Looking me up and down, he smiled like I’d just told the world’s most hilarious joke.

“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t say a word.”

“Couldn’t you wear normal clothes?” He, for instance, was still wearing his khaki pants and collared shirt from dinner.

“I don’t have normal clothes,” I said. “This is what I wear in the garden. Don’t laugh at me.”

“It’s fine,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re still laughing,” I hissed.

“I’m not,” he said. “I swear.”

“If I get my everyday clothes dirty, your mom will want to know what happened,” I said.

He was suddenly serious. “Really? She pays that much attention to what you wear?”

“Well, yeah,” I said. “She pays that much attention to what you wear, too. She just figures you’re a lost cause, is all.”

IT WAS EASY to find what I was looking for in the greenhouse, since we’d just reorganized the whole place. The wooden crates of bulbs were on the back shelves, each labeled with the type of bulb it contained. Some were done neatly, with stencils, and some were scribbled on with black marker.

Lilies was scrawled, almost as an afterthought, in small print in the upper corner of one of the crates. I pulled it out, and Barrett carried it outside while I gathered the gardening tools from the shed. Then he unlocked the Adam and Eve gate and we followed the winding path through the graveyard to Lily’s isolated corner.

It looked different tonight, and the sight gave me a chill. In the rain, it had seemed . . . I don’t know, connected somehow to the rest of the garden. Now, though, her grave seemed isolated, even desolate. I hadn’t realized how far it was from the others, which were arranged in a neat pattern closer to the entrance.

Barrett felt the unease, too. He peered back toward the entrance. “Do you think . . . do you think Mom wants us all to be buried here?”

“Not me,” I said. Nope. I had a grave already, in a cemetery four hours away. The company that owned the cemetery where my family was buried had thrown mine in as a freebie, and I hadn’t been able to find the words to refuse and tell them how horrible that was. But now that I’d gotten used to the idea, I didn’t mind so much.

“Sorry,” he said. “I meant her, and Dad, and Agatha and me.”

“Maybe you’ll want to be buried somewhere else,” I said. “I’m sure that’s a decision you can make for yourself someday.”

“I guess,” he said.

“Put some gloves on,” I said. “Let’s get to work.”