“This is how it was at the madhouse,” Weed mutters. “I tried to help people who were sick. Then everyone became furious.” He looks up at me, anger and confusion in his eyes. “I do not understand. Is it wrong to help?”

“No! Helping others is God’s work. It is what we are put on earth to do.” I hold out a hand, which he ignores. “Father is not angry with you, Weed. Do not misunderstand his strong feelings. It is only because he so passionately wishes to cure people who are in need, and he does not always know how.”

Weed glances warily at the cottage. “Is that what he wishes to speak to me about?”

“I think so. Will you come?”

“Do you wish me to, Jessamine?”

He gazes upon me, then, and his emerald eyes seem to take me in from top to bottom. I feel so bared, my hands flutter to my dress to make sure it is still on. It is, but I am suddenly, exquisitely aware of how the currents of warm air move against my skin.

Weed rises to his feet. “Nature,” he says softly, “makes so many beautiful things.” He leans close to me, as if he would catch my scent. “But I did not know—until you—that nature could make a girl so beautiful.”

His voice holds me in its tender spell. His eyes graze over my body without shyness—he takes me in as a landscape, a lush terrain of swells and valleys.

He leans forward, then. My heart thumps so strongly in my chest I am sure he must hear it. His face comes close, closer to mine—so close, a stray lock of his wild hair caresses my cheek.

I should move away. I do not. Instead, I close my eyes. My lips part and a sense of yearning fills me, a longing for something I cannot name. It is a force larger than myself that moves through me, ancient as the earth. There is no choice but to surrender.

He kisses me. His lips are petal soft against mine, his body strong and lithe as a poplar. He smells of rich, fertile earth.

After an eternity he releases me. Without waiting for my reaction, he turns and strides back to the cottage.

When I regain power over my limbs, I make my way back to the cottage in fits and starts, like a leaf tossed about by the wind. I hesitate at the door—am I even recognizable? The news must be written all over me, illustrated on my flesh. The moment Father lays eyes on me he will know I am transformed, and demand to know how, and why—oh, my lips burn, all the skin on my body burns! A tisane of lavender and hyssop would calm me, but I do not wish to be calmed!