Winter Sparrow Read Online Free Page A

flickering all around her. She looked back at her lover for a moment then focused once more on the jewel of this mausoleum. 
“Of all the greenhouses and meadows I’ve seen, Joshua, nothing, nothing at all compares.” Was it normal for her to feel like she might cry? Was she supposed to start choking up from only a glimpse? But no, she had touched the flowers. She had smelled them. She had placed her hands into the dirt, into the earth to feel nature’s art for herself. She knew it was real. Her senses, her eyes, her everything confirmed it.
This was a new memory. And this one tasted like honey.
After Mary walked through the garden, exploring it from every angle, Joshua called her and asked if she was ready to see the remainder of the house. Still taken aback at the sheer size of the house, Mary nodded. Joshua had already made his rounds once through the many corridors and entrances. Getting familiar with a place might make it feel more like home, he suggested to her. But she didn’t much care about what surrounded the garden that seemed to defy all pattern and prediction. It didn’t fit with everything else. Not yet , she could almost hear Joshua echoing in her eardrum.
A deep sigh and a long breath permitted her leave followed by one last blink to capture the perfect image.
“I’m ready,” she said with an enchanted smile.
It didn’t take long to walk through the rest of the mansion. The fact that she kept a steady pace ahead of her fiancé didn’t at all add to the romance of seeing the place for the first time, but she felt how she felt, and he couldn’t begrudge her for that, could he? She was an artist, so to see something beyond the ugly and malnourished should’ve been effortless. She would try. She swore to herself she would try.
The garden still had her mind tightly in its grasp. Its thin, winding passages and overhanging branches dripping with splashes of life. Blink upon blink she returned there, while Joshua carried on about how much torque it must’ve taken his great-grandfather to put this building together. And here it was, still standing. She couldn’t help but tune in to the important parts.
Her nostrils finally took note of the smell. It wasn’t a horrible smell, necessarily. It was a kind of smell like she’d just walked into Grandma’s house and wasn’t sure if the smell made her comfortable or if she’d get used to it eventually. She’d read somewhere that everything was eventual. How true that was. After some flaring, and several deep breaths through her nostrils, she settled herself and got used to the smell. The eventual came pretty quickly this time.
It was hard to believe that it had taken them less than thirty minutes to walk through the mansion, but Mary was happy. After all, she’d ventured out past the dock and into strange waters. That was unlike her. A sense of bravery flooded in. Sitting at home in sweats and watching painful television wouldn’t have been nearly as invigorating as seeing the garden in full bloom, and still at the starting line of spring. She could only imagine how brilliant the flowers might look in the coming season.
“When can we start fixing it up?” she asked, like an eager child.
“I thought you didn’t like the place. It was dark and unwelcoming, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” she said with a slight nod, the smile still hanging on. “But that garden, Joshua, there was something about it that just…I can’t explain it.”
“Good grief, that’s all it took? If I knew it would make that much of an impression, I would’ve started the tour from the back.” Joshua shut the front door and fidgeted with the lock until he was sure it was secure. Mary stood on the porch, gazing out over what would someday be hers. 
“Of course I left the light on in the foyer,” Joshua said sarcastically, searching for the key. With a mini flashlight pinched between his teeth, he struggled to find it.
Mary was taken from the porch for a moment. Her eyes drifted