““On the night that she'd been brought here she'd had the idea that the abbey was closed in by trees. Now she could see that a little green stood on the other side of the gravel drive. Yellow flowers were in bloom here as well- a veritable carpet of them. She walked across the drive, heading toward the flowers. Daffodils. They were daffodils, thousands of them. Iris knelt in the grass and inhaled the faint perfume. A breeze passed by and all the bright-yellow trumpets nodded as one. How could this be? Had someone patiently planted each bulb? But no. The daffodils weren't in soldierly rows. They bloomed in drifts and clumps. They must be wild. She drew in her breath in wonder. How amazing that such beautiful ephemeral things could bloom here in this house of death and decay. But perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps the abbey wasn't dying. Perhaps it merely waited, sleeping, for joy and life to return to it.””
