Nine Lives (Lily Dale Mystery #1)(79)

“Hyacinthoides non-scripta. Back in England, it’s our national flower. It’s my favorite. I planted it here, just as I did at the guesthouse.”

“Oh! Odelia said something about that.”

“About what?”

“She said that Chance—Leona’s cat—was born outside in a bed of blooming Wood Hyacinths.”

Pandora shakes her head, irked. “Wood Hyacinths are something else entirely. Those are Hyacinthoides non-scripta. I do wish Odelia would get her facts straight. But it’s the most peculiar thing . . .” Staring at the blossom, Pandora shakes her head, and then she looks intently at Bella.

“Maybe you can write it down for me so that I don’t get confused,” Bella suggests. “I’ll try to find it at a nursery, and if I can’t—”

“No, I don’t give a fig about replacing the flower. It’s a perennial. In the spring, there are scads of them.” She gestures at the pachysandra. “But not this late.”

“What do you mean?”

“Max, why did you pick this flower for your mum?” Pandora asks.

“Because she needs to be cheered up.”

“But why this flower?”

“Because it was the only one.”

Bella follows Pandora’s gaze to the riot of blooms cascading over the yard.

“But that isn’t true. There are lots of other flowers,” she tells her son, “and anyway, you weren’t supposed to pick any of them.”

His brown eyes fill with tears. “I wanted to cheer you up.”

“Sweetie, I know, but I wasn’t sad. I’m okay.”

“You’re always sad. It makes me sad.”

“And your dad, too, by the way.”

At that comment from Jiffy, Bella widens her eyes.

“That’s what Max said,” he goes on. “Right, Max?”

“Max, what did you say?”

He shuffles his feet under her gaze. “I just said we miss Dad, so we get sad.”

“And you said so does he,” Jiffy says matter-of-factly. “You said he doesn’t want you to cry.”

“He wouldn’t want us to cry,” Bella agrees, watching Max stare at his sneakers, “but he can’t say that to us. We just know it in our hearts, because he loved us, and . . .” She swallows hard.

“Plus, boys don’t cry, mostly.” That comes from Jiffy.

“Did your dad tell you to pick that flower for your mum?” Pandora asks Max, watching him intently.

“Pandora!” Bella says sharply, putting a protective hand on his shoulder.

“I don’t know why I picked it.”

“’Cause your dad said it would cheer up your mom,” Jiffy says. “Remember?”

Bella’s heart lurches.

She sees Pandora give a slight nod and realizes that she’s no longer looking at Max. She’s staring at something beside him, in a spot where there’s nothing but thin air.

It’s just like the first day Bella met her, when she was conversing with an invisible someone and informed Bella that she’s supposed to be here.

Really? Because right now, she’d rather be just about anyplace else on the face of the earth. Enough already. She’s got enough problems wrangling the living. The last thing she needs to do is worry about the dead.

“We have to go,” she says firmly. “Right now.”

“Bella, wait. Hyacinthoides non-scripta doesn’t bloom in July,” Pandora tells her as she hands the helmets to the boys and starts propelling them away with one hand on each of their shoulders. “It only blooms in springtime.”

Bella whirls on her. “Stop! I don’t want any more botany lessons! Can’t you see I don’t care? You’re out of line! How can you get so upset with a little boy for picking a stupid flower? And then to insist on talking to him about . . . about . . .”

“Oh, darling, I wasn’t angry that he picked a bloody flower! Children have been doing it for centuries. Especially those.”

“What do you mean, especially those?”

Pandora recites, “‘That such fair clusters should be rudely torn from their fresh beds, and scattered thoughtlessly by infant hands, left on the path to die.’ At least Max left the petals intact,” she adds with a rueful smile.

He turns around to look at her. “Hey, is that a poem?”

“Yes. It’s about England, and it’s called ‘I Stood Tip-Toe Upon a Little Hill.’ It’s by Keats.”

The name hits Bella like a splash of ice water.

Pandora takes a few steps toward her, as if approaching a skittish animal. After a moment, she cautiously holds out the flower. “Here, love. Please take it. You’re supposed to have it.”

“What . . . what do you mean?”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to give you a botany lesson. I just thought it might have special meaning for you. It must be blooming out of season for a reason.”

“That’s a poem, too, by the way,” Jiffy observes. “Season rhymes with reason.”

Everything happens for a reason . . .

“My dad liked poems.”

Oh, Max. Your dad especially liked Keats.

But he wouldn’t know that.