* * *
I was sitting in the rose garden beside the hotel when I was approached by Eliza Harding, who waved and smiled as she walked over, greeting me like an old friend she was overjoyed to see. She wore a cheerful blue dress and had her lips painted the perfect shade of red. “May I join you, Mrs. Monroe?” she asked.
I nodded and moved over to make room on the wrought iron bench. “Please call me Ethel,” I said. She sat close by my side, our legs touching.
She pulled a silver cigarette case from her black leather purse and held it open to me. I shook my head. She took out a cigarette and lit it. “You mustn’t tell Benson,” she said. “He thinks it’s vile for a lady to smoke. I love him dearly, but he’s a bit of a wet blanket at times.”
I smiled. “It’s our secret.” I had the same feeling I’d had when I stepped out onto the balcony: an instant sense of familiarity. Like Eliza and I were old friends. Kindred spirits.
“Other than the springs, this rose garden is my favorite place,” she confessed, exhaling a thin blue stream of smoke. “I designed it myself.”
“Really?”
“Oh yes. The beds form three concentric circles bisected by the four paths perfectly aligned by directions: the north/south path and the east/west path. It was all very carefully laid out—months and months of planning and sketching.”
“All your work paid off beautifully,” I told her. “It’s simply stunning.”
She smiled. “It’s odd, really. Trying to impose order on nature. The garden is a living, breathing thing; sometimes I’m quite sure it’s got a mind of its own.”
She could name all the varieties of roses: Aurora, Snow Queen, Persian Yellow, Maiden’s Blush.
“Such lovely names!” I said.
She nodded. “Aren’t they, just? I’ve had some shipped over from England. It’s how I survive the winters here,” she confessed. “Planning, poring over flower catalogs.”
She told me she grew up in Brandenburg, on the back side of the hill where the hotel stands. “My family is there still. It’s lovely to be so close to them.”
She shared such fanciful stories—stories about the springs and the miracles the waters brought. The lame and crippled being able to walk again, soldiers from the war coming home with all sorts of injuries and being cured by the springs. “A soldier, a local boy from town named Ethan, came home. He’d been shot in the head over in France. When he got back, he wasn’t able to speak. Didn’t seem to recognize his own mother and father. It was like everything that made him who he was had been erased by that bullet. But his parents, they put him in that water, and the very next day he woke up begging his mother to make him his favorite dinner—chicken and dumplings. He works over at the quarry now as a foreman.”
I shook my head in disbelief.
“I’ve seen it myself, over and over again,” Eliza told me. “My uncle Raymond, he lived down in St. Albans. He was left blind after an accident at the foundry there. He came back here, took a dip in the springs, and his sight was restored. I swear it.”
“My husband, Will, he’s a doctor. He thinks perhaps there must be antiseptic properties in the minerals.”
She smiled. “Perhaps.”
“I had some cuts—scratches, really—when I went into the water this morning. When I came out, they were healed.”
She nodded knowingly. “There’s no doubt that the water has healing powers. But there’s more to it than that.”
She took a puff from her cigarette and exhaled, watching the smoke drift up.
“There are very old stories about the springs. Some say it’s a door between worlds.”
“Is that what you believe?” I asked.
She stubbed out her cigarette.
“I believe the water holds more power and mystery than most people understand.”
“I heard some believe the springs are cursed,” I said. “Haunted, even.”
She seemed to bristle, her whole body tensing. “People are frightened by the things they don’t understand. Things that can’t be explained with reason and logic and science. The water is not a puzzle to be solved.” She spoke of the springs like a living creature, a dear friend she was defending. “And it doesn’t just cure you. It can grant wishes.”
“Do you truly believe that?” I asked.
She smiled and nodded. “I know it for a fact.” She played with the cuff of her dress, worrying at a loose thread. “It was the springs that brought my husband to me,” she said, voice low and tentative, as though she wasn’t sure she should be sharing this with me.
I raised my eyebrows, leaned closer to her. Our faces were only inches apart. I felt like a schoolgirl again, hidden away in the center of the garden, sharing secrets.
“I went to the water and wished for the thing I wanted most—true love and a family of my own. Soon after, Benson Harding appeared in town.” She paused, closed her eyes, remembering. “Oh, he was so handsome, just the cat’s meow! The bluest eyes I’d ever seen. I knew the instant I saw him that he was the one for me. That the springs had brought him to me!” She reached up, ran her fingers over one of the roses, pulling it close to smell. “He bought the springs, of course, and began to build the hotel. Our courtship lasted less than a year before he asked me to be his wife.”
She plucked the rose, a small white flower, and handed it to me.
“Did you tell him?” I asked, taking the flower, smelling its sweet, heady scent. “Tell him of your wish?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “He didn’t believe a word of it, of course.”
She brought her finger to her lips, and I saw there was a little drop of blood there—a thorn from the rosebush had pricked her.
“I owe it all to the springs,” she said. “I would have none of this if I hadn’t made that wish.” She gestured with her arms at the garden, the lawn, and the hotel. “This hotel, my beautiful garden, a husband I adore, and a brand-new baby who is too perfect for words!”
“A new baby?” My stomach knotted. She truly did have everything. “I didn’t realize. Congratulations.” I carefully pushed my thumb down onto a thorn on the stem she’d handed me, felt it pierce the skin ever so slightly.
“An absolute cherub. As if an angel were plucked down from heaven and given to us. Do you have any children, Ethel?”
“No,” I said. My chest felt heavy, and I looked away, embarrassed as my eyes glazed with tears.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, taking my hand, noticing the blood. “You’ve pricked yourself.” She pulled a lace hankie out of her purse.
“It’s nothing.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” she said, wiping the blood away, staining the white lace. “I shouldn’t have pried. I can be perfectly lousy sometimes. It’s really none of my business—”
“Please,” I said, “I’m the one who’s sorry, for being so emotional!” I wiped at my eyes. Thought of the little girl I’d held in my dreams last night. “It’s just that it’s been over a year of trying… And, well, I’m starting to think something must be wrong with me.” Even though I’d only just met her, I told her about the egg I carried against my breast and buried in the yard. I laughed at my own foolishness, but her face stayed quiet and serious. “Will says we have plenty of time. But I can’t help feeling that I’m a disappointment to him. You should see him with children. He’d be the best father! I wish I could give him the thing he wants most.” I paused, realized I’d been crushing the poor rosebud Eliza had given me. “I truly believe we’re meant to have a child. I swear, I can feel her out there waiting for me, just as I am waiting for her.”