Chapter Text
It was the first day of my visit to Fallingford, before the murder had occurred, and Daisy and I were sitting in the treehouse.
To call it a treehouse would be a misnomer; it was no more than a shoddy wooden platform, made of planks crammed between the thick branches and leaves a large oak tree, one of many in the fields surrounding the manor. I was increasingly worried that the rickety structure would collapse at any moment, sending me and Daisy toppling to our doom, in the grass that seemed so far below.
But Daisy insisted the thing was safe, so I stayed there, trying as hard as I could to ignore the sharp drop below that separated us from the rest of the world.
It was midday, and we were shaded from the spring sun by the canopy of rustling leaves above and around us. The manor looked fairylike, sitting large and posh in the center of the grass fields and grand trees that surrounded it. It took up a large portion of the view from the treehouse, bright puffy clouds drifting in the background, across the great canvas of the sky. I felt Daisy nudge me with her elbow, snapping me out of my reverie.
“Hazel, are you listening?” she asked, sitting cross-legged next to me and twirling a pencil in her hands. She was wearing a blue summer dress, far nicer than my yellow one.
“Yes,” I lied. “Of course.”
“Well,” she continued with her speech. “I’m almost certain that Pepper just lost the fly biscuits, but we know that Clementine, the annoying human she is, hates her because of the...”
The speech continued for another few minutes, and Daisy was speaking at twice her usual speed, offering deductions and opinions one after another in a relentless barrage. At one moment, she claimed Clementine was obviously guilty of stealing the biscuits from her fellow student, a heinous crime that was typical of her criminal nature. In the next, Clementine was a red herring, and we were far too distracted by our mutual hatred for her to see the truth.
After a point, I got the feeling that Daisy was less talking to me and more talking for her own benefit, to spew out the thoughts in her ever-chaotic mind and figure out what she could do with them. So I sat there feigning attention, making the occasional hum of agreement, or statement of surprise.
She was well into her deductions, paddling back and forth between blaming Clementine or a selection of other people, and I had lost track of her talking long ago. The comforting warmth had made me drowsy, slipping me into a state that was dangerously close to sleep. Daisy didn’t sound like she was going to finish talking any time soon, and so to try and stay awake I began examining the features of the tree.
Its wide, twisted branches were covered in thick, rough bark, housing what looked like a small nest made of twigs on the wood above Daisy. The sunlight was mottled by the leaves that blocked its path, leaving us in a sort of half-shadow, cool patches of darkness peppered by blobs of warm sunlight.
One of these blobs landed on the left side of Daisy’s face, illuminating her smooth skin and rosy cheeks. The edges of her blonde curls glinted, giving them an unusually alluring golden color as they swayed gently in the wind, reaching her neck.
But her eyes were the most striking part, sparkling under the light like a thousand intricate shards of glass. I could make out the gradient of her iris, a pale green along the inside shifting to a glimmering, vivid blue. I noticed the softness of her pink lips, and had the sudden, unwelcome thought that it would be quite nice to kiss them.
This thought made me jolt, as I turned my head to break eye contact with Daisy, trying to keep the blush out of my cheeks. My heart was beating quicker now, its thumping so audible to me that I worried that Daisy could hear it. As if to confirm my fears, she tilted her heads and shifted forwards, placing her hand on mine. I felt sparks of happiness shoot through me where our skin touched. My face felt more and more heated, and my heart was thumping louder than it ever had. I was sure that I looked like an oversized tomato by now.
“Are you alright, Watson?” Daisy asked me. Her voice was very nice, I noticed before I could shut down the thought. Like honey. “You don’t look too well.”
It took me a moment to remember what she asked. I nodded, not daring to speak. There was a moment of awkward silence, my mind focusing on nothing but the sensation of Daisy’s hand on mine, before I spoke up.
“I-It’s just rather... hot,” I blurted out. “Could we go indoors?”
Daisy frowned for a moment, looking at my face with a sharp look of curiosity and intensity. I was worried that she would see right through my obvious lie, straight down to the truth lurking just below. But she only nodded and shifted over to the edge of the platform, starting to climb down the branches.
It was my first time getting out of the treehouse, and I was far from a skilled climber anyhow, so I wasn’t surprised when I made a poor job of getting out of the tree. I fumbled down the first couple of branches, and on the third I lost my grip and fell.
“Watson! Are you hurt?” Daisy asked, standing above me. The sun was shining behind her head, making her look angelic and sending my heart racing again. Get a grip on yourself, I thought, ignoring the thoughts flashing through my head. I’d been friends with Daisy for years by that point, and I’d never felt like that around her. So why now?
The drop was less than three meters, and my legs absorbed most of the impact, leaving me on the floor, somewhat dirtied, emotionally confused (for other reasons), but otherwise unhurt. I mumbled that I was fine, before swiping the dirt off my hands.
As I got up to my feet, I noticed a yellow and white thing in the grass. A daisy, one of the thousands sprawled across the land surrounding us. Without stopping to think, I leant down, plucked it out of the grass, and offered it to Daisy herself.
She looked at it for a moment, confused, before she laughed.
“A Daisy for daisy.” she said, grinning as she took the flower and placed it behind her ear. A warm sensation of happiness and delight blossomed through me, leaving me in a better mood than I had been the entire day.
The feeling stayed with me as we walked back to the manor, arm in arm, and as Daisy continued with her talking as if she had never stopped. When her mother noticed the daisy behind her ear, and told her to take the ghastly thing off, messy girl, she only winked at me, smiling, and kept it on. More warmth spread within me, and I felt as though I couldn’t get happier, not as much as I was in that golden moment.
I didn’t realize I loved her, not then.