His room was the same, clean, but the same. He hadn’t been here since the year he turned eleven but he remembered everything. The drab curtains and beddings, the awful painting of his grandfather on the wall placed there by his father to “remind him of his lineage.” It gave him nothing but nightmares but he still loved this place. His room was located right above the garden and if he stood at the corner he could see the sun rise and set over the water. He spent his best years here and a part of him was happy to be back, the other part was terrified. 

“It’s just the way you left it,” Meredith smiled as she walked. She stumbled on her own to feet and almost fell into his arms. 

Sean held his mother and frowned. She was starting to look pale again. Sean stopped worrying about his mother’s drinking a long time ago. Once she showed up to his dorm in the middle of the night crying under his window, saying things he wasn’t supposed to hear. He learned to plaster a smile and pretend everything was great, just like his mother taught him. 

“Dinner will be ready at seven, come down once your settled,” Meredith gathered herself and waddled out of the room. 

Sean sighed and laid on his bed. 

At seven, Sean went down to the dining room. He noticed that the table was set for four. 

“Are we expecting someone?” Sean asked. 

His parents looked at each other and said nothing. Sean sat down for dinner, he was used to this. Questions that went unanswered by his parents were better that way, and it was best to never pry. 

They ate silently. 

Sean looked up from his rare steak and noticed his mother was starting to have one of her shaking fits. She looked agitated, then threw her napkin down and turned to the lead maid. 

“Tell her to come down for dinner or she can forget about a meal,” Meredith yelled. 

His father was silently eating, ignoring his mother’s fit about a guest that was late to dinner. 

Meredith got up and walked towards the stairs screaming, “Bring her down here, even if you need to drag her down by her bloody hair.”

Sean was stunned he’d never seen her so angry. “Mum, it’s okay,” he grinned “I can meet your guest another...”

Meredith shot him an awful glare before he could complete his statement, “She is not my guest!” she shouted as she directed her glare at his father. 

Sean Clyde looked up from his plate for the first time, wiped his mouth, got up and left the table. He walked past Meredith who was standing at the end of the stairs. Sean had had enough of dinner and the theatrics as well and followed his father to the stairs. 

Sean stopped in his tracks as he looked up. Standing at the top of stairs, leaning over the railing with a smug look on her face. It was her. It was the girl…

The girl from the Rose Garden.