The Garden of Darkness

by Gillian Murray Kendall

  It looked nothing like Clare remembered it. Now, in the evening light, everything looked washed out, the flowers unnatural in their regular rows. In the meadow beyond the walls, Clare could see sheep, and even they looked flat, as if they were pasted onto the grass.

  All the false flashy beauty of the place had fallen away.

  Bear pushed up under Clare’s hand, and she stroked his head.

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Mirri.

  “What about Master’s children?” asked Dante. “The older ones are on the cusp of Pest.”

  “I don’t feel any great love for Britta or her little followers right now,” said Jem.

  “But I don’t suppose we can just leave them to grow into Pest.” Clare sighed.

  Jem put his arm around Clare’s waist.

  “Something’s changed between those two,” said Mirri to Sarai.

  “It’s what we talked about, I bet,” said Sarai. “They must’ve finally figured it out.”

  Clare, when she was to look back later, was to wish those moments had no end. She stood with Jem, remembering how he had kissed her, how she had kissed him back, and thinking ahead to the infinity of time before them. She could see that Ramah looked worried, and Dante was frightened, but she couldn’t feel anything but joy, and not just the joy of being at that moment with Jem, but the joy of being with Jem in the years that suddenly and miraculously had opened out before them all.

  But something had to be done about the Master and the Master’s children. Clare couldn’t help but think that it would be so much easier just to leave the children. She didn’t want to take them in at Thyme House, even temporarily. Another thought occurred to her.

  “What if the Cured have overrun Thyme House,” said Clare, “while we’re here?”

  “We didn’t leave Thyme House empty,” said Mirri. “We left Sam and Becca there—you remember, pregnant Becca. They showed up right before we left. They looked just the way you described them. Not that you needed to describe much about Becca. She’s huge.”

  “Sam and Becca,” said Jem. “I’m glad.”

  “We put the leeches on them,” said Mirri. “For Sam it was just in time. He already had the marks on his neck. Becca cried until he was better.”

  And that’s when Britta and Doug and several of the others came out of the Master’s mansion and walked down the steps into the courtyard.

  When Britta saw Clare, she stopped.

  “You should be dead,” she said. “This isn’t possible.”

  “Actually, I feel pretty good.” And it was true, Clare did feel pretty good—more than pretty good. She felt terrific. She felt as if all her senses had come alive. “You can be cured, too,” Clare said. “You don’t need Master. The blue-eyed ones don’t need to die.”

  “Master’s building a new world,” said Britta. “And he’s said there is no cure. You’re just some weird lucky exception. And the blue-eyed ones he takes would die anyway—just like the rest of us.”

  “Their sacrifice builds community,” said Doug.

  “Ignorance is strength,” muttered Ramah.

  “Come with us,” said Jem. “There’re better places to be. You don’t need Master.”

  “Nothing you can say makes any difference to us,” said Britta.

  “I weren’t nothin’ before Master,” said Charlie.

  “That’s right, Charlie,” said Doug.

  “And I seen that girl what has the dog before,” said Charlie. “In the dark place. Her and the boy. Them two makes things happen. Them two is—” Charlie seemed to reach down deep into his vocabulary—“perilous.”

  Then Clare heard a quick intake of breath. She turned and looked. On the path that led to the gate was the Master. He was striding towards them. And he was smiling.

  There was a sudden tussle as Jem tried to push Clare behind him, and Clare tried to push Jem behind her. Clare was still weak; Jem won. The Master couldn’t see her as he greeted them.

  “Hello,” said the Master. His smile was so broad that he was absolutely beaming. He turned to his children. “I believe our guests are just leaving,” he said.

  Perhaps he really had intended for them to leave. Perhaps not. Clare was never to know. He pushed Jem aside suddenly, and as soon as he saw her smooth and glowing face, he ceased to smile. The change was as sudden as snakebite.

  “You’re alive,” he said.

  “Yes,” said Clare.

  He stared at her neck. “No more marks of Pest. And no patch. I guess you’re not leaving after all, Clare.”

  “We’re going home,” said Jem. “All of us. And I think that these other children are going to come, too.”

  The Master sighed. Clare thought that he probably preferred the anonymous blue-eyed children in the photographs he kept in his secret box to the living, breathing riddles that lived with him.

  “You have a real cure, Clare,” said the Master. “Give me the cure, and I’ll let you go.”

  “Your world’s over,” said Clare.

  “Do you know why they call me ‘Master’ instead of ‘Doctor Sylver’?”

  Abel spoke up. “Because it sounds really scary?”

  Dr. Sylver frowned. “Because since Pest, I’ve shaped everything the way I want it. The world is mine, and I can make what I like of it.”

  “No,” said Clare. “You can’t.”

  “You’re just an ignorant little girl who’s out of her depth,” said Dr. Sylver. “You’ve happened on a cure for Pest, and you have the eyes I’ve been waiting for my whole life. I want it. And I want you.”

  “Not happening,” said Jem.

  “Yes. It is.”

  “Do you really think we’re going to let that happen?” said Jem.

  And that’s when the Master pulled out the gun. “If you don’t give me the cure,” said the Master, “I’ll shoot. It’s very simple.”

  “It is simple,” said Clare. “If you shoot me, I won’t be able to tell you what it is.”

  “Oh I won’t shoot you,” he said. “I’ll shoot your little friends.” There was a moment of silence.

  Then he lifted the gun and shot Jem.

  Blood and flesh exploded from Jem’s shoulder. Clare caught him as he fell, and they slid to the ground together. Ramah ran to them. In the horror, Clare could find only two words.

  “Get him,” she said to Bear.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  RAMAH’S ARROW

  JEM WAS BLEEDING. Clare ripped off part of her shirt and pressed it into the wound, and the cloth was scarlet almost immediately.

  Clare felt rather than saw Bear begin what would almost certainly be the last action in his life. Then she looked up, because she was responsible for the great animal, and if Bear didn’t make it all the way to the Master, if he were shot down, she should have to watch.

  Bear hurtled towards the Master. Clare could only hope that he would somehow survive long enough to reach him.

  Then Clare heard someone shout out “NO!” and Bird Boy was running, running so hard that none of them had a chance to try and stop him. And Bird Boy, Clare realized, wasn’t running toward the Master; he was running towards Bear. He collided with Bear as the Master fired.

  Bird Boy went down, shot in the chest.

  Less than a moment later, Clare heard a resonating singing sound.

  And then Doctor Sylver, the Master, the tempter, the ghoul, the murderer, fell, an arrow through his eye.

  Ramah lowered her bow.

  AS RAMAH RAN to Bird Boy, Clare pressed her shirt harder into Jem’s wound and put Jem’s hand over it. Ramah cradled Bird Boy in her arms.

  “Help me,” Ramah said quietly.

  “I have to get to Bird Boy,” Jem whispered.

  “You can’t move,” said Clare. “You’ll bleed out.”

  But she couldn’t stop him. Jem got to his hands and knees and, painfully, began to crawl. Clare would have carried him if she could have. As it was, she got him half upright, and he leaned on her until she was
taking almost all his weight. In this way, slowly, Jem made his way to Bird Boy.

  “Save him, Jem,” said Ramah. “There’s so much blood. So much.”

  Clare let Jem down next to Bird Boy. Bird Boy’s chest had been torn open by the bullet. His face was spattered with blood, and Jem wiped it off. He tried to put his hands on Bird Boy’s chest, but, as Ramah had said, the blood was everywhere.

  “Ramah?” Bird Boy called for her even though she was right there.

  “I’m here. You’re going to be all right. You’re going to be—“

  He took her hand and pressed it to his cheek.

  “Ramah,” he said. And then he died.

  “No,” said Ramah. And then, more softly, “Stay here, Bird Boy. Stay here.” But Bird Boy wouldn’t stay.

  All the children except Britta stayed well back from the Master. She approached him, but as if she were terrified; she crawled on her hands and knees until she was next to him. His breathing was harsh and deep, stertorous, and Clare knew he was dying. Blood flowed in a torrent down his face, and as he convulsed, some of it scattered into the air. Britta was speckled with blood. She tried to cradle his head in her arms, but it kept lolling to one side. Blood was everywhere. It was almost enough, Clare was to think later, almost enough. But not quite.

  Mirri didn’t move, but she looked at Ramah and Bird Boy. Her cheeks were wet. Her nose was running, and she wiped it with a sleeve.

  “Why didn’t Bird Boy stay?” Mirri whispered to Clare.

  “He just couldn’t,” said Clare. Jem was unconscious now. She knew he was fighting for his life.

  “Is Jem going to leave too?” asked Mirri fearfully, and it was the first day they had met all over again, and Mirri was just a little girl who had seen too much death.

  “I don’t know, honey,” said Clare. She put an arm around Ramah, who was weeping silently over Bird Boy’s body. “I just don’t know.”

  The Master writhed on the ground, and the sounds he made were obscene. He tore at the the arrow, although it was all too late. Where his eye had been was now no more than a pulp of flesh and blood. Britta backed away from him with a kind of horror. He turned on his side, and then he lay quietly in the stillness of death.

  Bear sat back on his haunches, lifted his head and howled at the sky.

  “I wish Master were deader,” said Mirri.

  “He’s dead enough,” said Clare.

  And Ramah wept.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  IN THE MEADOW

  SOME OF THE children took over houses near Thyme House, but many of them, especially the young ones, brought sleeping bags and stayed with Clare and the others. They all doted on Becca’s baby girl. Becca had named her ‘Little Clare.’ After a long and, to the children, scary labor, Clare had delivered the baby. Clare had remained serenely confident throughout, which lent strength to Becca.

  “I’m beginning to feel like a matriarch,” Clare said after it was all over.

  “That’s how they’re beginning to think of you,” said Ramah.

  “Charlie and Dante should be back with Tork and Myra and the others soon,” said Clare. “I think they’ll come to us. I really think they will. But I don’t know where we’re going to put them.”

  “I think we’re going to have to build on an addition,” said Ramah. “Because Thyme House is now, officially, full.”

  “If they come,” said Clare, “they’re going to make life interesting.”

  Most of the children moved into the houses and cabins spread widely in the farm area. But Lee, a doctor’s son, and Sharon, who was good with mechanical things, and Dante, and even Britta, stayed with them at Thyme House. Britta seemed oddly lost, and she tended to wait until Ramah or one of the little ones told her what to do. At first Clare only spoke to Britta when she had to, and she only allowed her in the house at Ramah’s insistence.

  “She’s damaged goods,” said Clare.

  “We’re all damaged goods,” said Ramah. And Clare knew better than to try to win an argument with Ramah.

  Tomorrow they were to talk about starting a school, and maybe beginning an apprentice system of study.

  As they went their ways to bed, Clare remembered the early days with Jem and Sarai and Mirri. Pest had left them with only fragments of a world, but they had made a family.

  Clare woke up in the night. Gently she slipped out from under Jem’s arm. She left him and Sarai and Mirri asleep, passed through the center room and quietly stepped over the sleeping children there. Outside, the meadow was flooded with moonlight. Pale moonflowers were open, and Clare breathed in their heavy scent. She walked through the garden until she came to the rock in the center.

  The moon was full. Clare climbed up onto the rock and sat for a long time. Bird Boy would have liked to have seen how it all turned out, she thought. Bird Boy should not have died. He should not have died and broken Ramah’s heart. The moon was beautiful and cold. At midnight, Jem found her, and they went back into the house together.

  THE END

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  A special thank you to Richard Curtis, agent extraordinaire, whose close reading helped me remove some of the darker jumble of the manuscript of The Garden of Darkness. Thank you, Richard, for being such a superb agent, indefatigable on the matter of placing a manuscript, tolerant of my exhilaration when it was placed and indescribably supportive. Thank you, too, for your great sense of humor.

  It also gives me real pleasure to thank James Gunn, whose generosity of spirit brought Richard Curtis into my literary life. A luminary in the realm of science fiction, Jim promptly answered my first email to him and has warmly supported this book ever since.

  To go back more years than I care to remember, I owe a deep debt of gratitude to Alec Shane, who, at the very beginning, plucked my manuscript from a slush pile, brushed it off and said something like “hmmm.” Alec gave my manuscript its first serious critical reading. And its second. And its third. And, without wilting, staunch to the end, its fourth. Without Alec’s sharp eye and guiding intelligence, The Garden of Darkness would never have seen light. Thanks, Alec.

  Thank you also to the team at Rebellion/Ravenstone. Jonathan Oliver was always a pleasure to work with, and I can’t imagine a better editor. His suggestions were always acute; he’s a superb reader, and we bonded over commas. Ben Smith deserves a thank you for seeing this through and Michael Molcher a medal for his work on publicity. Luke Preece delivered, as promised, a superb cover. I’m so glad for the blue-greens, and the crows and the size of the dog. In short, for all of it.

  Smith College has been my academic home for many years. I am grateful to Marilyn Schuster, who understands the importance of sabbaticals. Many colleagues have given me their support over the years, particularly Bill Oram (with his enthusiasm), Nancy Bradbury (who believed that it would happen) and Naomi Miller (fellow author and Shakespearean).

  I am indebted to Jane Yolen, who helped me not only in my role as new author, but also in my life as an English professor at Smith College. Thanks, Jane, for your kindness and support. Jessica Brody is a good friend as well as a wonderful writer. Caroline Kendall Orszak, a marvelous reader, made me cut three chapters (yes, it had to be done), and is also my sister. Robert N. Watson is a dear friend and a supportive colleague who has guided me for years and years and years. My participation in the Stanford Creative Writing Workshop, set me on this path, and among many marvelous and influential writers in that program two faculty members deserve my special thanks: Nancy Packer and Robert Stone. Nancy Packer taught me from the sentence up (and I was married from her house), while Robert Stone, who can’t possibly remember me, once said, after reading one of my short stories, “If you can write an ending like this, you can be a writer.”

  Thanks to Mimi, sometimes known as Irene Dorit—a wondrous mother-in-law—and to Murray Dorit, whose memory remains. A particular thanks to my parents, Carol Kendall and Paul Murray Kendall—both no longer with us—who were both writers. My mother wrote
children’s books—one a Newbery honor book; my father was a distinguished historian who wrote, among many other things, the definitive biographies of Richard III and Louis XI. They encouraged my imagination and my voice from the outset, and for that—among many other things—I thank them. I’ve already thanked my sister, but that was for her skills as a reader; here I thank her for being my big sister. Finally, thank you to my two boys, Sasha and Gabriel, and to my husband, Rob Dorit, who did everything.

  Gillian Murray Kendall

  Gillian Murray Kendall is a Full Professor at Smith College, where she specializes in Shakespeare and non-Shakespearean Renaissance Drama. She has two children, Sasha and Gabriel, and lives in Northampton, Massachusetts with her husband, biologist Robert Dorit. Gillian likes all gardens, dark and light.

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