The Garden of Darkness

by Gillian Murray Kendall

  And then, as abruptly as it had started, the storm let up.

  Clare felt as if she were in an ice cave. Not just icicles, but thin sheets of ice extended from the wagon to the ground. Beyond the sheets of ice were mounds of snow, so that sound was curiously muffled.

  “How many snowflakes make a snow drift?” asked Sarai.

  “A million,” said Mirri.

  They scrambled into their clothes while still in the sleeping bags. The sun was blinding as it glittered off the blanketed landscape. As they emerged from under the wagon, the snow came up to Clare’s knees. The wagon now looked like part of the landscape, a mound among trees.

  “I don’t think we’re on the road anymore,” said Clare.

  “We’re lost,” said Abel.

  “The road can’t be far,” said Mirri.

  “We need Sheba,” said Ramah.

  “We need the snow to melt,” said Jem.

  “Aren’t you going to say anything?” Clare asked Bird Boy.

  “No.” He shook his head and the frozen feathers in his hair clinked together. They waded through the snow to the trees, where the snow wasn’t so deep, although the sides of the trees were spattered with white. There were no tracks of any kind; if Sheba had been there, it had been before the snow got deep.

  They spread out a little and kept walking. Soon the exertion had warmed Clare to the extent that she took off her outer jacket. Then she noticed an odd thing. Jem had his coat off, too. And Bird Boy was in his shirtsleeves.

  They weren’t warm solely because of the exertion. They were warm because the day was warm. Clare realized that she could hear the music of a thaw everywhere—the sound of water dripping, trickling, moving, flowing. And then she walked out of the wood and found herself standing on a patch with no snow at all on it, and before her was an open meadow. At the far end of the meadow, cropping the newly exposed grass, was Sheba.

  Clare looked over her shoulder at the snowdrifts behind her.

  “That was a very local storm,” said Jem.

  “It ends here,” said Clare. “Who knows how far the storm reached in the other direction?”

  The song of running water continued. Clare could hear snow plopping off the trees behind her.

  “We’ll get Sheba,” said Mirri and started pulling Sarai by the hand.

  “Well,” said Clare. “Jem said we needed the snow to melt. It’s melting.”

  “It’ll take days for this amount of snow to melt,” said Abel. “Weeks.”

  But he was wrong. By the time they caught Sheba it was easy to get to the wagon, and the snow that had seemed knee deep was now up to their ankles. By the time they had hitched up Sheba, they were squelching in grass and mud as rivulets of water ran over their shoes.

  “It’s magic,” said Mirri.

  “It’s a meteorological finger,” said Jem.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a place where the weather is different from anything around it.”

  “That definitely sounds like magic.”

  They hadn’t strayed far from the road during the storm, and they must have made some forward progress as well, because all the landmarks looked different. Around the stump of a tree, tiny purple flowers were opening. A little way into the wood, Clare saw a bank of snowdrops. There was a slight rise in front of them, but after her rest, Sheba had no trouble pulling the wagon. When they reached the top, the whole countryside was spread out before them.

  There were meadows and copses of trees and streams.

  “It looks like the chess board in Alice Through the Looking Glass,” said Jem.

  “Do you know everything to do with chess, Jem?” asked Mirri.

  “I’m a chess bore. I could talk about it for hours and hours and hours.”

  “But you don’t,” said Clare.

  “I don’t.”

  “See that house off the road?” said Clare. “We could go there to get dry, get some rest.”

  “We should just push through until we get to Master’s,” said Jem. “We can’t afford to stop for every little thing, Clare.”

  “Everyone’s tired,” said Clare.

  “I’m thinking of you.”

  “We wouldn’t stay long.”

  “Let’s do what Clare says,” said Ramah. “I don’t think we should arrive at Master’s looking too needy. It puts us at a disadvantage.”

  Jem looked dubious.

  “She’s right,” said Clare.

  They made their way to the house. It had only one inhabitant, a man, dead, seated in a chair in the kitchen. Ramah dragged him out into the back garden, chair and all.

  The real problem was where to sleep. It was easy enough to find a place for Sheba. They cleared out a potting shed, put a rope across the front where the door had been, blanketed Sheba and put her in. But when it came to the rest of them, things were more complicated. Clare, Jem, Sarai and Mirri were used to sleeping in the same room. Ramah was used to solitude. Bird Boy and Abel were going to share a room, but then, at the last minute, they all dragged mattresses into one bedroom. It seemed unlikely that there would be any Cured in such a rural area, but they felt safer together.

  Before she went to bed, Clare gave Mirri and Sarai a kiss on the cheek. After a moment’s thought, she gave Ramah a kiss, too. Then she kissed Bird Boy and Abel. She was about to crawl into bed, but, as if in an afterthought, she went over and kissed Jem. He kissed her back.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  THE SWAMP

  THE WHOLE AREA was dotted with fields and farms made fertile by the ancient soil left by what was now a small non descript river. Jem found a pair of binoculars in the house and he spent part of the morning scanning the countryside.

  “You should do something useful,” said Clare. “Feed Sheba. Help unload some of the supplies for breakfast or lunch or whatever meal it’s time for.”

  “I’m thawing out my toes,” he said, and continued to scan. Then he suddenly stopped.

  “Look at this,” he said. “Above the white house by the trees.” Clare took the binoculars and gasped.

  “Those are sheep,” she said.

  “And cows,” added Jem.

  “And cows,” she said.

  “You sound like Mirri. There’s got to be someone there caring for them, and a Cured couldn’t do it. A Cured might slaughter them, but I can’t picture one taking care of anything.”

  At first, except for Ramah, the others didn’t believe Clare and Jem. Abel was sure that they were seeing white boulders. But he was silenced when he looked through the binoculars and actually saw the boulders moving.

  “We should go over there now,” said Jem. “After all, it’s on our way. And there could well be other children.”

  “Let’s stay there for a while,” said Mirri. “We can make friends with the children. And we can make friends with the sheep. Then we can herd the sheep to Master’s. It’ll be a gift, and—”

  “You don’t understand,” said Jem. “We really don’t know how much time we have before Pest comes. We’re not staying anywhere.”

  But, as it turned out, it was very hard to leave.

  They repacked the supplies they had taken from the cart, hitched up Sheba and set off, the horse swishing her tail discontentedly. Clare and Bear walked in front with Jem, who was carrying his hammer.

  “Is this going to be scary?” asked Mirri.

  “No,” said Clare. “I’ve got a good feeling about this.”

  It took them the better part of the morning to get there. The house was a large ramshackle farmhouse with a barn in the back; the pasturage was huge.

  “There’s a lamb on that hill,” said Mirri. Any fears she might have had vanished.

  Jem knocked at the front door.

  Nobody answered. Jem opened the door, and the familiar smell of something or someone rotting curled around them.

  They found the body in one of the downstairs bedrooms. It was that of a young man, eighteen or maybe nineteen years old. There was no quest
ion as to how he had died: his neck was black and bloated with Pest; his face was contorted, and its skin was mottled and marked with open sores. Someone had pulled the sheet up to his chin and tucked the ends of the comforter under the bed. Someone had cared for this boy. Clare thought of her dead father.

  And she was fairly certain, despite the distorted face, who the boy was, and who had cared for him. She pulled the sheet down a little and looked at the clothes to make sure.

  “It’s Rick,” she said.

  “Oh no,” said Mirri. “Where’s Tilda?”

  Clare explained to the others about the visit of Rick and Noah and Tilda.

  “He knew he was pushing his time,” said Clare. “I don’t understand why he’s here.”

  “He was stupid,” said Jem. “He should have pushed on to Master’s.”

  “That’s harsh,” said Clare.

  “It’s not harsh,” said Jem. “Rick knew better—he was right there when Noah died, and Noah was just a little older than you, Clare. We should be back on the road tomorrow.”

  “Maybe,” said Clare.

  “What we need right now,” said Mirri, “is to have a funeral.”

  BEFORE THEY BURIED Rick, they stabled Sheba in the barn and searched the house for Tilda, in case she had heard them come in and was hiding. The house was like a rabbit warren, with passageways and unexpected rooms and additions to the original building. In the attic, a fine coat of dust covered the floor and motes danced in a beam of light that came in through a grubby window. Mirri opened a box on top of one of the trunks. It was filled with gold Krugerrands that she let slip between her fingers, laughing as they fell to the floor in a glittering drift of gold.

  “Can I have them?” asked Mirri.

  “Yes,” said Jem.

  “I want to be rich.”

  “You are rich,” said Clare.

  Mirri gave her a look. “Don’t sound grownup. I mean rich with money.”

  Bird Boy opened one of the trunks and pulled out a pink feather boa.

  “This color is wrong for feathers,” he said. “Unless its flamencos.”

  “Flamingoes,” Ramah said absently. She put the boa around his neck while she ferreted around some more in the trunk.

  “Clothes,” she said. “Shoes, photographs, papers. These things look as if they’ve been here a hundred years.”

  “What if the house’s haunted?” asked Abel.

  “It’s not haunted,” said Clare.

  “I like it,” said Bird Boy.

  Next they explored the outbuildings beyond the barn, but there was still no sign of Tilda. Someone had left rabbit hutches open, but the rabbits were still there, feeding off the pellets in their bowls. Chickens and ducks had been released from their coops, but it looked as if they wouldn’t be hard to round up. In the pasture, the cows, along with two calves, came right up to them, and Clare saw why. Their udders were swollen with milk.

  “Anyone here know how to milk a cow?” asked Jem.

  “Actually,” said Clare. “I do.”

  “Get out of here.”

  THEY BURIED RICK in a shallow grave—the frozen ground wasn’t far under the surface, making deep digging impossible. As they had with Noah, they put rocks over the freshly turned earth so that it wouldn’t be disturbed.

  Then Clare walked with Jem to the upper pasture, and they spoke together for a long time.

  When they returned, Sarai came running for them.

  “I couldn’t find anyone,” she said. “It’s Mirri. You have to hurry.”

  “Mirri?” said Jem sharply. “What’s the matter?”

  “She’s stuck in some kind of quicksand by the pond. We have to hurry.”

  Jem was the first to reach Mirri, even though Clare was usually faster. He waded into the mire and stopped when he could reach out and take Mirri’s hands. Despite her shrieks, and Sarai’s dire predictions, the marsh gave Mirri up easily.

  “It’s not quicksand,” Jem explained when he and Mirri were on the bank again. “It’s wet mud, but not, I think, deep enough to swallow you up. We won’t, however, try the experiment.” The swamp issued a few anaerobic burps, and the smell was a good old-fashioned stink, an innocent odor of fish and rotting vegetable matter. Clare breathed it in deeply. At spas, she knew, people paid for stinks like these.

  But as they started back to the house, Mirri stopped and turned a white face to Jem.

  “Something’s moving on me,” she said.

  “Are you sure?” asked Jem.

  “Where?” asked Clare.

  Mirri patted her blouse, looking scared.

  “I’ve got lumps,” she said. “On my stomach. D’you think they’re death lumps?”

  “No, Mirri,” said Clare. “I am sure you do not have death lumps.”

  “But there are lumps on my stomach. I’m probably dying.”

  Jem bent over Mirri and then stood in surprise. “Come here, Clare,” he said. “There really are lumps.”

  Clare lifted Mirri’s shirt. There were seven large black slippery objects on Mirri’s stomach. They were the size of banana slugs. Her torso looked like a road map of blood.

  “Leeches,” said Clare.

  “Don’t try and pull them off,” Jem said. “I bet Ramah will know what to do.”

  They ran back to the house where Ramah, who had been wondering where they all were, took in the situation.

  “Salt,” she said. Soon she was back with a box of iodized salt, which Jem poured liberally on the leeches. Clare told Mirri to close her eyes, worried that she might be queasy.

  But it was Sarai who fainted. “I feel hot,” she said and slumped to the floor.

  “Put her head between her knees,” Ramah said. “So her head’s below her heart.”

  Then, as Sarai groggily came to, Ramah returned to Mirri. She and Clare brushed off the leeches, now loosened by the salt.

  “They’re gone,” Clare said to Mirri. “They’re all gone.”

  “How did you know about using the salt?” Jem asked Ramah.

  “In The African Queen that’s how Katherine Hepburn gets the leeches off Humphrey Bogart. It’s the only movie I’ve seen.”

  “What about SpongeBob SquarePants?” asked Sarai. “Have you seen SpongeBob SquarePants?”

  “No.”

  Sarai looked at Ramah as if she were from another planet.

  Jem got the Bactine and some gauze and cleaned out the round mouth-wounds left by the leeches as best he could.

  “There,” he said to Mirri. “You’re all set.”

  Mirri was irrepressible once more, and she went with Clare and Bear when they went out to the barn to feed the cows. The cows were contentedly chewing their hay, and Clare pulled the great barn door closed to keep out the sharp wind before turning to Mirri.

  When she did, she noticed that Mirri seemed different somehow. She looked, in a way that Clare could not have quantified, healthier.

  “Those leeches were gross,” said Mirri.

  “How do you feel now?” asked Clare.

  “Actually,” said Mirri. “I feel really good. In fact, I feel terrific. It’s strange, but I don’t remember feeling this good in a long time. I feel like I’ve been half dead for all these months. D’you know what I mean?”

  But Clare didn’t. Although, when it came right down to it, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in the mood to do a cartwheel or a handspring or a back flip.

  “I feel alive,” said Mirri.

  “You’re absolutely glowing,” said Clare.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  LEAVING THYME HOUSE

  LATER THAT EVENING Tilda walked out of the woods near the pond, pale, thin and wraithlike, like the spirit of a tree out of some old story. She had grown taller, and to Clare she seemed a lot older.

  “I heard you come in,” said Tilda. “But when I saw him”—she indicated Bird Boy—“I thought he might be a Cured.”

  Bird Boy gazed at her mildly. “Not a Cured,” he said.
r />   “Rick died four days ago,” Tilda continued. “I tucked him in. For the long night. We didn’t want to leave this place, and then it was too late. You’ll see—life here is good. But you have to remember to leave. I saw Mirri and Sarai in the garden just now and decided to come and see them. In case they needed help. In case you and Jem were dead.”

  “Not dead,” said Bird Boy. He looked upset.

  “We’re all right,” said Clare. “For now.”

  “We’re going to Master’s,” said Jem.

  “That’s what Rick said,” said Tilda sadly.

  They ate together and then went through the ritual of picking a bedroom. They moved in the mattresses, sleeping bags, comforters, sheets and pillows and unloaded a stock of the food supplies. Tilda made it clear she would be more than happy to sleep in the same room with them that night.

  While the others went to help Tilda round up the chickens and ducks she had released when she saw them coming to the farm (“I didn’t know who you were or how you’d treat them—I thought I should let them go”), Jem put the two packs he and Clare had been carrying against the wall.

  Ramah was watching carefully.

  Jem didn’t seem to notice her gaze as he set about putting more food and fresh clothes in the knapsacks, but Clare found that she couldn’t look Ramah in the eye.

  “Were you thinking of leaving without me?” Ramah asked quietly.

  Jem didn’t look up. “Yes,” he said. “You have more time than we do. And I’m not letting Clare go to Master’s alone.”

  “When do you plan to go?” she asked. Jem still didn’t look up.

  “The day after tomorrow,” said Clare. “We want to help you settle in. But Jem and I agree that we should check Master’s place out before you and the others go. We know nothing about the set-up there. You’ll stay and take care of the others until we come back for you. It won’t be long, Ramah, and this looks like a good place; you’ll all thrive here.”

  “The others will be all right without me,” said Ramah. “Bird Boy would die for them.” And she put her pack next to theirs, along with her bow.