15

7th June

WRITTEN BY THE YOUTH KNOWN AS WEED

A strange storm broods in the northeastern sky. The air is heavy and smells of the sea. The earth stinks of sickness and decay.

Hour by curséd hour, Jessamine is getting worse.

JESSAMINE IS TOO ILL to continue writing the garden diary. Mr. Luxton has asked me to keep it in her stead. I will try to do so, though my handwriting is poor. I wish she were writing here instead of me.

She is so ill! It fills me with anger, though I cannot say at whom I am angry, and grief, though she is not dead. I find myself amazed at the passion that has taken root inside me. I have never had a strong affection for any human creature before, but now, all at once, there is one whom I am certain I could not bear to lose.

She rolls in her bed, feverish, moaning, and calling out strange words. Her hands grab at the sheets until her nails cut into her palms. The skin on her knuckles cracks and bleeds.

Sometimes she stares out the window and cries out, “No, no, no,” but if I draw the shutters, the darkness frightens her more. She makes raw sounds, sharp like a crow. I do not know if she can tell I am there. I spoon water and medicine to her lips. I sit. I watch. My tears fall like rain.

Today I will enter the poison garden, as Jessamine’s father has asked me to, in the hopes of finding a cure. If only he knew the dark mission he sends me on!

But he is right—the plants in his locked garden possess great power. If there is a cure for her, it may well lie within those walls.

His request shocked me. Has Mr. Luxton guessed my “gift”? No, for it would take a madman to suspect the truth, and Luxton is the opposite of mad. For him there are no visions, no miracles, no curses, no witchcraft. There are only discoveries. Things unknown that can be made known. At least he will not suspect me of some dark magic, as Tobias Pratt did.

I do not know what will become of me, once I enter that place. I only know that Jessamine is failing, and the healing plants cannot, or will not, help me. I have begged them, on my knees in the dirt. They offer nothing! The plants whisper mysterious warnings to me. They keen with grief and then fall silent. Their refusal leaves me no choice.