The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt: A Novel

by Chelsea Iversen

Genres: Historical Fantasy; Occult & Supernatural; Gothic

Synopsis

"A sweeping tale of a woman on the edge." —Publishers Weekly

"Comparisons to authors like Alice Hoffman or Sarah Addison Allen are apt...highly recommended." —Booklist

"This unearthly story flows with an elemental eeriness." —Historical Novel Society

A lush, enchanting story of a woman who must use the magic of the fantastical plants that adorn her crumbling estate in Victorian London to thwart the dark plots of the men around her...

Harriet Hunt is completely alone. Her father disappeared months ago, leaving her to wander the halls of Sunnyside house, dwelling on a past she'd rather keep buried. She doesn't often venture beyond her front gate, instead relishing the feel of dirt under her fingernails and of soft moss beneath her feet. Consequently, she's been deemed a little too peculiar for popular Victorian society. This solitary life suits her fine, though – because, in her garden, magic awaits.

Harriet's garden is special. It's a wild place full of twisting ivy, vibrant plums, and a quiet power that buzzes like bees. Caring for this place, and keeping it from running rampant through the streets of her London suburb, is Harriet's purpose. 

When suspicion for her father's disappearance falls on her, she marries a seemingly charming man, the first to see past her peculiarities, in order to protect herself. It's soon clear, however, that her new husband might be worse than her father and that she's integral to a dark plot created by the men around her. To free herself and discover the truth, she must learn to channel the power of her strange, magical garden. 

At once enchantingly mesmerizing and fiercely feminist, perfect for fans of The Magician's Daughter and The Once and Future Witches, the vibrant world-building and sinister undertones of The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt make for the perfect modern fairytale about women taking control of their lives—with a little help from the magic within them.

 

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Release date: December 3, 2024

Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark

Print pages: 317

Sample

Upper Holloway News

Sunday, February 18, 1866

A ROMANTIC DISAPPEARANCE: HUSBAND AND WIFE BOTH MISSING

Mr. Christian Comstock, the son of Mr. George Comstock, has been missing for over two months. The young clerk has not appeared at his role in the London National Bank, nor has he been seen at or anywhere near his premises during this time. The Comstocks are a family of great repute in Upper Holloway, our northern suburb of London, thanks to the senior Mr. Comstock’s successful career at the bank. For the son of such a champion of capitalistic progress and well-touted member of London’s financial hierarchy, the junior Mr. Comstock’s absence is highly uncharacteristic, so say family and colleagues. The suggestion of foul play is, of course, being investigated, though nothing conclusive has come to light.

It appears that Mrs. Christian Comstock has also been missing since late last year. The wife is known throughout Worthing Road to be “strange” and “a recluse.” One particular acquaintance of the married couple expressed his “suspicion” upon hearing about her disappearance. Neighbors have no idea as to either of their whereabouts.

Police are investigating, but with so little information, we may be left only to wonder: What has happened to the Comstocks?

6 Month Earlier

Chapter One

Though the letter lay on the small table, Harriet did not open it.

Instead, she watched a fox begin its work on a plum just outside.

The fruit that fell from the plum tree in her garden was a deep violet in some light, golden in others. They grew in plump clusters along generous branches. A fallen plum, an abundance of which was often shaken free by the train rumbling by, smelled sickly sweet when it began its slow rot. The aroma each plum gave off was both familiar and intoxicating.

Harriet knew it well.

The fox sniffed the plum first. It was easy prey, already lying on the ground, waiting for someone to claim it. Harriet could almost see the little creature drooling from here, so indulgently it licked its mouth in anticipation. And then, it began to nibble. The plum rolled a short way away at the first breaking of the skin, yellow flesh exposed, and the fox chased it hungrily. Now that he had a taste, it was going to be hard to resist.

The fox played this game of nibble and chase until half the fruit was consumed, and then he took the last of it in his mouth and chewed with fervor.

Just then, the train roared past. The little fox gave the machine a brief, wary look, and Harriet did too, watching blurs of black cross her vision like splatters of ink.

The greens and pinks and whites of her garden glowed in the hazy morning light while the train burst through, a violent shadowy interruption. She had become quite used to the train over the years, so much so that it was a part of the garden’s natural rhythm. It used to drown out her father’s thundering commands, and for that, Harriet had been grateful.

But now that it was just her, she found she did not appreciate the train quite as much as she once had.

A shower of overripe fruit thunked to the ground near the fox. The animal was too distracted by the juicy finale of his dessert to care. Now, he stumbled over the fallen plums. There was a distinct imbalance to his gait, and then he lay down right where he was, part of him shadowed by the thicket of blackberry brambles that stood guard along the garden wall and part of him glinting in the brightness of the day. He curled his head around so he lay snugly on top of his tail, a little white tuft sticking out like the corner of a pillow.

A tendril of leafed ivy, as alive as a hand, slunk up to the tiny fox, then another, and another. Soon, the animal was shrouded by vines and covered in veiny green leaves.

The garden explored the visitor, and the visitor slept.

Harriet turned away. The room around her was still and quiet, such a contrast to her garden. The flowers that adorned the walls in here were stuck in a flat, lifeless existence. The paper peeled away at the corners, exposing spots of bare adhesive and plaster. She had lived in this space since she’d been too small to see out of the window. Now, the neatly made bed lay half illuminated, stripped of its bed curtains, posts prodding the air like spears. A faded blanket that had once matched the wallpaper covered the bed, and a droopy pillow peaked limply, though she’d tried, and failed, to help it sit upright. The room smelled faintly stale, like dust trapped too long under layers of damp.

Though she had lived at Sunnyside house her whole life, it wasn’t exactly homey. Her father no longer paced the halls, shouting her name, making sure she was not out running through the streets barefoot and wild. He was no longer here to force her to stay indoors, closed off from the garden she loved and the world beyond it. That much was true. With her father gone now, she should have been happier in this house. She no longer had to cower in corners or lie on the floor peering beneath locked doors for hours at a time. But even now that she was alone, this place still did not feel like home. Perhaps even less so now that it was mostly bare. Her footfalls echoed in the emptiness as the floors moaned beneath her, and the walls appeared even more askew, leaning in as if taunting her.

And the off-key chimes of the Dutch clock that stood guard outside the basement door never trilled at the correct hour. It was enough to drive anyone mad.

Harriet knew she could leave these dark corridors for good. He was no longer here to keep her locked up, hidden away. The daughter he wished he’d never had. And yet, despite all this, she decided to stay. To her, the reason was obvious. It wasn’t the constricted rooms within Sunnyside’s tired, sagging walls that kept her here. It was the small patch of land just outside its doors.

She felt the urge to go down there, as she always did first thing in the morning. But her eyes fell again on the letter, and she sighed. She knew what was inside and could not bear to read it. They continued to arrive, these letters, getting more frequent and menacing. She always burned the letters as they came. What else could she do? Harriet could not pay down her father’s debts. The truth was, he left nothing behind for her. He had simply vanished. In the meantime, she had taken to pawning nearly everything of value in the house just so she could live. For most of her life, animal hides and ivory tusks had adorned the rooms of this house. Growing up, she’d been terrified by the sad, hulking remnants of dead animals that he paraded proudly to guests when they arrived for parties, which he spoke of as if he’d hunted them down himself, even though Harriet knew he’d never left England. But, in recent months, she’d earned enough to live off of when she pawned them. Now she kept her life minimal, specifically to avoid such extravagance—an order from the butcher

 once every fortnight, small amounts of butter, oil for the lamps, paper and ink, tea, milk.

Yesterday, she was going to destroy the letter, just as she had done with the others, but there was something odd about this one. It was not addressed to her father as all the others were. It was addressed to her.

She stuffed the letter into the pocket of her dress—the same dress she wore every day. Perhaps she would have the willpower to open it later.

Glancing in the mirror as she pinned her tawny red hair up without bothering to comb it through first, she nodded at her staid and sturdy reflection. She was no beauty—her plain features blossomed only in the best lighting. And then there was the darkened imprint of the scar that trailed gruesomely from lip to cheekbone on her right side.

Harriet grabbed her boots, though she did not put them on, and hurried down the worn stairs, which drooped and moaned. She passed the clock in the hall and shouldered her way out through the back door to her garden. Relief flooded her as she did, and she drew in a deep breath. She squinted happily into the late-summer glow.

The garden itself was enjoying the painted-on brightness of the day. The flowers were in full bloom—the dramatic pink of the Duchess of Sutherland roses and the flesh-colored Madame Audots met Harriet’s eye as she stepped out of the house. Flanking those stood the La Reines with their silvery undertones and the cabbage roses to the right. The cabbage roses, though they did not have a grand name, were Harriet’s favorite. More layers inside one flower than she could even count. She inhaled the sweet smell of the Duchesses and watched as every last bloom turned to face her as she padded barefoot from the door onto the stone walkway, bordered by lush green moss. Satisfied that Harriet was content, the flowers resumed their nourishing tilt toward the sky. The stones were cool beneath her feet.

And then there was the plum tree. The tree was the central presence in her back garden, spreading out freely between the house and garden wall. Its branches hung low with thick clusters of fruit that, indeed, looked sumptuous, but they were not exactly the kind of plums she could bake into a tart. Harriet felt guilty about letting most of them rot as they fell to the ground, but such was the fate of wild things that did not want to be tamed. The moss and earth beneath the tree were churned up, as if the roots were continuously growing and stretching. As she watched, small patches of green sprouted up before her eyes, blooming and covering the fresh dirt with expediency.

“You never sit still, do you?” she said aloud to the tree.

As she turned, she saw the familiar vines that snaked up the walls of the house on all sides, covering the brick up to her bedroom window. More roses perched high up on the walls too, woven within the evergreen ivy—spots of white that added to the garden’s feral dreaminess.

From the outside, the house showed signs of dilapidation. Though its structure was not falling down, not really, the roof did sag in places. The side door had become warped from incessant fog and rain, and the color of the brick was fading. None of this was from age. The house was no more than a few decades old. It was simply from a lack of care. Harriet’s father had decorated the rooms with his treasures, but never once did he repair the peeling paint of the parlor or the chipped wood of the banister. Though, over the last seven months, she couldn’t say she’d paid Sunnyside much attention either. It was far too damp and closed-in, like shackles around her. To get some relief—a sensation only truly available now that her father had gone—she let her garden grow up around it, let it snake in through windows on summer days, allowed it to grow wild and thick. If Harriet’s home would not be supported by love—and by now she knew better than that—it would have to be supported by plants.

And yet.

The garden could not be allowed complete freedom. Not after what happened. Because she was the sole keeper of this garden, she must remain as diligent as ever. She felt a small shudder at her feet in response to her thoughts. Yes, the garden seemed to say. There would be no limit to my wildness without you.

“And that is why I must always be here.”

It’s no wonder they all thought she was mad, speaking aloud to her plants.

The garden was, of course, more unruly than the neighbors appreciated. She heard as much from passersby almost daily. Unkempt. Too much. A waste. They did not even try to keep their voices low. But Harriet didn’t mind. They had always said the same about her too. She never interacted with neighbors except for the odd furtive look when she dared to venture out or the unabashed stares from children who had surely heard of the mad young woman of Sunnyside. It struck her as ironic that, despite her father’s best efforts, many people seemed to know about her, and they kept their distance. It was just as well. Harriet was fidgety and nervous around strangers. It had always

 been so. Years of being hidden, of being told she was unnatural, of being made so small it was almost as if she did not exist. She supposed that ought to take a toll on a person.

Her only visitor was Eunice. Dear Eunice, who never judged her and always overlooked her quirks. What a breath of fresh air it was to finally throw open the gate when she did come, and laugh freely, loudly, together in the garden without Harriet’s father barreling through the door or casting his dark shadow.

She strode over to the brambles, which resembled a thick, thorned tangle of hair. She knelt where the fox had curled up only minutes ago, looking for traces of the animal, but she could see nothing—no orange or white tufts, no beady black eyes. He was gone. Once again, she had been abandoned, and once again, she was surprised that she cared.

Aloneness was freedom, she supposed, but it was also empty.

***

The man in the round hat arrived an hour or so later, while Harriet sat beneath the plum tree, rereading the same passage from last month’s issue of Gardener’s Chronicle, wondering about garden ferns and, for the hundredth time, whether she would ever invest in a greenhouse. If she did not have to tend to this garden, if she could live where she wanted and create a home of her own, what would her garden look like? She often imagined trees. Dozens of them. Of course, she would need more space for that. A place out in the country with sparrows and forget-me-nots and evening primrose. She thought she would like a greenhouse. The purpose of such a structure would be to have summer blooms in winter, and vegetables if the conditions were right, and it would be wonderful to have fresh summer roses all year long.

But, of course, all these thoughts were pointless. She must remain here. This garden was hers, and without her—

“Mr. Hunt?”

An unfamiliar voice roused her from her thoughts.

It was the nasally twang of a busy man, and she heard a faint rap at the door around the front of the house. Harriet remained unmoving, hoping that her silence would encourage him to leave promptly. She was acutely aware that the silver-lavender roses at the corner of the front garden, just next to the hawthorn, perked up at the sound, swiveling to

face the front gate.

The man rounded the corner and spotted her all the way at the back, sitting beneath the plum tree. His small legs carried him over to her so quickly, she barely had the chance to cover her exposed toes, which rested naked over the moss, as they often did when she sat outside. She could feel the garden’s attention buzz to life all around her, the roses standing pert and cautious. This small signal was enough to put Harriet on edge.

“I am looking for Mr. Hunt.”

The man wore a thin mustache, which curled up at the ends quite intentionally. He had a short but sturdy stance to him, like he wouldn’t necessarily instigate a scuffle but was ready for one at any moment.

“It is quite urgent that I speak with him,” he said when she did not respond.

Harriet fidgeted, aware of ivy snaking subtly along the edges of the house, which she could see behind him. She willed the garden to be at ease as she laced up her boots beneath the cover of her skirts.

Her fingers grazed a pointed corner of something in her pocket. The letter.

She wondered if the man in front of her could be a debtor who was fed up with her silence and had finally come to collect what he was owed.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a nest of thorns separating itself from the garden wall and billowing forward, ever so slightly, growing inch by inch, sharpening in the glinting sunlight that muscled through the clouds.

She let a small nervous laugh escape her. The plants had become more and more unruly the more time she spent here by herself. She feared it would take some strain to keep them in check.

The man frowned deeply. “Is he within?”

Finally, boots secured, Harriet stood, wobbling slightly. She had a small height advantage that made the man take an involuntary step back, and the wrinkles on his forehead creased dramatically as he cleared his throat and stood up straighter. She dipped her shoulders so she would appear smaller and smiled weakly, still without speaking. More than half a year had passed since her father had disappeared, and the debt seemed to be mounting higher every day. Harriet had been naive enough think that if she ignored all their inquests, they would eventually stop harassing her and simply accept that he was

gone—that they would give up. Naive indeed.

“He is not within, Mr.—” she said with a shake in her voice. A thick, momentary silence followed.

“Inspector Stokes,” he said firmly.

Harriet was thrown for a moment. Inspector. So, he was not here to collect on debts after all. Her vision caught on his blue uniform and white striped cuffs. Of course. She should have put it together before. He was reading her carefully, she noticed now.

“He has not been within for more than seven months,” she managed. “My father has left the country.”

“I see.” He raised his eyebrows. “Have you any idea where he is, exactly?”

She did have some idea. He had run off to Denmark to live with his wealthy cousin, no doubt, as he had threatened to do many times before. It seems he was keen to avoid debtors’ prison, though he did not think of what would happen to her in his absence. Or perhaps, more accurately, he did not care. It hadn’t been a surprise to Harriet that he had left, in the end. Not really. The only surprise was that he did not send her away to the asylum before he left, as he had also threatened to do many times before. She tried not to fidget. “Denmark, I think, Mr. Stokes—Inspector Stokes—” Was it just her imagination or was he narrowing his eyes at her?

“Denmark.” He rubbed at his dimpled chin with stubby fingers. “Curious.”

From what she could glean, the man did not, in fact, think it curious at all. He appeared to have made up his mind on the matter. And those eyes. They told Harriet that he wanted to pry something from her.

“Tell me—Miss Hunt, I presume?”

Harriet nodded.

“How did you and your father leave things the last time you saw him? Did he seem agitated?”

Heat rushed to her face. The last time she saw her father, the night had been frigid. He’d stood in the threshold, barring her from escaping to the garden, which Harriet watched rise behind him like a thundercloud before he kicked the door closed and dragged her by the arm up the stairs, his fingernails slicing into her flesh. His shouts were manic. Unhinged. She had flinched when he raised a hand, but he’d only tugged at his hair so that it stuck straight up like horns. His eyes bulged red and

 unseeing. This time, when he threatened her, she’d gone cold, sensing some finality in his words. Locked inside her room, she’d tried to pry open the window, but, of course, he had jammed that shut too. She’d heard him thunder down the stairs and throw open the door. The silence that followed echoed throughout the empty house. Harriet had still been shaking, back pressed against the wall, fingers digging into her scalp, an hour later, maybe two. She’d clutched a candlestick in her hand, waiting for him to come back, to try to take her away. But he hadn’t come back at all.

“I—we had an argument.”

Stokes raised an eyebrow.

“It was brief, and then he was gone.”

Stokes tapped his fingers against his trouser leg. “Can I ask, what is in Denmark?”

She shook her head. “He has a cousin there, I think.”

“His name?” He pulled out a small piece of paper to capture her words in ink.

Harriet shook her head again. “I don’t know…”

“Hmm.” He dropped his hands to his sides and tipped his head slightly, never taking his eyes off her. “Not close with your father’s family then?”

“No.” Other than an unnamed cousin referenced when her father was particularly incensed, she didn’t think he had any family. The only kin she had ever known was her cousin Eunice—a second cousin, really—and she was related on her mother’s side. Harriet could sense Stokes’s gaze on her. She didn’t like the way it made her feel. Like a liar, somehow. She wished she knew what exactly he wanted.

She suddenly noticed the thorns peeling away from the garden wall, creeping up behind Stokes at shoulder level. Her eyes widened, and she tried to breathe slowly—hoping that the plants would sense her calm—but she could only manage quick, shallow breaths. She stared down the brambles, and the spindly arms paused, appearing to decide something. Stokes swiveled around to see what she was looking at, but thankfully, the thicket had eased back against the garden wall, just in time. Seeing nothing amiss, he turned slowly to face Harriet. She tried to force a confident, polite smile though she could feel the sweat—simultaneously hot and cold—collecting at the back

of her neck.

Harriet chanced a reluctant glance behind his other shoulder, worried that she would see watchful vines wriggling and curious rose blooms craning their necks to see what was to come. Inspector Stokes turned again. All was still. The house stood weakly behind the vines, like a drunkard leaning into the arms of a steady companion. The ivy pressed up innocently against the house and the roses looked perfectly demure.

Though when the man turned his back on the house again, they peeled themselves out of their stillness and began to hover.

Stop it, she mouthed at the vines. They did not retreat. Instead, she saw the ivy twisting and curling overhead, gathering momentum. Don’t you dare.

Stokes was looking at her. “Your neighbors say you have a history of…strange behavior, Miss Hunt.” He punctuated the word strange. She pulled her eyes from the garden, her attention snagging on his tone. He had spoken to the neighbors, then. About her. She could feel him searching her, as if she were an interesting object, a curiosity, or something even more rare.

Stokes looked her up and down with squinting eyes, as if bringing her stained dress and mussed-up hair into focus. “Where did you get that scar?”

She blinked to bring him into focus now too. There was a flash in his eyes that made her pause. Was it contempt? No, she knew quite clearly what that looked like. It was more like cunning. She could not pinpoint it, exactly, but it made her skin prickle. It also made the thorns on the cabbage roses thicken and sharpen. The garden had sensed it too, then.

“It’s from when I was a girl.”

Hearing a rustling behind her, Harriet took a panicked sidestep toward the front garden, hoping he would turn away from the roses. The pale blossoms of the Madame Audots bobbed, leaned in, listened.

Thankfully, Stokes swiveled to follow her. She closed her eyes tightly, willing the

garden to relax. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it, she mouthed silently again.

“Have you been living here alone, Miss Hunt?” Stokes asked.

Harriet barely heard him. Leave it, she muttered through clenched teeth, her eyes still on the roses. The advancing stems hesitated, and she dipped her face to try to hide her hard glare. After a beat, which felt surreally like disappointment, the garden subsided, and she watched the flowers settle back into place.

“Miss Hunt.” His impatience was unveiled now, as if he were addressing an unmanageable child.

“Sorry?” A single bead of sweat dripped down Harriet’s back, but she let her shoulders release.

“Who supports you? How are you able to live here on your own, a young woman, with no husband or father?” He had his pen and paper out again.

Now that the garden was still, she could finally think. Who supported her? She supported herself. What choice did she have? A monthly trip to the pawnbrokers was how she had gotten by so far, but she would soon run out of carpets, dishes, trinkets, ornaments, candlesticks, and her mother’s jewelry—all of it. Thankfully, she had convinced her landlord to allow monthly, rather than annual payments. Her father had been quite fond of expensive things, for better or worse, and it had been helpful for the past several months, but by now, the interior of the house was all but bare. Just a few necessities remained in Harriet’s possession: one chair in the parlor, a breakfast table, a few dishes given to her by Eunice, a worn-down, old-fashioned kitchen table. There was the Dutch clock in the front passage, which was lacquered oak and brass, and which she would be happy to be rid of—but the glass face was cracked. She was sure it would sell for very little. And of course, there was the lovely Henry Pickering landscape hanging in the parlor, which she hoped would be worth a fair amount should she need it, but it was the one thing in the house she didn’t mind looking at.

As she stared back at the man’s small eyes and curled-up whiskers, heat crept up Harriet’s neck. She wondered if she should tell him about the debtors. Perhaps that would explain her father’s absence better. It might at least stop him from looking at her that way.

“Did he explicitly tell you he was going to Denmark when he left?”

The shift back to the subject of her father shook her. Perhaps Stokes had already made up his mind about how Harriet supported herself. “Well, no. But—”

“And did he tell anyone else about his travel plans?”

“I don’t know. I—”

“And did you ever wonder where he was? Why he didn’t come back?”

Harriet’s muscles

went rigid.

“You see, it’s strange. His colleagues say that he has never mentioned any relations at all. No cousin in Denmark. No sister in Spain. No wife in Wapping. And no daughter in Upper Holloway. Now, why would that be?”

The moss at Harriet’s feet suddenly radiated heat, friction mounting between her boots and the ground. She knew exactly why that would be. She shifted from one foot to the other and back again, swallowing her retort. She wished he would just leave. All around her, she could feel the rapt attention of each plant—each bud, each leaf. Fingers of ivy lifted off the wall above them, quivering with tension. Thorns resumed sharpening their points, and roses widened their blossoms. These were the small signs of battle preparation that Harriet feared. The garden was waiting, ready to act in her defense, but she could not afford to let it go wild. ...