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Back The Winter Garden Save as PDF
Chapters (54)
  1. COVER
  2. About the Author
  3. ALSO BY ALEXANDRA BELL
  4. DEDICATION
  5. Prologue
  6. Part One
  7. CHAPTER ONE
  8. CHAPTER TWO
  9. CHAPTER THREE
  10. CHAPTER FOUR
  11. CHAPTER FIVE
  12. CHAPTER SIX
  13. CHAPTER SEVEN
  14. Part Two
  15. CHAPTER EIGHT
  16. CHAPTER NINE
  17. CHAPTER TEN
  18. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  19. CHAPTER TWELVE
  20. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  22. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  23. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  24. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  25. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  26. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  31. Part Three
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  36. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  37. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  46. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  47. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  48. CHAPTER FORTY
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  53. Acknowledgements
  54. THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING

All of a sudden the bottom drawer of her dressing table started to rattle. Rosa frowned. The only thing in there was the pop-up book. She stood up and set the plum down on the table before opening the drawer. The book lay still and innocent inside and she could see nothing that could have made the drawer shake. She reached in for the book. The last time she had looked at it, the carousel had stubbornly refused to appear, but now when she opened the cover it was there immediately, springing up before her, resplendent in its coat of icicles sparkling like twists of barley sugar in a sweet shop’s window.

She read the same words once again, looking for new meaning in them – some clue as to what she could do to make her own carousel more than it already was – but no insights revealed themselves. Finally she sighed and removed her hand. And that was when Rosa noticed that her thumb had been covering something, right at the top of the carousel’s peaked roof. A single plum sparkled there.

She stared at the page. She had spent many hours examining every inch of this spread whenever it had appeared, and she knew without doubt that the plum hadn’t been there before.

Rosa’s eyes went to the plum at her elbow – possibly the last one of its type in the world. She thought of the horse with the golden ribbon and how, from the moment it was created, it had seemed hungry for something. Could she finally have found the thing it was waiting for? Might this be the link that had been missing in order to turn the carousel into the one from the book? A new type of hybrid, built from a carousel that could take someone back to a past moment and a plum that could allow one to correct a mistake.

She was so tired and every limb longed for rest, but she could not delay testing her idea. She snatched up the plum, threw on her cloak and boots and went out to the frozen lake. The pink light of winter dawn touched its surface and painted the carousel in honeyed hues of buttery rose and gold. As Rosa approached, the horse with the golden ribbon lifted its head. Its ears began to twitch and its tail swished until finally it could bear it no more and stepped down from the carousel platform. The ice beneath its hooves created a perfect mirror, so that it looked as if a water horse echoed its movements in the freezing aquatic world below.