Chapter 52: A Spark Beneath the Garden
Ever since the new family moved into the Ainsley Estate last year, something inside Seraphina had changed—though she couldn't quite say what.
At eight years old, Seraphina already understood that she was different from other children. She wasn't loud or wild like some of her cousins. She didn't like messy games or shouting or running without a reason. She liked quiet. Stillness. Stories whispered to dolls. Silks and feathers, old books, and silence broken only by wind. She kept her distance from the other children in the neighborhood, found their noise tiring, and their play clumsy.
But then Eva came.
She remembered the first time she saw her—a tiny figure framed by the window across the garden, curls glowing with sunlight. Seraphina had been pruning the jasmine trellis when her eyes caught movement. The girl had been standing still, not waving, not hiding, just… watching. Searching. Their eyes met for a heartbeat. Then Eva was gone, like a leaf caught in wind.
That was the beginning.
A year had passed since then, and Seraphina still didn't know what it was about Eva that held her so tightly. Maybe it was her quietness—how she didn't babble or run around like other toddlers. Or maybe it was the way she seemed to live in a world just slightly apart from everyone else. There was something secret about her. Something soft. Something precious.
Seraphina didn't have the words for it.
She only knew that whenever Eva appeared—walking the garden paths with her aunt Vivienne, or sitting beneath the plum tree with a book far too big for her hands—Seraphina felt her chest tighten with something warm and strange.
It wasn't just admiration.
It was a need to be near. To know everything. What she liked to eat. What she whispered when she thought no one was listening. Whether she preferred birds or butterflies. Whether she liked rain, or just the sound of it on windows.
And maybe… just maybe… what she would say if Seraphina asked to hold her hand.
But Eva always disappeared.
Every time Seraphina tried to approach, the little girl would slip away—behind a tree, behind Vivienne's skirt, into the shadows of the estate. It was like trying to catch fog. And yet, Seraphina kept trying.
She wasn't careless. She was careful. She watched from behind hedges, from upstairs windows, from the gaps in the ivy wall. She never followed too close. She didn't want to frighten Eva. Just… be near her.
Today, she sat under the arbor again, pretending to read a picture book. But her eyes weren't on the pages. They were on the soft figure wandering down the garden path—Eva, with her tiny hand curled around Vivienne's fingers. They moved slowly, like always. Like a story unwinding.
And then, just like that, Eva looked up.
Sunlight poured across her curls, and Seraphina saw it again—that shimmer. Her hair looked light brown most days, but now, beneath the gold of afternoon, darker strands appeared—curls with hints of blue, like twilight ink. And her eyes—those pale grey eyes—caught the sun just right. Gold flickered in the pupils. A soft, glowing gold, like candlelight through fog.
Seraphina forgot to breathe.
Eva saw her. She always did.
But this time was no different. As soon as their eyes met, the girl let go of her aunt Vivienne's hand and ran—first behind her aunt's skirt, then behind a tree, tiny hands grasping the bark. Seraphina waited. No one came back out.
She tilted her head, a little smile curving at the edge of her lips. "Shy little thing."
Later, when the sun dipped lower, and the shadows turned long and soft, Seraphina tiptoed to the far side of her garden—the place where the hedges thinned, and she could just peek through to Ainsley's path.
There, under the plum tree, was Eva again. Alone.
Seraphina crouched behind the jasmine, quiet as a moth.
Eva sat on the grass with her knees tucked up, humming to herself. Not a tune Seraphina knew—just a little rise and fall, like lullabies from some far-off place. She was whispering, too. To a bee, it seemed. Her tiny hand hovered near the insect as it buzzed lazily across a dandelion.
"Don't sting me," she said gently, "you're very busy, I know."
Seraphina felt something odd in her chest. A tightness. Like wanting to laugh and cry at the same time.
The light hit Eva's face again—cheeks glowing, lashes long and soft as feathers. Her hair shimmered in the breeze, catching that strange blue-black tint beneath the brown, like nighttime hiding under daylight. And those eyes again. Grey-gold. Moonlight and fire.
It was too much.
She wanted to keep that moment. Somehow.
Quietly, carefully, she lifted the old camera she carried in her satchel. Her mother had once used it to photograph roses. Now it held only one subject.
She clicked the shutter.
And in the frame, Eva stumbled—her dress caught on a twig, her arms flailing just slightly, hair tumbling forward. A clumsy second. And yet, even falling, she looked like something divine. Like a goddess descending. Light-wrapped. Untouched. Beautiful beyond reason.
Seraphina stared at the preview, breathless.
"I'll keep this one," she whispered.
Then Eva stood and began to spin slowly, arms out like wings. Her little feet left circles in the clover. The hem of her dress fluttered, and her voice, low and dreamy, reached Seraphina again.
"Le vent me cherche, mais je suis déjà perdue…"
The wind looks for me, but I'm already lost.
Seraphina's lips parted.
She didn't understand everything Eva said, not really. But it sounded like poetry. Like a secret.
The girl stopped spinning. Her eyes opened slowly.
And then—for a moment—she looked straight at Seraphina. Through leaves, through shade, through silence.
Neither of them moved.
Then Eva turned away again, as if she hadn't seen anything at all, and lay down in the grass, humming softly to herself.
A moment later, she rolled onto her belly and reached out to touch a crushed dandelion. She made a tiny face—nose scrunching, lower lip pushing out. Then she sneezed. A sound like a kitten startled itself.
Seraphina covered her mouth to keep from laughing aloud.
She's so… impossibly lovely, even like that.
Especially like that.
Eva then began to scoop up the dandelion fluff with both hands, cupping it as though it were treasure, before blowing it all gently into the air. It stuck in her curls, in her lashes, on her dress. She looked like a dream spun out of summer and light.
Seraphina stayed crouched for a long while. The grass tickled her knees. The jasmine brushed her arms. She didn't care.
She wanted her.
Not like a doll, not like a toy—but something else. Something to hold close and protect. Something to keep. Like a wish that only worked if you never told anyone.
Later that night, back in her room, Seraphina opened her journal.
She didn't know what to write at first.
Then her pencil moved.
"She is quiet and small, but the world leans toward her. I think she holds stories in her chest. I want to listen to them all. I want to know her. I want her with me."
She paused. Then added, in smaller letters:
"Not to trap. Just to stay. I'd be gentle. I promise."
Outside, stars blinked on one by one. Somewhere, across the garden, Eva was probably curled up beside her aunt, whispering lullabies to the night.
Seraphina closed her book.
Tomorrow, she would try again. Maybe she'd wave. Maybe she'd wait by the plum tree and pretend to look at bees. Maybe Eva would come a little closer.
And if not tomorrow, then another day.
She would wait.
Because someday, Eva would stop running.
And when she did, Seraphina would be there.