why her mother went mad. She stares at memories on the ceiling: random pictures passing like a reel of film haphazardly spliced together. In an odd way she feels closer to her mother now than she did when Elizabeth was alive. Hardly surprising, perhaps, since Lady Ashby spent the last decade of her life lost inside the mazes of her own mind, a labyrinth she could navigate only alone. So, even with her special sight, Alba couldn’t see the directions to find her again.
Now, in the dark, Alba picks and chooses what she wants to remember—the moments Elizabeth wasn’t manic or depressed. Reading bedtime stories together, holding hands while they walked around the garden, lying in the fields, skipping along the sand, searching rock pools for limpets and crabs . . . Alba’s siblings rarely step into these memories, so she can enjoy her mother alone.
The day her father left was the start of losing her mother for good. But now she’s finding her again, conjuring up Elizabeth’s smile, her frown, the way she could look at ordinary things as if it was the first time she’d ever seen them. As milky moonlight seeps through the curtains, Alba’s heart is so full of her mother it’s as though she can not only see her but reach out and touch her. It’s not until Elizabeth speaks that Alba realizes she’s really there, sitting at the end of the bed.
Quite the opposite of her daughter, Elizabeth is tall and willowy, with long curly blond hair the color of sunlight. She wears a fitted white dress splashed with poppies that reminds Alba of Stella.
“I’ve got something to tell you,” Elizabeth says softly, “but first you must stop hiding out here.”
Sleep-deprived, Alba thinks that perhaps she’s dreaming, or having a particularly vivid memory. Either way, she has no idea what to say. A decade’s worth of words swell inside her and slowly subside.
“Please, my love.” Elizabeth pats Alba’s feet beneath the bedsheets.
Alba nods, tears spilling down her cheeks. Now she knows why the colors were so dazzlingly bright when she first came to Ashby Hall, because they’ve been infused with her mother’s spirit, her faith, by the one person who cared about what Alba could see.
“Oh, Mum,” she whispers at last, “I’ve missed you so much.”
Chapter Eight
Because Alba and her siblings were the only guests at the funeral, the village church was quite empty; the vicar’s words bounced off the walls and there was nowhere to look but at the coffin covered with calla lilies. Charlotte had been in charge of the floral arrangements, so everything was extremely tasteful, though Alba managed to sneak in a yellow tulip, Elizabeth’s favorite, at the last minute.
Alba watched Edward cry, silent sobs that floated into the air in gray clouds. She knew he must be thinking of his wife’s funeral a year earlier, and wished she could find the courage to hug him now as she hadn’t been able to then. Charles and Charlotte were the same as always, cold and withdrawn, treating her like an unstable mental patient since her outburst. It probably seemed strange to them, then, that Alba didn’t shed a single tear. But she couldn’t, even for appearance’s sake, because she was so happy at seeing her mother again, and would have felt quite odd crying for a woman who spent the funeral sitting next to her in the pew singing along to every hymn.
It was only when they buried her, when the last clod of earth dropped over the coffin, that Elizabeth Ashby’s ghost disappeared. But she has returned to Alba in dreams so vivid she might as well be awake. And most wonderful of all, her mother is talkative, happy and sane. They walk through the grounds of Ashby Hall, Elizabeth in her poppy-splashed dress, her words shining gold, glistening in the light, every day brighter and closer to the color of Stella’s conversations.
“I’ve always loved these gardens,” Elizabeth says. “It’s where I came to be alone, before you, when I had three young children, when it all got to be too much. Nature is always so peaceful, so perfect.”
“I can’t imagine you five years older than me with three kids,” Alba says. “I can still barely look after myself. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look after anyone else.”
“Well, perhaps one day you’ll feel differently.” Her mother smiles. “When you fall in love you might want children of your own.”
Alba frowns. She wonders if her mother knows more