Page 45 of Miss Wolcott’s Ghost

Every few months or so after that, another picture would appear on her bed. The intricate drawing breaking each flower into its component parts. And giving the Latin name.

A hollyhock, tall, spired, elegant and joyous. “Malvaceae,” Daisy would carefully pronounce.

A dahlia. A sweet alyssum.

Then there were the roses. The gallica, the deeply scented damask. And Daisy’s favorite, the Shakespeare rose. Rosa rubiginosa.

The sweet briar.

She discovered they even had some in the far reaches of their perennial borders. With its tiny single pink petals, it was easy to miss.

It was not a spectacular bush, easily overshadowed by the blowsy old garden roses. And yet, after a rain, or in the early morning with the dew on its leaves evaporating in the sunshine, something unusual happened.

There would rise over the manicured garden the sweet scent of apples where no apple grew.

Even the team of gardeners were perplexed but didn’t care enough to investigate. Only Daisy knew the secret.

It was the sweet briar, releasing the scent from its leaves. Unlike every other flower in its family, this rose’s fragrance was held in its leaves.

It was especially fragrant if a leaf was rubbed.

Thorny, without any obvious attraction. Easily overlooked. Even avoided, because of the spikes. Often chopped down and burned as a nuisance. And yet, if anyone took the time to get close, to touch it …

It was Daisy’s favorite rose.

As she got older, she’d visit the gardens of the great houses in the county, the country seats of the landed gentry, and secretly take away cuttings of various plants. Once home, she’d nurse them. Until they were ready to plant.

Little by little, the formal, disciplined garden of her parents, with its mass plantings and careful design, gave way to something much wilder. Freer.

Soon neighbors were commenting on it. Visiting specifically to see this remarkable garden.

And still, every couple months or so, a page with a watercolor plant described in English and Latin, would appear on her bed. Exploded into its magical parts.

Then it became every four months. Then six.

Daisy would find herself looking anxiously for the next installment, and when one appeared, she’d pore over it. Memorizing the components. Marveling at the endless variety of nature. At the genius of it. The adaptability.

She never ever got over the first wonderment of realizing these living things ate light.

She kept all the drawings in a drawer, bringing them out now and then, like old friends. Her only friends.

She spent time in the vast and underused library of the estate, reading anything she could find on botany. Horticulture. She learned the language of flowers.

The very idea that they spoke thrilled her. Though what they said struck her as hardly worth saying, and almost certainly not what they really wanted to communicate.

She read that the poppy meant fertility.

Pomegranate meant fertility.

A violet meant … fertility.

She rolled her eyes. All those dried-up, repressed old men made it up. All they thought about, she realized, was their own seed.

By the time Daisy was in her twenties, so many pages had been left on her bed she could make a book out of them. And did. Carefully sewing the pages together. She still didn’t know who put them there, and she didn’t really care. It didn’t seem important. All that mattered was that they were there.

Until they were not.

Daisy waited and waited. Hoping each time she entered her bedroom, the one she’d had since childhood, that there’d be another drawing. But after a year, two, she had to accept that whoever had left them was gone.