about to crash down and engulf us.
“The rosebushes have really gone wild,” I say, looking back down.
There’s no answer, because David is no longer standing at the intersection. I rush to the crossing and check the three paths. There’s a flash of white at the end of one of the paths, so I head down that one. Only when I get to the next turn do I remember that David wasn’t wearing white—he was all in green. At any rate, the flash of white has vanished; it was probably just a splash of sunlight. I turn to trace my steps back to the last intersection, figuring that I’m better off waiting for David there than going farther astray, when I catch another glimpse of the white shape. It’s deep inside the hedge.
“Hello?” I call, crouching down and peering through the tangle of boxwood and rosebushes. Maybe it’s a child of one of the housekeepers who knows she’s not supposed to be playing in the gardens. “It’s okay,” I say. “I won’t tell anyone. Are you lost?”
A sigh moves through the hedges. I can’t tell if it’s the wind or a child’s cry, but I suddenly feel a tightness in my own chest as if I’m about to cry, and I can’t believe that the wind would stir such an empathetic response. “I’m coming to get you,” I tell the child, “just stay where you are.”
There’s a narrow gap in the hedge near the ground, like a tunnel that’s been burrowed through the boxwood, that I’m able to crawl through. It’s probably how the child got in here in the first place, only the child might be small enough to evade the thorny rose branches that tear at my hair and clothes. I try to keep my gaze on the white shape in front of me—I can just make out the girl crouched in a hollow carved out of the hedge, her white dress pulled down over her bent knees, a pink ribbon hanging in her ash-colored hair—but I have to turn twice to free my shirtsleeve from a thorn and when I turn back the second time, the girl is gone. In her place is a white flowering shrub.
“Ellis?” I hear David’s voice from somewhere behind me.
“I’m in here,” I call. He must hear the quiver of tears in my voice, because he’s at my side in a moment.
“Amazing,” he says, his voice so hushed with awe that for a moment I think he must sense the girl’s presence. “ Plantanthera dilatata. ” He whispers the Latin as if saying a prayer.
“Bog orchid,” I say, touching the splayed lip of one of the flowers. Its scent, a mixture of vanilla and cloves, rises on the air, carrying with it some indefinable sadness.
“Yes, how did you know?”
I hesitate, thinking that once again I’ve acquired some unexplained knowledge, and then, to my relief, I identify the source. “My mother took me looking for it once in a bog near our house. She said the Native Americans used it for a love charm. She said they had another name for it . . .”
“Ghost orchid,” David says, “because if you saw it through a misty bog it would look—”
“Like you’d seen a ghost,” I finish for him.
The fountain at the center is a bit of a disappointment after the intricate prelude of the maze. It’s hardly recognizable as a fountain at all. The boxwood and roses have grown in a tangle into a tight circle around the marble basin, which itself is covered in a thicket of ivy and some kind of dark-leafed shrub that spills over the fountain and covers the surrounding ground. The statue of the crouching girl is overgrown, her face peering through a curtain of ivy. David circles around behind her and, pushing aside a shaggy bush, uncovers the other statue. This one is of a young man.
“These don’t look classical,” I say. I feel marginally calmer in this small basin of open space at the center of the maze. “I thought this was the center of the iconographic program. They look kind of . . . I don’t know . . . hokey.”
“They are. Look at this one’s name . . .” He brushes aside a film of dirt and lichen growing on the
“The rosebushes have really gone wild,” I say, looking back down.
There’s no answer, because David is no longer standing at the intersection. I rush to the crossing and check the three paths. There’s a flash of white at the end of one of the paths, so I head down that one. Only when I get to the next turn do I remember that David wasn’t wearing white—he was all in green. At any rate, the flash of white has vanished; it was probably just a splash of sunlight. I turn to trace my steps back to the last intersection, figuring that I’m better off waiting for David there than going farther astray, when I catch another glimpse of the white shape. It’s deep inside the hedge.
“Hello?” I call, crouching down and peering through the tangle of boxwood and rosebushes. Maybe it’s a child of one of the housekeepers who knows she’s not supposed to be playing in the gardens. “It’s okay,” I say. “I won’t tell anyone. Are you lost?”
A sigh moves through the hedges. I can’t tell if it’s the wind or a child’s cry, but I suddenly feel a tightness in my own chest as if I’m about to cry, and I can’t believe that the wind would stir such an empathetic response. “I’m coming to get you,” I tell the child, “just stay where you are.”
There’s a narrow gap in the hedge near the ground, like a tunnel that’s been burrowed through the boxwood, that I’m able to crawl through. It’s probably how the child got in here in the first place, only the child might be small enough to evade the thorny rose branches that tear at my hair and clothes. I try to keep my gaze on the white shape in front of me—I can just make out the girl crouched in a hollow carved out of the hedge, her white dress pulled down over her bent knees, a pink ribbon hanging in her ash-colored hair—but I have to turn twice to free my shirtsleeve from a thorn and when I turn back the second time, the girl is gone. In her place is a white flowering shrub.
“Ellis?” I hear David’s voice from somewhere behind me.
“I’m in here,” I call. He must hear the quiver of tears in my voice, because he’s at my side in a moment.
“Amazing,” he says, his voice so hushed with awe that for a moment I think he must sense the girl’s presence. “ Plantanthera dilatata. ” He whispers the Latin as if saying a prayer.
“Bog orchid,” I say, touching the splayed lip of one of the flowers. Its scent, a mixture of vanilla and cloves, rises on the air, carrying with it some indefinable sadness.
“Yes, how did you know?”
I hesitate, thinking that once again I’ve acquired some unexplained knowledge, and then, to my relief, I identify the source. “My mother took me looking for it once in a bog near our house. She said the Native Americans used it for a love charm. She said they had another name for it . . .”
“Ghost orchid,” David says, “because if you saw it through a misty bog it would look—”
“Like you’d seen a ghost,” I finish for him.
The fountain at the center is a bit of a disappointment after the intricate prelude of the maze. It’s hardly recognizable as a fountain at all. The boxwood and roses have grown in a tangle into a tight circle around the marble basin, which itself is covered in a thicket of ivy and some kind of dark-leafed shrub that spills over the fountain and covers the surrounding ground. The statue of the crouching girl is overgrown, her face peering through a curtain of ivy. David circles around behind her and, pushing aside a shaggy bush, uncovers the other statue. This one is of a young man.
“These don’t look classical,” I say. I feel marginally calmer in this small basin of open space at the center of the maze. “I thought this was the center of the iconographic program. They look kind of . . . I don’t know . . . hokey.”
“They are. Look at this one’s name . . .” He brushes aside a film of dirt and lichen growing on the
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