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Though she had lived at Sunnyside house her whole life, it wasn't exactly homey. Her father no longer paced the halls, shouting her name, making sure she was not out running through the streets barefoot and wild. He was no longer here to force her to stay indoors, closed off from the garden she loved and the world beyond it. That much was true. With her father gone now, she should have been happier in this house. She no longer had to cower in corners or lie on the floor peering beneath locked doors for hours at a time. But even now that she was alone, this place still did not feel like home. Perhaps even less so now that it was mostly bare. Her footfalls echoed in the emptiness as the floors moaned beneath her, and the walls appeared even more askew, leaning in as if taunting her.

And the off-key chimes of the Dutch clock that stood guard outside the basement door never trilled at the correct hour. It was enough to drive anyone mad.

Harriet knew she could leave these dark corridors for good. He was no longer here to keep her locked up, hidden away. The daughter he wished he'd never had. And yet, despite all this, she decided to stay. To her, the reason was obvious. It wasn't the constricted rooms within Sunnyside's tired, sagging walls that kept her here. It was the small patch of land just outside its doors.

She felt the urge to go down there, as she always did first thing in the morning. But her eyes fell again on the letter, and she sighed. She knew what was inside and could not bear to read it. They continued to arrive, these letters, getting more frequent and menacing. She always burned the letters as they came. What else could she do? Harriet could not pay down her father's debts. The truth was, he left nothing behind for her. He had simply vanished. In the meantime, she had taken to pawning nearly everything of value in the house just so she could live. For most of her life, animal hides and ivory tusks had adorned the rooms of this house. Growing up, she'd been terrified by the sad, hulking remnants of dead animals that he paraded proudly to guests when they arrived for parties, which he spoke of as if he'd hunted them down himself, even though Harriet knew he'd never left England. But, in recent months, she'd earned enough to live off of when she pawned them. Now she kept her life minimal, specifically to avoid such extravagance—an order from the butcher once every fortnight, small amounts of butter, oil for the lamps, paper and ink, tea, milk.

Yesterday, she was going to destroy the letter, just as she had done with the others, but there was something odd about this one. It was not addressed to her father as all the others were. It was addressed to her.

She stuffed the letter into the pocket of her dress—the same dress she wore every day. Perhaps she would have the willpower to open it later.

Glancing in the mirror as she pinned her tawny red hair up without bothering to comb it through first, she nodded at her staid and sturdy reflection. She was no beauty—her plain features blossomed only in the best lighting. And then there was the darkened imprint of the scar that trailed gruesomely from lip to cheekbone on her right side.

Harriet grabbed her boots, though she did not put them on, and hurried down the worn stairs, which drooped and moaned. She passed the clock in the hall and shouldered her way out through the back door to her garden. Relief flooded her as she did, and she drew in a deep breath. She squinted happily into the late-summer glow.

The garden itself was enjoying the painted-on brightness of the day. The flowers were in full bloom—the dramatic pink of the Duchess of Sutherland roses and the flesh-colored Madame Audots met Harriet's eye as she stepped out of the house. Flanking those stood the La Reines with their silvery undertones and the cabbage roses to the right. The cabbage roses, though they did not have a grand name, were Harriet's favorite. More layers inside one flower than she could even count. She inhaled the sweet smell of the Duchesses and watched as every last bloom turned to face her as she padded barefoot from the door onto the stone walkway, bordered by lush green moss. Satisfied that Harriet was content, the flowers resumed their nourishing tilt toward the sky. The stones were cool beneath her feet.

And then there was the plum tree. The tree was the central presence in her back garden, spreading out freely between the house and garden wall. Its branches hung low with thick clusters of fruit that, indeed, looked sumptuous, but they were not exactly the kind of plums she could bake into a tart. Harriet felt guilty about letting most of them rot as they fell to the ground, but such was the fate of wild things that did not want to be tamed. The moss and earth beneath the tree were churned up, as if the roots were continuously growing and stretching. As she watched, small patches of green sprouted up before her eyes, blooming and covering the fresh dirt with expediency.

"You never sit still, do you?" she said aloud to the tree.