Secret Garden. Cathryn Parry

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       CHAPTER ONE

      Twenty-two Years Ago MacDowall Castle in the Scottish Highlands

      THE LAST PERSON Rhiannon MacDowall expected to see when she looked out the window on New Year’s Eve was her friend Colin Walker, standing on her family’s castle drawbridge.

      Rhiannon felt a surge of excitement. Colin was her best friend, and usually she only saw him in August. Colin was American, and he came to visit his grandparents during his summer vacation. He and his parents stayed at the guard’s cottage on the edge of her family’s estate for the whole month.

      She skipped over to him. Colin was eight, like her, and the two of them were inseparable when he visited.

      “You’re here!” she said, opening the heavy door and letting the cold winter air surround them both.

      “I’m not supposed to be,” Colin answered, not moving from the threshold.

      “Why not?” She peered closer at him.

      “I don’t know,” he mumbled, pushing his hair out of his face. Colin had straight blond hair and his mum cut it so it was perfect all around. Rhiannon thought it was beautiful; far more beautiful than her brown, limp hair. Colin had light blue eyes, too. Her mum said it was a shame that all that beauty was wasted on a boy.

      She waited patiently for him to tell her why he’d come. Finally, she decided to help him along.

      “When did you arrive in Scotland?” she asked.

      “This morning.” He stared at his shoes, frowning. He seemed so sad, and Rhiannon had never seen him like this before. She’d never seen Colin in a bad mood, not in all the time they’d spent together, and Colin had been visiting since they were both babies.

      But now his hands were in his pockets. He wasn’t speaking. And Colin usually talked even more than she did. “Silver-tongued,” his mother called him. “A chattering magpie,” her dad called her. So straightaway, she knew something was wrong. Sometimes Rhiannon felt as though she could read people’s minds—or at least, guess at what bothered them more than most people could—and she’d said so to her brother, Malcolm, once. He said she should keep that to herself. So she did.

      “May I stay with you for a while?” he asked, finally looking up at her.

      “Of course!” She opened the door wider. They never stood on ceremony between them. Colin had let himself in nearly every day in the summer. They’d been in charge of watering and haying the ponies, so he came over very early in the morning. Sometimes he went upstairs to her room and woke her up, which didn’t bother her because she was used to having an older brother around. Boys didn’t always think, as her mum would say.

      “Will you come to our party tonight?” she asked Colin, leading him inside. She twirled around in her red dress, which was special, because it was New Year’s Eve. Hogmanay, they called it in Scotland.

      Colin just shrugged, still looking sad.

      “We’re all going first-footing afterward,” Rhiannon said. “And they’re letting me stay up late and sing ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ We’ve been practicing the verses all day.”

      Colin gazed at the Christmas decorations still on the walls, his expression relaxing a bit. She remembered how much he loved her family’s castle. Colin lived in Texas, which she thought was fascinating. She followed his gaze to the empty spot over the fireplace.

      “Do you want to see our swords?” she asked him. “We took them down so Dad could clean them.”

      “You took all the swords down?” he asked. “In the whole castle?”

      “No, we’re just cleaning those two fancy ones with the jewels in the blade.”

      Still, Colin was impressed. “Those are my favorites.”

      “Mine, too.” She bounced up and down on the balls of her feet. “Come upstairs in the library and see them. I think the bigger sword might be like the one Robert the Bruce used.”

      Colin’s head tilted in interest. The two of them had spent so much time this summer running across the moors and through the woods, Rhiannon pretending to be Robert the Bruce and Colin playing Davy Crockett.

      She ran up the wide staircase, knowing that Colin would follow her close behind.

      But just as they reached the first landing, the castle door below them swung open. The winter cold came rushing into the great hall again. “Yoo-hoo! Is my son here?” called a high-pitched, female voice.

      Colin’s mum, Daisie Lee Walker. She was tall, with wavy blond hair. Daisie Lee always wore cowboy boots—some red, some beige, some with sparkly decorations—and once Rhiannon had curiously asked her why she did that. Daisie Lee had replied that she’d been born in Texas on a working ranch and that gave her the right. Rhiannon liked her. “A force of nature,” Rhiannon’s mum called her. “Outspoken,” Colin’s grandmother said. Colin didn’t say much about her either way. But when he visited, he seemed to spend most of his time with Rhiannon and her family. Once, he’d told Rhiannon that he liked that her parents were so calm.

      But tonight, Colin grabbed Rhiannon’s hand and quickly pulled her down into a crouching position, hiding from Daisie Lee. With the way the big staircase curved, there was a small box on the landing where they were hidden from view, but they could watch everything the adults did in the great hall below.

      Kneeling beside him, Rhiannon tucked her dress under her knees. Colin pressed his forehead against the staircase barrier, focusing on his mother.

      Something was wrong.

      Rhiannon’s mum hurried from the kitchen to greet Daisie Lee. Rhiannon could see them both clearly, too, from the tiny carved-out slits in the lattice wood. Her mum was dressed for New Year’s Eve, and she looked beautiful. She wore a long white dress that was decorated with bits of gold lace. She was so pretty and it made Rhiannon hope she could be like her, too, one day.

      “Why don’t you come in?” Rhiannon’s mum said to Daisie Lee. “You’re welcome to join the party tonight.”

      Rhiannon whispered in Colin’s ear, “I hope your mother says yes.” In the living room, her older brother, Malcolm, was sitting on the bench with their dad, and they were playing “Auld Lang Syne” on the piano, practicing the words. Malcolm always got to stay up late and sing, but this was her first time. “Then you can stay up late with me, Colin.”

      But Colin only shook his mop-top head. She peered closer at him. Beneath his shaggy bangs, his eyes seemed wet. His mouth was scrunched. She felt sad because she only really knew Colin as somebody who laughed and played jokes and had fun. Colin didn’t like to feel sad.

      Rhiannon’s mum ushered Daisie Lee farther into the castle, directly below them. Colin stayed down when his mum glanced in their direction, not knowing that they were in their clever hiding spot. Both Rhiannon and Colin squinted through the scrollwork in the old, dark wood.

      “I’m not here for the party, I’m here to fetch Colin.” Daisie Lee sounded angry. “Have you СКАЧАТЬ