Cassidy Renée Valentine's combat boots crunched against the gravel path as she stormed through the east garden, past the rose bushes her mother never visited, past the fountain that hadn't worked since last summer, until she reached the wooden gate that led to the Japanese wing.
The gate creaked when she pushed it open.
She hated that sound. She loved that sound.
Papa had always meant to oil the hinges. He never got around to it.
The zen garden spread before her in the fading twilight, the raked gravel catching the last orange rays of sunset. Stone lanterns lined the path, unlit, their bases covered in moss that the groundskeepers kept trimming and that kept growing back anyway. The red maple tree in the corner had started changing colors early this year. Papa would have noticed that. He noticed everything about this garden.
