Rebirth11 min read
The Peach Garden That Saved Me
ButterPicks13 views
I woke to a broken sky and pain like iron stitching through my skull.
"Is she breathing?" a coarse voice asked somewhere close.
"Good riddance if she's dead," another voice said, mean and flat.
"Don't say that. If the marquis asks, we'll say we went out and couldn't find her," the first voice muttered.
I closed my fingers and felt my own blood. My head throbbed. Someone had said "marquis," and the name rolled like a stone inside me. I tried to remember the kitchen, the pressure cooker, a stupid slip—then a flash of memory that was not mine stamped through me: a big house, a title, a cruel stepmother, a father who barely saw me. I forced myself up and everything hurt.
"Ow—" I hissed.
"She's alive," one of the women outside said with a touch of surprise. "Let's tell the lady."
They left. The yard smelled like rain and old wood. When I finally opened my eyes I was in a small, ragged courtyard. The paper on the window hung in tatters and the wind threaded through the doorway like it had the right to be there.
"Where am I?" I whispered.
"I am Kimiko Fitzpatrick," I said out loud, because the other memory pushed against my chest like a shoe. "I am fourteen."
My thoughts were noisy. The other story told me I was Kimiko Fitzpatrick — the fourth daughter of Marquis Colin Shimizu, who had been sent to this little yard to be forgotten. My mother had died giving birth. My grandmother, Maxine Black, disliked me. My stepmother, June Carroll, tolerated me because she had to, but hated the sight of me when she thought no one watched.
I sat up and reached for my head. My palm found dried blood. When I lifted it the trace vanished before my eyes.
"Did I just imagine that?" I murmured.
Curiosity shoved fear aside. I tried the same motion with the other hand. Nothing. Then I rolled up my sleeve on the wounded arm and saw it: a thin red cord tied like an old bracelet, and on it hung a tiny silver lock that flashed as if it had its own light.
I touched it. The faint scratch on my palm faded.
My breath snagged. I uncrossed my fingers and the blood so recently dried on my skin simply...stopped being there. I pressed a smear of blood onto the silver lock; it blinked, then the mark disappeared like ink under water.
"This can't be real," I said.
I am not a woman of faith or fable, but I do know how to recognize luck. If a red thread could heal flesh, then a secret stitched to my wrist had just bought me a different life.
I untied the cord, just once, and the world blinked.
The gray yard was gone. In its place was a garden so green it hummed. Vegetables rose in neat rows; corn stood like golden soldiers. A few peach trees leaned with fruit, silly and round. A ring of medicinal herbs nodded in the light. Chickens scratched at the dirt. A tidy bamboo cabin sat like an answer. The air smelled clean like noon at the sea.
"Who—" I began.
"Someone is home!" My voice sounded small.
A wooden door opened from the back of the cabin. Nobody answered. I pushed the door quietly and found three rooms: a tiny study with medicine jars, a tea table that looked as if it had grown there, and a neat bed with a back door that opened onto a flower wall so thick butterflies dived like dust.
I took a peach and bit it. The taste was sweet like a memory I had never had. I laughed, then remembered the courtyard and slapped my palm over my mouth.
I tied the cord back on my wrist. The garden dissolved. I stood again in the old yard, cheeks sticky with peach juice. I pretended to sleep and listened as two older women—housemaids—argued outside.
"She was not breathing," the rough one said.
"Don't you lie to me. The lady will be angry if you made a mistake," hissed a more timid voice.
Footsteps came. A woman in a plain dress with eyes practiced to smile walked in. That must be June Carroll. Her smile was a blade wrapped in velvet.
"Do not be dramatic. She is alive, and that's what matters," June said, voice soft like silk over sand. "Bring her in. See that she rests. If the marquis asks, tell him she will recover."
The rough maid—Emi Wolf—snorted and left.
I had to keep quiet. If they thought I was dying, they might bury me for their peace. When the mistress walked near, I forced a weak moan. June recoiled half with triumph, half with something like concern she did not mean. She ordered them to fetch food and not to call a doctor, and they did as told.
I lay very still until the sun moved and the yard cooled.
That night, when the house quieted to the low breathe of sleeping people, I slipped my hand to the cord and walked, as certain as a thief, into the green beyond.
"This is better than dying," I laughed at the sound of my own voice.
I opened every jar, ate eggs, boiled corn, learned the way the herbs smelled, and took a breath that felt like mine for the first time since the house had become my prison.
People were cruel at the house. Two women, Emi Wolf and Blair Bergstrom, watched me like wolves who had been told not to bite in public. The food I found outside allowed me to pretend I was still weak, but I needed to change the way things worked.
"It's time," I told myself. "Either they take me for a fool forever, or I make them learn."
I played weak a while longer and took to hearing stories about the marquis's family. There were sisters I did not know—Ginevra Popov and Freyja Kraemer—who had more favors and better dresses. There was also talk of Aiden Tucker, the prince of the border, the man who had once struck me down and left me for dead. His name made my teeth ache.
"Who is Aiden Tucker?" I asked my maid, the true one who only wanted to serve—Lianxin.
"He's the royal prince of war," Lianxin whispered. "They say he rides like lightning and doesn't like to be touched."
"That is a poor match for a coward," I said.
"Do not talk about prince like that in earshot of crows," Lianxin said.
A week passed. I learned to use the garden for medicine, to cook the corn and salt the eggs. I made little balls of crushed astragalus blended with peach juice and ate them. My old wounds closed so fast it felt like a trick. My face cleared, my head stopped throbbing, and the scar over my eyebrow softened to nothing.
Then I decided to punish the thief who had still been stealing little things from the house.
One evening I suggested, soft and meek, "Emi Wolf brought me food once. She must be kind. You should reward her."
June's eyes warmed with cruelty and calculation. She called Emi. The rough woman came out preening like a queen.
"Emi," June said, voice like sugar. "We should look in your room. We have reason to think something has been missing."
"Me? Impossible," Emi bristled, but she did not refuse because she knew no one would defend her.
They searched. June's servants turned up a wooden box from under Emi's straw pallet. Inside, wrapped in linen, was a coral hairpin that seemed to glow faintly even in lamplight.
"My pin!" I said, louder than I meant. The hairpin was like something from a different world.
Emi's smile collapsed. "I— I found it, I swear! It wasn't—"
"Silence!" June snapped. "We will take it to the courtyard, and the marquis will hear of your theft."
"You can't—" Emi squealed.
"Bring her out," June ordered.
They dragged Emi into the front courtyard. The sky above was cold and hard like a lid.
"This is the honest truth," Emi said, eyes wild. "I did not steal it. I would never—"
"Do not lie," June said. "You are a servant. The house sees you. We will see what the house thinks."
June started the show. She had the maids stand around like judges, a throng of servants filtering into the courtyard, curious, hungry for theater. Lianxin and a few timid faces took places nearest me. News spread like grease. Even a few neighbors came, drawn as moths.
"You stole my pin," June declared to Emi with a smile that cut. "And you will be punished."
Emi started to protest, but her voice dried. The circle closed.
"Tell the marquis, someone," June said, and a trembling footman ran to fetch Colin Shimizu.
The courtyard filled with people. The gatekeeper, the gardeners, even two passing merchants stopped to watch. There was a hum, a dangerous electricity, as if everyone was waiting for the bad part of a story to begin.
When the marquis arrived, he did not look at me. He looked at the woman who stood accused. His expression was tired, like linen worn too thin.
"Is this true?" he asked, voice blunt.
"She was found with the pin hidden," June said. "She stole from the house."
"Show me," he said.
They turned the box over. The hairpin glinted like a small sun. I stepped forward.
"I saw this on Emi's bed," I said, keeping my voice small. "But—"
"Keep quiet, girl," a few people muttered. "You taught her this."
"No," I said. "I will speak."
I told the story: how I had pretended weakness, how they'd left me, how they'd stolen, and how I had found the hairpin hidden. I watched their faces. The courtyard held its breath.
"Did you steal from the marquis?" Colin asked Emi.
"No!" she gasped. "I only took what I needed. I would never steal from the marquis."
"Then who?" Colin looked at me. "Kimiko?"
"She came to my room," I said. "She told me she had found a pin, but she was afraid to bring it forward. She asked me to keep quiet. And later—" I turned to June. "Mrs. Carroll, did you not buy a coral pin last month? You showed it to everyone. You said it was a gift."
June's face did not change. A small cold smile firmed like lacquer.
"Are you accusing me?" she said.
"Yes. That is exactly what I am saying," I said. "She hid the pin to make herself appear clever when the house praised her."
"No," Emi cried. "I—"
"Enough," June said. "If the girl speaks, let her say so."
That was the signal.
What followed was a scene I had rehearsed in my mind a hundred times, though none of those rehearsals had ever involved so many real faces. I forced myself to speak clearly, to watch how they reacted. The courtyard became a theater and I the sudden playwright.
"Look at her hands," I said, holding up the hairpin. "See how new this is. See how it doesn't match a servant's pay."
"She stole it from the guest chest," a housemaid said quietly.
"Who saw her take it?" the marquis asked.
No one answered.
"Then listen." I turned to the crowd. "Who here has been fed by Mrs. Carroll's generosity? Who has seen no kindness from her? Who has seen her scorn the marquis's own daughter?" The murmurs rose.
"She has lied about me," June said in the crisp voice of a woman who had rehearsed humility. "But maybe a woman like you is not fit to tell the truth."
"Bring forth the ledger," I said.
There was a small objective laugh, as if me asking for the ledger was absurd. Then a little maid from the kitchen stepped forward and handed over the household account book. June paled a shade that made her powder look wrong.
"Here," I said, turning to the marquis. "See the silk thread purchase? See who paid for it and where it came from. The numbers will show. June bought a coral pin from the merchant two weeks ago."
They read. The ledger was simple and clean, and June's name was there. I had no right to that knowledge, but I had learned to watch. The servants exchanged looks. People do not like to lie when paper is in their hands.
"Emi?" the marquis said.
"Your honor," Emi began, voice small. "I—"
"Tell the truth," I said. "We will all listen."
Emi trembled and then told the truth: June had given her orders to keep quiet. She was paid, and at first she refused. But June had used fear. "I was afraid," Emi said, the words falling like ragged stones. "I was afraid of what would happen if I did not do as told."
"Is this true, June?" Colin asked.
June's smile stuck. "I— I gave her the pin to keep safe. She took it for herself. She is a liar."
At that moment, something inside the crowd shifted. They had watched cruelty for so long that the act of truth felt like light.
"Bring out the neighbors!" June ordered, as if they would save her. But there was a new sound now—whispers of judgment.
I had thought I wanted her punished. I had not planned the how. The house wanted a spectacle and the family wanted answers. I could have had June dismissed with cold words, but the house needed more than words.
"I will not let a servant be the only one humiliated," I said before I knew I would.
I walked to the center of the courtyard and addressed everyone gathered. "This house is not a stage for cruelty," I said. "Every family has fault. But if we do not name wrong when we see it, then we are all guilty."
People nodded. A merchant coughed. The marquis's face was unreadable.
"June Carroll," I said, stepping closer, feeling the way the stone warmed my feet, "you will publicly confess what you did. You will tell every servant you forced to lie what you paid them. You will give the coral pin to the house to be used by the marquis's wife. And you will stand in this courtyard while everyone who has been harmed speaks until they are heard."
June looked at the marquis. For a moment I thought she would flee like a hunted thing. She did not. She had sheltered herself with other people's fear.
"You are asking for too much," she said.
"Then stand and watch," I said. "Stand and listen."
It began slow, a drip of words. First the kitchen maid, then an old groom who had been passed over, then a laundress who had been shoved aside. One by one, people told of favors withheld, of food moved away, of orders to hide what could have made a servant proud. The courtyard filled with voices. Some cried. Some laughed in rusty joy. Some spat.
June's face went through a dozen shades: anger, shame, disbelief, then something like fear. She had been certain of her safety, certain of my weakness. Now she was unprotected in a storm of truth.
"Stop this!" she begged when the list stretched to an hour. "You can't hang a woman with words."
"They are not words," said Colin Shimizu. "They are witness."
He spoke, and the house listened. What followed was not a formal execution of law. It was worse for June because it was public and personal. The servants recounted, in detail, the nights they had gone hungry when she thought no one watched. They told how she had sowed suspicion against children, how she had arranged lies to cover herself. People cried about small things that mattered—an old woman's refusal to be respected, a boy's hat stolen to teach humility.
June's face withered. The smile that had looked like silk now drooped like a torn banner. When she tried to interrupt, a dozen voices cut her off. She had no allies left in that yard.
"Please," she said, breath thin and high like a bell. "I am sorry."
That did not stop the recounting. The crowd needed their truth. When they had finished, the marquis spoke.
"You will be moved," he said to June quietly, "from the house and to the farm outside. You will not return until you have made amends with every servant you have wronged. This is not the law's punishment, but it will be your public penance."
June stared like a woman who had been told a story in a language she did not know.
"Do you accept?" Colin asked.
She nodded, but it was no real answer.
They escorted her from the yard. The neighbors had seen it all. Some clucked approval; others whispered this would change nothing. Emi stood in the doorway, silent, hands like two birds.
When the commotion died and the crowd thinned, Lianxin came to me with hands shaking.
"You did it," she said. "You made them see."
"I only told the truth," I said.
"You told the truth and they listened," she replied.
That night I slept with a calm I had not known. I did not forgive cruelty. I only stopped pretending it did not exist.
After the scandal, a small order came from inside the grander circles of the house: a carriage would go to the capital. The marquis's sister—Maxine Black's daughter who lived at court, Lady Ginevra Popov—had extended an invitation to a grand midautumn banquet. It was a rare honor and a bright door out of the yard.
"You're to go," June said with practiced softness, though she spoke like a judge. "The court will be kind."
"I do not wish to go," I said.
"You will go. Lady Ginevra herself asked the marquis. The court invitation is not something we refuse."
I felt the old, hot fear of the Prince Aiden Tucker and the memory of my own broken head. But to go to court was also to see the world beyond small cruel yards. It was the river the garden had promised.
On the day we left the house looked like a painting. Maxine Black sat like a queen and gave gentle directions. The carriages smelled of new leather and hope.
"Remember, Kimiko," June said, still velvet-thin, "do not embarrass the family."
"Don't worry," I said. "I have no wish to be hit again."
The city air hit me as if I had been under a glass. The palace gates rose like teeth. The wonder there nearly put my chest out of my ribs. I swallowed.
At the throne, the ceremony shimmered with faces and gold. The emperor—an old man with a voice like a bell—sat and listened to the court. Beside him sat a woman in robes that looked impossible. When she rose she smiled at the crowd and looked toward our group. Her eyes found me quickly, like she had been waiting.
"Kimiko Fitzpatrick," she said later when she had me by the garden inside the palace, "you look well recovered. Are you ready to meet Aiden?"
"I am ready for nothing," I said, honest and a little frightened.
She laughed softly. "Don't fear a man for what he has done. Fear only what men can make of you. Come. Sit."
The palace glittered, but I kept my thumb under my robe and felt the cord at my wrist like a compass.
Aiden Tucker would come to court. I had seen his hands in that other memory — rough, controlled, dangerous. My heart, which I kept locked, skipped anyway.
"I am not a thing to be watched," I told the woman at once.
"None of us are," she said. "But some of us are watched more than others, and sometimes being watched is a peculiar advantage."
I looked at her. She was unlike the cruel women at home. She spoke like someone who had learned power was a thing of language and patience.
That night, under a wide palace moon, I decided not to be frightened of the world beyond and to use the garden like a saved coin.
"I will learn," I said to myself, and the cord on my wrist hummed like a promise.
The End
— Thank you for reading —