spring, as if nature can't make up her mind to change outfits. The gardens to me will always mean honey and apples. Honey from the bee hives Aunt Rosemary kept behind her glass house, where I was never allowed to go. Apples from the special apple tree, with its branches all different, even the leaves slightly different colors and shapes. Aunt Rosemary has grafted them onto a thin sapling for as long as I can remember. She wrapped gauze around the branch and tree trunk. Leaping up I could just snag my finger on one piece. No matter how I tugged at it, it never came loose. A sap-like fluid wept from the wound, a clear honey that the bees drank. I can still hear them buzzing somewhere above my head and then I would feel Rosemary's firm hand as she pulled me behind her skirts, out of harms way.
Even back then, the curse was something they all feared, never mind that it wouldn't come true until I came of age. Unlike my other Aunts, Rosemary didn't keep me out of the garden entirely. As long as I was with her it was allowed. She let me stand and look at everything. Look but not touch, of course. Although back then all the rosebushes had their thorns cut and sandpapered away. I wonder why Aunt Rosemary didn't make a rose brush that grew without thorns. She could have. Though she always was more interested in her herbs and what medicine she might make from them.
Every spring she wanted another new branch of apple blossoms, and as soon as it was cut I had to race down to her glass house so she could graft it onto her special apple tree.
The gardens were not especially large, and since spring hadn't really arrived yet in Winding, there wasn't much garden to see. Only the old growth of ivy clinging on the walls, the winter pines and stubborn bushes who hadn't dropped their leaves last autumn. It wasn't possible to get lost inside these gardens. At least I didn't think so, until that's exactly what I did.
I got lost.
Impossible as it may sound. How could I lose my way here? I couldn't be lost! I knew these gardens. But I was lost. Or rather, somehow I was unable to find my way through them to Aunt Rosemary's.
It was true. I can only describe it like some kind of dreaming. I know how it sounds crazy. It was. I looked determinedly around me. Ten feet across, not more than twenty. If I stood near the dry scrub bushes I should see the stone wall of the keep with the ivy growing along it and if I turned back and looked behind me I should see the high outer wall. Neither one was visible. My breath caught. Truly this couldn't be happening.
to be continued. . .
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