“[An] unflinching, heart-wrenching exploration of grief, belonging, and inner strength.” —Jessica Khoury, author of T he Mystwick School of Musicraft “Spellbinding.” — Quinn Sosna-Spear, author of The Remarkable Inventions of Walter Mortinson The Secret Garden meets Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children in this lush middle grade adventure about a girl determined to infiltrate her grandmother’s enchanted garden with the help of some magically gifted friends. Mallory Estate is the last place twelve-year-old Piper Peavey wants to spend her summer vacation. The grounds are always cold, the garden out back is dead, a mysterious group of children call the property home, and there’s a rumor that Melena M. Mallory—the owner of the estate and Piper’s wealthy grandmother—is a witch. But when Piper’s father falls ill, Mallory Estate is exactly where she finds herself. The grand house and its garden hold many secrets—some of which may even save her father—and Piper will need to believe in herself, her new friends, and magic if she wants to unlock them before it’s too late. "As enchanting as it is wise, the true magic of this secret garden story is in its unflinching, heart-wrenching exploration of grief, belonging, and inner strength. Once I stepped into the witch's garden with Piper, I did not want to leave." -- Jessica Khoury, author of THE MYSTWICK SCHOOL OF MUSICRAFT "Piper Peavey is a protagonist all her own in a spellbinding story that has a touch of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children and a dab of Circus Mirandus ." -- Quinn Sosna-Spear, author of THE REMARKABLE INVENTIONS OF WALTER MORTINSON “Magical and mysterious, a captivating read from start to beautiful end.” -- Meg Frazer Blakemore, author of THE WATER CASTLE and THE STORY WEB Erin Bowman is the critically acclaimed author of numerous books for children and teens, including the Taken trilogy, Vengeance Road , Retribution Rails , the Edgar Award–nominated Contagion duology, The Girl and the Witch’s Garden , and the forthcoming Dustborn . A web designer turned author, Erin has always been invested in telling stories—both visually and with words. Erin lives in New Hampshire with her husband and children. Chapter One: Welcome to Mallory Estate Chapter One Welcome to Mallory Estate There was no denying that a witch lived at Mallory Estate. Grown-ups were fooled by the property’s manicured front drive and the mansion’s historic brick facade. Regal , they called it. Charming. But the problem with grown-ups is that they see what they want. They don’t really look. Not properly, at least. The children of Blackburn, however, knew the truth. They biked onto the grounds. They spied with binoculars. They rapped the door knocker and ran like they’d never run before. They discovered, through keen observation and a healthy dose of nosiness, what the grown-ups hadn’t. Things were not right at Mallory Estate. For starters, it was always colder there. And damp. Even when the sun was shining, it felt as though the grounds were perpetually shrouded in mist and fog and early-morning dew. Second, the gardens out back were dead. The grass was brown and the flower beds brittle and the row of grand oak trees stood like skeletons, barren no matter the season. When you looked closely at the house itself, past the details the adults admired, you could see that it was dying too. Paint had peeled off the window trim, and the roof needed repairing. Ivy was eating away at the bricks. It climbed the front wall, converging above the portico, then turned sharply, every last tendril growing toward one window. The highest window of the lone turret on the eastern side. A figure sometimes lurked there, peering down at the grounds from behind a sheer curtain. Sometimes the witch was alone. Sometimes the cat was with her. It was a white cat, which always threw off the grown-ups. But the children knew. Because if you made eye contact with the witch—if you looked for too long—she’d put a curse on you. She’d lure you up the front steps and compel you to raise the knocker. And when it fell, and the front door was opened, then you were trapped. The children knew the witch’s secrets, and that was why she kept them. Once they entered Mallory Estate, they never came out. Piper Peavey had grown up hearing stories about the witch of Mallory Estate. Piper wasn’t from Blackburn, but even two towns over, where she lived in a small bungalow with her father, Atticus, the stories were told. The tales had grown roots, much like the ivy on the estate, and spread through the sleepy towns of rural northwestern Connecticut, fascinating and terrifying schoolchildren in the same breath. Piper, however, shrugged them off. She read enough fantasy books to know that things like witches and curses belonged in books, and that the real world was a very boring, sensible place. It was full of reason and rules and logical explanations. It lacked magic