LITMIR.BIZ

      The cleaners arrived as Dixie poured her second cup of coffee. Faced with a flurry of mops, moving furniture and warnings about wax on the floors, Dixie took her coffee outside into the sunshine. She found a perch on the crumbling wall that surrounded the flagstone terrace.

      Before she finished the cup, the garden called her. She’d given the house all her attention since she’d arrived; the only time she’d really spent in the garden had been traipsing around, half-blind in the night, or dallying with Christopher. She blushed at the memory. She’d had to wear a turtleneck this morning to hide a monumental hickey.

      She paced through ankle-deep lawns, grass-filled brick paths and rough gravel walks with creeping weeds. The dark shapes she’d hidden between with Christopher’s arm round her shoulders proved to be lilacs in need of pruning. The odd hummocks the intruder tripped on that first evening were untrimmed topiary boxwoods. Weeds choked a rock garden, and green scum covered an ornamental pond with a silent fountain.

      Dixie strolled down a rickety pergola overhung with wisteria and found her way through an arch in a yew hedge into a kitchen garden. A rickety tool shed leaned against the high brick wall, but what caught Dixie’s attention was a door in the wall. The old hinges rasped as Dixie grabbed the rusty knob. She had to use her shoulder to push the door. Two old ladies could never have opened this. Half open, the door jammed—but it was enough. Dixie walked into her hidden garden.

      And shivered.

      The garden appeared a perfect square about thirty or forty feet each way. High brick walls on all four sides shaded everywhere but the center. Wide stone paths ran along all four sides and across to meet in the center. A mossy stone bench stood against one wall but it looked too high and too wide for comfort. Some garden designer’s mistake, Dixie decided. Until she saw the crumbling pentagram carved in the wall above. What had she found?

      The garden seemed desolate and unwelcoming. On the stone paths, Dixie noticed marks and carvings like strange hieroglyphics. Some looked like zodiac signs, others indistinct letters and runes. Dixie followed the paths to the center where they met at a square of green she’d first thought was grass but now, she realized, was some herb or other. Rubbing the leaves between her fingers, she tried to place the smell and remembered the chamomile tea Gran used to drink.

      This must be centuries old. Didn’t chamomile lawns date from Tudor times? Impressed but still uneasy, Dixie looked around. About eight feet square, the lawn stood at the center of the garden. The sun must have shone on this patch for hundreds of years, but the thought didn’t give Dixie any thrill.

      A moss and lichen encrusted obelisk stood at each corner of the lawn. Dixie took a few steps towards them for a closer inspection and froze. These weren’t obelisks; they were stone phalluses. What had she discovered? Did she even want to know? She marched out and dragged the door shut behind her.

      That was one place she would not serve tea in.

      Among the musty damp and cobwebs in the shed, she found old tools, a wheelbarrow, and a near-antique lawn mower. Grabbing a wooden basket that fit comfortably over her arm, Dixie marched back to the flower garden and worked clearing the rose beds until the light started to fail. Tired and aching about the shoulders, she made it to the Barley Mow an hour before closing.

      “Thought you weren’t coming tonight,” Vernon said as she came in. “Alf’s got a nice veg curry.”

      Dixie agreed on the curry and sat by the window, disappointed Christopher wasn’t there. Never mind. An evening alone would give her time to think.

      Fat chance! Sleazy James sat himself in the chair opposite. “Well, hello. What have you been doing with yourself?”

      Doing a bit of gardening and just happened to discover these eighteen-inch-high stone phalluses. Do you know what they’re used for? wasn’t a good opener. “Clearing the garden while the cleaners took care of the house,” worked better.

      “Don’t ruin your hands,” he said, running his fingers over hers.

      Dixie pulled back her hand and clasped her glass with such determination that the table wobbled. She’d have walked out there and then but Vernon appeared with her curry.

      “You’ve got a healthy appetite,” James murmured, with a smirk that irritated more than the innuendo.

      “I came in to get dinner,” Dixie replied, fork poised.

      “Nothing like a bit of company while you’re eating.” Dixie stopped mid-chew, hoping the knee contact was accidental. “How about dessert somewhere later?” James asked.

      This time Dixie almost bit the fork. Accidental, her foot! The jerk was groping her knee. That did it! With both hands under the table, Dixie tipped the table away from her; curry, rice and the better part of her Guinness landed in James’s lap.

      “Oh! I’m so sorry,” Dixie lied as James squawked for a cloth. “The table just wobbled.”

      “Here you are, Mr. Chadwick,”

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