Chapter 53: A Friendship in the Garden
Eva first met Seraphina when she was four.
It wasn't planned. But Eva's days rarely went according to plans made by grown-ups. Though she could be obedient when the mood suited her, she lived by other rhythms—those written in the language of shadows, of flower petals drifting on wind, of why and how and what if. She wanted to know why puddles shimmered like mirrors and how birds folded into the sky. Curiosity was her compass. And sometimes, it led her where no one thought to look.
That particular afternoon wore the scent of jasmine and old roses. The sun had stretched itself lazily across the sky, and everything—the air, the earth, even the time—felt drowsy with spring.
Eva's nanny had fallen asleep on the chaise lounge, one hand dangling off the edge, a thick gardening magazine splayed across her face like a second pillow. The French doors leading to the terrace had been left ajar. A breeze stirred the curtains just enough to beckon.
That was all the invitation Eva needed.
Barefoot, she slipped out. The cool stone tickled her feet, but she didn't flinch. The estate had long since become her private kingdom, and she moved through it with quiet confidence—like a ghost in a sundress, unnoticed by the grown-up world.
Beyond the sculpted hedges and marble fountains lay a quieter place. A secret place. The in-between garden.
She had discovered it by accident once, weeks ago, chasing a monarch butterfly past the greenhouse. It was not part of her family's curated landscape—no neat gravel paths or evenly clipped boxwoods. Instead, wild violets grew between crooked paving stones. Moss carpeted the stone walls, and grapevines curled around rusted trellises like sleeping snakes.
It was a forgotten garden.
Which, to Eva, made it perfect.
She stepped lightly between dandelions, her fingers grazing long grass that whispered against her legs. She moved without aim, following a feeling she didn't yet have words for. A feeling like a thread tugging gently at her chest.
And that was when she saw her.
A girl.
Older—taller—sitting beneath a grand sycamore tree with a book in her lap and sunlight caught in her hair. Her legs were stretched out in front of her, bare ankles crossed at the edge of the grass. She wore a soft, pale blouse with lace at the collar, and her auburn hair—loose and unruly—fell around her shoulders in quiet waves. She looked like she belonged there, like a painting the garden had been waiting to reveal.
Eva stopped walking.
Seraphina glanced up, her strange pale red eyes narrowing just slightly. There was no alarm in her expression, only curiosity. Their eyes met and held. And something passed between them—unspoken, like a breath, like a secret neither had planned to share.
"Well," Seraphina murmured, her voice barely louder than the wind, "you're not a garden sprite… are you?"
Eva blinked. Her small fists curled at her sides, not in fear, but wonder. This was not a scolding adult or a passing gardener. This was someone different. Someone quiet and slow and golden like the afternoon itself.
"I might be," Eva answered softly. "But garden sprites don't have shoes. And I left mine behind."
Seraphina smiled faintly, the corners of her lips lifting like shadows in sunlight. "A barefoot explorer, then."
Eva stepped forward, brushing a curl from her eye. "Do you live here?"
"Yes," Seraphina said, setting her book aside. "And you live next door. You always walk with your aunt."
"Mère," Eva corrected gently. "She's like a mama, but sideways."
Seraphina tilted her head. "Sideways?"
Eva nodded solemnly, as if that explained everything.
A pause stretched between them, easy, like the kind that only happens when both people are content not to fill it.
Then Seraphina patted the grass beside her. "Come sit, little sideways girl."
Eva crossed the distance at once, her dress snagging a clover as she sat cross-legged. Her knees were already stained green. "What were you reading?"
Seraphina picked up the book and showed her. The cover was old, the spine fraying. Inside were poems—short ones—spaced apart like little stars on a wide sky.
"Mostly about the sky," she said. "Some are about things that fall from it."
Eva's eyes sparkled. "Like rain?"
"Like stars."
She leaned in, peering at the page. "Can you read one to me?"
Seraphina nodded and chose a short verse. Her voice was low, even, and quiet enough that the leaves above them seemed to hush and listen.
"She fell from the clouds with a song in her chest,
and the stars, watching closely, chose silence instead.
For beauty like hers wasn't made to be kept—
but she landed so softly, the earth almost wept."
Eva said nothing at first. Then, with the sincerity only a four-year-old could manage: "That star was a girl, wasn't she?"
"She was."
"She's lonely now," Eva whispered. "Even though the earth loves her."
Seraphina glanced sideways at the little girl beside her—wild curls and serious grey eyes—and felt something tug at her. How did someone so small know how to say things like that?
"You're very smart," she said.
Eva shook her head. "No. I just feel things."
They stayed like that for a while, the way wild things sometimes do when they've stumbled into each other's presence—quiet, curious, a little amazed. Seraphina let Eva flip through the book, even though her reading was halting and slow. She didn't mind. She liked the sound of Eva sounding things out. She liked the way Eva would tilt her head like a bird when a word confused her.
At one point, Eva leapt up to chase a butterfly. She ran crookedly through the grass, arms outstretched, her giggles rippling across the garden like wind through reeds.
Seraphina watched her and—without quite meaning to—raised her phone and snapped a photo.
The image caught Eva mid-motion—half-step, curls flying, one arm out like a dancer, her face lit by the kind of joy that can't be posed for. The sunlight hit the edges of her dress and made her glow.
Seraphina stared at the screen. Her heart gave a little jolt.
How could something so chaotic be so beautiful?
She tucked the phone away.
Some things weren't meant to be shared. Only remembered.
When Eva returned, breathless and flushed, she sat down again and leaned her head against Seraphina's arm without asking.
Seraphina went still.
No one touched her like that. Not even her mother, not anymore. Her body stiffened—but Eva didn't notice. She simply settled, soft and warm, as if the space beside Seraphina had always been meant for her.
"I like you," Eva said plainly.
Seraphina exhaled. "That's forward."
"I don't want to forget you."
"You won't," Seraphina said, more certain than she expected.
Eva tilted her face up. "How do you know?"
"Because I won't let you."
There it was again—something in the air. A thread between them, newly tied.
"I'll call you Ina," Eva said suddenly.
Seraphina blinked. "What?"
"It's like Seraphina, but only the soft part. That's for when we're alone."
Ina.
Seraphina felt the name settle in her chest, like a bell ringing in a quiet cathedral. No one had ever given her a nickname before. Not one that mattered.
She gave a small nod. "Alright. Ina."
Eva smiled like that was a promise.
The sun had begun its descent, painting the sky in gentle golds and bruised purples. Shadows grew longer, stretching like fingers across the moss. The forgotten garden was beginning to fold itself up again, like a story being put back on a shelf.
"I should go," Eva said at last, her voice reluctant.
Seraphina nodded. "I know."
But Eva hesitated, looking down at her feet. "Can I come again?"
Seraphina didn't wait this time. "You'd better."
A grin bloomed across Eva's face—wide and bright and irrepressible. She turned and skipped away, humming a tune with no melody, just rhythm and joy. Her curls bounced. Her feet made soft sounds against the stone. And as she disappeared beyond the garden's edge, the space she left behind felt like something newly hollowed.
As Eva turned and retraced her steps back toward her own garden, she felt like she was floating. Like something had shifted inside her, and she was no longer just a little girl sneaking into someone else's world. She was part of it now, part of something new, something full of stars and stories.
And when she got back to the house, her nanny was still asleep, and the world felt just a little bit bigger than it had been before.
That night, Seraphina lay on her bed, staring at the photo she had taken. She stared for a long time.
Then she saved it to a hidden folder and typed beneath it:
"Even the stars would envy how she falls."