Meet Me in the Garden

by Rosa Sophia

  The room was bright and Amalie breathed in the scent of potpourri, coming from the dish Ian had left on her nightstand. In an effort to make her feel welcome, he’d gotten her the potpourri, bought her a collection of organic shampoos, conditioners, body lotion, and rugs for her bathroom. Even the light blue comforter on the bed was a gift, matching the carpet perfectly. No one had ever been so kind to her, and it was overwhelming. As Amalie gently stroked the soft comforter, she realized something.

  “Oh my God,” she mumbled under her breath.

  She darted out of bed, put on her slippers, and shuffled into the hallway. Ian’s bedroom door was open a crack. She stepped inside, and a sudden trepidation overcame her. She’d never been inside this room before.

  It was sparsely decorated, with a large dresser next to the door. Ian’s computer desk was beside a short hallway that led to the closet and master bathroom. A bookshelf on the opposite wall had been crammed with hardbacks of all types. She spotted titles that related to psychology, design, and even the paranormal.

  Some clothing had been strewn across the ergonomic desk chair, but the room was otherwise neat. A coffee table was littered with a few papers, and several empty mugs. When Amalie took another step into the room, she saw Ian lying in his bed on the other side of the large dresser. The wooden shutters were closed, the slats pressed down, keeping out the daylight.

  Ian’s glasses were sitting on the coffee table where he’d left them the night before. The pale skin of his face was pinkish in spots, where he’d pressed against the pillow or the mattress for long durations. The comforter was half on him and half off. He was wearing a light blue t-shirt and a pair of boxers. Amalie felt herself blush when she saw the boxers.

  He didn’t stir, even as she moved closer to the bed. She sat on the edge of the mattress and took his hand, which was warm and soft. He mumbled something incoherent, his brow crinkling as he dreamt.

  “Ian,” Amalie whispered. She leaned closer. “Ian, wake up.”

  His eyes opened slowly and he grumbled. “Am. What time is it?”

  “Seven in the morning.”

  “Amalie. It’s Sunday. Go back to bed.” He rolled over on his side, inadvertently taking her arm with him. She wondered if he’d done it on purpose. Maybe by bed he’d meant his bed.

  “Ian, guess what?”

  “It’s too early for guessing games,” he whined.

  “If you can’t get up in the morning, how’d you become such a well-known book designer, and how’d you turn Eyebright Designs into such a moneymaker?”

  “By making sure I get enough rest on Sundays.” He rolled over, facing her again. “What’s up?” There was a pained look on his face, but his affection for her was unmistakable. Maybe she annoyed him by waking him up so early, and maybe she would drive him crazy before the day was through, but it was clear he wanted her there, and he was willing to risk it.

  “I slept,” Amalie said.

  “So did I, until you woke me up.”

  “No, I mean I slept well. Ian, I didn’t have a single nightmare. I don’t remember the last time I slept so peacefully. It was wonderful. When I realized it, I just had to tell you.” She leaned forward and kissed him. He was warm and soft from sleep. “Get out of bed. I’m going to make blueberry pancakes.”

  “Well, I can’t say no to that.”

  Before she could get up, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her down against him. He pressed his lips against hers and held the kiss for a long time, until she sank against him, and laid her head on his chest. They stayed like that for a long time.

  “I thought you were going to make breakfast,” Ian said after a while.

  “I will in a minute.”

  She almost fell asleep again as the soothing resonance of Ian’s heart beating brought her into a total sense of peace.

  Chapter 21

  1699, Ireland

  Night terrors preoccupied Malachi, and when he had flashbacks they were horrible for Myrna, who would stand before him as he yelled, screamed, and pounded his fists against the heavy wooden desk in his study.

  Something was wrong in his mind.

  She stood just inside the door, her hands folded before her, watching his lips move. She didn’t know why he said the things he did, why he treated her this way. When she tried to reach out to him, he seemed to take it as an insult, as if she were babying him. When she tried to touch him, he smacked her hand away.

  “I don’t think you’re ready for this, for us,” he growled.

  Time melted together. It had been a year, perhaps more. They’d grown so close, fallen in love, and he’d held back. She wanted to break the barrier between them, but whenever she got close, one of his moods would strike. Something would upset him. He would ramble about things she didn’t understand, things about the war. His scars were terrifying to her—especially the ones in his mind. Those were the wounds that ran deep, damage coursing through his soul. He was tainted.

  Whenever she drew away, he took it personally, and she was terrible at explaining herself. She thought he blamed her for everything, and she wasn’t even sure what that everything was.

  She began to spend more time in the woods, wandering the fields, gathering herbs, and sitting by the ponds and streams. The gardener seemed to pity her. He’d warned her, certainly. She often walked among the workers as they harvested the crop, completely invisible to them. Myrna wandered alone, as she’d done so many times before.

  It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

  He hid behind his words. He made promises he didn’t keep. He swore his love to her, but shut her out at the same time. A wall rose between them, thick and impenetrable. She repeated the mantra to herself over and over.

  It has to work. It has worked before. It will work now.

  But when she met the Woodsman, everything changed. They stood in the forest talking one day. He told her about how he hunted and sold the meat, how he lived in a little ramshackle cabin on the other side of the forest, several miles away. How he’d been hunting in this area for years, and he’d spotted her from afar.

  The second time they met, he told her how beautiful she was. She hadn’t heard that in a long time, from anyone.

  The third time they met, they talked more—about their pasts, their families, their lives.

  He was completely different from her. Would he hate her if he knew what she was?

  Malachi understood her. But he didn’t seem to want her. He didn’t seem to care.

  Soon, her meetings with the Woodsman became commonplace. Each week on the same day, she would journey into the forest and wait by the stream. He would meet her there. She didn’t know what was happening, but she felt a deep longing. She was so lonely, and this man paid attention to her. He seemed interested in her. She began to think she cared for him, but the emotion that ran even deeper was guilt.

  She loved Malachi above all others, but she was exhausted. She was tired of fighting him. She was tired of throwing herself at him, begging him to notice her. She felt foolish.

  The Woodsman noticed.

  The Woodsman smiled at her with a wide mouth thick with teeth as he sorted through the quivers in his pack and re-strung his bow.

  An animal in the distance fell to his weapon, its death cry sounding out for a short moment before it hit the ground, its eyes turning gray and lifeless.

  The Woodsman turned and looked at Myrna.

  “Just an animal,” he said. “Nothing more.”

  Chapter 22

  2013, Jupiter, Florida

  Amalie awoke in a cold sweat. Those large teeth, that wide grin. She remembered little else. His features were indiscernible, nothing more than a nightmarish phantasm. She breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

  It was too much to expect the dreams to be gone forever. That first heavenly night, when she’d slept peacefully and awoke rested, felt like ages ago. Since then, the vivid dreams had returned in full force worse than before. They’d become chilling. At first, they were r
omantic. While she recalled the visages of these people—the young blonde and her dismal lover—she could not remember the face of the Woodsman no matter how hard she tried. He was like storm clouds gathering on a sunny day at the beach. He didn’t fit.

  Amalie often woke in the middle of the night yelling and sobbing. Ian would stumble out of his bed and rush to her side. Each night repeated the last. He would wake her and hold her until she calmed down. Sometimes he would stay with her for a while. He rarely stayed all night. They were trying to take it slow. Amalie had shared her fear of intimacy with him, and he respected it.

  That morning, as she scrambled eggs for them, Ian crept into the room behind her.

  “I’m not stupid, I know you’re there,” she teased.

  He slipped his arms around her, clasping his hands over her belly.

  “You must have slept more than usual last night,” he said, leaning his chin on her shoulder.

  “Is that a nice way of saying I didn’t wake you up shrieking like a banshee?” She finished making the eggs and turned off the stove. She moved rigidly, partly because she was in his grasp, and partly because she didn’t want him to let go. To her disappointment, he stepped back and leaned against the opposite counter.

  “Well, it’s true,” he affirmed. “No crying, no sobbing, no yelling out. You must have slept like a baby. Did you?”

  “No, not really.” The image of the Woodsman with his toothy grin flashed across her mind. “I don’t know why my dreams make me cry out like that, wake up screaming. They really aren’t that bad. Half the time, it’s just me as this other person, and I’m in the woods with this strange man, but I can never remember his face when I wake up.”

  “I thought you said the guy has brown hair and always wears black?”

  “No, that’s the first one. Lately, I dream about someone else, a hunter in the woods. There’s something about him I don’t like.”

  “So there’re two men?”

  “Yeah.” Amalie pulled a container of orange juice out of the fridge and poured Ian a tall glass. “I remembered you don’t like pulpy juice,” she added, giving him a quick peck on the lips.

  “So, these men you’re dreaming about…”

  “Oh, Ian.” She’d told him about it before—the blonde woman, the vivid images of the estate and the gardens. “Like I said, it’s as if I’m a different person. I’m this other woman. Everything looks different. I don’t know who those men are. The other one, the Woodsman, he’s only appeared in my dreams in the last month or so, I think since I moved here.”

  “The Woodsman?”

  “Mm-hmm.” She nodded and grabbed the two bagels that had just popped out of the toaster. She slathered one with butter for Ian, and one with cream cheese for her. They both carried their dishes into the dining area, and set them on the glass top table.

  “Why do you call him the Woodsman?”

  “I don’t know.” Amalie sat down as he took a seat across from her. “It fits, I guess. Whenever I see him, it’s in the woods.” She told him about the latest dream. “I wish I knew who he was.”

  Ian raised an eyebrow over his glasses. “It’s a dream, Amalie. How can it really be anyone?”

  “What if it is? What if it means something?”

  He took a bite of his bagel, set it on the plate, and leaned back in his chair, chewing thoughtfully. “Do you believe in past lives?”

  “I used to.” She took a bite of her eggs. There was a brief silence as they both ate their breakfast.

  “What do you mean, you used to?”

  “If I tell you something, do you promise not to freak out?”

  Ian placed his fork on his plate and sighed.

  “Okay. We haven’t gotten that serious yet, so I should have expected this.” He looked directly at her. “Go ahead.”

  “Ian, I—”

  “It’s okay, you can tell me. You had a sex change operation.”

  “Ian! Be serious.”

  He laughed and went back to his eggs. “Of course I won’t freak out,” he insisted between bites. “I don’t think there’s much you could say that would bother me.”

  “Well, okay.” Amalie took a sip of her orange juice. “We were an unconventional family. My dad’s sister died a couple years ago, but when I was little, she came to visit and I found out she was Pagan. I was ten at the time, so I was really a mess over Mom dying. Aunt Celeste came and took care of us for a month or so, until she got sick of dealing with her brother’s bullshit.

  “Even though I was extremely depressed, that was a great time. Celeste was amazing. She knew what I was going through. Their mother, my grandma, died when they were young, too. Cancer is all over my family. Celeste told me how hard it was for her, dealing with death as a child, coming to terms with it. But my grandma had apparently raised my dad and Celeste to have a different perspective than most.”

  “How so?”

  “Grandma was a devotee of Hekate, Goddess of the crossroads.” Amalie expected Ian to react negatively, or at least be confused.

  “Okay, continue.”

  “You…you know what I’m talking about? I mean, you aren’t freaked out?”

  “When you’re finished with this story, I have a few things to tell you,” Ian said, polishing off his eggs.

  Amalie turned around in her chair and plucked a framed photo off the bookcase behind her. The black and white photograph showed a beautiful middle-aged woman sunbathing in a one-piece suit. She slid it across the table to Ian.

  “She was a secretary, like most women, but she was also a witch. Grandma Maggie would sit for hours in front of a crystal ball. It was like a compulsion for her, so I’m told. She could see just about anything. Neighbors would come by and she would tell them their future. She was always right. Aunt Celeste told me Grandma Maggie could communicate with the Goddess Hekate, that she had seen her on multiple occasions. Even when my dad and Celeste were little, Grandma kept an altar in the house for Hekate.

  “Aunt Celeste felt compelled to give me a few of Grandma’s things. I have a box with Grandma Maggie’s hand-written Book of Shadows, a strand of prayer beads in honor of Hekate, her crystal ball, and a few other books and things. I just remember Aunt Celeste saying she thought I should have those things, she felt I was meant to have them. I don’t really know why.

  “I was a natural. I had prophetic dreams, knew certain things were going to happen, I could see the spirits of the dead. All through grade school and high school, I used to carry Grandma’s prayer beads in my pocket, wherever I went.” Amalie stirred the last of her eggs around on her plate. “Some things dull the senses. My father got worse, drank more. His verbal abuse was too much for me, and his negative energy stifled me. Soon I couldn’t see anything anymore. I lost my faith in the Goddess.” She looked up, her face flushing. “You must think I sound crazy.”

  “Of course not. Keep going.”

  Amalie told him about the last tarot reading she’d ever done. “Everything was muddled and I couldn’t make sense of anything. I assumed drawing the two of cups meant I would meet someone, and I did…but I didn’t let the cards tell the story. I told the story for the cards.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I already had an acquaintance, and we started dating shortly after I drew the two of cups, which usually indicates a romantic relationship in the future. When life is a mess, it’s so hard to read the cards, let alone do anything. My first and only boyfriend was a verbally abusive alcoholic, just like my father. So because of the things that happened to me, I…that’s why I fear intimacy.” Amalie shook her head regretfully. She told him how that relationship had driven her to shove her tarot cards under her grandmother’s things in the box she kept in her closet. “Since then, I haven’t given much credence to anything, let alone past lives.”

  “Not to change the subject, but do you have anything special to do today?”

  “Not really. It’s Saturday. I thought I’d just be lazy. I haven’t done that in a l
ong time. Why do you ask?”

  “I’d like you to meet someone.”

  Chapter 23

  The building where Amalie and Ian lived was pale blue, two stories high, with white railings around the front and a screened-in porch for each condo on the other side. Decorative lettering on the front of the building proclaimed its name: Sea Foam Condominiums. An attractive front garden area surrounded a community pool. As Ian and Amalie stepped outside and walked along the railing, they both glanced over at the pool, which was busy today. A number of the residents were sunning themselves or swimming. Amalie couldn’t understand why they stayed at the pool when they could just walk behind the building, through Carlin Park, and straight over to the ocean.

  “Where are we going?” Amalie was still marveling at the fact he hadn’t even blinked in surprise at her story. Witchcraft was a family secret, and Ian seemed to think it was no big deal.

  “Downstairs.” He took her by the hand and led her around to the steps. They walked down the short flight, then to the right, past a line of carefully pruned hedges, with the sound of children laughing and splashing to their left.

  Amalie’s skin prickled. She hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a certain energy in the air—something almost tangible. Upon reaching a certain point, the white-washed sidewalk was decorated by shells. Someone had placed shells of all types and sizes along the walkway, amidst potted shade plants. There were only two condominiums downstairs, while there were three upstairs. It was a small building. The closer they walked to the condo on the far side, the more Amalie noticed the details.

  The shells had been arranged in patterns, some creating spiral designs.