"How do you know all this?" she whispered.
"I know almost nothing, Mi'Lady. I'm sorry. There is so much written in the magic tangling you, so many layers, all of it smoke-filled and nearly impossible to read. You thought of the garden and the door that vanished, and the thorns that filled the garden, so you couldn't even stand in the nursery balcony and look down. I saw bits and pieces of your life."
"So I was used. Dratted majjians. It has to be majjians."
"I believe so. They used your royal blood, they used your magical position as the youngest. They attacked the magical heart of the kingdom through your mother's garden, and it shut itself up and shut itself in and shut the world out, to protect itself."
"But Nanny Tulip wasn't a majjian. Was she?"
"I cannot see clearly in your memories, Mi'Lady. You were a child. Lonely. Feeling unloved, even though your father and brothers and sisters loved you greatly."
Merrigan snorted at that, and didn't care who heard her. She had eavesdropped often enough through her late childhood and teen years, she knew exactly what her brothers and sisters thought of her, and what a trial she had become to her father. Only her mother and Nanny Starling and Nanny Tulip had ever fully loved her, with no reservations or conditions. Leffisand had adored her, but she doubted he loved her any more than she loved him.
Stop nattering and whining, Merrigan. You're thousands of miles away from Avylyn. There's nothing you can do about Mama's garden, and you certainly can't show your face at home looking as you are. Break the curse, then go home. Then maybe you can find some answers to fix the mess you helped make. Even if you were used horribly, abominably.
She couldn't do anything about her mother's garden, but what about this one? At the very least, it would be good practice for when she went home.
"And this garden, here? Was it attacked too?"
"I am sorry, Mi'Lady, I can't tell. I will need more study."
"Well, I know someone who likely has the answers, if there are any answers." She took a deep breath, crossed the hallway to the door, and pressed her hands against the wood. Merrigan only flinched a little when she thought she felt a heartbeat. That had to be a good sign. The garden was alive, likely deeply asleep, rather than dead and dry and hopeless.
Elli came back inside to look for her. The other four girls lived close enough to the palace they chose to walk home, rather than wait for the carriage. Merrigan sighed for the days when she had been strong enough, energetic enough to be able to walk anywhere. She remembered long walks across the countryside when Prince Bryan had visited. They had spent entire days adventuring, riding and hiking and climbing trees and wading across streams and telling each other stories they had discovered in their fathers' libraries. When had she changed so that she disdained adventures and hikes? While she knew her body was still the same as when she looked like a young and beautiful queen, and Clara's curse only made her appear old and fragile and dried up, it also affected her spirit. So she felt old and shriveled and wrinkled and tired easily.
Merrigan and Elli found Chancellor Morton in his office, sorting through a carved wooden box that looked rather old. The carvings were worn smooth in some places, the details hard to see through the patina of age. Merrigan thought she could make out frogs and swans and ravens and vines.
"How may I help you, ladies?" he said, standing to give them a polite bow, and flipped the hinged lid of the box closed.
"I would like to know about the queen's garden. Specifically, how long it has been locked up, and how long the door has been invisible," Merrigan said.
That's rather cruel, Mi'Lady, Bib said, when Morton goggled at her a moment, then seemed to lose a little color. Still, there was a touch of laughter in the book's voice.
Queen Adele's great-grandmother was to blame for the door vanishing. Morton told them the story as he escorted Merrigan and Elli back to the royal family's apartments. When she was young, pale skin and fragile voices and tiny waists were all the rage. She refused to learn how to tend the garden from her mother, because she claimed the sun would darken her skin and weeding and watering and transplanting would give her a farmer's appetite and muscles. When she became queen, she locked the door. When her daughters expressed interest in the garden, she told them the plants inside were dangerous, and a terrible curse had been placed on all the women of their family, so they got spots and their noses ran and they sneezed uncontrollably if they did any garden work. By the time her granddaughter had the good luck of falling for a semi-reasonable man who laughed at the story, the door was only visible at the full moon. It vanished entirely from all sight and memory, other than the kingdom records, soon after she died.
The queen and king looked blank when Morton bowed and announced to the royal family that the queen's garden had awakened. Adele knew nothing about the magical healing plants that needed to be tended, the pool of water that connected with other magical pools spread across the continent, or the sanctuary such a garden provided for rare magical creatures such as swans or white ravens. Even talking frogs.
Dulcibella, however, knew a few things, thanks to all the educational books she had been devouring for years, to combat the silliness curse. She insisted she had to see the door immediately. Was it possible to have the garden open, and perhaps have
