by Mark Jacobs
Chapter X
The knife pierced the gardener’s ribcage with the crisp crunch of a horse biting an apple. Rivulets of foamy black earth cascaded from his split skin like sand pouring out from a broken hourglass. His hand fell away from the purple handle as the dark spring burped and quickly petered out.
When the old man saw that Pence’s face had blanched in horror, he distracted the boy with an all-knowing wink and said with utmost dignity, “Gracious me, it would appear I’ve soiled myself.”
Pence took a step back.
“Why doesn’t anyone ever laugh at my jokes?” the old man asked the garden.
Pence’s jaw dropped open as if an invisible wedge of cheese had been crammed into his mouth. “Old man, I’m starting to feel very uncomfortable with some of this…”
“I didn’t mean to do that so hard,” admitted the gardener with a bemused grin, “but no harm in scratching at old scars. I suspect it would take a battleaxe and a royal rage to cut me down, now.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Pence said flatly.
“Did you know, my boy, that even a curse can be a blessing?”
Pence nodded sagely. “Yes, every fool knows that.”
“Every fool and now you, Pence. So you see–no harm done.” With that, the gardener looked down for the first time to inspect the selfsame wound he had just selflessly dismissed. “Of course, the fact that I seem to be turning into petrified wood is some cause for concern. Come over here.”
Pence took another step back, his eyes locked on the tool that had excised him from his potato, pinned high in the old man’s body like a flagpole in a tower wall. The flow of dirt from the gardener’s trunk had subsided, an hour of life siphoned in a moment.
“Life cannot be counted,” the old man whispered to the garden. Then he confided to the boy, “I only meant to slit my breast pocket open. I have something to show you before you fetch your new sword, but it must be lost in all this earth that’s spilled out of me.” He paused, sizing up the boy. “It’s important, Pence. Climb up here and see if you can uncover it.”
“See if I can uncover it? From this stinkful, sacrilegious mountain of bile that just came gushing out of your stab-hole?” Pence shook his head in disbelief. “Here’s another idea: don’t stab yourself! And if you do one more twisted thing like that, I’m getting out of here. I’m serious. That’s enough. My nerves are shot. I’ll leave.”
“Agreed,” nodded the gardener, “but not before you see this…” he trailed off, searching for the right word, “this… heirloom I’ve decided to bestow upon you. Think of it as your inheritance, if you’d like, for I shan’t expect you to return it, and but for the value of the very life of you and another penny’s worth of advice, I have nothing else to pass along.”
“My… inheritance?” Pence took several instinctive steps forward and knit his hands together. “And it’s… in there?” he attempted to ask offhandedly, nodding toward the glistening mound of run-off dirt.
“Buried,” the old man stressed, “like treasure.”
Pence yipped uncontrollably, threw a hand over his mouth, and set the other atop the dome of his sunhat, massaging his mind around in furious little circles. “Uncover… buried… treasure,” he chanted to himself as though he was speaking holy words in a sacred ritual. He took a step closer to the gardener.
“The stuff of the earth,” the old man enticed with a persuasive smile, “as you lay entombed in long seasons before I chanced to pluck you out and wake you up. It will be as familiar to you as mother’s milk.”
“Excellent point,” said Pence, not at all hiding how pleased he was to be given solid grounds for diving into the muck in pursuit of unspecified riches. Smiling brightly, he scrambled up the old man’s tunic like a spider, arms and legs splayed wide for balance. At the top, he removed his sunhat and delicately placed it on the old man’s kneecap, followed by his cape, which he unfastened with a shimmying, spinning curtsey. Once again bare-bottomed and undeniably as proud as you please, Pence glanced down over his own backside and a look of admiration conquered his face. “Lovely,” he whispered as though he had caught a glimpse of paradise.
“Hurry up, boy, or do you think the sun will be above us forever?”
Pence gave the old man’s left foot a sidelong glance and a roguish grin, as if to say, “Not after I’m done with him,” then he wormed his way headfirst into the slope of gargled silt. He disappeared in no time, save for the testimony of tiny avalanches that silently spilt down as he tunneled below the surface.
The old man shut his eyes, breathing only through his nose. The sun, near its zenith, demanded a steep toll in sweat from his bronzed brow but there was no water left in his body to pay for more time. In the span of this one morning the wrinkles on his face–formerly supple and smooth as warm putty–had dried out like cracks in baked mud. Only the silver hairs above his lips moved, dancing in the narrow plumes of air that he managed to expel.
Something flew out of the hill of muck. As it arced low over the gardener’s thigh it left a tail of finely sifted dirt in its wake like a button-sized comet spewed from the earth. Small, round, and flat, the object skidded to a stop next to the old man’s knee.
The boy tumbled free a moment later and sat up, panting and gasping for air, finally wiping his face off with one forearm as he spat repeatedly to clear out his mouth. He stood up and looked all around for his treasure.
“You’re standing on it,” said the old man.
“Nonsense,” said Pence. He looked down. “There it is!” He sat himself cross-legged on a smooth spot of tunic and placed the penny in his lap. The gardener’s beard ran beside him like a wild stream; festooned with dirt and specks of clay, twigs, and dry leaves, the old man’s beard could have been mistaken for a bird’s nest if it had been attached to a tree instead of a chin.
“I’d say that makes you a genuine fortune hunter,” the old man gently chided. “So how do you feel? Ready to pen your memoirs, I daresay.”
Pence sat forward and crossed his arms, resting elbows on knees. His spikes of hair were grubby and flattened, jutting all which ways. He looked up to the gardener and smiled impishly. His nose was blacker than a chimneysweep’s.
“Well done,” complimented the old man. “Your grain of rice is all gone to pot, though. Pity.”
Without thinking, Pence plucked out his nose, reversed it, and jammed it back in not-quite-the-right-spot, spoilt side first. “Good as new,” he decreed.
“Pence! Come on, lad, what did I tell you? Think before you do things like that. Whatever gave you the idea it would be okay to stab something into your…” He glanced down embarrassedly at his own chest. “Oh. Never mind.”
Pence’s attention had already moved on. With his head craned low, he studied the object that he had rescued. It was a dull circle the width of a bottle cork.
In one fluid motion Pence stood up with hat and cape in hand and adorned himself inside a single pirouette. He bowed his head politely and his gemstones glinted under the shadow of his brim of pale petals. “Not that I ain’t grateful, and I hate to be a cadge, but… there better be a boatload more than that to my inheritance or I am going to totally lose my chivalry up in here.”
“It is small, I understand, but its worth is more to me than all the gold in all the kingdoms of man, Pence.”
The boy shrugged. “Great. You keep it. Get some gold and hook me up like that.”
The gardener frowned, which made Pence blush. “Is that any way for a gentleman to receive that which is bequeathed unto him? What sorry thing has befallen the vegetable patch these days, that a boy from the back row shall scoff at a simple gift?” the old man bristled. “Now mind your cheek and have a closer look.”
Pence sighed heavily, but he stood up and obediently trudged back to his grime-lacquered reward. He picked it up and held it before himself like he was helming a ship. “Oh yes, I know what this is,” he stated blandly. “It’s a wheel. Wow. One wheel. I
’ll add it to my collection.” He dropped it in disinterest. “Great air-loom. Thanks for getting my hopes up so high.”
“Pence, you brat, pick it up and clean it off. It’s not a wheel and this is not a game, you remarkable twit! I should box your ears if I hadn’t given you the only life I had left in me.”
Pence recoiled from the gardener’s suddenly aggressive words like an animal spooked by thunder.
“The hours slip away, and there is so much yet for you to learn,” said the old man. “And don’t think it a jest when I say you’ll be on the other side of the fence before this day is spent, even if I have to pick you up myself and throw you over the dang-about gate!”
Pence stood stock still until the old man had long since finished reproaching him. “Big talker,” he finally mouthed under his breath, but he kept his eyes down and once more dutifully fetched up the as-of-yet unnamed object of his inheritance. This time, without a complaint, he rubbed away the dirt on the object until only a thin, intractable layer remained, obscuring the finer details.
Silent in protest, he stood up and thrust the object out for the gardener to appraise.
“What you hold… is a penny,” said the old man fondly. “Happy birthday, my boy. Huzzah, hoopla, and all of that.”
Pence lowered the penny to his own eye-level, but he was stalwart in showing no curiosity or appreciation.
“Would you like to hear something interesting about pennies?” the old man asked.
Pence rolled his eyes like a boy whose grandfather has just asked him if he still enjoys playing with dolls, but he replied, “Fine.”
“That’a’boy. Hungry for knowledge, I see. Well, Pence, not all pennies are the same, and not all pennies are common. Just like people, Pence. Just like potatoes. Isn’t that neat? And the penny you hold is a very old, very uncommon coin indeed; I doubt there are more than… just the three of us,” the old man said wistfully, his eyes unfocused, his breathing ragged, “just the three of us in this late season of man who know the face that you will come to see buried beneath the dirt. Keep a strong hand on it, Pence–rare pennies are harder to keep hold of than a hot potato.”
Pence looked down at the penny, frowning.
“Now, I polished it for you yesterday and so I do apologize for its unfortunate current condition, as well as my own clumsiness in the matter, but, you know–” the old man shrugged his lifeless, twisted black arm, “–sometimes plans branch off unexpectedly.”
“Well spoken, old man.” Pence gave the gardener a subtle bow, alert not to tilt his sunhat off, nor did he miss the opportunity to give his cape a tasteful snap. “In all honesty, however, I was hoping for a little more than a solitary cent. I can’t start my fortune from one measly coin. I mean, don’t be ridiculous! How am I to support a lavish coterie of ladies with one penny? I need diamonds and gold, man, diamonds and gold! Plus a sword–for establishing the peace–and maybe a horse, too. And definitely my own castle.” Pence shook his head regretfully. “Sometimes I think I’m growing too big for this garden.”
“Even if you were to grow as big as a tree, Pence, you will always have a home here,” pledged the old man.
Pence looked up the white stump to its plateau, out of his sight and out of his reach. When his gaze locked onto the hand-carved lines, simple and symmetrical, he became still as a lamb upon the altar. Then he slowly wiped away the last loose residue of dirt on the penny.
The heartseed hiccupped in his chest and skipped a single, ominous beat. The boy’s green eyes seemed to magnify and expand as they delved into the picture that was etched upon the dull metal.
The picture was a girl’s face engraved with an artist’s respect of empty space, but the sorrow expressed in the one cut that made her smile was captured as fully as any masterpiece on canvas. The girl stared out from her small, round window with life her own, seeking something lost, and Pence stared back at her.
“Meet my princess,” the old man whispered.
“My eyes,” Pence choked in the crushing silence. “You didn’t tell me she was…”
“Yes?” the old man encouraged. “What? Didn’t tell you she was… what?”
“You didn’t tell me she was…” Pence hesitated, then sighed, “…so beautiful.” He flipped the penny bottoms-up, breaking the girl’s hold on him. “What’s this?” he marveled. “Did you do this? It looks like it was done by a man with one hand.” With a manifestly less capable talent than that which had designed the girl’s visage, someone had carved the shaky symbol of a heart into the penny’s opposite face, obscuring what looked like traces of an ancient script underneath.
Pence studied the unfamiliar shape with a frown, lifting the droopy petals of his sunhat out of the way with one arm. He stole a glance at the old man’s left hand, which, after letting go of the knife, had frozen in a partial-sprung claw–on his palm, clear as day, the green scar.
Lastly, Pence looked up to see the symmetrical lines carved in the white stump–the joint they formed matched the lower half of both other hearts. He returned his eyes to the penny, flipping it heads-up to examine the girl again. “Old man, I think you had better tell me what’s going on. My inheritance bares the same mark as your hand, the same mark as the White Tree looks to have borne before it fell. Yet, here is also a likeness of a girl that you say was your true love and a princess, no less. I would normally attribute this to your plethora of mental failings but that I have seen this angel’s face before! That is to say mine eyes have seen her. You have given me her earrings, haven’t you? I’m beginning to think some of these things may not be coincidences. To speak nothing of my heart, or what I saw in the well. I am no longer a boy, as I was this morning: it is time I knew the truth.”
“Do you recall these visions of her?” the gardener asked, sitting forward hastily only to begin coughing, forced to sit back. “Why did you not say so at once?” A grainy streak of dirt-flecked spittle dripped from the corner of the old man’s mouth as he rushed his words, “What do you remember of her, boy? Tell me everything.”
Pence’s voice was ascetic as he spoke. “She is no memory–her beauty is seared inside my sight. She wore me. I have touched her skin. She has held me in her hands. In fact… in fact I love her.”
“Pah! If you love her,” shot the old man, raising one eyebrow, “then why so much talk about your quest for romance and road-proud young ladies?”
“Well,” said Pence, thinking the question through carefully, “I reckon I just like to talk a lot.”
“Then tell me what you see of her. It has been too long for an old man to remember a woman the way he might wish.”
Pence rolled his head around in a circle of concentration. “I can see the braided creases inside her hands and the patterns of her fingertips… Her earlobes are perfect raindrops… The plummeting curve of her neck, the fuzz on her cheek like a flower petal that only an earring can notice… Her hair is mesmerizing, swaying like a thousand silent wind chimes… And of course I have an excellent view down the front of her nightgow–”
“Pence!”
“Only goofing!”
“Your insolence knows no ends!”
“I was goofing, old man! Come on, smile for once–you’ll live longer.”
“Pence, I should have mashed you and eaten you for brunch. What do you know of love? You’re a potato! You’ve only been here a day!”
“I love her!” Pence cried. “I love her more than you do!”
“Impossible,” harrumphed the old man. “My love for her is the very beginning of you and I both.”
“Then mine shall be the ending of us!” Pence rebelled, thrusting his arms into the air gloriously, knocking his hat down over his eyes again.
“My love for her is as old as her brittle bones and her wrinkles and her hair, now white as snow.”
“My love for her… wait one… wait… what? What do you mean ‘white hair’ and ‘wrinkles?’” Pence slowly lifted the moondaisy petals out of his face. “Are these your lies? Where
from this vile chicanery?”
“Pence, she is every season my coeval. Did you think I fawned over a girl as butter-cheeked young as yourself?”
“Frankly, I wouldn’t put it past you.”
“Pence… what else do your eyes remember? Please. Your words may be the last I ever see of her.”
Pence’s gemstones glossed over. “There is nothing else. My heart yearns for what it is separated from. My brain is heavy on my shoulders–laden with deep thoughts, I presume. And my flesh misses the cool darkness and the wet of my roots. Only my eyes have witnessed history, and only for a day, but I did not remember until I looked into the well.”
The old man closed his eyes. “The well… yes… makes sense, in a way,” he muttered to himself. “I’ve often found old thoughts and scraps of memories come bubbling to the surface of my mind when I kneel to draw water.”
“That’s not what I meant,” said Pence. “My mind was quite blank, I assure you. It was what I saw in the well.”
The gardener’s eyes popped open. “I nearly forgot! You never did say what you saw at the bottom, and I am most keen to hear.”
“There is no bottom,” said Pence. “I saw pennies falling. I guess five. No, I guess ten. Or a hundred pennies. I don’t know–I can’t count! I didn’t know they were pennies, either, back then when I was just a young boy, this morning. I thought they might be stars. All of them were falling, some much farther down than others.”
“Impossible,” whispered the old man. “Why, it’s been seasons since anyone made a wish in the well–the world cannot be so deep as that, for here I have drawn water every day with this very bucket. The abyss played a trick on you, I think,” he said, trying to convince himself.
“Every penny I saw had her face on one side, but none of them were marked with a heart. The nearest is as far as the Sun,” Pence added matter-of-factly.
The old man stared at the sky as if counting the paces to the morning star. Pence looked at the sun and scowled as if it was making faces at him that only he could see.
At length Pence sighed and ran his hands over the penny. “I want to know why, old man. Why have you made me? What have I to do with a very old woman whom once my eyes adorned and adored? I like my women… I don’t know how I like my women, yet. Younger than a hundred, for one thing. Comely. Extravagantly well-to-do. And… very, very short, I think. Oh, yes, and ideally she would be made out of a potato, just like I am! Or what about a nice, chaste gourd? No, no, too many warts on a gourd. A leek, maybe…”
“Once upon a time there was a boy,” said the gardener, cutting Pence short, “a boy who had a good and simple lot in life. One day he stumbled his way into a garden untended, unnamed, unclaimed, and–as the boy would learn–what very much seemed to be everlasting.”
Pence was immediately riveted. He leaned in closer for every next word, gripping the penny as though he was trying to squeeze water from its core. Furtive lights danced in his gemstones like a child’s eyes at a midnight fireside.
“In the center of the garden there was an ancient well,” said the old man, his voice austere. “Overshadowing the well, an enormous tree. The tree was breathtakingly white. To the boy, it looked like a giant shepherd keeping watch over the hills.
“The boy knew at once that he would stay in the arms of the White Tree and make his home.
“This is the story of what befell them, boy and tree together, long, long ago on a sad, sad, sorry day if ever there was one…