The flashbulbs popped as my neighbor, Madison, held up the trophy, a triumphant smile on her face and my mother’s rarest flower—the one she’d stolen from my garden under the cover of darkness—in her prize-winning bouquet.
She was the new queen of our perfect suburban neighborhood.
Just a few months ago, she was the charming young woman who moved in next door and gushed over my garden. That garden was my life’s work, a living, breathing memory of my late mother.
Madison saw it, and she decided it would be hers.
First, a rare dahlia appeared in her yard. Then a prized rose bush. She claimed they were lucky finds from a boutique nursery.
I knew she was a liar. But our Homeowners Association, the all-powerful HOA, only saw her perfect lawn and big smile. They adored her. They even put her on the committee that judged the very contest she planned to win with my plants.
She thought she had everyone fooled, that she had gotten away with everything.
Little did she know, her award speech was just the opening act, and I had the main event queued up on a giant projector screen for the whole neighborhood to see.
The Seed of Doubt: A Perfect Lawn, An Imperfect Welcome
The moving truck was offensively large. It blocked the entire street, its diesel engine rumbling a low, chesty growl that vibrated through the floorboards of my office. From my second-story window, I watched a team of movers, all muscle and sweat, carry an endless parade of sleek, minimalist furniture into the house next door. The house that had, for six quiet years, been occupied by the Callahans, an elderly couple who kept to themselves and grew immaculate, if boring, petunias.
“Well, there goes the neighborhood,” my husband, Tom, said, handing me a fresh mug of coffee. He stood behind me, his hands resting on my shoulders, as we watched a ridiculously expensive-looking white sectional navigate the front door. “That sofa costs more than our car.”
“Don’t be dramatic,” I said, but he wasn’t wrong. The house had sold in a day, for a price that made my teeth ache, to a young couple we knew only by the name on the flurry of renovation permits taped to the front window: Madison and Chase Montgomery.
Our neighborhood, Oak Creek Estates, was a strange pocket of upper-middle-class suburbia. We had an HOA with an iron-fisted grip on mailbox colors and lawn height, and an unspoken social hierarchy that revolved around summer barbecues and who had the greenest grass. The crown jewel of this suburban kingdom was the annual “Best Neighborhood Garden” award, a competition taken with the seriousness of a presidential election. My mother had won it three years in a row before she passed, leaving me her house and her garden—a chaotic, beautiful legacy of heirloom plants and rare blooms that was my sanctuary.
A woman emerged from the house, clapping her hands with sharp, directorial authority. She was young, maybe late twenties, dressed in athleisure wear that had never seen a gym. Her blonde hair was pulled into a high, swinging ponytail. That had to be Madison. She pointed a perfectly manicured finger at a mover carrying a large, ornate mirror. “Careful with that! It’s vintage.”
Tom snorted. “I’m going to go mow the lawn. I feel a sudden, desperate need to assert my territory.”
I watched him go, a small smile playing on my lips. But as Madison turned and her gaze swept across our property, her eyes lingered on my garden. It was a riot of late-spring color, the climbing roses my mother had babied for twenty years scaling the trellis, the unique, deep-purple irises standing like sentinels along the fence. Madison’s expression wasn’t one of simple admiration. It was sharper, more focused. It was the look of someone taking inventory.
An Invitation and an Inquisition
A week later, a small, embossed card appeared in our approved HOA-standard mailbox. “You’re invited for coffee and conversation! Let’s be neighbors. Madison.” The script was a loopy, practiced cursive.
“It’s a trap,” Tom said, peering at it over my shoulder as I sliced cucumbers for a salad. “She’s going to try to absorb you into her social-climbing collective.”
“She’s trying to be nice,” I countered, though a knot of unease had already formed in my stomach. “It’s what new neighbors do.”
The next morning, I walked across the fifty feet of pristine sod that separated our properties. Madison’s front porch was already decorated with two enormous ferns in glossy white pots. She opened the door before I could ring the bell, a brilliant, toothy smile plastered on her face. “Sarah! I’m so glad you could make it.”
Her house smelled of fresh paint and expensive candles. The inside was a sterile expanse of white and gray, like a magazine photo you could admire but never live in. We sat at a marble-topped island while a space-age coffee machine hissed and whirred.
“I just have to tell you,” she began, leaning forward with an unnerving intensity, “your garden is absolutely breathtaking. I’ve been staring at it from my kitchen window all week.”
“Thank you. It was my mother’s.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet,” she said, her tone dripping with a sympathy that felt rehearsed. “I’m a complete novice, but I’m dying to start my own. Chase and I, we just feel a beautiful garden really makes a house a home, you know? It’s so important for the neighborhood aesthetic. Especially with the garden competition coming up.”
She spoke about the contest as if it were a given that she’d be entering. Her questions started out general—soil types, sunlight—but quickly became specific. “Those deep red flowers by the birdbath, what are they called? I’ve never seen anything like them.”
“They’re dahlias. A hybrid my mother developed. She called them ‘Crimson Star.’”
“Crimson Star,” Madison repeated, her eyes gleaming. “And the roses on the fence? Are they hard to find?”
“They’re an old heirloom variety. You can’t really buy them.”
The conversation felt less like a friendly chat and more like an interview. I felt like a resource being mined for data. I left an hour later with a vague headache and the distinct feeling that I had just been thoroughly scouted by the opposition.
The Ghost of a Dahlia
Out of a misplaced sense of neighborly duty, I had given Madison a few cuttings before I left—some hardy sedum, a bit of lamb’s ear. Nothing special, just some fillers to get her started. “A little welcome-to-the-neighborhood gift,” I’d said.
“You are just the kindest person,” she’d gushed, taking them from me as if I were handing her a sacred relic.
For a few weeks, a fragile peace settled. I saw Madison outside with landscapers, pointing and directing. Bags of expensive organic soil appeared. A sophisticated irrigation system was installed. I tried to ignore it, focusing on my own work, my own life. My daughter, Lily, was finishing her first year of college, and her texts about finals and homesickness were a welcome distraction. Tom and I settled back into our comfortable routine.
One Saturday afternoon, I was weeding along the property line when I saw it. Tucked into a newly prepared flower bed on Madison’s side of the fence was a splash of familiar, deep red. I stood up slowly, my gardening gloves covered in dirt.
It was a “Crimson Star” dahlia. Not a seedling, but a small, flowering plant, already established.
I walked over, my heart beginning to beat a little faster. Madison was on her porch, scrolling through her phone. She looked up and smiled. “Oh, hey, Sarah! What do you think? It’s starting to come together.”
I pointed. “Where did you get that dahlia?”
She followed my gaze, her expression unbothered. “Oh, that thing? I found it at this adorable little boutique nursery on a trip last weekend. A lucky find, I guess. It reminded me of yours.”
My mother had never sold or given her hybrids to any nursery. She’d shared them only with a small, tight-knit circle of gardeners, all of whom were now long gone. There was no “lucky find.” There was only my garden, and the cuttings I had never given.
I just stared at her, a cold wave washing over me.
She tilted her head, her smile unwavering. “Isn’t it pretty?”
The Tell-Tale Tear
The dahlia was a violation, but a quiet one. There was no concrete proof, only my gut instinct screaming at me. I tried to push it down. I was being territorial, I told myself. I was grieving my mother and projecting it onto this woman. Tom listened patiently to my rants, his expression growing more concerned each time. “She sounds like a piece of work, hon,” he’d say. “Just keep your distance.”
I focused my energy on the garden, pouring my anxiety into the soil. A few days later, I was pruning the “Moonlight” rose bush, my mother’s absolute pride and joy. It was a rare English rose, with blossoms the color of pale cream in the moonlight, and it was notoriously difficult to propagate. As I snipped a dead branch, my shears slipped, tearing a small, perfect V-shape into one of the lower leaves. I sighed, annoyed at my clumsiness. It was a minor imperfection, visible only if you were looking for it.
That Friday night, Madison threw a housewarming party. The noise, a thumping bass line and high-pitched laughter, bled through our closed windows. I declined the generic invitation we’d received, wanting nothing more than to be left alone. Tom and I were watching a movie when my phone buzzed with a notification. It was a tag on a neighborhood social media post.
Someone had posted a video from the party, a panning shot of the happy guests mingling on Madison’s new stone patio. And there, in a large, stylish pot right next to the back door, was a “Moonlight” rose bush. It was small but healthy, its creamy buds just beginning to open. Madison, champagne flute in hand, was telling a small group how she’d had it “specially imported.”
My breath caught in my throat. I pinched the screen to zoom in, my finger tracing the pixels. The video quality wasn’t perfect, but it was clear enough. On a low-hanging leaf, caught in the glow of a patio light, was a small, V-shaped tear.
The world narrowed to the bright rectangle in my hand. It wasn’t a similar plant. It wasn’t a coincidence. It was my plant. Stolen from my garden, pruned from its roots, and now being paraded around as a trophy. The movie droned on, but I couldn’t hear it. All I could hear was the blood rushing in my ears.
A Tangled Vine: The Committee of One
The official email arrived the following Monday. The subject line, in cheerful green letters, read: “Get Your Gardens Ready! The 12th Annual Oak Creek Estates Garden Competition is Here!” I scrolled through the email, my stomach twisting. The rules were the same, the prize money had increased, and the judging would be held at the annual neighborhood summer party in four weeks.
Then I saw the final paragraph. “We’re so thrilled to welcome a new member to the HOA Beautification Committee this year, your neighbor Madison Montgomery! Madison’s fresh perspective and passion for gardening are a wonderful addition to our team.”
I read the sentence three times. The Beautification Committee selected the judges. The Beautification Committee tallied the votes. The Beautification Committee handed out the prize.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered to the empty room.
I forwarded the email to Tom with the subject line, “Conflict of interest?” His reply came back two minutes later. “That’s not a conflict of interest. That’s a coup.”
It was brilliant, in a sociopathic sort of way. Madison hadn’t just moved into the neighborhood; she’d executed a strategic infiltration. She’d identified the local currency—social status via curb appeal—and had immediately seized a position of power. She wasn’t just going to compete. She was going to rig the game from the inside. The dahlia, the rose—they weren’t just thefts. They were acquisitions for her campaign.
I closed my laptop and walked to the window overlooking our yards. Madison was out there, directing two workmen who were installing a fancy, three-tiered water fountain. She looked up, as if sensing my gaze, and gave me a little wave. I didn’t wave back. The battle lines had just been officially drawn.
A Plague of Generosity
The next few weeks were a quiet, insidious form of psychological warfare. Madison’s garden exploded with life. Mature plants seemed to appear overnight in beds that had been empty the day before. It was like watching a time-lapse video of a garden growing, except the source material was mine.
I started noticing smaller, subtler thefts. A patch of rare, blue-leafed hosta that grew in a shady corner by my porch was suddenly thinner. Then, I saw the same hosta bordering the new water fountain next door. A specific strain of coral bells my mother had cultivated, with delicate, silver-veined leaves, vanished from my rock garden. A week later, they were accenting the base of Madison’s HOA-approved mailbox.
The most infuriating part was the narrative she was building. During my morning walks, I saw pieces of my garden distributed throughout the neighborhood. Mrs. Gable from down the street had a pot of my mother’s unique creeping thyme. The Hendersons at the corner had a patch of the silver-veined coral bells.
“Oh, isn’t it lovely?” Mrs. Gable trilled when she saw me looking. “Madison gave me a cutting. She is just the most generous soul. So determined to make the whole neighborhood beautiful.”
Madison wasn’t just a thief; she was a philanthropist of stolen goods. She was inoculating herself, spreading the evidence around so that if I ever spoke up, I wouldn’t be a victim pointing a finger at a criminal. I’d be a sore loser attacking the neighborhood’s beloved benefactor. She was buying loyalty with pieces of my mother’s legacy. Each shared cutting was another juror she’d bought off before the trial even began.
The Thorny Truth
Tom saw the toll it was taking on me. I was barely sleeping, and every time I looked out the window, a fresh jolt of anger went through me. I’d stopped enjoying my garden; now, it just felt like a crime scene I was forced to live in.
“You have to confront her,” he said one evening, taking my hands in his. “Not accusingly. Just… ask. Put her on the spot. See what she does.”
“What’s the point, Tom? She’ll just lie.”
“Let her lie to your face,” he said, his voice firm. “Don’t let her do this from a distance. Make her look you in the eye.”
The next day, I saw her outside, supervising the placement of a stone bench. I took a deep breath, walked across the lawn, and prayed my voice wouldn’t shake.
“Madison,” I said. She turned, her smile bright and automatic.
“Sarah! Hi! What do you think of the bench?”
“It’s nice,” I said, my tone flat. “I have a question for you. The ‘Moonlight’ rose bush you had at your party. It looked identical to mine.”
Her smile didn’t falter, but something in her eyes hardened. “Yes, I suppose they do. It’s a popular variety.”
“It’s not, actually. It’s quite rare. And the one you had, it had a small tear on one of the leaves, just like mine does.” I held my ground, keeping my gaze steady.
Her face changed. The bright, neighborly mask dissolved, replaced by a look of cold, sharp annoyance. The friendliness evaporated so quickly it felt like a physical drop in temperature. “I’m not sure what you’re implying, Sarah,” she said, her voice laced with ice.
“I’m not implying anything. I’m asking where you got the plant.”
She took a step closer, her posture becoming aggressive. “You know, I was so excited to move here. I thought people would be friendly, welcoming. But ever since I arrived, I’ve felt this… strange hostility from you. I’m trying my best to fit in, to make this place beautiful, and all you can do is fixate on my plants.” She let out a short, sharp laugh that held no humor. “Frankly, it’s a little obsessive. Are you okay?”
The gaslighting was so potent, so immediate, that for a split second, I actually questioned myself. Was I being obsessive? Was I the crazy one?
She saw the flicker of doubt in my eyes and pressed her advantage. “I’m sorry if my garden makes you feel insecure about your own,” she said, her voice dripping with pity. “But this jealousy is really not a good look.” She turned her back on me and walked away, leaving me standing alone on her perfect, manicured lawn.
The Garden Gnome’s Watch
I stumbled back to my own house, my cheeks burning with a mixture of rage and humiliation. She had twisted it so completely, so expertly, that I was left speechless. She had made me the villain in my own story.
Tom found me in the kitchen, staring blankly at the wall. I recounted the conversation, my voice flat and defeated.
His face darkened. “That’s it,” he said, his usual calm demeanor gone. “That’s it. She wants to play dirty? Fine. We’re not letting this go. We need proof, Sarah. Real, undeniable proof that she can’t talk her way out of.”
The injustice of it was a physical weight. She was stealing from me, lying to my face, and then publicly painting me as an unhinged, jealous neighbor. The HOA was on her side. The neighbors were on her side. All I had was the truth, and right now, the truth felt flimsy and powerless.
“What kind of proof?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
Tom was already on his laptop, his fingers flying across the keyboard. “The kind she can’t deny.”
He turned the screen towards me. It was a website for home security gear. He clicked on a link, and a picture loaded. It was a small, motion-activated security camera, weatherproof and equipped with night vision. It was disguised as a chubby, cheerful garden gnome, holding a fishing pole.
It was the most ridiculous, kitschy thing I had ever seen. A symbol of everything my mother’s wild, authentic garden stood against.
“I’ll order it with overnight shipping,” Tom said.
The next afternoon, the gnome arrived. That evening, as dusk settled, I walked out into my garden. The air was cool and smelled of damp earth and blooming jasmine. I found a spot for the gnome among the ferns, partially hidden but with a clear, unobstructed view of my most valuable, most vulnerable plants. My mother’s plants.
I felt a strange mix of emotions as I settled the ceramic figure into the dirt. It felt clandestine and absurd, like something out of a spy movie. But beneath the absurdity, there was a new feeling taking root: a cold, hard resolve. I was done feeling hurt. I was done being gaslighted. If Madison was going to treat my garden like a battlefield, then I was done fighting fair.
The Midnight Bloom: The Digital Thief
The gnome cam was a revelation. The first motion alert buzzed on my phone just after two in the morning. I sat up in bed, my heart hammering against my ribs, and tapped open the live feed. The night-vision cast my garden in an eerie, monochromatic green. And there she was.
Madison, dressed in dark clothing, a baseball cap pulled low, moved with a silent, practiced efficiency. She carried a small bucket and a pair of garden shears. I watched, breathless, as she knelt by my prized Japanese painted ferns, snipping several fronds at their base and placing them carefully in her bucket. She moved on to the hellebores, then the bleeding hearts. It wasn’t a frantic smash-and-grab. It was a harvest. She knew exactly what she wanted.
For the next week, I became a nocturnal voyeur of my own violation. I didn’t watch the live feeds anymore; it was too sickening. Instead, each morning, I’d sit at my kitchen table with a cup of coffee and review the night’s recordings. The footage was damning. Night after night, between two and three a.m., she would slip across the lawn and take what she wanted. It was methodical, organized, and utterly remorseless.
I saved every video file, labeling them by date. The growing collection felt like a tumor on my hard drive. Tom would watch them with me, his jaw tightening with every clip. “She’s not just a thief, Sarah,” he said, his voice low and angry. “She’s a parasite.”
The worst part was seeing her during the day. She’d wave cheerily from her driveway or stop me by the mailbox to gush about the upcoming neighborhood party. The sheer audacity of it left me dizzy. She was living a completely separate life in the darkness, a life where my garden was her personal shopping market, and then acting as if none of it had happened in the light.
An Orchid’s Fleeting Ghost
In a shaded, humid corner of my greenhouse sat the “Midnight Orchid.” It wasn’t a true orchid, but a rare species of terrestrial lily my mother had acquired through a trade with a collector in Brazil. Its claim to fame was a dramatic, almost black flower that bloomed only once every few years, and then for only about six hours before wilting into nothing.
One morning, I saw the bud. It was thick and dark, promising to open. I spent the day checking on it like an expectant father. Just after lunch, it happened. The petals unfurled into a star of deep, velvety purple so dark it seemed to drink the light. It was breathtakingly beautiful, a secret marvel. I took a dozen photos with my phone, just for myself, a way to capture the fleeting moment.
At four o’clock, my phone buzzed with a Facebook notification. It was a new post in the Oak Creek Estates neighborhood group. It was from Madison.
The picture was a close-up of a single, perfect “Midnight Orchid” bloom, artfully arranged in a crystal bud vase on her marble countertop. The caption read: “Feeling so incredibly blessed today! My mysterious night-bloomer finally opened! Isn’t she a stunner? Some things are just worth the wait. #rareplants #gardengoals #blessed”
I stared at the screen, my blood turning to ice. It was impossible. There was no way. Unless…
I raced out to the greenhouse. My orchid was still there, its magnificent bloom untouched. I looked closer, my mind reeling. Then I saw it. On the ground, behind the pot, was a single, freshly-snipped petal. It was almost invisible against the dark soil. She hadn’t stolen the plant. She had snuck in, taken a high-resolution photo of my bloom, and was passing it off as her own. She was stealing the credit, the moment, the very story of the flower.
It was a new level of violation. She wasn’t just taking my property; she was plagiarizing my life.
A Neighborly Warning
The orchid incident broke something in me. The next day, I wrote a carefully worded email to the HOA president, Bill Peterson. I didn’t make wild accusations. I simply stated that I had concerns about the integrity of the garden competition, given that a committee member was actively replicating rare plants from another resident’s garden. I attached the photo Madison had posted and one of my own, showing the bloom in my greenhouse. I suggested, politely, that this represented a conflict of interest that should be addressed.
Two days later, my doorbell rang. It was Bill. He was a bluff, hearty man in his sixties who lived on the other side of the neighborhood and was married to the idea of “maintaining community standards.” He stood on my porch, his hands in his pockets, refusing my offer to come inside.
“Sarah,” he said, his tone that of a disappointed father. “I got your email.”
“And?” I asked.
He sighed, looking out over my lawn. “And I’ve got to be honest with you, it puts the board in a very awkward position. Madison is doing wonderful things for this community. She’s energetic, she’s got fresh ideas. The fountain she donated to the front entrance? All her.”
“She’s stealing my plants, Bill.”
He winced, as if I’d used a dirty word. “Now that’s a very strong accusation. ‘Stealing.’ Madison told me she’s been sharing her good fortune with everyone. She said you two had a misunderstanding about a rose bush.” He lowered his voice. “Look, Chase, her husband, and I, we have a tee time every Sunday. They’re good people. They’re investing in this neighborhood.”
The implication hung in the air between us. The Montgomerys had money and influence. I just had dirt under my fingernails.
“What you have,” he continued, “is a picture of a flower. What she has is… goodwill. For the sake of neighborhood harmony, Sarah, I’m asking you to let this go. This kind of unpleasantness, it can affect property values. It can make things… uncomfortable for everyone.”
It was a threat, wrapped in the language of neighborly concern. Drop it, or you will be the problem. You will be the one making things uncomfortable. I watched him walk away, his back straight and self-righteous. The system wasn’t just failing to protect me; it was actively protecting her.
The Night of the Lily
There was one plant left. The crown jewel. My mother had called it the “Celestial Lily,” a hybrid she’d spent the last twenty years of her life perfecting. It was her masterpiece, a plant that produced a single, enormous, star-shaped flower with petals that seemed to be spun from silver. It bloomed only once a decade. The last time it had bloomed, my mother was still alive to see it. According to her journals, it was due to bloom again this week.
For two days, I watched the stalk, where a single, heavy bud was swelling. This wasn’t just a plant. It was a memorial. It was the last living piece of my mother’s genius.
On the third night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, my phone clutched in my hand. At 2:17 a.m., it buzzed. A motion alert.
My hand was trembling so hard I could barely tap the notification. The gnome cam’s green-tinted feed filled the screen. There she was. Madison. Moving purposefully, not toward the ferns or the hostas, but straight toward the back of the garden, where the Celestial Lily stood.
She knelt before it. The night-vision was clear enough to see the look on her face. It wasn’t the face of a thief. It was the face of a conqueror. She admired the bud for a long moment, as if savoring her victory. Then, she raised the shears.
I wanted to scream, to throw my phone, to run outside and tackle her to the ground. But I was frozen, a helpless digital witness.
The shears opened. They closed around the thick stem, just below the bud.
The microphone on the gnome cam was surprisingly sensitive. I heard the soft night sounds—the chirp of crickets, the distant hum of the highway. And then, I heard another sound, clear and sharp and final.
Snip.
She didn’t even look back. She simply turned and disappeared into the darkness, taking the future of my mother’s lily with her.
The Bitter Harvest: The Empty Pedestal
The next morning, I didn’t cry. The space in my garden where the lily bud should have been was a wound, a hollow point in the universe. All the grief and anxiety of the past month had been burned away in the silent, sickening snip I’d witnessed on my phone screen. What was left was cold, clear, and as hard as diamond.
I went to my office and, with methodical precision, downloaded the video file from the cloud. I named it ExhibitA.mp4. I saved it to my laptop, to an external hard drive, and to a thumb drive that I placed in the small fireproof safe where we kept our passports.
Then I called my daughter. “Lily,” I said, my voice even. “I need your help with a little video project.”
I explained the plan. She didn’t question me or tell me to be the bigger person. Lily had inherited her grandmother’s fire. “Oh, she is going down,” Lily said, her voice filled with a righteous fury that warmed me from the inside out. “I’ll be there Saturday morning. We’re going to give her a premiere she’ll never forget.”
The rage had a purpose now. It wasn’t just a feeling; it was fuel. I spent the next two days in a state of hyper-focused calm. I weeded the garden. I answered work emails. I made dinner. Tom watched me with a worried expression, but he didn’t try to stop me. He knew I had passed a point of no return. The woman who had been gaslit and intimidated was gone. A new woman was in her place, and she was building a guillotine.
The Queen’s Coronation
The annual neighborhood summer party was a masterpiece of suburban pageantry. White tents were erected on the community green, string lights twinkled in the trees, and a catering team served tiny, unidentifiable appetizers. The air was thick with the scent of cut grass, citronella, and forced pleasantries.
Madison was holding court near the beverage station, resplendent in a white sundress. Her garden, which the judges had toured that morning, was the talk of the party. I heard snippets of conversation as I moved through the crowd. “Simply stunning.” “A true artist.” “She has such a gift.” Each compliment was a small twist of the knife.
My daughter Lily, home from college for the weekend, stayed close by my side. She’d arrived that morning with a powerful, portable projector and a set of discreet but mighty speakers, all of which were now tucked away behind a large inflatable movie screen that the HOA used for its family movie nights. The official story was that we were showing a “neighborhood memories” slideshow later. No one gave it a second thought.
I saw Bill Peterson, the HOA president, laughing with Madison’s husband, Chase. Bill caught my eye and gave me a tight, warning look. Behave. I gave him a small, placid smile in return. The time for warnings was over.
The Award Speech
Finally, Bill took to the small, portable stage. He tapped the microphone, sending a squeal of feedback through the crowd. “Alright, everyone, settle down, settle down! It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for.”
He launched into a gushing preamble about community spirit and the importance of beauty. Then he announced the runner-up. And then, the grand prize.
“With a garden that the judges called ‘a breathtaking triumph of vision and passion,’” Bill boomed, “the winner of this year’s Best Neighborhood Garden award, and the five-thousand-dollar prize, is Madison Montgomery!”
A wave of polite applause rippled through the crowd. Madison practically floated onto the stage, her face a perfect mask of humble surprise. She took the oversized check from Bill and a bouquet of flowers from his wife. Tucked prominently in the center of the bouquet, its silver petals catching the late afternoon sun, was my Celestial Lily. Open now, in its full, stolen glory.
She leaned into the microphone. “Oh, my gosh, I am just… speechless,” she began, her voice quivering with fake emotion. “When Chase and I moved here, I just wanted to create a little piece of beauty, to contribute to this wonderful community. This award isn’t just for me. It’s for everyone who believes in the power of a beautiful garden.” She credited her “passion for sourcing unique botanicals” and her “instinct for creative pairings.”
She was magnificent. A true artist of deceit.
As she held up the check for another round of photos, basking in the applause, I caught Lily’s eye across the crowd. She gave me a subtle nod. I took a deep breath. It was time.
Projector Justice
The slideshow of neighborhood memories never started. Instead, the large inflatable screen behind the stage flickered to life with a stark, green-tinted image. It was my garden. My garden at night.
A collective murmur went through the crowd. People turned from the stage to the screen. Madison, still holding her bouquet, frowned in confusion.
Then, a figure in a dark baseball cap entered the frame.
The party went silent. The only sound was the cheerful, generic pop music still playing softly from the speakers. On the screen, the figure knelt and began to methodically snip my Japanese painted ferns. The video was crystal clear, the resolution high.
Bill Peterson’s face was a study in confusion, which slowly morphed into dawning horror.
The video cut to another night. The figure stole my hellebores. Another night, my coral bells. It was a supercut of her crimes, a greatest-hits collection of her larceny, set to the oblivious soundtrack of the party.
Madison had frozen on the stage, her back to the screen. She didn’t understand what was happening until she saw the faces in the crowd. The polite smiles had vanished, replaced by open-mouthed shock and dawning anger. She turned slowly, her face paling as she saw herself on the giant screen, stealing from my garden in the dead of night.
The final clip played. It was the footage from three nights ago. The camera was zoomed in on the Celestial Lily. The crowd watched in stunned silence as the on-screen Madison raised her shears. The crisp snip was audible even over the party music. The video ended with a freeze-frame on her face, illuminated in the darkness, a look of smug triumph twisting her features.
A single, horrified gasp came from Mrs. Gable.
The screen went black. A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the community green. Madison stood on the stage, a deer in the headlights, the stolen lily in her hand seeming to wilt under the weight of a hundred accusing stares. Bill fumbled with the microphone, his face ashen.
Before he could speak, I stepped forward. My voice, when it came, was not loud, but it cut through the silence with perfect clarity.
“I believe,” I said, looking directly at the shell-shocked judges in the front row, “that we have a new exhibit for consideration.
About the Author
