Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
It was on a trip into Portland that she saw her first Venus flytrap. The world of carnivorous plants swallowed her whole. They were magnificent and fierce, and they fascinated her more with each one she acquired. From the tiniest serrated mouth of a flytrap to the most luridly colored pitcher, they were the most bizarre and beautiful things she’d ever seen.
But like the succulents, they weren’t made for Owl Island, Maine. She worked hard to help them thrive, but they were out of their element.
Now, here, in New Orleans—this was where they belonged.
Lost in her thoughts, Greta nearly walked past it without noticing. Only at the last moment did she blink and stare over the fence.
“Are you… That’s… Is that…a miniature pony?”
It was standing on the other side of a fenced-in yard, just being a small horse. Greta crept closer, sneaking a look around. No one was in the yard, so she reached out a tentative hand. Did mini horses bite?
But the pony just regarded her calmly and closed its eyes when Greta’s hand touched its head.
“Aren’t you the sweetest?” Greta murmured.
Beside her, Horse was standing very still, his massive head right at Greta’s stomach, but he sniffed at the fence, then yawned and lost interest.
When a couple rounded the corner, Greta stepped away, not wanting to be caught petting a stranger’s horse over the fence on her first morning in town.
She crossed the street and kept walking. She didn’t know where she was going, but when she crossed Frenchmen Street, the neighborhood changed. She saw bars and clubs, all shuttered in the morning. Then, two blocks farther, it changed again, and print under street names on signs informed her she was now in the French Quarter.
There were more people here, and a number of shops and restaurants, all but the coffee shops not yet open. The streets were cobblestone now, with few cars, and a donkey-drawn carriage, driven by a man in a top hat smoking a joint, clip-clopped past.
Greta veered away from the people, following a small street that was lined with upper-level balconies covered in plants. Unlike Truman’s neighborhood, which had freestanding houses, these were a combination of connected houses divided into apartments, lofts above businesses, row homes, and, most intriguing, fences and gates overgrown with greenery, through which the paths to houses set back from the street were visible.
It was at one of these that Greta paused. Bird-of-paradise. They were growing from the ground, huge and stunningly bright, their variously colored beaks spiking in every direction. Greta had never seen anything like it.
There was a low brick wall from which the fence originated, and Greta thought if she could just stand on the brick lip, she could get a better view.
She slipped Horse’s leash over her wrist and slid her phone out of her pocket. She couldn’t wait to send Ash a picture of the flowers. Bird-of-paradise was one of his favorites.
She wedged the toe of her sneaker between the metal rods of the fence and pulled herself up onto the brick. There were only four or five inches she could stand on, so she kept to her tiptoes and flattened herself against the fence, praying no one chose that moment to look out their window.
From this new vantage point, she could see that the birds-of-paradise grew among luscious passionflowers that vined along the ground and up the trellis on the side of the yard. Closer to the fence, in the dappled shade, grew a bed of ferns, lush and every shade of green.
And on the far side, in the brightest sun…
“Holy shit,” Greta murmured. “Is that a fucking banana tree just growing out of the ground?”
“It is,” a voice answered from inside the fence.
Greta shrieked and nearly fell off the brick wall. She grabbed at the fence to catch herself and in doing so dropped her phone. It disappeared into the ferns that covered the ground, and Greta cringed.
A woman rose from a patch of sunlight in the corner of the yard closest to the fence, only two feet from where Greta stood. She was tall, white, and looked to be in her seventies, with long silver hair shot through with black, and she wore a gorgeous dressing gown printed with green and gold foliage, which explained why Greta had failed to notice her.
“God, I’m so sorry,” Greta said, mortified.
The woman chuckled warmly. “Would you like to come in?” she asked.
“In. In? To your garden?”
The woman nodded.
Greta wanted it desperately. She told herself that this was a city and probably you shouldn’t just go into strangers’ beautiful, luscious gardens in cities because they could kill you and use your body as fertilizer for their plants. But at that moment, she didn’t care. If this woman was willing to invite her in after catching her practically draped over her fence, then she couldn’t turn it down.