In 1984, honeybees on the space shuttle Challenger constructed honeycomb in zero gravity.
Once again, I’m early the next morning, but when I get inside the Elderflower Grove gates, instead of walking around the side and up to the rooftop, I stop in front of the main door.
In my mind is the letter where Josie told Guillaume she’d left the key for him. Where would it be? It’s got to be somewhere near the front door, and surely hidden somewhere, like under a doormat or a plant pot. There’s nothing of either sort, not even a stone or a paving slab, and I stand back, looking up at the house and willing it to reveal another secret to me.
‘Good morning, Queen Bee.’ Carey appears in one of the ground-floor windows with his face covered in shaving foam.
‘Good morning, my favourite ghost.’ I can’t help smiling at the sight of him and the Pinky and the Brain T-shirt he’s wearing today.
I explain about the idea of finding the key to the main door, and he watches me stalking around the courtyard, but there’s nowhere a key could be.
‘Do you have much beekeeping work to do today?’
‘I … er …’ The truth is, as far as I can work out, there’s not much beekeeping work to do now. With the initial honey harvest completed, the bees can be left to their own devices to make more honey and raise their brood. I must do weekly hive inspections to make sure there are no signs of mites, disease, or intruders, which I can definitely put off for another day or so.
‘I was wondering if you wanted to go for a walk around the grounds? It’s a beautiful day and yesterday was a bit intense. I thought we could take lunch and eat by the lake or something. Take the tin and go through the rest of the letters – they might feel brighter in the sunshine.’
‘I’d love to. I’ve been dying to see what it’s like out there.’ I glance through the screen of elderflower trees into the unknown mass of weeds and brambles beyond. ‘It looks a tad overgrown …’
‘It’s not too bad. I’ve forged a few paths to get around, but I haven’t seen anywhere near all of it. I thought you might want to explore too, and it would be nice to go … not-alone.’
‘I agree.’ As soon as I got this job, I couldn’t wait to wander around the grounds, but once I saw how overgrown it is, I had visions of getting lost and being eaten by wolves.
All right, the wolves are probably unlikely, but it’s still impossible to fathom just how large the grounds of Elderflower Grove are. There’s a genuine possibility they extend into the next county.
He grins, the sunlight shining through the trees and making his eyes glint, and for just a second, something melts inside me that someone looks that happy about me saying yes.
‘Things could have moved since she wrote that letter,’ he says, going back to the key, but my eyes are still scanning the courtyard for potential hiding spots. ‘She must have given up on him ever coming back eventually.’
He’s right, of course. It’s silly to think it would still be here. The only thing in this courtyard that would have been here in 1979 is the fountain. I walk a circle around it. The gargoyle on the top where the water once poured from is growing moss at an alarming rate, and the basin, made of mosaicked blue tiles, is dry and cracked and cultivating some form of algae from rainwater collected in it.
Carey’s leaning on his elbows inside the window with his chin in his hands, a grin on his face as he watches me.
‘Josie Garringham doesn’t seem like a woman who would’ve given up.’ I climb up on the wall around the fountain edge. I can imagine Josie and Guillaume sitting here with a glass of wine, watching the sun set as the water burbled behind them, but the curved-edge bricks have broken over the years and now it’s all cracks and sharp corners. I don’t know what I’m looking for – a false brick, a hidey-hole, anywhere that a key could be pushed in, but there’s nothing. Maybe I’m barking up the wrong—
The gargoyle didn’t move, I know it didn’t actually move, but something draws my attention to it. It’s freestanding on its stone plinth, and I lean over but I’m too short and have to step down into the fountain and reach up, trying to rock it backwards with one hand while using the other to grope blindly underneath it.
‘I’d help, but I haven’t got a TV in here and this is the best entertainment I’ve had for weeks,’ Carey calls from the window.
Like a true adult, I poke my tongue out at him.
My fingers touch something smooth and … moveable. I shove the heavy stone gargoyle back once more and my fingers tighten on whatever the thing is, and I pull out a polythene bag, brittle, disintegrating at the edges, but still sealed and relatively intact. Inside the weather-clouded plastic, there’s a key and a piece of paper.
‘Hah!’ I hold it up in victory in Carey’s direction and he starts laughing.
Instead of opening it straight away, I shove it into my pocket and put one foot on the centre column, which has all the potential to go horribly wrong, and end up doing a midair version of the splits so I can reach across to the gargoyle. I push it back into place and use the flat of my hand to scrub the moss away and uncover its eyes.
‘So it can see out again?’
‘Obviously.’ I give Carey a scathing look. ‘Don’t tell me it’s just an inanimate object. That wanted to be found. It did something nice for us, we should do something nice for it in return.’
I turn back to the gargoyle and give it a pat. ‘There you go, mate. Now you can enjoy the scenery again. If it was up to me, I’d have water running through you again in a heartbeat.’
I can’t be certain, but I think the gargoyle’s wing moves just a little, but I’m sure it was just a trick of the light. I jump down off the wall and undo the bag while walking towards the front door.
‘Thank you!’ I call to the house, holding up the key.
It’s rusty and far from the shining metal it once was, but when I insert it into the lock on the old fortress-like door, it crunches and grinds, and eventually turns.
I push it cautiously. It looks more like the doorway to a dungeon than a manor house, and although we don’t need it open to get inside, it still feels significant somehow, like the house is letting us in.
‘Let me help.’ Carey’s voice is muffled from the other side as he inches it from its frame until it swings backwards, leaving a once-dark entrance hallway brightened by daylight.
‘Wow.’ Carey stands in the doorway, looking out at the courtyard and surrounding greenery. ‘You’re amazing, Kayl. I didn’t think you could do that. Lesson to self – don’t underestimate women who like Jane Austen.’
I laugh, unsure how Jane Austen comes into it, but it’s a nice compliment when compliments have been few and far between lately.
Instead of concentrating on the scent of his peppery apple aftershave as he stands next to me, I unfold the paper from the bag.
It’s much older than the other letters, and even though I can sense Carey standing close enough to read it over my shoulder, I read it aloud.
September 9th, 1979
My dearest Guillaume,
If you are reading this, it means you’ve come back and I am not here. If you find this, I’ve gone to look for you. Stay here, please. I will always return. Go in, make yourself at home. It is your home and it always will be. I’ve left some letters in the spot where we shared our last kiss. If you ever come back, please read them. Please know what you meant to me.
I will spend the rest of my life looking for you.
Forever love,
Josie
‘Do you think that’s why she travelled? She never stopped looking for him.’
‘That’s equal parts tragic and romantic,’ he says.
‘I’m sorry we’re not him,’ I say to the house in case it’s disappointed that the first person to find the key isn’t Guillaume. I peer in to what was once a glittering entrance hall with marble floors and moulded wall panelling, dust motes dancing through the sunlight.
Carey walks backwards and frames it between his hands. ‘It could almost look welcoming when you see the door open like that. Like a palace, rather than a horror movie mansion.’
‘It deserves that. It’s wrong that its life will end like this. It used to be so much more. It was a happy home for a young couple in love, maybe families before them, and now it’s the subject of various ghost stories, unloved and abandoned for all these years. It deserves someone to give it a second chance.’
Until now, there’s been no breeze, but a gust of wind suddenly shakes the elderflower trees, and I’m almost positive the gargoyle’s wing moves again in agreement. I mean, it doesn’t, obviously, and I’d think I was imagining things, but Carey glances over his shoulder like he’s seen it too.
Our eyes meet and we burst into nervous giggles.
‘I guess the house agrees.’
‘It does that a lot.’ I go back out into the courtyard and we both look up at the house with its door open once more. A small hint of what it must’ve been like once, open to visitors, inviting friends inside as they walked up the impressive driveway. The thought that in a few short months, it will be bulldozed to make way for a theme park causes an overwhelming sadness to settle over me.
He obviously feels it too, because he gestures towards the grounds and says, ‘Shall we …’
‘I’m just going to go and say hello to the bees.’
‘I’ll go and finish packing a bag. Got your lunch?’
I hand it to him and he disappears inside the house, and I make my way up the steps to the rooftop.
‘Good morning, bee ladies and bee gents. Although, quite frankly, it’s the women who do all the work, so maybe just good morning to the ladies.’ I shrug my bag off my shoulder and leave it on the bench, and go a bit nearer to the hives, keeping my distance because I’m not suited up. ‘Did you ladies know about Guillaume? I’m guessing you did because I used to see Josie talking to you all the time.’ It’s hard to reconcile the ‘old witch’ of village tales with the heartbroken Josie in the letters we’ve read. ‘Wait, are you even the same bees? No, you wouldn’t be, would you? Bees don’t live that long. And you couldn’t tell me even if you were bee-cause you’re bees.’
I roll my eyes at myself. ‘I’m going out for lunch with Carey today. No, wait, that sounds wrong, like it’s a date or something and it is most definitely not a date. Just two friends taking a picnic. We are friends, aren’t we? I wasn’t sure I trusted his intentions at first, but he seems nice, doesn’t he?’
‘You know I can hear you, right?’ he calls up from below.
I cringe. I thought I’d hear him coming back outside, but clearly not.
‘It’s a known fact that bees dislike eavesdroppers,’ I call back, trying to deflect attention from myself. I suppose it’s lucky I didn’t tell the bees that he’s quite possibly the hottest man in the known universe, and quite frankly, I can’t see an alien being any hotter, so it probably covers the known and unknown universes.
‘It’s all right, I wasn’t sure about your intentions at first either, but you seem nice too.’ He nudges my arm with his elbow when I get back to the courtyard. ‘And yes, we are friends. At least, I hope so.’
I like that he doesn’t make it any more embarrassing than it needs to be. Instead, he pulls the front of his white T-shirt down, drawing my attention to the motif. ‘You haven’t commented on my shirt yet. Is Pinky and the Brain not to your liking?’
It eases what could’ve been a seriously awkward moment. ‘On the contrary, I think it’s one of the classics. I’ve just been a bit distracted by door keys and lost letters this morning.’ And I really shouldn’t be focusing on the curve of his chest or the way the T-shirt clings in all the right places.
He’s got a rucksack on his back with two thick straps over his shoulders, and a machete and pair of heavy-duty loppers in one hand, and he gestures for me to go first.
Buddleia bushes taller than me spring up as the concrete of the courtyard fades into grassy, mossy ground, with patches of low-growing wild strawberry plants and creeping pimpernel covered in masses of tiny, bright yellow star-shaped flowers. Buttercups wave in the breeze and wild daisies are crying out to have daisy chains made from them. I loved wildflowers when I was younger. Mum and I used to go for walks and I’d come back with bunches of daisies and coltsfoot and cuckooflower and celandines and put them in a vase on the kitchen table, proud of my young flower-arranging skills, not having any concept that they were weeds to most people.
‘Does it make you think of the Flower Fairies?’ I glance back at Carey, a couple of steps behind me.
‘The what?’ He thinks for a moment. ‘Oh, wait, those old books from the 1920s? Yeah, I remember them. My mum used to quote them when I was young. You know, when I was into trucks and trains and would squeal, “Ewwww!” at the mention of something girly like fairies.’
I laugh out loud. ‘My mum used to read one of the poems to me every night before bed. I loved them. I wished they were real.’ I point out clumps of lilies of the valley that have sprung up along the path edges and quote a line from the Flower Fairies that pays tribute to their pretty white bell-shaped flowers. ‘Elderflower Grove seems like the kind of place Cicely Mary Barker would have gone for inspiration. If there were going to be fairies anywhere, it would be here.’
Walking into the grounds of Elderflower Grove feels like wandering even further away from the outside world. The tallest weeds are Himalayan balsam with its pink and white flowers soon to turn into seed pods that burst when you touch them. Trees stand metres above our heads, a mix of elderflower and self-sown oaks, sycamores, and hazelnuts, and bluebells and white stems of wild garlic grow in their shade.
‘My parents always used to say there were fairies in Elderflower Grove. When they were children, this was supposed to be a magical, mythical place.’
‘Mermaids who combed their hair in the lake and a wishing well that really granted wishes?’
‘Yes!’ he says. ‘What happened here? Back in the Fifties and Sixties, this was a magical wonderland, but by our generation, it’s all ghouls and ghosts and murdery unpleasantness. In our parents’ day, Elderflower Grove was a fairy tale. By our day, it was a horror story. What changed? It went from fairies flitting around to somewhere the local vampire population would hang out.’
‘Surely Guillaume is what happened? She went from being a happy young woman to someone sad and bitter, desperately searching for her lost love. Maybe that is when things started to change for Elderflower Grove.’
‘And yet she travelled. She earned a living as a beekeeper. The beekeeper of Elderflower Grove. Just like you.’
‘Oh, I’m not …’ I trail off and glance back at him. ‘She travelled to look for him. Or maybe because staying here without him was too painful sometimes and she had to get out.’
The burbling of the river is getting closer, and it isn’t long before Carey’s hand closes around my upper arm and pulls me back. The ground turns to rocks under my feet and we’re on the edge of a bank that drops down sharply, and we both stand and look out across the trickling water and stony river beach, blocked by tree branches.
He urges me backwards, and uses the nippers to cut away the thickest branches, and at the sound of his first cut, there’s a quack, and from somewhere upstream, a family of ducks takes flight, swearing loudly in our direction.
‘Ducks!’ I squeal in excitement. ‘Josie had a river in her garden with ducks!’
Carey’s put his tools aside and started climbing down the bank, and he turns and holds his hand out to me. I don’t really need the help, but I slip my hand into his anyway. His fingers close around mine and he locks his elbow, making his arm feel ridiculously strong and I lean on him and step down one foot at a time.
‘I’ve never known anyone to get so abnormally excited about ducks.’
If there’s anything worth getting excited about, it’s definitely ducks. We reach the riverbank and Carey doesn’t let go of my hand straight away, giving me a chance to find my footing first. The weather has been dry lately so the water level is low, but I still want to dip my toes in.
‘This is incredible,’ I whisper. I’m repeating myself but I say it again. ‘This is in her garden. Her own private part of the river. Her own ducks. It’s criminal that someone wants to destroy this. What about the river?’
‘It’ll be re-routed.’ He realises he hasn’t let go of my hand yet because he yanks his away and murmurs an apology, shaking his fingers like he’s got pins and needles.
‘Do you miss designing gardens?’
‘Very much so.’ He looks down the river to the point where it disappears from view and breathes like he’s filling his lungs. ‘Being surrounded by nature soothes my soul. It settles something inside me. It’s easy to forget I’ve lost my job when this has been my home for the past few weeks.’
‘Are you looking for another job?’
He hesitates before he answers. ‘Yes and no. I have no other discernible talents and I can’t imagine working in an office or being shut indoors somewhere all day. I’ve only ever worked for one company, so I don’t have loads of references – only one boss who’s really not happy with me. I don’t fancy my chances of getting another job based on what his reference will say.’ He looks at me and then turns away again. ‘I’m holding out hope that I can get mine back if I keep my head down, don’t cause any trouble, and don’t rock any boats for a while.’
I pick up a flat stone and skim it across the water. It bounces twice and then sinks with a plop.
‘How about you? What happens when the Elderflower Grove contract is up? Will you look for another beekeeper gig elsewhere or go back to candles?’
The thought of this being over is horrible. Even though the interviewing bee made it clear this was for one season only, I still hoped that I could prove myself and be re-employed next year. I had no idea it would be the end of Elderflower Grove for good. ‘Back to looking for any job that will have me, I guess. Not candles. That’s gone, along with all my savings. I can barely look at a candle now …’ I stop myself when he looks at me curiously.
Instead of pursuing it, he gives me a proud grin as he picks up a flat stone and skims it so it bounces five times and only stops when it hits the boulders on the opposite side of the river. Of course someone so outdoorsy is a master stone skimmer.
‘We should take some stones and give them to the Nectar Inspectors’ grandchildren to paint. Genuine, bona fide Elderflower Grove stones.’
I feel carefree and childlike as we walk around on the dry riverbed, selecting the flattest and best shaped of the water-smoothed stones. Carey shrugs the rucksack off his shoulders and moves aside our lunches and Josie’s tin of letters to let me put them in the bottom, and doesn’t complain about carrying the extra weight as he hefts it onto his back.
It’s gone 11 a.m. when we make our way back up the bank. Carey holds his hand out again, but drops it as soon as we reach the path this time.
We’re aiming towards the lake, which is quite a way over to the left, and it’s nice wandering through the immense grounds, appreciating the butterflies that flutter past, the constant sound of birdsong from the trees, the easy conversation, and the way Carey can identify every tree and wildflower we pass and every bird singing every note.
On one narrow path, we’re cut off by a solid block of hawthorn hedges, the almondy scent of their white blossom filling the air. We’re about to turn back and try another way when I spot something through the spiky branches.
‘What’s that wooden thing?’
It’s impossible to get through the hedgerows until Carey cuts branches off to make a gap, and we come out in a grass-covered clearing, surrounded on all sides by a wall of prickly hawthorns.
‘They’re beehives!’ Climbing through the hedgerow reveals there’s more than one of the wooden structures that caught my eye – a lot more, arranged in a circle around the clearing.
Carey stumbles straight into my back and I can feel the fear shoot through him. ‘Oh good god, no. I’ve got to get out of here. I don’t have my—’
‘They’re empty.’ I reach out and grab his wrist, stopping him from racing back the way we came. ‘There’s not a bee in sight and no sound of buzzing anywhere. These hives aren’t in use.’
‘Are you sure?’ He sounds hesitant and like he’s unsure whether to trust me or not.
‘Yes,’ I say confidently. These hives are totally different from the ones on the roof. There’s no bee activity at all.
‘What on earth are these doing here?’ I count them. ‘And there’s sixty of them, the same amount as there are up there.’
‘Josie had a second apiary?’
‘Yeah, but it’s not been used.’ I let his wrist drop and go over to the nearest hive. It’s weather-beaten, but there are no traces of propolis around the edges, and no debris in the long grass around the base.
I lift off the roof and the crown board cautiously, not quite trusting myself at recognising bee activity, but there’s not a single bee inside, and the frames are clean and empty. ‘They’ve never been used. That’s really strange.’
‘What was she doing with sixty hives hidden away out here? We’re miles from the house.’
‘Maybe it wasn’t Josie. Maybe it was one of the beekeepers who worked here after she disappeared.’ I replace the lid and walk further down the field to remove the lid of another hive and make sure they’re all the same.
‘Well, the one I scared away was too busy ransacking the house to go near the garden, but I knew the bloke she replaced, and he never mention—’
‘You knew the last beekeeper too? How long have you been here?’
‘Not in that way. I came across him occasionally. In my job. It doesn’t matter. What I mean is …’ He trails off like he doesn’t know what he means either.
‘They’ve obviously been here for a fair few years.’ Although the wooden hives are in good condition, nothing can withstand the great British weather for long without sustaining some damage, but none of them show any sign of ever housing bees. It niggles at me. There’s something odd about this.
I crouch down and tip one of the hives forwards, looking for something, anything, that might give us a clue. My fingers brush over the indent of a manufacturing stamp on the base, and I tilt the hive until I can see it. ‘These were manufactured in the year of the fire. That’s weird, right? That’s got to mean something …’
He quirks an eyebrow. ‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know.’ I can feel the cogs in my brain turning. ‘But Josie must have put them here herself. Before the fire. Like she was intending to move the bees …’
I can also see the cogs in his mind turning. ‘What are you suggesting? That she … had something to do with the fire?’
‘I don’t know, but you’ve got to admit this is pretty weird, even by Elderflower Grove’s standards.’
‘I’m not sure the date means much. Those hives could have been put in at any time before the November of that year. We don’t know that she put them there right before the fire. She could have been planning to relocate her bees.’
‘Then why are they still on the roof?’
‘Because she died before she had a chance?’ He looks genuinely confused.
‘No, that can’t be right. Bees are inactive in the winter. The fire was in November. If she’d been intending to relocate the bees, she’d have done it in the spring or summer. Besides, you’d move the hives themselves, not move the bees to new hives. And why so far away from the house? The one thing I know about Josie is that she loved her rooftop apiary. She was up there every evening. Why would she want to move her hives all the way down here?’
‘Maybe she couldn’t do it anymore. Whether you go up through the house or use the outside staircase, those steps up to the roof are hard. And I say that with the knees of a thirty-eight-year-old. Josie was ninety-two. It’s not hard to believe that she was struggling with those steps.’
‘But that’s a trek.’ I point in the direction we’ve just come. ‘Maybe you’re right about the steps – my knees are already complaining about them and it’s only been a few days – but there’s plenty of space all around the house. If she wanted the hives to be more accessible, why would she hide them all the way out here? That walk was arguably harder than climbing the steps to the roof.’
‘I don’t know, Kayl.’ He shakes his head. ‘Maybe she was starting to lose her marbles. Maybe she couldn’t look after the bees anymore and was going to employ a beekeeper. Maybe she needed help with moving them and she didn’t have anyone to help her. And everything’s hidden now. Seven years ago, these were probably neat paths and somewhere there’ll be a proper entranceway that’s overgrown.’ He looks around doubtfully and then sighs. ‘Go on then, tell me what you’re thinking.’
I stand in the middle of the circle formed by the hives. So many things don’t make sense, and yet, somehow a theory has formed in my head that makes more sense than anything we know so far. ‘What if she really isn’t dead? What if she really did plan the fire? What if it was a cover to disappear?’
‘But why? Why would a ninety-two-year-old do that?’
‘I don’t know.’ I falter for a moment. ‘But the fire was set away from the library and away from the bees – the two things she loved the most.’
‘It was set by a firework thrown through the window on Bonfire Night. Kids tormenting the old witch of the village that wasn’t meant to go as far as it did.’
‘A firework thrown through a window that you can’t access from the road.’
‘That’s ridi— What?’
‘That’s what doesn’t make sense in your police report. The fire was started by kids throwing a firework, but you’ve shown me the window it came through – it’s at the back. You can’t even see it from the outside.’
‘Then I suppose they thought someone got into the grounds. It’s difficult but not inconceivable.’
All right, he’s got a point there, but something about this doesn’t add up. ‘These hives are here for a reason. Smoke makes bees docile. They load up on as much honey as possible in case there’s a fire that will drive them from their homes. That’s why we use a smoker before we open the hives. Josie knew that. She must’ve thought that when the bees sensed smoke, they’d gather up what they needed and abandon the rooftop hives.’ My voice is getting faster as my mind turns over this possibility.
I’m certain he’s going to laugh at me, but he listens, and it makes me feel more confident in my theories. ‘I don’t think these hives were put here for humans to find – they were for the bees to find. She assumed the bees would be driven from their hives and need to find new homes. She put them down here, surrounded by hedges that would blossom in the spring, ready for when the bees needed them.’
‘But the fire didn’t spread as much as she thought it would so they never used them?’
‘Exactly. Think about it. The fire was set on November the fifth. Bonfire Night. If you want to start a fire without anyone noticing, that is the night to do it. That’s how you hide a fire in plain sight – by lighting it on the one night a year when all of Britain is on fire. It’s too much of a coincidence.’ I look at him standing with his head cocked to the side, thinking it through. ‘You think I’m mad, don’t you?’
‘Not at all. I’m thinking I got exceptionally lucky on the day you stabbed me with a fire poker. I couldn’t have found a better beekeeper to help me solve the mystery of my possible-grandmother.’
I blush and we meet each other’s eyes and blink for a few long seconds, and then he continues. ‘But why? Why would she do something like that? And where would she go? And why hasn’t there been any trace of her since?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I don’t know either.’ He shakes his head, but his expressive face shows how unlikely he thinks my theory is.
It is unlikely, I know that. What would a ninety-two-year-old be doing burning down houses and setting up sixty beehives in the furthest reaches of her huge estate?
We look around at the empty hives. It’s like standing in some sort of bee graveyard and even though the weather is warm, a chill goes through me. I can’t shake the idea that Josie is still alive and hiding behind a bee filter, running the Nectar Inspectors group, still protecting her bees from beyond the grave.
Or not beyond the grave.
***
Outside the forested area, the walk towards the lake is full of wildflower meadows, fields filled with waves of buttercups, and absolutely alive with butterflies and damselflies, and the delicate scent of elderflower is strong in the air.
‘What would you do if this was all yours? If you really are Josie’s grandson and you inherit this, what would you do with it?’
‘Keep it exactly as it is and open it up to the public,’ he says without thinking about it. ‘Cut it back a bit first, obviously. Get it back to being the nice garden area it must’ve been once. So many people could benefit from somewhere like this. The river, the fields, the lake if we ever find it. A place you could spend a day without having to spend money – something that’s rare these days. Families, dogs, even horse rides if we could uncover a trail for them. Kayaking along the river. Pedal boats on the lake. All subsidised by some huge amount of money I don’t currently have, but pipe dreams aren’t meant to be realistic, are they?’
I can’t help smiling back when he grins at me. It sounds perfect, including the sudden magical cash injection we could all do with.
‘Everywhere you go has hidden charges these days. I’d like to throw open the gates and let people come in and wander with no other expectation. Walk their dogs, eat picnics with the family, skim stones on the river, dip their toes in the lake, run around the maze trying to find the centre …’
‘Is there really a maze here?’
‘I can see what would’ve once been the entrance to it from the upper floor windows. It’s over that way.’ He points in the general direction of behind the manor house.
‘Mazes are so old-fashioned and charming. The height of sophistication in days gone by. Kids want, I don’t know, scavenger hunts and augmented reality Pokémon things popping out of their phones now, but the simplicity and allure of a maze never goes away.’
‘That means you’re going to come and uncover it with me one day then, yes?’
‘Yes!’ I say it so quickly that I might’ve metaphorically bitten his hand off. ‘I’d love to.’
I meet his eyes and we grin at each other.
‘I know it’s pointless to bother with the garden when the whole place is being demolished, but I want to see a hint of what it was like in its glory days. I can’t be here and not try to make it a little better, even if it’s only for a while. Whether I’m related to Josie or not, someone should bear witness to Elderflower Grove’s last days and remember it as it was.’
It makes that overwhelming sadness resettle across us. The thought of Carey and me being the only two people to ever see this place before it’s wiped from the landscape for good … ‘Why don’t we do that?’
‘Open it up to the public?’ He laughs and then looks at me with a raised eyebrow when I don’t laugh too. ‘Are you serious?’
I nod enthusiastically as the idea gathers speed.
‘Where do you want me to start? Firstly, it’s not ours to open up. Secondly, it’s hazardously overgrown and dangerous. Thirdly—’ He sounds like the list could go into the twenties, so I interrupt him.
‘No, it’s not ours, but it doesn’t belong to anyone at the moment. Well, Josie, but if she’s really dead, then it’s in limbo because the council don’t own it yet. And if she’s not dead then she’s seven years past caring what happens to Elderflower Grove. Yes, it’s overgrown and hazardous, but we could fix that. You’re a gardener. You’re desperate to get stuck into sorting this chaos out, and the bees aren’t a full-time job, so I can help. We’re the only two people who know this is here. Everyone should know before they knock it down. You said someone should bear witness to its final days – why don’t we let them?’
‘No one can know about the theme park. I wasn’t supposed to tell you, and I’m going to be in serious trouble if anyone finds out.’
‘I can say I was poking around inside and found some paperwork or something. No one will know it came from you.’
‘Paperwork that I’m not supposed to have. This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. We cannot tell anyone any of this. And we can’t throw the gates open and let people go poking around anywhere they fancy. The house genuinely is unsafe, for a start—’
‘We could block that off.’
He frowns at me but I carry on. ‘I’m serious, Carey. Everything you’ve just said is right. The slight trifle that we don’t actually own it is irrelevant. Until November, you and I are its caretakers. We have to do what’s best for it, and it’s wrong that we are the only people who know what’s behind those gates. People have a right to know there’s a country park on their doorsteps, and they definitely have a right to know what the council are planning to do. The villagers would be up in arms if they knew about the theme park. What about the bees? The villagers love our bees. They’ll never stand for them being relocated. There will be protests and petitions. They will fight for Elderflower Grove if they know what there is to fight for. Maybe if the council know that opening it as it is will be popular, they’ll reconsider a theme park.’
He makes a scoffing noise. ‘Believe me, they will never reconsider something that will bring them such a vast amount of revenue.’
‘You don’t know that. They might be keen to keep their local residents happy.’
‘Kayleigh, there is a “no entry” sign with the council leader’s face on it strapped to the gate. That is indicative of the relationship between our local council and their residents. Our councillors have never listened to a resident in their lives – the only people they listen to are their accountants.’
‘So we have until November to prove you’re Josie’s grandson.’
‘We don’t know that I am or that there will be any proof.’
‘Then we have until November to give Elderflower Grove the send-off it deserves. The villagers need to know what this place is like.’ I think of both Wilbur and Gracie, each stopping at the gate, peering in worriedly. ‘We need to debunk the ghost stories. Elderflower Grove is a good place, a nice place. We can let people see that for themselves.’
He sighs. ‘You don’t understand. No one can know the stuff I’ve told you.’
‘What if we don’t tell them? What if we just tidy it up and open the gates? We don’t have to say it’s the final year, but the council have got to tell them eventually, then they’ll be up in arms and storming the offices.’
‘They’re not going to tell anyone until every last shred of paperwork is signed. There will be no time for protests when it’s already too late.’
‘That’s horrible. That’s really horrible, you know that, right?’
He sighs again. ‘Of course I know that. I hate what they’re doing. I hate that there are people in this world who can see an area like this and want to destroy it, but that’s the world we live in. Two people can’t change that.’
‘How do you know if we don’t try?’
‘We can’t try. For so many reasons. It’s a grand idea, a dream for this place, but it’s not realistic.’ He sounds so finite and resolved, and there’s no way it’s something I could do without him onboard, and maybe it is just thinking out loud, dreaming out loud, and I don’t know what kind of work would be involved in it or the legal ins and outs, but I do know one thing – being at Elderflower Grove makes me feel alive for the first time in years, and I’m not giving up on this.