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arms of her son and Enoch.
    Enoch, the stranger, but a stranger no longer. Tall and lean, his immense height dwarfed both Grace and Barry. But more than his height drew me to him. There was, in the way he moved, a rhythm, a flow that tempted me.
    ‘Enoch!’ I cried. Why did I call? I didn’t want him here, but couldn’t conquer the urge to have him stay, even if for a little while longer. ‘Wait!’
    They stopped, and stared back. Barry was puzzled and a little bit irritated. Grace smiled and sent a vague, approving nod in my direction.
    Enoch…Enoch stood reposed and watchful. Why had I called him?
    ‘I have a gift for you,’ I blurted. Another flush of heat swamped my cheeks. When last had I acted on impulse? I couldn’t remember. As fickle as the child Little Flower once was, I ran back into the mansion and scooped the bunch of white roses out of their bowl.
    He met me at the top of the stairs and I stopped, uncertain now that he was so close and the full force of his presence faced me.
    ‘Are those for me?’ he asked. the warm glow in his eyes gave me the courage to answer.
    ‘For your room. Grace will have a vase in the kitchen cupboard under the stove.’
    He buried his nose in their sweet fragrance. ‘Thank you, little one.’
    I laughed to cover the perplexing moisture in my eyes. ‘You’re so tall; everyone must be little to you.’
    Enoch smiled over the blooms, but said no more. He turned and, pausing to chat with the obsequious Elijah, who stopped polishing the Rolls to doff his cap and nod eagerly at whatever the Outlander was saying, walked back to where the others waited, clutching my wet and drooping offering in his hands.
    I watched them go. I heard the motor groan, then kick into life. The garden sparrows fluttered to the safety of the air and the smell of diesel burnt my nostrils. None of it touched me, until the car that carried him away disappeared with a spurt of energy around the corner and out the elaborate wrought-iron gates protecting the entrance to my mansion.
    ‘Don’t be sad, ma’am,’ Elijah said. ‘The Master will return.’
    Finished with the car’s wash, he was dressed in his chauffeur’s uniform. He kept it as clean and shiny as the old Rolls, not that he often drove us anywhere. He thought the speed limit was under thirty and, besides, Barry preferred to drive himself in his new Ford motor car, so mostly Elijah drove Grace where she wanted to go.
    ‘I’m not sad, Elijah,’ I lied, for melancholy shrouded me as the early morning fog often blurred the view of the sea from the rose garden. How did I explain my absurd reaction to the stranger? ‘Barry will be back.’
    Elijah pushed himself away from where he leaned on the Rolls. He staggered with old age but steadied himself. ‘Not Master Barry, ma’am. The other Master .’
    Did I fear never seeing Enoch again? The comfort I took in the old servant’s words surprised me. I breathed out, then in, slow and easy until the smell of the sea, salty and sharp, rustled through the rose garden and swirled around my nostrils.
    When I was calm, I walked back inside. I crossed the threshold of the mansion that, in the years since I met Barry junior, had become the only real home I ever had. I stopped and gazed at the table, bare now, except for droplets of water pooling on its shiny surface around the base of a crystal vase, half filled with murky water, a few forlorn leaves left floating on its surface.
    Why was I so stupid? Why had I given Enoch the flowers? I found no answer in the empty bowl and unbidden tears returned to overwhelm me. For once, I forgot my dignity. I ran helter-skelter up the stairs to lock myself in my bedroom.
    I was still there when Barry returned. And I did not come out, not even when the redemptive darkness of another night descended; silencing everything but the slow, heavy thump of my heart and the memory of Little Flower’s incessant weeping.

Chapter 6
Zahra (The Past)
    “I will not choose what