The Someday Garden

Sophie Drear, a thirty-two-year-old horticulturist on loan from the New York Botanical Garden, arrives at Lilymoor House and Gardens, a historic estate on the cliffs above Odette, Maine, to revitalize its grounds for the property's bicentennial celebration in August. Lilymoor is not unfamiliar to her. Ten years earlier, Sophie and her college best friend Harriett Fisher visited the estate together, bonding over a shared love of a PBS documentary about the gardens and their elderly owners, Henry and Eula Beck. On that trip, they made a pinkie promise to return for the bicentennial. Sophie keeps her promises, but Harriett cannot keep this one. She died of cancer about eleven months before the novel begins. Sophie carries Harrie's ashes inside a custom Magic 8 Ball, sent to her after Harrie's death with a note reading, "I'm here when you need me."

Lilymoor has declined significantly since Henry Beck died sixteen years ago and the estate's greenhouse burned down the following summer, destroying all of Henry's journals and blueprints. Eula has gradually closed off sections of the garden. Sophie works alongside a small staff: Wykofski, the banjo-playing handyman who nicknames her "Sunny"; Juliette, the events director; and Yafir, the bookkeeper. A Canada goose named Damnit, rescued as a gosling years ago, terrorizes everyone on the property.

Sophie battles two persistent mysteries: honeysuckle vines strangling the estate's hedge maze, known as the Hedges, and unexplained flooding in the Wildflower Garden. One evening, she notices a faded blue door set into a wall she has never seen before. She opens it and discovers a keyhole-shaped garden with half-finished flower beds, an enormous willow tree, and an incomplete gazebo. Beneath the willow, a copper-haired man in a charcoal suit lies asleep. He wakes disoriented and rude, referencing a party and acting as though he has already met Sophie. She mentions the door to Eula, who insists no such door exists. When Sophie returns the next day, the door has moved to the Wildflower Garden wall, but the garden inside is unchanged. The stranger insists she left only an hour ago, though days have passed for her. She opens the door, steps through, and turns to find the door and the man gone, replaced by smooth stone.

Eula returns early from outpatient rehabilitation, arriving atop a fire truck. She reveals that Henry's will requires her to name Lilymoor's next steward and plans to announce her successor at the bicentennial, mentioning her two great-nephews, Oliver and Cyrus, as possible inheritors. Oliver Hale, Eula's blond, charming great-nephew and an architect, arrives shortly after and lets himself into Sophie's cottage with a key, not knowing she is staying there. A mild flirtation develops, though Sophie keeps her distance.

Sophie identifies the stranger in the garden as Cyrus Beck after recognizing him in a family photo in Eula's bedroom. Yet Eula confirms she spoke with Cyrus by phone just the day before, and Oliver says his cousin is not missing. Cyrus appears to exist simultaneously inside the magical garden and in the real world. Over subsequent visits, Sophie pieces together the garden's rules: The door only appears near sunset on clear evenings, during golden hour, and never in the same place twice. Time moves differently inside. Days pass for Sophie between visits, but only minutes or hours elapse for Cyrus, who asks her to call him Rus. His phone reads August 16, the date of the bicentennial, while Sophie's calendar still shows July.

Oliver takes Sophie to the ruins of the greenhouse behind the Rose Court, a walled rose-garden section of the estate. There she discovers a burnt leather journal belonging to Henry with plans for a final unfinished project: a keyhole-shaped garden titled "The Someday Garden." Oliver reveals that as teenagers, he and Rus threw a bonfire party during a dry summer, accidentally igniting the greenhouse. Rus tried to save it, burning his arm, then took all the blame to protect Oliver. Afterward, Rus left Lilymoor and never returned.

Sophie brings the journal to Rus, who recognizes Henry's plans for a sunset garden. Rus believes Lilymoor's magic wants him to complete the Someday Garden for the bicentennial, which is why he is trapped but Sophie can come and go. They divide the work: Rus builds and plants inside the magical garden while Sophie searches for its real-world location. Over weeks of golden-hour visits, they grow close, and the garden responds to Rus's emotions, blooming extravagantly when he laughs or lets his guard down. Sophie tells him about Harriett's death and her fear that moving forward means leaving her best friend behind. Rus holds her while she cries, offering no platitudes.

Sophie also tries to prevent Rus's entrapment by mailing a letter to the real-world Cyrus, warning him the bicentennial would waste his time. She accidentally signs her own name. The letter backfires: Rus tells her it infuriated him because it came from someone who knew his name, and it motivated him to attend. Sophie realizes her intervention may have caused the very outcome she tried to prevent.

Sophie and Rus kiss for the first time, but she pulls away, terrified that wanting something for herself means becoming someone Harrie would not recognize. After several days of avoidance, she returns and confesses that the kiss felt like betraying Harrie's memory. Rus listens without judgment. Gradually, Sophie lets herself feel again. They confess their feelings and make love beneath the willow, surrounded by bursting flowers.

Despite exhaustive searching, Sophie cannot locate the garden in the real world. On the eve of the bicentennial, Eula gives Sophie Henry's skeleton key from her necklace and offers her a contract to stay for another season. At the party, the real-world Cyrus arrives, cold and impersonal, nothing like the man Sophie knows. He has amended Eula's will to remove himself entirely from the inheritance, naming Oliver as sole heir. Oliver, furious, confronts his cousin.

During Eula's retirement speech, she quotes Henry: All paths in the garden lead back home, back to the center. Sophie realizes the honeysuckle vines she has been fighting all summer originate from the Central Garden, near the old oak tree where she and Harrie made their pinkie promise ten years ago. A walled-off space she dismissed as shrubbery matches the garden's dimensions. She grabs a sledgehammer and smashes through the wall. Behind it is the blue door. She uses Henry's skeleton key to unlock it.

Inside, the real Someday Garden is overgrown and abandoned. Where the willow should be, there is only a thicket of honeysuckles, and in the middle lies Cyrus, asleep with vines twisting along his limbs. She wakes him. He recognizes her immediately, not as the stranger from the party but as the woman from the garden. They kiss. Oliver follows through the demolished wall, sees Cyrus, and punches him before walking away.

Sophie and Rus spend the night together. In the morning, she tells him she loves him and asks him to stay at Lilymoor. She decides to sign the contract. Oliver comes to the cottage and tells Rus he wants to inherit the estate together, as they always planned as children. Rus agrees, and the cousins reconcile after years of estrangement. While walking through the Hedges, Sophie hears Harrie's voice on the wind, an echo of their visit ten years ago carried by Lilymoor's magic. She tells Harrie she loves her, and the voice fades. Sophie cries, but the grief has changed, still present but growing something new.

The epilogue spans years. Rus moves into the cottage and transitions to estate law. Together he and Sophie plant a willow in the Someday Garden and build a gazebo. Oliver and Juliette, who grew close over the summer, leave on a road trip together. Wykofski falls in love and eventually moves on. Eula stays for ten more years before she dies. Sophie and Rus grow old at Lilymoor, falling in love with each new season.