The rest of the breakfast turned into a nightmare. People chatted Lilith up, offered her food, poured her juice, smiled at her, and took pictures with her, until at last she managed to excuse herself under the pretext of a bathroom visit. She marched out of the hall, careful not to break into a run, dying to tell Panther about the sigh, and dying to read Ed's note. She clutched it in her sweaty palm so tightly, she was afraid the words may have melted off.

Panther waited by the door, tail wagging.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot about your steak. That woman- thing! Did you hear it sigh again?" Lilith whispered urgently, sliding off the collar.

"Not that I recall." Panther licked his muzzle, looking suspiciously smug, like he wasn't hungry at all. "I did hear an elephant sing, however. It was rather painful."

Lilith arranged her features into a scowl, when another sigh shook the air. She flinched, Panther growled. They rushed out of the vestibule so fast that neither of them noticed two servants coming from the kitchen.

She ran into them head-on, sending trays of apple strudels to the floor with a loud twang. Ed's note flew out of her hand and landed under an overturned bowl of vanilla sauce.

"No!" Lilith cried, darting for it. Two women in black dresses and white frilly aprons blocked her, picking up their fallen load. One of them straightened and Lilith almost fell to the floor herself.

The hook-nosed head stared at her. Lilith remembered this woman now. She served dinner, took dirty plates away, and brought clean ones. Her watery eyes made Lilith's skin crawl. The second servant stood up, sporting the dark-skinned head. Her plump lips parted into a smile at the sight of Panther.

"Did little miss hurt herself?" asked the first servant in that familiar raspy voice. Gray hair pulled into a bun revealed an egg of a skull, and Lilith thought that she could be Gustav's sister.

"No. Not at all. I'm fine, thank you."

Panther inconspicuously edged toward the overturned trays, snatched an apple strudel, and swallowed it whole, hiccupping.

"I'm Agatha, ze housekeeper. And zis is Monika, ze cook." 

Monika waved and said, "Hallo!"

"It iz unfortunate zat we meet over ze spilled sauce."

Lilith thought that both the housekeeper and the butler matched the mansion's creepiness perfectly.

"I...I didn't see you. I'm sorry," said Lilith. "I apologize profusely. Can I help—"

"No need. We will take care of it." The housekeeper waved the girl aside and nudged the cook. Panther, his muzzle smudged with vanilla, jumped aside and pretended to study the ceiling. Lilith helplessly watched Monika scoop up Ed's note, together with the pieces of a broken bowl.

"Little miss didn't sleep well?" Agatha asked.

Lilith startled.

"Little miss needz to sleep, to see better where she iz going." Agatha's eyes flashed.

Dread filled Lilith's stomach. She took off at once, her soles skidding on the polished floor, until she made it out into the garden, breathless.

"That Agatha woman, if I may so observe, looked like a horse," Panther growled. "Now I will have a headache. Can't decide who is uglier, she or your mother."

"Not funny. Did you hear what she said? Did you see her eyes? She was there! How else would she know that I didn't get any sleep?" said Lilith.

Panther clamped his muzzle shut in an effort to look like a non-talking dog.

"Hey, don't ignore me. I'm asking—"

Preceded by the crunching of the gravel, Alfred Bloom strolled toward them, Bär at his side. Lilith felt the urge to flee. The garden seemed to move with her grandfather, accenting his burgundy suit with a reddish glow.

"Good morning, my dear girl!" he said with exuberance.

Lilith forced herself to smile, hoping her racing heart wouldn't betray her voice. "Good morning, Grandfather."

Bär grumbled. Panther grumbled back.

"Did you...have trouble getting away from the lot of them?"

Lilith could only nod.

"Ah, don't mind them. They're eager, of course, to make your acquaintance after my dinner announcement yesterday, the one you...missed," he said with disapproval.

I think I know what it is, Grandfather, thought Lilith, composing her features into a mask of attention. "Can't wait to hear it."

"I hope I'll be the first to break the news. Before I do...would you mind giving me an explanation for your disappearance? We were all rather worried."

"Oh, that. We got lost," said Lilith, shrugging.

"Lost? In my rose garden?" Alfred continued the mockery that Daphne started at breakfast, yet somehow Lilith thought that mentioning her hobby of dangling human skulls in front of people's windows wouldn't do the trick this time.

"By we you mean...?" He walked closer.

Lilith took a step back. "Panther and I."

"You got lost with this...creature? In my garden? Honestly, dear. Think about it. Dogs are supposed to help you find your way out, not get you lost. I tell you, a whippet is not a dog, it's a joke. A breeder's mistake."

Panther snarled. Bär roared.

"Wouldn't you agree?" Alfred grabbed a handful of Bär's skin, at which the mastiff rumbled in pleasure. "This is what I call a dog. I can get you a puppy, if you'd like; to take home. What do you say?"

Panther stiffened. She picked him up, petting him reassuringly.

"I'm terribly sorry, Grandfather, but I have to decline," said Lilith politely. "At my age, when responsibility is merely a word that doesn't have much meaning, taking care of something as exquisite as a mastiff might be well beyond my abilities. But thank you very much for your incredible offer." She wanted to curtsy, but then decided it would be overkill.

"Pity," said Alfred, his smile dying. "Oh well. Perhaps it's for the best. Why don't you train on this...parody of a dog, before you decide whether or not you want the real deal."

Panther sneered in the most condescending way a dog has ever mastered.

"Excuse me, but—"

"Take Bär, for example. He is trained not to pollute my roses. Gustav told me that he saw your...pet relieve himself under a bush. I simply can't allow this to happen in my garden. GUSTAV!"

The butler seemed to appear out of thin air, as usual, and grabbed the whippet right out of Lilith's arms. Taken by surprise a second time, she snatched at thin air; Gustav had stepped out of her reach already. Panther barked hysterically. Bär launched into a series of guttural woofs that sounded suspiciously like laughter.

It took Lilith enormous willpower to suppress her anger. "My apologies. It's my fault. I wasn't stern enough with him. He won't do it again, I promise. As I recall, my mother told me you were going to take me on a garden tour?" Lilith waited, her face frozen in excited anticipation.

Alfred narrowed his eyes. "Yes...yes, of course." He seized her arm and walked her onto a pathway. Before disappearing behind a turn, Lilith glimpsed enthusiastic relatives pouring out of the back doors, evidently searching for her. Her skin crawled. On some level she was glad to escape their incessant inquiries.

She silently tugged along, breathing deeply to calm herself. If she assumed correctly, the man next to her has murdered people. Simple childish pleading didn't work with men like him; Lilith read enough Sherlock Holmes books to know that. She had to be in complete control of her emotions to win. But to win what, exactly?

Within a few minutes of brisk walking, they waded deeper into the maze. Another turn, and there stood the overgrown arbor, its twisted canes parting like a doorway. They passed through. Instantly, a foul fog surrounded them and Alfred stopped.

"Now...where was I?" he said dreamily. "Ah, the dinner announcement. I read my will yesterday." He turned Lilith to face him, holding her shoulders. Her eyes watered from the stench. They stood in the same spot where she and Panther landed yesterday. The sighing woman-thing must be close, she thought, somewhere beyond this tunnel. 

"Lilith Bloom, my only granddaughter. I have decided to make you the sole heir to the Bloom property after I die. Do you accept?"

He burrowed his beady eyes into hers.

Lilith felt rooted to the spot. She guessed it right, so why did her tongue feel like a stuffed sock all of a sudden?

"Oh, I'm...I'm eternally grateful," she stuttered, wanting to add, Dead bodies included? Her hands shook. "Thank you, dear Grandfather. I'm honored beyond words. May I ask, what exactly constitutes the Bloom property?"

"The mansion and the rose garden. Everything inside the fence belongs to me—to the Bloom family. But I would say that the garden is the best part." He sneered.

Goose bumps broke on Lilith's skin.

"What you'll see next stays strictly between you and me, is that understood?"

Lilith nodded, feeling her spine turn to ice.

"I need an actual answer."

"Yes, Grandfather."

"That's my girl." He patted her cheek. His palm felt rough and its warmth made Lilith flinch. She always thought the hands of a murderer should be cold and clammy.

"Your father...let's just say I don't expect him to change his mind. He never liked working in the dirt. The second he gets his hands on the garden, he'll uproot every bush and turn it into a racing course for his...creatures. I can't rely on him. You, on the other hand..." He peered into her face, his sickening breath inches away. "You seem to be rather interested in organic matter."

"What exactly do you mean by organic matter?"

He didn't answer, leading her to the clearing.

Patches of fog licked a circular glade the size of a small meadow. Surrounded by impenetrable bramble, the place resembled a roofless rotunda. In its center, dotted with flaming roses, grew a shrub about thirteen feet tall. It stunk mercilessly. Alfred extracted a pair of gardening shears from behind it and thrust them at Lilith. "A true rosarian is not afraid of a few scrapes. I sense a true rosarian in you. Would you like to try? Prune it. Go on, fancy your grandfather."

"Excuse me, but..." started Lilith, struggling to hold the heavy tool upright. It looked too gruesome to be a normal gardening tool. "How do I do it exactly?"

"Let me give you a little demonstration." Fast like lightning, Alfred snatched the shears and hacked away at the bush, getting rained on by twigs, leaves, and petals.

"This," he lectured, "is how a master rosarian does it. Watch and learn, my dear girl." He danced around it in an almost feverish glee, describing what he does and cutting with astonishing speed.

"You snap off the old heads—it's called deadheading—for the new buds to bloom, see?" Lilith's grandfather never stopped moving. "Roses are delicate and capricious, you have to grab them by the throat while they're timid, then they're yours."

Lilith tried not to breathe; the stench overwhelmed her. She wondered if her grandfather sensed it. He snipped at the roses with astounding speed, breathing laboriously while carefully stepping between piles of sprigs. This reminded her of yesterday's nightmare.

A sigh of relief issued directly from the bush. Alfred camouflaged it by loudly slamming the sheers shut and sticking them into the ground.

"Well..." He held something behind his back. "Do you accept my offer?"

Lilith couldn't speak, petrified and disgusted.

He thrust at her a bouquet of roses.

Distracted, she took it. Thorns dug into her palm, drawing blood. It trickled onto the ground and disappeared without a trace, as if the garden sucked in every drop and wanted more. With a cry, Lilith threw the roses away.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Please excuse me, Grandfather. I didn't mean to throw them. I'll pick them up."

"Don't worry about it." Alfred shoved the flowers aside with the tip of his shoe. "You have a whole garden at your disposal. You see, old stems need to be cut, to breathe and make room for new ones. There are plenty of old stems here." He spread his arms. "Rosebushes grow very fast, my dear girl. The only secret is...they have to eat, a lot, to produce a lot of flowers."

Alfred's piercing eyes studied Lilith.

She tried to look calm. "How do you feed a rose?"

"Ah! Excellent question. You feed it...organic matter. It's my secret, dear girl. It makes them want more, makes them hungry." His eyes sparkled. "I don't bury it in the ground like other gardeners do; I leave it on top, for them to find and eat as much, or as little, as they want. That's the key."

"What is this organic matter exactly?" Lilith shook visibly.

"Why, I thought you'd know this, from reading books. It's a matter composed of remains of once-living organisms."

"Once-living organisms."

"That's right."

Only now did Lilith notice what her grandfather did to the bush. He shaped it into a woman. She stood nearly thirteen feet tall, bulging with sizeable bust and hips, blossoms as eyes. That's the sighing woman-thing, thought Lilith, wishing Panther could witness it with her. She must've been demanding to be cut to shape, to come alive.

"Grandfather?" She pointed. "The rosebush. It looks like a woman. Is there a particular reason why you cut it like that?"

"Do you like it?"  

The bush woman moved, or maybe it only seemed that way to Lilith, producing something small and red. Alfred took it, as calm as if he lifted a waffle from a plate.

"Well, look what I just found," he said.

"My beret."

"Have you been to this part of the garden before?"

"No," Lilith lied.

"Interesting. How do you think it got here?"

"Maybe Bär found it and dropped it?" Lilith cringed. She couldn't come up with a better lie, not while being stared at by a gigantic bush woman. "Grandfather? This rosebush, I think it's moving."

"Is it now?"

"Yes. I think I just saw it give you my beret."

Alfred grabbed Lilith by the shoulders and shook her. "Listen carefully. I thought we agreed on this. Do not breathe a word to anyone about what you saw, lest you end up not the one gardening, but the one being gardened on. Am I making myself clear?" He stretched his lips into a smile.

Lilith gulped.

"I'm still waiting for an answer. Do you accept my offer?"

Lilith could only blink.

"I understand, you need time to think. Is that it?"

She nodded.

"Well, I know you're a good girl. You will accept my offer by the end of your stay, won't you? The question is only when. The sooner you do it, the better. You know why?"

Lilith shook her head.

"Because," he said, switching to a whisper, "until you do, you may not leave my property. Nor do I want to catch you and your...pet wandering where you shouldn't, doing things you shouldn't be doing. When I need you, Gustav will fetch you. Is that clear?"

"Yes," Lilith croaked.

"And if I ever catch you trespassing in this clearing, I might just find a way for you to never come out of the garden." He released his grip.

Lilith realized a terrible truth. Her grandfather played some kind of a cruel game, in which she had a part. If she wanted to collect any facts about the rose garden, about the organic matter it ate, and about the rosebush woman in particular, she needed to play sweet and stupid.

"Dear Grandfather, please excuse my nervousness. It's the jetlag. I must have imagined everything. I thank you for this amazing presentation. You are a true master rosarian. I only hope one day I'll match your skill, to be able to sculpt a shape like that." She glanced at the bush, noticing a hint of pride creep into her grandfather's face. "I've never seen anything quite like it." She chose her next words carefully. "I will give your offer my utmost thought."

"Good. Just the answer I wanted to hear. Shall we?" He took her arm and they strolled out of the clearing. Lilith looked back.

The rosebush woman leered.