But my mom isn’t looking at me. Instead, she seems to be slowly hyperventilating, her chest heaving. Is she okay? “Mom?”

“Rosemary, breathe!” Violet says sternly. She claps my mom on the back, which actually seems to work. Now my mom has a pink circle on each cheek.

Poppy clasps one of my hands to her heart, recapturing my attention. “She’ll be all right. Such a shock, being here! Your mother was hardly a girl when we saw her last. Oh, she gave us a start, disappearing into the night like that!”

They are not giving up. “Mom, should we go?” I ask, but her eyes dart away from mine.

Poppy grips my hand tighter. “We tried to contact her for years. Years. Bell women have always been excellent at disappearing. Of course, Rosemary excelled at it, the way she excels at everything. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she’d dropped off the edge of the world. I know she had her reasons, but couldn’t she have sent one measly postcard? A quick phone call on Beltane or Yule?”

Violet joins in, her eyes on my mother. “Oh, you were so tricky. If it weren’t for that magazine article, I don’t know if we ever would have found you!”

Wait.

Wait, wait, wait.

My pulse flickers slightly. They aren’t talking about the magazine article, are they? The one framed in our entryway? I mean, they can’t be, because they obviously don’t know us. They aren’t even calling my mom by the right name. Still, I can’t ignore the tension spiraling through my chest. I spin to look at my mom. I don’t know which looks tighter, her shoulders or her face.

“Poppy had a hunch you would be in the entertaining business, and of course you’re right at the tip top of that industry, aren’t you?” Violet says. “Oh, those flower chandeliers! They were stunning.”

“That’s why I sent the poppies and rosemary!” Poppy says. “It cost a fortune to airmail them to you, but I knew you needed flowers from the Bell garden. Flowers have always spoken to you.”

Poppy sent the poppy-and-rosemary bouquet. To my mother. Rosemary.

It’s the last piece I need.

Shock and understanding explode in my chest. I swivel over to look at my mom. Her face is inscrutable, but she’s biting her lower lip. These women not only know my mother, they know her by a different name. That’s why she tried to send me back to the hotel, so I wouldn’t unravel more of her secret.