Page 121 of A Wolf in the Garden

“It was tea leaves that first gave me visions of you and Ellie together,” Mom says softly. “I was naughty, I read her cup once after she was done with it. I took it out of the dishwasher when she wasn’t even in the room; she’d run back outside.”

My mouth hangs open for a moment. “Doesn’t that break a bunch of your rules?”

“Oh, it breaks a ton. But she was seventeen and pining after you badly, I could tell. I just had this urge to know; I wanted to know that she’d be okay. It was before I found out she was fae, but…” She shakes her head, picking up her mug and blowing on the surface. “Intuition is a powerful thing. I already had a feeling of…” She shrugs. “Anyway,I picked up her teacup and read those leaves. I saw that she would have one great love, and I saw that it was you, and I was so happy. I saw your mating bites.”

I don’t miss the sad tone in her voice. “But?”

“But I kept getting one year, and ten years, and this sense of that time being broken, separated. Oftworelationships, butonelove. I couldn’t make sense of it at the time, but of course now I can look back and see. One great love, but two separate chances.”

“You never thought to tell me?”

Mom takes a sip of her tea, eyes closing. The mug clinks against the marble as she sets it down again. “Around the same time I had visions of a teenage girl. She had long black hair and golden eyes. It was summer in those visions, a New Zealand summer. She was always running, always laughing. Running between twopohutukawatrees with their red flowers in full bloom, across some grass and into a field of grapevines. She radiated happiness, and I was so sure she was Jenny. So after your sister’s passing, I no longer put any value in my visions. I no longer trusted them.”

Intuition is a powerful thing.A shiver runs down my spine as I get the sense that there’s somethingmoreto this conversation. “And now?”

“I trust them again.” She picks up her mug once more, sipping slowly, her gold eyes searching my face. “I always thought Jenny looked like you the most; she had pretty, delicate versions of your features. Just like this girl I saw.”

“Who is she?” My voice is barely more than a whisper, Ellie’s voice as she explained her ideas for the vineyard’s garden echoing in my mind.

“I think we should plant twopohutukawahere, on either side of the entrance. They’ll grow large in time, but there’s space. And they’re beautiful trees.”

“I don’t know. We haven’t met her yet.” Fresh tears form in her eyes. “But we will, someday. I have no doubt about that now. Thank you for the tea, darling. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Mom takes her drink with her, leaving me alone with the prickling sense that I’ve just touched the future.

Twenty-Three

ELLIE

It feels like forever since I stepped foot in my garden, when in reality it’s been less than two weeks. The storm raged on for a full twenty-four hours before it finally died away, leaving a path of destruction across the island in its wake. We drive past fallen trees and through huge puddles, and when we cross the causeway Van slows down to manoeuvre around large clumps of seaweed that have washed up across the narrow two-lane bridge.

Thankfully the grapevines at Lost Moon didn’t suffer too badly — there’s a few torn and bruised leaves here and there, but it didn’t hail, and that means the immature grapes made it through relatively unscathed. As we pull up outside my yard, I can already tell my garden is a different story altogether.

“Well this is a bit shit.”

“I warned you that it wasn’t exactly pretty,” Van says as he kills the engine. He’d braved the wind and rain to come and check on the chickens for me yesterday, insisting that I stay home in the company of his parents and Lylia. I’d wanted to come along, but I also recognised the situation for what it was — an excuse for us to test ourselves, to check that between the bond and the recent traumatic experiences, that we could handle being apart briefly without either of us panicking. It had been fine; I could sense Van the entire time, and that had helped mitigate the initial stress I felt watching his car drive away in the heavy rain.

I step through the front gate and take off my sunglasses, as if that’s going to help make the current state of things look better. It doesn’t change the view. There’s leaves and twigs strewn everywhere, my waist-high corn stalks are all leaning over at a 45 degree angle, and branches from the larger trees have come down, crushing plants underneath.

“It’s a mess.” I walk up the shell path, Van following silently behind me, shaking my head when I spot a ton of green tomatoes that have all fallen off the vines, too small to even try ripening on a windowsill.

With his height, Van can see a lot more than I can, and he peers over at the stone fruit trees that line the fence, the blue sky reflecting in the lens of his sunglasses. “You’ve lost a lot of plums, they’re all green on the ground. Sorry baby.”

I cover my face with my hands, shaking my head, sighing out my frustration. “Fucking storm.” It happens. That’s the thing about gardening — freak weather events happen sometimes and ruin some of your crops. That’s just nature. You have to roll with the punches.

I open my eyes and look around again, slowly turning in a circle as I take it all in. The bees are out today, still landing on the roses despite their bruised petals. The birds are still singing, and the chickens are fine. The plants are all still standing, even if they’ve been pushed around a bit. I can stake up the corn, sweep up the leaves, gather up all the fallen branches.

There’s still beauty in this place despite the havoc wreaked by the storm. I meet Van’s gaze, and he reaches out, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “We can tidy this all up. You know what plants are like. They’ll bounce back.”

“I know they will.” You can tape up a split tomato stem and the plant will heal itself, and sure, there’ll be scars, but there’ll still be flowers and fruit.

Car doors slam, and I look down at the road, waving to Cam. Lacey is already busy unbuckling the boys from the backseat as a second car pulls up, and then a third, and a fourth. Out climbs Bronte, Weston, and Seth; Kaito, Lylia, Nerilina, and Maeve; Ana and Betty, too. They’re all here to help clean up, an impromptu working bee of sorts, and Van and I walk back down to the gate, hand in hand, to greet them. Everyone is chatting and laughing and making introductions. The sun is shining. The birds are still singing.

Everyone is happy.

I blink back the sudden tears, popping my sunglasses back over my eyes. “You okay?” Van asks, his fingers lingering on my waist.

I smile up at him. Storms come and go, but life goes on, and I’ve got the best person by my side to weather it all with. “Yeah. I’m good. Really good.”

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