If only he knew that morning would be a disaster, he would have slept in, besides he was hungover from the previous night. The morning was usually cold, the kind of cold that comes with staying at the hill, at the Archie Dynasty.
George was now very familiar with the cold, it was on mornings like this after a night of being drunk that he enjoyed tending to the garden, trimming the flowers, and watering the plants. That was his job anyway. The first time he came, he struggled to thrive in the foggy weather present every morning but as the days went by so fast, it was easier for him. Besides, the garden was the heiress's and it was her first stop every morning. He gathered up his tools in his barrow and rolled to the small field of tulips first, foreign leaves were already surrounding the stem, he needed to take care of that and cut some tulips for the vase that is in the Lord's study. This was the last order the heiress had given him before retiring to the mansion. She could come by anytime now to check on the garden. It was her favorite place, her safe haven, it reflected her personality, her aura, her beauty. She would walk gracefully through the part that leads to the small field of lilies, dressed in her favorite yellow robe, those were her favorite, they were hardly ever cut except for when she chooses to change her vase. George admired her, she was kind, soft spoken and elegant in a very unique way. She smiled at him, it made him flutter but he did not dare smile back. She was the wife of Lord, his
boss. But those smiles made him cringe at night, while he lay on his bed, his face on the ceiling, visualizing a life with the heiress in a small town far away from the hills, a small house by the river, with a big garden full of lilies. He would tend to them everyday for her, and always fill up the vases with them, even her bath tub will have lilies floating on soapy water. He would worship her. But those were just his imagination, he feared his mind could imagine so much, it would never come true but it made him happy in a strange way and that was how he drifted into sleep every night.
He was now done with the tulips. He had carefully arranged the ones to be taken to the mansion. He would give it to Olivia to give to any of the maids that would clean Lord's study. He hardly ever enters the mansion, there were no rules forbidding him not to, but he never felt worthy to grace the floors of the magnificent palace. He was always dirty and sweaty from spending hours in the garden, and so whenever he brought in the flowers needed for decorating the palace, he handed them over to Olivia.
He picked up his tools and walked towards the lilies, he knew there would be no foreign leaves, he tended to them daily, he would still need to check them because it was his routine. He got to the edge of the plant and saw drops of red liquid sprinkled on a few of the flowers, he examined it closely and realized it was blood, he froze on his knees. He looked ahead unto the bed of lilies and saw that a body lay cold on the flower roots. There was a rush of adrenaline throughout his body. It took him seconds to get a grip of himself and go check who it was, a delicate white skin turned purple engulfed in blood that seemed to have flowed out of the victim's stomach and neck and there was more blood now on the flowers. He checked closely and saw that it was the heiress, she had been aggressively stabbed in her stomach and had a huge cut on her neck. He fell down, landed on her blood, it was like his legs got paralyzed for a moment, he wanted to scream, but he couldn't find his voice. He felt cold, his head spinning, his first thought " why her lilies?? Why would her killer dump her on her lilies?" The blood all over the bed of lilies blurred his vision and made him teary, sweaty. He just saw the corpse of Lord's wife, the heiress, killed and dumped like an animal, the murder weapon still in her abdomen. He found himself on his feet staggering towards the mansion. Again he tried to scream but couldn't get it out and then it hit him- she had died in her garden, the garden he tends to, where no one else aside she and him entered because no one else ever cared about nature like she did and that was why he was employed, to tend to "her nature", her flowers. He froze again, it wasn't him! He didn't do it! What if they thought He did it?. He met her like that, cold to the bone, drained of her blood and on her lilies. It struck him again too, he had seen her last night, full of life so it bugged him when she had been killed and dumped in her lilies. He ran as fast as he could to the mansion screaming for help. Nate was the first person he saw, who responded to him asking him what was wrong. He couldn't find the words to describe to the young lad that his mom was laying dead on her blood and on her favorite flowers. Nate joined him and they both ran towards the garden, Isla following behind, she had seen them both running and was curious to know what was going on. Nate was expressionless when he saw the body of his mother on the flowers, Isla screamed and broke down on the grass, crying so loud it made George cringe again.
"Who did this?". Nate asked
"I found her like this". He was almost sure Nate suspected him, it showed in his teary grin. And then he let out a loud cry and he slowly kneeled beside her and grabbed her head to his chest. "Mother" he uttered in a faintly teary male hoarse voice. Isla crawled slowly to where her feet laid and grabbed it gently. She had not been on best terms with her mother, but seeing her helplessly in the pool of her blood made her weak at heart, she felt a slight pain in her chest as she held her feet and then it struck - she had never regarded her as her mother and will never get the chance to.