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Eden took a pair of sheers, hoping a little hard work would improve her mood. As she headed towards Mrs. Thorne’s yard, she caught sight of someone slipping around the bushes at the back corner of the house. She’d overheard Beverly tell someone that as the backyard would take weeks to clear, primary focus would be on the front yard. But if someone was working back there, that was where Eden wanted to be. It would keep her from having to see Jack again. Besides, she was getting a little overwhelmed by all the introductions. Maybe she could just head back there and find her own quiet place to work for a while.
As Eden crept into Martha’s backyard, she felt like she was walking a forest trail. The trees were taller than any in the neighborhood, their thick branches keeping most of the yard shady and cool. Grasses and flowers crowded in on every side. Besides an ample variety of hostas, Eden recognized the tall foliage of goatsbeard. Coral bells, begonias, and coleus added splashes of color, and ferns cast their lacy arms throughout it all. Further on, there were pale blotches of light that, earlier in the day, would have probably qualified as sunny patches. That area was full of bunches of green marked with small, wooden signs. Apart from that attempt at organization, Yolanda was right; it did look like Mrs. Thorne had lost control. The effect was magical.
Eden jumped as a bird skittered out from the shadows beside her. She turned, following it with her eyes as it disappeared through the trees. She was about to make her way further into the yard when a movement caught her eye. She squinted at a figure kneeling down in a corner of the yard with dappled sunlight, clipping something that was growing there. The woman stood, and Eden realized it was Beverly Ackleton. Beverly quickly stuck the sprigs into her puffy jacket pocket. Eden moved behind a shrub as Beverly brushed off her knees. There was something about the way Beverly kept looking around that told Eden she hadn’t wanted an audience. She wasn’t afraid of the woman. In fact, it seemed like it was about time somebody challenged her. But Eden was also sure she would make a formidable foe. She’d rather wait for something important to come around before she got on Beverly’s bad side.
Eden stepped out as Beverly neared, as if she’d just arrived. Beverly jumped slightly, but immediately composed herself, looking down on Eden coolly.
“Hi, Beverly,” Eden said. “I thought I saw you come back here. I just wondered if there was anything you needed help with.”
Beverly gave her a tight smile. “No. As long as this mess stays behind Martha’s house, I don’t want anything to do with it.” She brushed past Eden. “I think we could use someone to start loading up some of the mess up front, though.”
When Beverly had left her behind, Eden crept forward. She walked through the tall grass to where Beverly had been and knelt down. The top of the marker had broken off, and Eden didn’t see any sign of it. She snapped off a couple of sprigs of whatever Beverly had stuck in her jacket. She sniffed them. They smelled sweet and savory. The scent was familiar, but Eden couldn’t quite place it. She tucked them in her overall pocket. Beverly didn’t seem like the type of woman who would stop in the middle of a job to pick something that caught her fancy. There had to be some reason she wanted it. Maybe Eden could figure out what they were good for.
Eden headed back towards the front yard, but she hadn’t gone far when she heard shouting. She made out two women’s voices. One was severe and overbearing. Beverly Ackleton. The other was gravelly and low. Eden had to creep forward to hear better. When she got to the corner of the house, she saw Beverly and an older woman facing off in the driveway. From this distance, she could see the stubborn dirt underneath the older woman’s fingernails, and the dark spots on her skin from hours in the sun. Even though she’d only caught sight of Martha Thorne once, there was no doubt that this was the woman under whose hand the spectacular and unkempt gardens around her had flourished.
Everyone else had scattered like fall leaves in a gust of wind, leaving the snacks and tools behind them.
Mrs. Thorne pointed a slightly green finger at Beverly. “I told you to stay away from my yard!”
Eden gasped. She’d thought they were doing a good deed and it turned out they were only trespassing. How could she have let herself get dragged into neighborhood drama already?
“I’m sorry, Martha, but you knew the covenants, conditions, and restrictions when you purchased the house.”
“And you said there would be special considerations if I contributed to the beautification of the neighborhood. You never would have had your perfect neighborhood without me.”
“Yes, I said there would be leniency, but Martha. I didn’t mean this.” A morning glory vine seemed to twist itself around Beverly’s leg. Eden blinked, staring harder. She must have seen wrong. Beverly stumbled around, trying to tug the vine off. “It’s gone too far,” Beverly said. “Someone is going to get hurt.”
“Is that a threat?”
“If you don’t comply with the CC&R’s, you can consider yourself warned.” Beverly turned and walked towards the house directly next door to Mrs. Thorne’s.
That explained a lot. The two of them lived next door to each other? Eden couldn’t imagine two more ill-fitted neighbors.
“Consider yourself warned as well, Beverly,” Martha shouted. “By the time I’m done with this neighborhood, it will look like the Great Depression moved through here. Enjoy your lawn while it lasts.” Mrs. Thorn hurried over to examine a rose bush that had been aggressively pruned. She tenderly picked up a thorny branch.
Dark clouds gathered and thunder rumbled. Big drops of rain pelted Eden’s head as she crept out of her hiding place and hurried across the lawn, hoping Mrs. Thorne was too occupied to notice her. This wouldn’t be an ideal introduction to a neighbor that lived directly opposite her. All Eden had wanted was peace, and instead she’d walked directly into a feud. Two feuds, if she counted Jack and his father.
She’d reached the sidewalk when a voice called out. “So many pretty colors dancing around you.”
Eden turned her head. Sitting in a rocker on the porch of the house next to hers, was an old woman. Eden hesitated. She gave the woman a wave and a brief smile before moving on. She’d had enough interaction with the neighbors for the day. Between her feud with Jack and his father, and an angry Mrs. Thorne, she was starting to lose hope that she’d find any kind of peace here. And it had only been a week! It was time to start practicing those boundaries.
“Just like your grandmother,” the woman cried.
Eden stopped in her tracks, letting out a soft sigh. These people sure knew how to pull her strings. She altered her course, heading up the walk of the house next door. She climbed the porch steps. “Hi, I’m Eden.”
The old woman smiled sweetly. Her hair was the purest white, and her dress was vivid purple with a bright red collar. “I’m Clixie Albright. Sorry if I startled you. The colors were so pretty, I just couldn’t help myself.”
“The colors?”
She waved to the rocker beside hers. “Some people call it an aura, but I don’t know. I just see colors that belong to people, that’s all. And yours look just like your grandmother’s.”
“I’ve heard of that,” Eden said, trying to remember the name for it.
A voice came from Eden’s back pocket. “Synesthesia is the production of a sense impression relating to one sense or part of the body by stimulation of another sense or part of the body.” Eden frowned, pulling her phone out to turn it off again, but to no avail. “It’s when a person associates a word with a color, or a physical sensation with a particular sound, that kind of thing,” it continued.
“Is that what you have?” Eden asked, shoving the phone back in her pocket.
Clixie shrugged. “I don’t know what I have, I just know what I experience. It’s true, what your friend says.”
“That’s just my phone,” Eden said. “Artificial intelligence may not be as far off as we think.”
“My phone doesn’t talk to me that way. Anyway, it’s true. Saturdays are yellow and taste like lemon pound cake and classical music brushes over me like tall meadow grasses.” Clixie closed her eyes, as if she could feel it at that very moment. Then she gave Eden a childish smile. “The number five is covered in pink polka dots.”
Eden smiled back. “And my grandmother, she was colorful?”
“Yes, bright sparks of color swimming around her, just like you have.”
“So this is your inheritance, then. Did my grandmother have one of those?”
“Your grandmother knew what a person really needed. It made her a very good friend.” Clixie’s hazel eyes softened, as if she were remembering.
Warmth spread through Eden, and she swallowed. That sounded right. Grandma Clementina had always known when Eden needed a pint of ice cream, or a pillow to scream into, or even a hard dose of truth. Sitting on Clixie’s porch, she almost believed in the old Romani magic that supposedly ran through her veins.
“I never knew my grandmother was from Lincoln.”
Clixie nodded. “Our people passed through the Midwest many years ago. Some of them stopped when they reached Auburn, Nebraska. They felt their powers were stronger there. At least that’s how my mother used to tell it.”
“Why do you think that was?” Eden asked. Just because she didn’t believe all of these crazy stories didn’t mean she didn’t want to know about them. She’d been thirsty for so many years, and Clixie’s knowledge of Eden’s ancestry, of her grandmother’s life, was like a spring of clear, refreshing water.
Clixie shrugged. “Something about a closer connection to the other side. The local folks there weren’t exactly welcoming, but they were happy enough to shell out money for the magic our people could do. Of course, over time their fear overcame any benefits of having such strange people around. Eventually most of our people decided it was easier to blend in. Hide what they could do.”
Eden nodded. Sometimes the way people felt so comfortable talking to her, telling her their secrets, really did feel like some kind of super power she couldn’t control. She remembered holing away in her apartment, wishing everyone would stop shouting and just leave her alone. When they were finally gone, she’d had a hard time coming out again. She’d wondered if she’d be better off never letting another human being close enough to hurt her again. She’d wanted to change who she was. In a small way, maybe she understood how her ancestors had felt.
“Of course there were some who didn’t like that,” Clixie continued. “They wanted to cling to their culture, take pride in their individuality, so they broke off from the group. They were lucky to find another place that was close to the veil, as my mother put it. Their powers were every bit as strong just outside of Lincoln, if not more so. Unfortunately, so was the animosity of the locals. Even the most stubborn among our people bowed under the pressure after a time. They were never ashamed of their inheritances, though. You’d be surprised how much of our culture remains here, hidden underneath the white fences and regulation mailboxes.”
“I’ve always been curious about my family’s history, at least on my mother’s side,” Eden said. “I can’t believe I’ve been living an hour away from the answers for over a year.”
“Clementina must have covered her tracks very well. But once Dotty caught your scent we had you.” Clixie laughed.
“What was she running from?” A hard lump lodged itself in Eden’s chest. She was half-afraid to find out what had been so horrible for her grandmother that she’d hidden her past.
“She was running from him.”
Eden gasped, and her eyes narrowed. “Was someone trying to hurt her? Was it one of those Skeltons?”
Clixie smiled faintly. “Ah, you’ve heard.”
“I’ve heard his family and mine don’t exactly get along.”
Clixie’s laughter rang out so abruptly that Eden was startled. “I wouldn’t say that. They were in love, Clementina and Kem Skelton.”
Eden’s mouth hung open.
“I didn’t see that one coming,” Eden’s phone said, the sound muffled in her pocket.
Eden ignored the voice, something that was getting harder and harder to do. “But if they were in love, why did she run? Were their families feuding?”
“Not at all.” Clixie smiled. “There’s an old Romani saying, ‘Select one’s daughter-in-law with the ears, and not the eyes.’ Kem’s mother joked about how nice it was that she wouldn’t have to choose one or the other. No, it was someone else that didn’t like the union. Someone was jealous. We never did find out who it was that came between them.”
Eden leaned forward in her chair. Somehow drinking in all this history seemed to have only made her more parched. She waited, her hands clenching around the arms of her rocker. Clixie’s eyes closed, as if she were remembering. But then the old woman’s head dropped to the side, and she started to snore.