Jesus! Eli thought.
You should see me shoot my bow, she replied.
I‘m getting hard just picturing it.
It always had that affect on the farmhands too, she replied.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Irvine, 2010s
Evening had descended on Irvine. To Gretchel’s great relief, everyone had left. She loved her family. She appreciated their help, but the day had left her drained. She took a shower, threw on pajamas, and collapsed into bed.
“Hey, Mom,” Zach said from the hallway.
“Hey, Baby Boy. Come talk to me.”
“Did you know that our phone’s not working?”
“Yeah, we had it turned off along with everything but the gas, electricity, and water. No landline. No internet connection. No satellite TV.”
Zach shook his head in disbelief.
“Sorry, kid, but things are going to be tight for awhile until I figure things out. And, hey, we’re moving soon anyway.”
“I can keep my cell phone, can’t I?” Gretchel could tell he was panicking, because all of the sudden he sounded like his voice had never dropped. He sounded like a little boy worried about losing his security blanket.
“For now,” she smiled.
He wasn’t exactly mollified, but he was willing to let the topic go.
“Cody dropped me off. Guess I’m still allowed to talk to him and Ben?”
“I have no problem with you associating with Cody and Ben. Just keep your distance from Michelle. I really don’t have to tell you this do I?”
“No. She’s a dumb bitch. I’ve never seen anyone as nosy as she is. Every time I go over there she’s asking about you. Ben has to sneak me up to his room just to avoid her.”
Gretchel was about to chastise her boy for calling any woman—even Michelle—a “dumb bitch” when he surprised her by crawling into bed with her and burrowing into her embrace. She couldn’t remember the last time he had done that.
Zach closed his eyes and let his mother stroke his shaggy ginger-red hair for a few moments. Then he looked around the room and Gretchel felt him become tense.
“You’re cleaning out his closet?” His voice had gone small again, and she could tell that he was struggling not to cry.
Gretchel couldn’t hold it in anymore. Tears cascaded down her face.
“I had a bad day, Baby Boy,” she cried. Zach turned himself around, hugged her and began sobbing into her chest. Gretchel held him close and let the teenager grieve with her.
“I miss him. I miss him a lot. But I was scared of him, too. I couldn’t stop him from hurting you and Ame. He was too big for me, and every time I tried, he would beat me, too. I hated him! But he was my dad. I’m not supposed to hate my dad!”
For the first time since she had taken off the amethyst, Gretchel craved its numbing power. She didn’t know how she would ever learn to live with this, what she had done to her children. She thought that, maybe, if they knew the truth about her life, they would understand. But she also knew that, if they knew the truth about her life, they would turn on her. She knew they would.
“Zach, I won’t lie. I hated him, too.”
Zach pulled himself away and looked into her face. “Then why did you marry him? Why would you marry someone you hated? And why would you have kids with someone you hated?”
Gretchel struggled to come up some kind of response for her son—not a lie, but not the whole truth, either.
Zach’s face twisted into a scowl, but not before Gretchel saw the disappointment there. She was letting him down again.
“You know what? Never mind. I’ve got homework to do.” He jumped off the bed and out the door before she could reply.
“Why did I screw everything up?” she asked the empty room.
Shoulda stayed outta the tavern. Ya knew he’d find ya, lass.
Aye! He knew the lush’oud show up eventually.
Gretchel wiped more tears from her face, not surprised to hear the annoying prattle of the Scottish voices mouthing off in her head.
“You’re right,” Gretchel replied. “Troy had me figured out. If I would have just stayed away from the booze all those years ago, it would have changed everything.”
She curled up on the bed and embraced her rag doll, shuddering at the memory of Troy tracking her down in Carbondale.
If she had just had more time at the house on Pringle Street with Eli, things might have been different. She wondered if Eli ever thought of her the way she did of him. Doubtful. He was too good for her, and the Woman in Wool had made sure she never forgot it.
∞
Irvine, 1990s
Eventually, Eli was able to guide Gretchel back to the cottage.
Gretchel thought that Eli was acting kind of strange. Of course, being attacked by a ghost was probably a new experience for him, and maybe telepathic communication wasn’t something he shared with every girlfriend. Also, given that she was on ‘shrooms, she probably wasn’t in the best position to judge strange behavior.
In any case, she forgot about Eli as soon as she walked into the cottage. The colors! The green of the painted walls, the honey-gold of the oak paneling, the deep burgundy of the sofa…. They weren’t just abstract properties anymore. They were living entities, with personalities and distinct physical attributes. Gretchel felt like crying. She was an artist! She should have known! She followed the colors into the bedroom, and sat on the edge of the bed to watch them.
After awhile—a few minutes, a few days, a few centuries—she remembered Eli. Where was he?
That was when she noticed that he was sitting right next to her.
Gretchel smiled and leaned into his shoulder.
She turned toward the window and saw the moon in full bloom. She heard a howl from deep in the woods.
Eli shuddered. Is that a wolf?
Yes, she thought, and he shuddered again when he heard her voice in his head, answering his silent question.
Do they ever come close? Have you ever seen one? The hair on the back of Gretchel’s neck rose, and she couldn’t tell whether it was because of the wolf howl or the electric vibrations of Eli’s thoughts.
I see a lot of things. She laughed internally, and she knew that Eli wouldn’t know what she was laughing about. Then she laughed aloud. The sound of laughter massaged her body. She fell backward onto the bed. Eli still had no idea what was so funny, but he loved seeing Gretchel like this, and soon he was laughing with her.
Eventually, Gretchel wiped the tears out of her eyes and pulled herself together. Eli crawled over her on all fours and stared into her eyes.
She reached up and touched his cheek with the tips of her fingers. His face hung above her like the full moon. Everything else fell away. Gravity didn’t seem to make sense anymore. When his lips touched hers, waves of lust rolled through her body, crashing over her with a longing she’d never felt for any other man.
He leaned in to kiss her on the neck. She slowly unbuttoned his grungy plaid shirt and pushed it back off his shoulders. Her hands moved over his taut, tan chest.
An orgasm swept over her before he was even inside her. The moment he penetrated, Gretchel thought that he would come quickly—and he did—but he didn’t stop. Each thrust provoked a different feeling, but each new sensation was part of the same endless climax.
She moaned underneath him and then on top of him and then while he took her from behind and then she didn’t know what was happening, exactly, because she hadn’t opened her eyes from that first moment of orgasm.
Are you with me, Gretchel?
Yes. I’m not afraid. I have you to guide me, Hermes.
She was in a state of extended rapture, and she knew that Eli was, too. She could not only hear his thoughts; she could also feel what he was feeling. It was as if they were no longer two, but one.
And she could see Eli, even though her eyes were closed. He was looking down at her lovingly, and they were no longer in the bed. They were on the delicate petal of a poppy
.
Then Gretchel saw things she couldn’t name, heard sounds that she couldn’t define, and felt sensations that she could only recognize as bliss while everything around her faded to white. Floating in a luminous cloud, they held each other within their psyches. They were the God and Goddess. They were creation, and they were love, and above all, they were truth—the source of all and all that ever would be.
Eventually, Gretchel opened her eyes to find Eli sleeping next to her and the phoenix painting hovering in the middle of the room. She reached out her hand to touch it, but, instead of brush strokes and dry paint, she felt feathers. With a great flutter of wings, the flame-red bird took off in flight, and Gretchel felt she had no choice but to follow. She took one last glance at Eli’s sleeping face, and knew that, where she was going now, he could not guide her.
Gretchel followed the phoenix through a limitless emptiness until it disappeared into a field of poppies that stretched as far as she could see. She walked into the field until she was surrounded by orange blooms. A woman appeared from out of nowhere. She was pale and beautiful, with gleaming black hair flowing over her shoulders. Her face was luminous, but her clothes seemed to change in front of Gretchel’s eyes. One second, the stranger looked like she was dressed like a fairy-tale princess. The next, she seemed to be draped in robe of cobwebs and dry grass. Without preamble or introduction, she said, “Follow me.”
Gretchel did.
The raven-haired woman led her to a clearing, a barren patch of earth in the ocean of poppies. She sat down, and motioned for Gretchel to do the same. Everything was still.
A snake emerged from the poppies and slithered toward Gretchel. She was unafraid. She had seen this creature before, in another form. She knew him, and she knew that he loved her. She let the snake coil around her arm.
More stillness.
There was a thundering in the distance, and all three entities sitting in the circle of earth turned toward it.
Gretchel felt a fluttering in her belly as the ground shook. The flowers parted, and a white horse emerged. It stopped and reared at the edge of the clearing, shaking its mane. When it stilled, Gretchel saw an amethyst glowing in its forehead, like a third eye. Gretchel smiled and laughed in delight. She knew this creature—or at least who this horse had been in another life.
“I’ve missed you,” she whispered. “I’ve missed you so much.”
The horse scratched at the ground within the clearing, then she moved—slowly, gently—toward Gretchel, reaching down to nuzzle her neck. Then the horse turned and walked away, back into the poppies.
“Please, stay with me just a little bit longer,” Gretchel pleaded. The horse turned for a moment, and then it was gone.
A sob wrenched Gretchel, and her tears fell on the barren ground. She wiped her eyes.
The raven-haired woman was gone. In the spot where she had been sitting, there was nothing but a shovel. Gretchel picked it up and started to dig. The snaked slithered in a circle around her. She dug until she was six feet beneath the surface, and then she hit something hard. She threw aside the shovel and clawed at the earth until she uncovered what seemed to be a box.
She brushed the dirt from its top and saw that it was decorated with an intricately detailed eternal knot. She knew this pattern, and it was familiar, too—just like the snake and the horse. She felt like she had seen it many times before. She knew—without knowing how she knew—that the more lines there were in the knot, the more protection it offered. This design was so intense that it was almost—almost—chaotic.
She kept digging.
When the box was free, she tried to open it. She couldn’t. It was locked, and she had no key. Reluctantly, she decided to leave it behind.
At this moment, Gretchel realized that she was at the bottom of a deep hole, with no obvious means of escape. She tried climbing, but each hold she took crumbled beneath her fingers. Her sense of panic mounted. In her frenzy, she loosed great clumps of dirt and then the walls of earth around her gave way. She was being buried alive.
“Help me!” she screamed.
Skeletal hands reached through the shower of dirt and clutched at her.
“Let me go!”
Gretchel, I’m here.
She heard the words in her head, although no voice spoke.
You can’t go there yet, Gretchel. Come back to me. It was Eli. He had come looking for her, and he had found her.
Free us, a chorus of voices sang in her head.
I don’t know how! I don’t have the key! Eli, help me!
Then suddenly an instinctual warning ran through her awareness. She looked up toward the moonlit sky, and the Woman in Wool began pouring water into the hole.
Gretchel screamed as water filled her lungs and the hole collapsed into blackness around her.
“Gretchel, I’m here!”
For a moment, Gretchel had no idea where she was. Then she looked around and realized that she was in the old pickup truck. She screamed again.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Eli shouted as he pulled her from the cab.
Gretchel kicked and wailed as he held her. Her eyes were wild. Afraid of hurting her, Eli let her go.
Gretchel ran as fast as she could, away from the truck, away from the Wicked Garden.
When Eli caught up with her, she was in the cottage kitchen, drinking a glass of water. “What was that all about? Did you really not realize you were in the truck?”
“I didn’t. No one but Grand Mama is supposed to go into the Wicked Garden. It’s forbidden,” she said, chugging more water.
Gretchel didn’t realize that she was naked, filthy, and dripping wet until Eli wrapped a blanket around her.
“I don’t understand what happened, Gretchel. I thought you were having a good trip. I’m so sorry.”
Eli looked so scared and sad that Gretchel was quick to reassure him. “I did have a good trip. For a while, it was the most beautiful and real thing I have ever experienced,” she said trying desperately to catch her breath. Then she walked to the bathroom and began furiously brushing her teeth. She could still taste dirt.
He watched her cautiously. “You were screaming again, Gretchel. Like you used to. I should have stayed awake and taken care of you. I’m so sorry.”
“You were there. I heard you.”
Eli held his head. “I was there. I dreamt that I saw you in a hole, and you couldn’t get out. It’s what woke me up this morning. What does that mean? I remember poppies and a hole. What were you doing there?”
Gretchel gave him an exaggerated shrug. “Maybe I have a death wish.”
“Don’t say that!” Eli couldn’t help thinking about Gretchel’s scars—the scars that she had inflicted on herself. He shuddered.
Gretchel changed the subject. “I have a horrible headache.”
“That’s not uncommon after a trip.” Eli found some ancient aspirin in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom.
“The phoenix came to life, Eli.”
He stared at Gretchel as he handed her the aspirin bottle. “The one from the painting?” She shook her head. “I saw it, too, in my dream. I watched you follow it. I don’t remember everything, but I remember sailing, flying over the ocean, looking for you.”
She smiled and touched his face. “Most of the trip was beautiful, Eli. And amazing. Do you remember being on the poppy?” He nodded and smiled back at her. Gretchel cleaned herself up a bit and got dressed. She called to Eli from the bedroom. “I’m ready for breakfast. Have you ever had biscuits and gravy?”
“Yeah, in Carbondale, at Mary Lou’s.”
“Ah,” she replied, “But you’ve never had mine.”
Gretchel zipped around her mother’s kitchen like she was playing tag and the ghost was it. Eli sat quietly at the table, drinking his coffee.
“You still get up and run, Baby Girl?” her mother asked as she walked toward the coffee pot. Gretchel glanced at the clock; it was barely six in the morning.
“I do
, Mama. I don’t always run, but I rarely miss greeting the dawn.” Her mother gave her a sad smile. “Besides, I have to get up early for my job,” she said, and continued stirring the gravy.
“I’m so proud of you. You’ve come a long way, Baby Girl.”
“Stop it. You’re embarrassing me.”
Miss Poni slowly walked into the kitchen. “I thought I smelled sausage gravy.”
“Eli never had it before he moved to Illinois, Grand Mama. Can you believe it?”
Miss Poni sat across from Eli at the table, and locked him in her gaze. Gretchel saw him squirm. “Grand Mama, please stop staring. He’s taken,” she said with a forced laugh.
Miss Poni turned her steely eyes on her granddaughter. “You opened a door last night.”
Gretchel focused on the cast iron skillet in front of her. “Let it go, Grand Mama.”
“Yes. I see that’s what you’re trying to do.” The old woman paused for a moment, considering. “Just be careful, Baby Girl, you’re messing with powers you can’t control.”
Gretchel spun away from the stove to glare at Miss Poni. “I said let it go.”
Unperturbed, Miss Poni turned back to Eli. “Something very special happened last night.” Eli choked on his coffee as he blushed an astonishing shade of violet-red.
Gretchel slapped a dishtowel against her leg. “Let it go, Grand Mama!”
The old woman ignored Gretchel’s outburst. “Do you have something for her, Eli?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Another gift. You have another gift for her, a very important gift,” she said.
Eli sputtered. Miss Poni was undoubtedly the most unnerving woman he had ever met—and that included his mother. “Well, yes…. If Gretchel wants it, I’d like to buy her a tattoo.” Eli turned toward Gretchel. “The phoenix. It would look fantastic on your back, Gretchel. I’m sure Will can use the money, and I know he’d do a fantastic job. You’ve seen his work. He's really good.”
The Wicked Garden Page 15