Theirs would be the first feet to walk the Winter Garden that day, and Nory held back, pulling on Isaac’s hand, not wanting to sully the ethereal scene with footprints. But Isaac only smiled back at her and motioned that she should follow him. As though reading her mind he said, “There’s more snow forecast. Our footprints will be reclaimed soon enough, don’t worry.”

They wandered through the garden, the first place where they had set eyes on each other as adults. It seemed like no time ago at all and yet also an age. Perhaps, Nory mused, that was part of the garden’s magic: You could live a lifetime in here and outside not a moment would have passed.

Isaac stopped by the hellebores, their bonnets straining under the weight of the snow.

“This is where it all started,” he said.

Nory smiled. “With your new hellebore,” she agreed. She crouched next to the bed. With gentle fingers, she brushed the snow from the pink petals. “Perhaps you should name it Heba,” she said, marveling again at the unusual markings on the hybrid plant.

As she moved her attention to dusting the snowflakes off the leaves, she noticed a wooden plant label poking out of the snow next to it. Without thinking, she cleared the snow that had banked against it and then she stopped. She looked again and then she glanced up to see Isaac watching, amusement and mischief dancing in his eyes. She looked back at the label and blinked the tears out of her eyes. The words Nory Noel were printed above the Latin name.

“Is this for real?” she asked, gazing up at him again.

Isaac nodded. “It is.”

He helped her to her feet and pulled an envelope from his pocket, which he handed to her. Dazed, Nory took it from him and found herself looking at an official authentication form with registration stamp: HELLEBORUS. HELLEBORE. “NORY NOEL”

“You named your hellebore after me!”

She felt like a girl again, just tall enough to peek over the potting tables, playing the strange sounds of the Latin and Greek plant names in her mouth, letting them roll around on her tongue. And now she had her very own: Helleborus Nory Noel.

“I knew as soon as I found you here that night that I couldn’t call it anything else. Do you know how many people have walked through this garden and never even glanced at it twice? But you saw it, straightaway. And you saw me. You saw me in a way I didn’t even know myself. I would never have done anything with Heba’s books; they would have stayed a bitter secret forever. But you saw what I couldn’t see myself and you did it for me.”

“Some people might call that meddling,” she said, her voice sounding hoarse around the lump in her throat.