CHAPTER 1
Widuri Manor practices lights out at ten o'clock at night, yet Melur tiptoes in the hallway without breaking a sweat. She is clad in a pair of plaid pyjama pants and a thin brown sweater,her black hair tied into a ponytail.
As she slowly walks towards the forbidden garden,the occasional hoot of an owl accompanies her soft footsteps.
None of them are allowed in the garden at any time of day,not just past lights out.Melur knows she is playing a dangerous game, but she can't help it.
It's kemboja's sixteenth birthday tomorrow,and she is the first of the seven girls who will leave the manor and live a new life with her foster parents. Melur needs to give kemboja something to remember them by,and it has to be memorable.
After exiting the west wing,Melur approaches the garden and stands behind the nearest pillar of black bricks in awe. Beneath the navy canvas of the starless sky,seven types of flowers glint under faint moonbeams, their leaves swaying in the light breeze of the humid may air.
Bloodred roses adorn the entrance-----a wrought iron gate that twist into a fence surrounding the entire garden-----followed by a patch of the flowers Melur is named after, jasmine.