The Garden of Forgotten Wishes - Trisha Ashley Page 0,117
fort, and Daisy’s coming in shortly, but I must dash back after the hunt gets going.’
A queue of children and parents formed at the gate and the vicar stepped forward and gave a brief address, exhorting everyone not to forget the true meaning of Easter in a chocolate feeding frenzy.
‘But Easter also heralds spring, time of rebirth and renewal, old traditions and new: and in that spirit, let us commence the Easter egg hunt!’ she finished, to much applause.
Then the excited children rushed in through the gate, at which point I went back to the garden with Gertie, where James was already setting up the shop and ticket office.
After that, it was a day much like the two preceding ones, except that Ned and I were so engrossed in digging out our new long beds, which were laid out in a fan shape, that Steve had to come down and remind Ned to go and do his tours of the garden.
Paradise was proving popular.
That evening I ate my Sunday dinner in Lavender Cottage again, with Elf, Myfy, Jacob, Gerald and, of course, Ned. As before, the conversation was wide-ranging and entertaining. The only fly in the ointment was Ned’s tendency to keep making bad rabbit jokes and puns. I suppose it was hard to resist, but eventually I rather snappily told him to stop rabbiting on and he took the hint.
Hare today, and gone tomorrow …
Replete and sleepy, I made my way back to the flat through the café, although Caspar had raced right through the cottage and beaten me to it.
I woke feeling an urge to walk up to the falls and see if anything there would like to communicate with me – perhaps even give me a small hint as to what Ned’s reaction would be if I finally confessed to my Vane connection.
As I climbed up by the falls, however, I saw that Myfy and Jacob were already there, standing hand in hand on the railed flat rock next to the source.
They had the appearance of mythical beings, clothed in magic: both tall, robed in black and with long silver hair lifting gently in the breeze.
I turned and crept quietly away.
The day grew cloudier, the sun intermittent, but it didn’t seem to stop the visitors who, interested in gardens or not, appeared determined to drain every last drop of entertainment from Jericho’s End that they could.
The garden had magic of its own and tended to draw people in, even when they’d only intended a saunter round the paths and a spending opportunity in the shop to prove they’d been there. Ned had already had to re-order postcards of the Poison Garden.
In fact, the Poison Garden had proved to be a major draw. People took it in turns to stand and read the information board about the deadly plants and their more grisly effects. Many of them wanted to go inside the enclosure, so Ned would have to organize his special Poison Garden tours soon. I didn’t think he should fob that one off on poor Roddy.
The koi in the fish pond were popular too, though we’d had to place signs around it, asking people not to feed them after we found whole sandwiches floating in the water, along with a Krispy Kreme doughnut with one bite out of it. We hoped that was a human bite, rather than fish, because it would probably be instant death to a koi.
Luckily, most visitors were sensible; it was just the odd one, or parents who thought it was fine to let their small children run about screaming at the tops of their voices, despite the signs warning them that they must be under parental control at all times.
Not all the plants with toxic effects were in the Poison Garden. It’s surprising what some everyday garden plants can do to you, if brushed against, or ingested.
Some visitors, too, were frankly weird, trying to buttonhole Ned for long discussions on the history and uses of the mandrake, or taking an unhealthy interest in the effects of the rosary pea vine, but none was weird in the way Saul had been …
As the days had passed since he accosted me in the rose garden, I was feeling more relaxed about my encounter with him: nothing had come of it, after all, and there seemed no reason why our paths should ever cross again. And come to that, no reason, even if he did suspect who I was, why he should tell anyone else.