Merrick stood listening.
The voice had called his name once, but there was no second call. The underground garden seemed to have grown quieter around us. Even the stream had lost its usual murmur.
“Do you know who it was?” I asked.
Merrick shook his head.
“I thought I did.”
He stepped off the path and walked towards the blue-doored house. We followed, though the path seemed to lengthen as we approached it. The house itself looked unchanged: small stone walls, blue door, narrow windows, a little chimney from which no smoke rose.
Merrick stopped at the threshold.
“I've been here before,” he said.
Rose had told us he had visited the garden as a boy, but he spoke now with a different certainty.
“Not as a boy. Later.”
He opened the door.
Inside, the room was empty. There was a wooden table, two chairs, a shelf of jars and a little window overlooking the stream. On the table lay a collection of objects: a smooth stone, a dead leaf, a small wooden bird, and a length of blue thread.
Merrick approached the table.
“I left these here.”
“When?” asked Mrs Bell.
“I don't know.”
He picked up the wooden bird. It was smaller than the one we had seen in the potting house, and its wings were unfinished. There was no name carved beneath it.
He turned it over.
“Rose gave me the thread,” he said. “I remember that much. She told me to tie it around the bird when I knew where it belonged.”
“And did you?” asked Nell.
Merrick looked at the unfinished wings.
“I must have thought I did.”
He put the bird down.
A sound came from the room beyond the window. Not a voice this time, but the soft scraping of a chair being moved.
Merrick turned towards the door at the back of the room. It was narrow and almost hidden behind a hanging piece of cloth. He drew it aside.
Beyond was a second room, larger than the first, with a low ceiling and a stone floor. A long wooden bench stood against one wall. On it sat an old man with a grey beard, wearing a brown coat and holding a small pair of pruning shears.
He looked up.
“You took your time,” he said.
Merrick stared at him.
“I know you.”
The old man nodded.
“You did.”
For a moment neither spoke. Then Merrick sat down on the bench opposite him.
“I thought you'd gone.”
“I had.”
“Where?”
The old man considered this.
“Somewhere I was needed.”
He glanced at the unfinished bird in Merrick's hand.
“You never finished it.”
“No.”
“You were going to give it to someone.”
“I know.”
“Do you remember who?”
Merrick shook his head.
The old man smiled, not unkindly.
“That's all right. Neither did I, for a long time.”
Rowan, who had been standing in the doorway, looked distinctly dissatisfied.
“Is there anyone here who can tell us something useful?”
The old man regarded him.
“Useful things are often rather difficult to recognise at first.”
“That's what people say when they haven't got an answer.”
“Quite possibly.”
Nell had moved to the far end of the room. There, in a shallow recess in the wall, stood three little clay pots. They were old and cracked, but each contained a small tree. Their roots grew above the soil, winding around the pots before disappearing into the stone beneath.
“Look,” she said.
Merrick came to her side.
The trees were different from those in the garden. Their branches grew upwards, but their roots reached down through the stone floor. Each bore a single small leaf.
The old man joined us.
“You planted those,” he said.
Merrick looked astonished.
“I was a child.”
“Yes.”
“But I don't remember.”
“You were very young. You wanted to know whether a tree could grow in a place where there was no earth.”
“And could it?”
The old man touched the rim of one pot.
“You see.”
Merrick looked at the trees for a long time.
Then he took the unfinished bird from his pocket and placed it beside the pots.
“I think I know where this belongs,” he said.
The old man nodded.
Outside, somewhere beyond the blue door, a bell rang once.
The old man picked up his pruning shears.
“Ah,” he said. “Someone else has arrived.”
“Who?” asked Nell.
He looked towards the window.
“Someone who has been looking for the garden.”
We turned to follow his gaze.
On the far bank of the stream, beneath the hanging branches of the upside-down trees, stood a woman in a pale yellow coat. She was carrying a small wicker basket and looking towards the house.
Merrick went very still.
“I know her,” he said.
The woman raised her hand in greeting.
But Merrick did not move.
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