“It’s amazing, Gran, that these radishes grew so quickly. I only transplanted them a week or so ago.” They were both munching the Italian radishes with butter and salt. “These are really good. I never thought of butter on radishes.”

“Learn something new every day,” her gran replied. She looked around. “This is my favorite time of year in the greenhouse. Summer in December.”

“In Australia it’s summer now too.”

“But we’re not in Australia. We’re here in Indianapolis.”

“Not exactly rooted, though,” Rose murmured.

“In time or place?” Rosalinda said.

Rose had almost been ready to ask her grandmother a few more questions about her possible father. She had been thinking how she might phrase it. Gran, did you ever have a . . . a kind of crush on any guy—sixteenth-century dude? Or Gran, what kind of man do you think Mom would have gone for? She was posing these questions silently in her head when her grandmother interrupted her thoughts with great excitement.

“Oh, will you look at the damask rose over there, dear? Quicker than you think, it will be ready to burst into full bloom. Ready to transfer in two days to the conservatory. It must wake up to sun, real sun, not the artificial light in here. You must bring them out near dawn. It opens at dawn. The bewitching hour for a damask.”

“You make it sound like Cinderella’s pumpkin turning into a coach for the ball.”

“Oh, but I don’t like orange. Be sure to get it out to the conservatory by dawn. You plant them, however, at midnight—always.”

“She’ll have to get up early for that, Mrs. A,” Betty said as she came into the greenhouse to take Rosalinda up to bed.

“Oh, she will.” Then Rose heard her whisper in a lower voice. “Who is that girl, Betty? I always forget her name.”

Rose winced. How could her gran forget her name? Her gran, who had kissed Rose’s tear off her hand. The only one who understood the magic of the other world Rose had come to know so well. She went to the table where she always put her laptop and googled dawn, December 2, Central Standard Time. It would be 7:01. No problem. She usually woke up several minutes earlier, but on cold mornings she loathed getting out of bed. She’d put woolly socks and her down vest on the table next to her bed so she could slip right into them.

She realized when she looked about the greenhouse that not only were the ragged robin and the damask roses ready to open, but so were a multitude of other flowers that Gran said had their peak bloom time in December. Peak, that is, for a greenhouse flower, carefully nurtured and cultivated to bloom in this time out of time.