The Weeds.

Eleanor hacked at the brambles until her hands were blistered and sore. The midday sun beat down on her as she dug determinedly into the dry, stubborn soil, yanking up roots and tough, thorny stems. She’d been at it all morning. Sore and dripping with sweat, she stepped back to admire her handiwork. It was a start. A patch was starting to clear and she could see the brown, dusty soil underneath. A patch where she’d promised herself, a year ago, in the full flush of honeymoon, that she’d plant a vegetable garden.

They’d fallen in love with the house at first sight. A small Georgian terrace built in traditional Bath stone, the building shone gold when bathed in the light of the morning sun. Its long, narrow back garden was full of possibility. A secret garden. What they hadn’t banked on was just how much work the house needed. They thought they’d gone in with their eyes open, but pretty soon the cracks had started to show. They’d made a plan, budgeted for the things they needed to prioritise: a new boiler, replacing the bathroom window, renovating the old kitchen. But it wasn’t long before one unforeseen problem after another began to rear its head. An inspection had revealed faulty wiring. A February storm brought down roof tiles and resulted in water damage. James’s job had taken him away for weeks at a time, leaving Eleanor to do much of the work herself, as well as juggle her job and caring for her increasingly frail mother. They wanted kids someday soon, but Eleanor didn’t know when they were going to find the time. All these problems, combined with the pressure to get the house into a liveable state had left the garden badly neglected. Eleanor looked out at it guiltily as she poured herself a glass of water from the tap and splashed her face to cool down. She savoured the shade for a moment. The house did look nice now, she thought. The downstairs part, anyway. The bit that James’s parents coolly surveyed when they visited — her choice of furnishings going mercifully unremarked upon, yet she felt she could always detect a faint whiff of disapproval. The ever-present pressure to be the perfect hostess meant she couldn’t ever really relax and enjoy her surroundings, the ones she’d worked so hard on.

She wondered if it would ever be enough, if she’d ever be done. James didn’t seem to feel this pressure. He’d come home from work and just sit and relax for the rest of the day. But somehow there were always a thousand things on Eleanor’s to-do list.

Now it was time for the garden. The thing she had really been looking forward to. But she felt like she already had a fight on her hands. She tried to imagine this time next year when she could sit out in the sun, drink in hand, watching the birds and butterflies dancing among the flowers. That day seemed a long way off. She sighed and stepped back out into the heat.

By the evening she’d cleared a slightly bigger patch, the brambles and weeds piled up ready for a bonfire. It was back-breaking work, and by the time she finally laid down her spade at the end of the long day, she was tired and irritable. “What’s for dinner?” called James as he walked through the front door after work. Eleanor knew he was only joking, but she glared at him anyway. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m heading out to the gym anyway.” He held up his hands in mock protest. ”I’ll pick up a takeaway on the way back.” Eleanor couldn’t remember the last time someone had cooked her dinner, but at that moment she was glad to be let off the hook anyway. She still had to drop some shopping over to her mother, and those visits always took longer than she planned for.

Eleanor and her mother had never had the easiest relationship, but since her stroke a few years ago she’d come to depend on Eleanor. The stroke had left her with limited mobility, which was difficult enough. But more than anything, it had isolated her socially, her memory often failing her and leaving her easily confused. So she’d stopped going out, relying on a steady stream of carers — when they turned up, anyway. It was one of the reasons Eleanor and James had decided to move to the area, to be close by. But it meant Eleanor had one more responsibility. She called in or took her shopping over most days, and often her mother would want to chat about her no-good father and his new wife, who Eleanor thought was perfectly fine. This evening’s visit lasted nearly two hours before Eleanor had made her excuses and left, managing a quick dinner of Chinese takeaway at home before crawling into bed (James’s mother would never approve).

The next morning she woke up aching but determined to make a bigger dent in the garden. Despite her sore muscles and sunburnt shoulders, she donned her gardening gloves once again and strode purposefully out to the far end of the garden. A small cloud of disappointment passed over as she saw the cleared patch wasn’t as big as she’d remembered. Frowning slightly, she brushed it aside.

Yet another day passed in the blazing heat. In the frequent breaks Eleanor afforded herself, she phoned carers and plumbers (the house still had plenty of issues she had to deal with), planned meals and took care of the washing. She was grateful not to be at work, she supposed. At least she worked in a school, so she had the summer off. On the other hand, she didn’t quite know when she was going to get a break. This certainly didn’t feel like a holiday. And each time she returned to the garden, Eleanor swore she could see thorny shoots of brambles springing up in the places she’d already cleared.

On the third day, she was certain. When Eleanor returned to the garden, the brambles grew thicker than ever. Fighting back tears of frustration, she hacked away at them, fought them as hard as she could, her hands raw and bloody, thorns scratching her all over. When she finally collapsed into bed that night she felt only despair. She had nothing to show for all her hard work. Nothing.

She awoke to the full moon shining brightly through the thin curtains of the bedroom. Eleanor could have sworn some sound had roused her, but when she sat up in bed all was deathly quiet. Eerily so. Suddenly not remotely sleepy, she tiptoed downstairs to the kitchen, careful not to wake James who was snoring beside her. Opening the patio door that looked out onto the garden, she stopped in her tracks. Her garden was no longer a garden. It was a dense thicket. Twisted tentacles grew in gnarly knots, illuminated by the moon’s silver glow. A thick, impenetrable forest of thorns. The hairs on the back of Eleanor’s neck suddenly stood up with the feeling of being no longer alone. The garden was a living thing. She could almost hear it growing, the creak of its branches as it reached out to her with its spiky limbs. She walked towards the sprawling mass as if hypnotised. But as she did so, she didn’t feel afraid. In that moment she felt like she understood the garden.

Like an old friend, the garden held out its arms and seemed to open up to greet her, a passageway opening up before her eyes. As she continued forward she expected the tangled forest to become darker and darker, but instead the moonlight seemed to shine ever brighter, revealing bejewelled boughs and fantastic blooms the like of which she’d never seen before. The thorny branches were no longer her enemies, but her protectors, and her guides.

The garden (if she really was still in the garden) seemed to stretch much further than she remembered. When Eleanor felt like she had been walking for hours, she came to a clearing in the forest. At the centre of the clearing was a round, silver pool, just a few metres across. The surface was a perfect mirror, with not a single ripple to disturb it. Its enchanting bluish glow may have been the reflection of the moonlight, or might just as easily come from the pool itself. All Eleanor knew was that it was magical, and it was here for her. She moved closer, until she could see her own face in the mirror surface. She could see the lines of worry fading, the tension disappearing from her reflection. The sandy earth at the water’s edge crunched between the toes of her bare feet. In that moment the world felt far away. A different world called to her. She stepped back, took a running jump and plunged beneath the surface.

Eleanor didn’t remember how she got back to her bed that night, but she awoke early the next morning, remarkably refreshed. She looked out at the garden as she drank her coffee. It was no longer the imposing thicket she remembered from last night, but nor was it tame. There was still something of the wild about it, something a little mysterious. Eleanor didn’t work in the garden that day, or the next. Instead she took a little time to herself. Went to the library. Pulled up a chair on the small patio and read in the afternoon shade. One day, she would dig out her own little corner of the garden, plant her vegetable patch. But for now, the garden wanted to be wild. And Eleanor wanted to be wild too.

She still goes down there at night, when the moon is full. That’s when the garden is truly hers. Somewhere to escape, to swim in the cool waters of another time and place. Another life. A place to keep her dreams alive.