Hazelthorn

Seventeen-year-old Evander lives locked in a small bedroom in the north wing of the Hazelthorn Estate, a crumbling mansion owned by the wealthy Byron Lennox-Hall. Evander is Byron's ward, taken in after what he was told was a car crash that killed his parents and the father of Byron's grandson, Laurence "Laurie" Lennox-Hall. Evander believes that seven years ago, ten-year-old Laurie attacked him with a shovel in the garden and tried to bury him alive, leaving him with severe injuries, extensive scarring, and deep gaps in memory. Since then, he has been confined to his room, kept on heavy sedatives by Carrington, the elderly butler, and told he is chronically ill.

One evening, his door is mysteriously unlocked. Evander ventures out and discovers Laurie downstairs, recently expelled from boarding school. Before Evander can confront him, Byron collapses in his plant-filled conservatory, choking as something grows inside his throat, black foam frothing from his mouth. With his last words, he commands Evander never to enter the gardens, then dies.

Carrington locks Evander in his room without food or medicine for three days. When Laurie finally frees him, Benedict Dawes, a young attorney who recently replaced Byron's longtime lawyer, reads the will. It names Evander as sole heir to the estate and Byron's fortune of 1.1 billion dollars, cutting out Laurie and all other descendants. Guardianship falls to Byron's domineering sister, Oleander Lennox-Hall. Overwhelmed, Evander bolts into the gardens for the first time since childhood.

In a greenhouse, Evander discovers a hidden journal, the Hazelthorn Field Guide, filled with illustrations of strange plants and entries on deadly nightshades whose effects match Byron's death. He begins investigating the murder. More relatives arrive: Oleander's arrogant son, Bane Burnett, and Laurie's glamorous aunt, Azalea Lennox-Hall, each with designs on the fortune. Dawes claimed Carrington was hospitalized, but when Laurie calls the hospital, no such patient exists.

Laurie leads Evander into the gardens to trigger his memories. They find plants matching the field guide and come upon a red door set into a tall wall, sealed with a keyhole. Evander feels an overpowering compulsion to touch the door, which appears painted in blood. Laurie pulls him away.

A fragmented childhood memory surfaces: Young Laurie dragged the wounded boy toward a shallow grave, whispering that he should remember his name and that he loves Laurie best. The child bit into Laurie's wrist, tearing out tendons, before Byron loomed over the grave and brought the shovel down. Laurie later reveals that Byron performed a failed surgery on the damaged wrist himself and beat him throughout childhood. He also reveals that Byron was a paranoid recluse who never left the estate, meaning he chose not to visit Evander all those years.

One night, Carrington appears at Evander's bedside, grotesquely transformed into something half-human, half-plant. He forces a poisonous berry into Evander's mouth, rasping that the garden wants him back. Evander fights free and flees to Laurie. Under the bed, they find poisonous vines confirming the attack was real.

Evander sneaks into the garden and follows Bane and Jessica, Oleander's assistant, through the red door into a locked circular garden. Jessica digs and uncovers a buried arm. Bane plunges a knife into her neck and extracts a ruby from the blood-soaked soil. The family's secret is revealed: They sacrifice people to the garden in exchange for gemstones. Laurie admits he knew but was tortured into silence by Byron. His earlier attempt to tell outsiders led to his mother's murder and his father's suicide.

Enraged, Evander picks up a stone and nearly brings it down on Laurie but stops himself. Carrington attacks again, and Evander kills the creature. Fleeing in horror, he falls into a deep garden pool and begins drowning until a vine wraps around his wrist and pulls him to safety.

Azalea casually reveals the car crash story was a lie. When she asks Evander's last name, he realizes he cannot remember one. She mentions that Laurie had a childhood imaginary friend whose name combined his middle names, Evan and Alexander, into "Evander." Evander smashes his framed family photo and discovers a stock image from a magazine. His entire identity was fabricated.

Oleander and Bane force an overdose of sedative down Evander's throat and perform surgery on him without consent. Laurie breaks him out by smashing through his window with a hammer. They escape through hidden passages in the mansion's walls to Byron's secret attic office, where they find Dawes's stolen rubies and the real will, which names Laurie as sole heir. Dawes swapped the names, exploiting Evander's conditioning and Laurie's severe dyslexia. Evander chooses not to tell Laurie.

In the tunnels, consumed by desperate hunger, Evander kisses Laurie for the first time, biting into his lip until blood fills his mouth. An episode overtakes him, and he loses consciousness. He wakes in the conservatory beside a wounded Laurie, who bears bite marks Evander inflicted during the blackout.

Evander tears open his surgical stitches and plunges his hand into his own chest, finding not blood and organs but dirt, bark, and a rib bone of green wood. Laurie reveals the full truth: As a grieving nine-year-old, he cut himself and bled into the garden, wishing for a friend. The garden grew Evander from the earth. Byron attacked the creature with the shovel. Evander was never human. He is the garden made flesh, and his episodes are moments when his consciousness shuts down and the garden takes control.

The family converges on Evander. Dawes reveals that Byron had been harvesting Evander's rib bones for years to propagate a second garden and demands a fresh cutting. Bane restrains Evander while Dawes severs his left hand with pruning shears. At a formal wake dinner, Evander appears to contaminate the wine with toxic flowers budding from his severed wrist, likely during a blackout in which the garden acts through him. He toasts Byron's memory and watches the guests choke, then flees.

The garden erupts. Trees punch through the mansion's walls, ivy tears through windows, and the house collapses. A root drags Dawes underground. Evander stops and weeps.

A voice calls him by his true name: Hazelthorn. Laurie stands behind a garden wall, battered but alive. The garden chose to heal rather than consume him, stitching his wounds with vines and growing new tendons in his wrist. Laurie confesses he poisoned Byron's tea that night with the same sedative they always gave Evander, intending only to incapacitate Byron and prevent him from operating on Evander. He also unlocked Evander's door that night as a distraction. Hazelthorn's guilt lifts: He did not kill Byron.

Hazelthorn gives Laurie the key and asks to be locked inside the walled garden to protect others from his hunger. Laurie turns the key in the red door, then throws it into the ivy and stays inside, refusing to leave. They kiss gently in the moonlight among poisonous flowers, but the novel ends on an ambiguous note: Hazelthorn acknowledges that once the garden has a taste, it wants the rest.