Page 47 of A Lesson in Thorns (Thornchapel 1)
Despite the gossip, however, Estamond carried on with her parties and changes to the house, and over the course of their short but happy marriage, she bore Randolph four children. She died after delivering their fifth. Visitors today can not only see her legacy in the maze and the walled garden to the southeast, but in her great personal collection of paintings still on display inside the house.
I look at Saint. “Quite the scandal,” I repeat faintly.
“Is something wrong?” he asks, looking closely at me. Very closely. “You seem . . . upset.”
“I’m not upset,” I say quickly. “I’m intrigued, actually, because if Estamond commissioned that statue, then surely she’s the one who built the tunnel we found as children, right? A hidden way out to the thorn chapel—it seems like exactly the kind of thing she’d like.”
Saint keeps examining me. “Okay.”
I shut the book and slide it back to him, and then I turn back to my monitor and the entry I was working on before he interrupted. There’s no point in telling him what really unsettled me, what was like seeing a ghost curl up from the page. There’s no need, because it’s simply a coincidence, and he would agree with me that it’s just a coincidence, and then it would have been a waste of breath for both of us.
It doesn’t matter that Kernstow was my mother’s maiden name. It doesn’t matter that I’ve never come across it anywhere else, ever in my entire life. It doesn’t mean anything.
Unless it meant something to her. Unless she has a connection to Thornchapel I never knew about, not by interest or archaeology or friendship, but by blood.
Unless coming to Thornchapel for my mother was coming home.
Over the next few days, a warm wind buffets in from somewhere, the sun burns off the mist, and I can pretend I remember what spring feels like. I wake up one day feeling less sleepy than normal, less haunted by dreams, and I decide to take a short walk before I go to the library to work. It’s been the first day really nice enough to do so, and I want to see the maze and Estamond’s walled garden. If I’m honest, I’d really like to visit the chapel ruins too, but there's not enough time between work and the early sunsets here.
This weekend, I promise myself. I’ve been here almost three weeks, and I still haven’t gone to see it. And I’m not entirely sure why—it’s certainly been prohibitively cold and nasty, but I’ve spent twelve years dreaming about the place, surely I'm not deterred by some rain?
Mind made up that I’ll go on Saturday, I get dressed for my walk. I check my phone after pulling on a jacket and my bright blue rain boots, but my dad still hasn’t responded to a text I sent him asking about the name Kernstow and if my mother had any family here.
I sent the text two days ago.
Frustrated, I go into the south wing—already grating with the noise of construction at this early hour, and then find the door that leads to a large paved terrace looking out over the grounds. The trees and hills thwart the earliest light here, so there’s a kind of sleepy murk clinging to the estate still. It’s as romantic as it is disquieting, as if Thornchapel is reluctant to give up the night and its secrets.
To my left is the herb garden, nestled fairly close to the kitchen, and Estamond’s walled garden, which, as I recall, is home to some more eye-raising statuary—a boozy Dionysus, for one, and Leda with a swan nuzzling her breasts—their naughtiness snuck between the usual veiled women and small fountains. All of the statues are surrounded by crowds of lavender, lamb’s ear, and lady’s mantle, and hollyhocks of crimson, pink, and cream. And all of that is surrounded by high stone walls, interrupted only by a single wooden door.
In front of me are shallow stone steps leading down to a long, green lawn. The grass stretches down to a valley cradling the narrow River Thorne, and then it stretches back up again to an arresting sweep of hills. Elsewhere, the trees press in close to the house, as if wanting to protect it and keep it safe, but here, right here, I can glimpse heather and granite crags and the frowning bleakness that crouches in wait outside of the lush Thorne valley.
Again, I feel that curl of fascination, that hunger to gobble up all the desolation around me and pronounce it delicious. To tramp through wet grass and squint into the wind and feel so very, very alive in all the slumbering wastes around me. To find the tiny flecks of life in the midst of all the winter—tiny snowdrops and buttery celandine and sprays of blackthorn blossoms, new and fragile against the chilly air.
I've always been a summer girl. The girl who spends hours and hours at the pool, the girl who loves heat and thunderstorms and gardens, and trees so heavy with leaves that they whisper in even the barest breath of wind. But here . . . here I think I could be a winter girl too, I think I could learn to love the cold and the wet and the quiet.
I think of Saint’s winter eyes and sigh.
Though it’s warm enough that my sweater and jacket suffice, the air smells cold, and I remember Becket saying last night that we’d have snow this weekend. Determined to get my vitamin D while I can, I stride across the terrace and down the stairs to the crushed gravel path that leads to the maze.
I’m not alone when I get there.
I find Rebecca in a white trench and designer rain boots—as stylish as they are functional—with her iPad dangling from gloved fingertips. She’s stari
ng at the maze like it owes her money.
“Good morning,” I say, tromping over. “Isn’t it . . . a little early to be working?”
“I needed to see it in the dark,” Rebecca says, not even bothering to look over at me. She’s still glaring at the maze. “And in the first light.”
“Oh,” I say, glancing over at her and then trying to see the maze as she’s seeing it—as a problem to be solved. But I can’t. It just looks mysterious and inviting and perfect to me. “Has it helped? To see it in the dark and in the sunrise?”
“No,” Rebecca says flatly. “Nothing’s helped.”
I sneak a look back over at her, wondering what I can do. Normally, Rebecca is all cool equanimity and analytical composure, and she takes everything in stride—with the possible exception of Delphine. Nothing ever seems to disrupt her confidence . . . apart from this snarl of hedge and gravel.
“I was going to walk through it,” I say. “Do you want to walk with me? And even if it doesn’t help, you’ll have at least spent some time with your best friend Poe.”
She sighs—but it’s not a Delphine Sigh, it’s a smiling sigh, which I think means I’ve won.
