The car stopped.

A car door slammed.

“Cindy?”

She looked up to see Greta, a short blond woman who always wore cowboy boots and two large turquoise rings.

“Oh, God,” Sydney whispered.

“I’m sorry,” Greta said, kneeling in front of her. “I’m so sorry. I tried parking here, but the guy living over there caught me and told me he was calling a tow truck. I’ve been driving by every half hour, waiting for you.”

“Oh, God.”

“It’s okay.” Greta pulled Sydney to her feet and led her and Bay to a Subaru wagon with plastic over a broken window on the passenger side and rust spots from fender to fender. “Be safe. Go as far as you can.”

“Thank you.”

Greta nodded and got into the passenger seat of the Jeep that had followed her into the parking lot.

“See, Mommy?” Bay said. “I knew it was going to be okay.”

“Me too,” Sydney lied.

The morning after Anna Chapel’s party, Claire went to the garden for a basket of mint. She was going to start on the food for the Amateur Botanists Association’s annual luncheon in Hickory on Friday. Being botanists, they liked the idea of edible flowers. Being a bunch of rich eccentric old ladies, they paid well and could give a lot of referrals. It was a coup to get the job, but it was a big job, and she was going to have to buck it up and hire someone local to help her serve.

The garden was gated by heavy metal fencing, like a gothic cemetery, and the honeysuckle clinging to it was almost two feet thick in some places, completely closing in the place. Even the gate door was covered with honeysuckle vines, and the keyhole was a secret pocket only a few could find.

When she entered, she noticed it right away.

There, in the cluster of Queen Anne’s lace, tiny leaves of ivy were sprouting.

Ivy in the garden.

Overnight.

The garden was saying that something was trying to get in, something that was pretty and looked harmless but would take over everything if given the chance.

She quickly pulled the ivy out and dug deep for the roots. But then she spied a hairy vine of it sneaking up a lilac bush, and she crawled over to it.

In her haste, she hadn’t closed the garden gate behind her, and a half hour later she jerked her head around in surprise when she heard the crunch of footsteps on the gravel pathway that snaked around the flowers.

It was Tyler, carrying a cardboard milk box and looking around as if he’d entered someplace enchanted. Everything bloomed here at once, even at a time of year when it wasn’t supposed to. He stopped suddenly when his eyes found Claire on her knees, digging up the roots of the ivy under the lilac bush. He gave her a look like he was trying to make her out in the dark.