Page 12 of One Last Breath

He lifts his hands placatingly. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I just…”

He looks around as though checking to see if anyone’s eavesdropping. When he looks back at me, he even steps closer and lowers his voice. “I don’t know anything about any secret gardens anywhere on the estate. And you should forget about whatever it is you think you saw.”

The pull returns again, stronger than ever. There is a secret here. There are ghosts on this estate, and Elizabeth Greenwood was communing with them.

Nathaniel leaves without waiting for a response from me. I watch him walk away until he disappears among the Glens. He doesn’t look back once.

This isn’t the first time a gardener has warned me against prying into a family’s secrets. At the Carlton Estate, their gardener, Niall, warns me that digging up dirt on a family like the Carlton’s is an easy way to get myself killed.

Nathaniel's warning isn't as blunt as Niall's, but there's no mistaking the subtext. It's not healthy for me to pry into this family's past.

But now that I know this family has a secret, one dark enough that it frightens Nathaniel into willful ignorance, the pull is too strong for me to ignore. I must know what ghosts Elizabeth communed with in her secret garden. Maybe I’m only avoiding the ghosts that haunt my own past, but whether I’m searching for answers to this new mystery or avoiding answers to the old, I know that I can’t simply turn my back on the situation the way Nathaniel has.

Once more, I am locked into a path that leads into the mist. The only way out is to follow it to the end.

CHAPTER SEVEN

In my room that evening, I take a more thorough inventory of Lila Benson’s old belongings. It occurs to me that I’ve neglected to tell Elizabeth about the chest and suitcase. I think even then I knew that I would eventually be drawn into the mystery surrounding this estate and kept these relics around in anticipation of that event.

Most of the chest is filled with lesson books. As nearly as I can tell, she was Annabelle’s governess through high school. There is a lesson book with Christopher’s name on it as well, but it is sparsely filled. It seems the elder Greenwood child had little need for a tutor.

Aside from the lesson plans, there are receipts for her pay, a rather modest number, I must say. I’m being paid considerably more without the obligation to tutor anyone. Perhaps the family considers the housekeeping work I do worthy of more compensation than the education of their children.

I’m not here to judge the family’s priorities in that regard, however, and while I have a comfortable estate of my own, I am certainly not going to turn my nose up at the generous paycheck the Greenwoods are giving me, so I set aside Lila’s meager sum and look through the rest of the belongings.

The suitcase contains clothing, of course. Fortunately, no underwear. I don't know Lila Benson, and it's almost certain I never will, but I have no interest in perusing another person's undergarments, known to me or not. There are skirts and blouses and one modest but elegant floral print dress.

The clothing is all a near perfect fit for me, or at least appears to be. Obviously, I don’t try the outfits on. Still, it’s interesting to note that their last governess was almost my exact size and build.

I have a laugh at myself for that. I’m five-foot-three and of average build. It’s not as though I’m a unique body type. There are probably more women my size than there are women of other sizes. I’m chasing phantoms because I’m eager to find answers to…

To what? Why am I doing this?

I stop with the contents of Lila Benson’s suitcase spread across the floor around me. There’s no murder here. Clara alleges one from fifty years ago, but there are holes everywhere in her story, and I’ve already decided that even if some nefarious event occurred, Violet is too far gone to understand that.

There’s no satisfying victory for me to obtain here. I’m chasing nothing more than a phantom, nothing more than a ghost.

So why is this so important to me?

“Why is this so important to you?” I demand. “You know how Mother is. Why do you fight for her to see reason when you know she’s not capable of it.”

“Because she must!” Annie insists, stamping her foot in a manner that was pretty when she was thirteen but is just exasperating now. “There has to be…” she searches for the word but doesn’t find it, instead settling on, “something.”

I sigh. “Annie, you’re not going to get Mother to admit she’s wrong. Not about anything. That woman will go to the grave snarling in your face that she was right about everything, even as Christ Himself tells her she was wrong.”

“Don’t blaspheme,” Annie says.

“Now you’re just being ridiculous,” I scold. “Just… why can’t you learn to live without this? I have, and I’m fine with Mother.”

“I don’t want to be ‘fine with Mother,’ she says, spitting the name out like a curse. “I want Mom to lose.”

She hisses that last word, and the intensity of that emotion shocks both of us into silence. She stares at the floor for a long moment while I try to think of something to say to cheer her up.

“Annie—”

“It’s all right,” she says tersely. “Forget about it.”

“Annie!”

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