‘Ready?’
Alice spun around. Candy had her farm clothes under one arm, and was dangling her blue boots by the shoelaces. She shook her head. Her insides felt all wrong, like they’d been taken out of her body and put back in different places.
‘What is it?’ Candy asked, coming to her side. Alice turned back to the window, pointing, but Boryana had driven off in a dust cloud with the boy.
‘Oh, don’t worry sweetpea, you’ll meet her another time, soon.’
Alice pressed her hands to the glass, watching where the dust settled.
Alice followed Candy past the dormitory where the Flowers lived. When they reached the workshop, they stopped at a doorway covered in thick vines. Candy held the vines aside, took keys from her pocket and slid one into the keyhole.
‘Ready?’ she asked, grinning. The door swung open.
They stood at the entrance of the workshop together. The morning sun warmed their backs, but the air conditioning inside gave Alice a sudden chill. She rubbed her arms, recalling the boy raising his hand to wave.
‘That was a big sigh.’ Candy raised an eyebrow at Alice. ‘You okay?’
Alice wanted so much to speak, but all that came out was another sigh.
‘Words can be totally overrated sometimes,’ Candy said, taking Alice’s hand in her hers. ‘Don’t you think so?’
Alice nodded. Candy gave her hand a squeeze before letting go.
‘C’mon.’ She held the door open. ‘Let’s take a look around.’
They walked inside. The first half of the workshop was filled with benches, stacks of buckets, a row of sinks and a line of fridges set against the wall. Shelves held tools, rolls of shade cloth, and all sorts of bottles and sprays. From hooks on the wall hung broad-brimmed hats, aprons and gardening gloves, below which stood pairs of gumboots lined up, like a row of invisible flower soldiers standing to attention. Alice turned towards the benches. Each had more shelving underneath, filled with tubs and containers. The workshop smelled like rich soil.
‘This is where we bring flowers after they’ve been cut from the fields. Every single flower is checked before it goes out. They have to be perfect. We get orders from buyers all over the place; our flowers are shipped near and far, to florists and supermarkets and petrol stations and market sellers. They’re carried by brides and widows and —’ Candy’s voice wavered, ‘new mothers.’ She smoothed her hands over one of the benches. ‘Isn’t it a magical thing, Alice? The flowers we grow here speak for people when words can’t, on pretty much every occasion you can think of.’
Alice mimicked Candy’s movements, running her hands over the worktop. Who were the people that sent flowers instead of words? How could a flower possibly say the same things as words? What would one of her books, made of thousands of words, look like in flowers? No one had ever sent her mother flowers.
She crouched to inspect the tubs of cutting tools, balls of string, and small buckets of markers and pens in all colours under the bench. She took the lid off a blue marker and sniffed it. On the back of her hand she drew a straight vertical line, an I. After a moment, she wrote next to it, ’m h-e-r-e. As Candy came towards her, Alice rubbed the words off.
‘Pssst. Alice Blue.’ Candy popped her head over the bench Alice was squatting beside. ‘Follow me.’
They wove between the benches, past the sinks and fridges, into the other half of the workshop, which was set up as an art studio. There were desks covered in blank canvases, dotted with tins of paint and jars of brushes. In one corner stood easels, stools and a box filled with tubes of paint. At another desk sat coils of copper foiling, pieces of coloured glass and jars of tools. By the time Alice reached the closed-off area at the back of the studio, she’d forgotten about the boy. She’d forgotten about June and her father’s statues. She was too absorbed by what was right in front of her.
‘X marks the spot.’ Candy chuckled.
From a frame overhead hung dozens of flowers in various stages of drying. One long bench ran alongside the makeshift wall. Sat upon it were tools and cloths, all blackened from use, and dried flower petals, scattered, discarded like clothes left on shore. Alice pressed her hands to the wooden surface, remembering her mother’s hands floating over the heads of the flowers in her garden.
At one end of the bench a velvet sheet was laid out, adorned with bracelets, necklaces, earrings and rings, all decorated with pressed flowers in resin.
‘This is June’s place,’ Candy said. ‘This is where she makes magic out of the stories Thornfield was built on.’
Magic. Alice stood in front of the jewellery, each piece catching the light.
‘June grows every flower here.’ Candy picked up a bangle; the pendant hanging from it contained a pale peach-coloured petal. ‘She presses every one and casts it in clear resin, then seals it in silver.’ Candy returned the bangle to its place on the bench. Alice inspected the rainbow of other flowers pressed in necklace pendants, earrings and rings. Each one was sealed forever, frozen in time while still coloured with life. They would never turn brown or waste away. They would never decay, or die.
Candy came to stand beside her. ‘In Queen Victoria’s time, people in Europe talked in flowers. It’s true. June’s ancestors — your ancestors, Alice — women who lived a long time ago, they brought that language of flowers all the way over the ocean from England, down the generations, until Ruth Stone brought it right here to Thornfield. People say that for a long time she didn’t use it. It wasn’t until she fell in love that she started talking in flowers. Except, unlike the flower language she’d brought from England, she only used flowers that her lover brought her.’ Candy stopped, her face flushed. ‘Anyway …’ she trailed off.
Ruth Stone. Her ancestor. Alice’s cheeks tingled with curiosity. She wanted to slide a ring onto every finger, press the cool silver pendants against her warm skin, slip the bracelets onto her wrists and hold the earrings up to her unpierced ears. She wanted to wear this secret language of flowers, to say for her all the things her voice wouldn’t.
At the other end of the bench sat a small handmade book. Alice inched towards it. The cracked spine had been repaired many times, bound together with multiple red ribbons. The cover was hand-lettered in faded gold calligraphy, with an illustration of red flowers that looked like spinning wheels. The Thornfield Language of Australian Native Flowers.
‘Ruth Stone was your great-great-grandmother,’ Candy said. ‘This was her dictionary. Over the years, women who descended from Ruth have grown the language as they’ve grown the flowers here.’ She ran a hand down the edges of the musty pages. ‘It’s been in June’s family for generations. Your family, actually,’ she corrected herself.
Alice hovered a fingertip over the cover. She so wanted to open it, but wasn’t sure if she was allowed. Its pages were yellowing and stuck out at odd angles. Snippets of handwritten words were visible on the outer margins. Alice turned her head to the side. She could only read a few complete words. Dark. Branches. Bruised. Fragrant. Butterflies. Haven. It was the best book Alice had ever seen.
‘Alice.’ Candy bent down so she was at eye level with Alice. ‘Have you ever heard this story before? About Ruth Stone?’
Alice shook her head.
‘Do you know much about your family yet, sweetpea?’ Candy asked gently.
A sense of shame Alice didn’t understand made her look away. She shook her head again.
‘Oh, what a lucky girl.’ Candy smiled sadly.
Alice looked at her, confused. She wiped her nose on the back of her hand.