My heart thuds so loudly, I’m pretty sure everyone hears it. I spin toward my mom. “Mom,” I say urgently. The people who were watching have gone back to their regular lives. This is not a tourist gimmick or impromptu performance. These people are somehow a part of my mom’s life. My mom’s name is—or was—Rosemary. I have an entire family history I know nothing about.

And I can’t get her to look at me. “Mom,” I say more forcefully.

“Willow, I can explain,” she says. Her hands flutter to her purse, then to her blouse and back again. She still isn’t looking at me. She waves one arm at me, like I’m a crumb that needs to be brushed away. “Later.”

Seriously?

Confusion and upset are bubbling in my chest, making it hard to think straight, but this hand movement sends me straight to rage. Does she really think she can make me wait on this? Is my mom seriously shutting me out right now?

Of course she is. Shutting me out is at the top of her list of considerable talents. The sun is much too hot, and I’m suddenly unclear about how I’m managing to breathe in the humidity. It is absolutely suffocating.

Well, this time, I’m not standing for it.

“You need to tell me now,” I say. “Who are Poppy and Violet, and why are they calling you Rosemary?” My voice is hard, steely, and it catches both of us off guard. In truth, I sound exactly like her. Poppy and Violet exchange a quick glance.

Mom’s cheeks are bright red, a mirror replica of mine, I’m sure. “Willow, these are…” She exhales. “These are my great-aunts. They helped raise my sister and me. Along with my aunt Daisy.”

“Oh, we shouldn’t get that much credit,” Poppy says. “It was our angel Daisy who did most of the raising while we were off doing who knows what. My, she was a force! So creative! So generous! She never met a project she wasn’t up to. Not that you girls were a project. You were her truest gift.”

And yet I have never heard of this person?

My mom slides her eyes to me guiltily. “And… my name used to be Rosemary. But obviously I shortened it. To Mary. My sister’s name was Sage.”

I’m not sure why this final detail hits me so hard, but suddenly I’m the one about to hyperventilate. “Rosemary and Sage?” I sputter, and my mom flinches.

“Dahlia, your grandmother, named them for magic. Rosemary for wisdom, Sage for luck. Goddess knows she needed both,” Violet says, sighing.

Daisy. Poppy. Lily. Dahlia. Rosemary. Sage. And me. Willow. It’s a garden I didn’t know I was a part of.