The Garden of Dead Dreams

by Quillen, Abby

  “Did you look in the greenhouse? She’s been helping Poppy with the orchids.” Etta sat down on her bed and glanced toward the door, expecting to see Jordan leaning on the doorframe. “Jor, I was kidding. You can come in.” She waited. “Jordan?” She slipped her shoes off and padded to the porch.

  The chair was empty.

  Chapter Four

  The next morning Opal Waters leaned on the desk in front of the classroom with her long legs stretched in front of her. She brushed a whitish-blonde lock behind her ear and scanned the room while Etta’s classmates finished their writing warm-up. It was too early for anyone to look as composed as Opal did. Carl jestingly called Opal a food fascist, because of her list of dietary sensitivities and restrictions, but Opal’s diet clearly had some merits. The poet had to be in her fifties, yet her blonde hair was silken, her ivory skin flushed and dewy. Hardly any lines etched the skin around her pale gray eyes.

  Unlike the other resident authors, Opal rarely congregated with the students outside of class. She ate her meals with the director, his assistant, and the librarian. She never lounged in the great room in the evenings, or read in the library, or sunned herself at the swimming hole on hot summer afternoons. Some students speculated that the resident author thought herself too distinguished to associate with amateurs after she’d been presented with the Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry last year. But maybe she was just upset because she couldn’t eat Carl’s fried catfish fritters or New Braunfels bratwurst. That would put Etta in a bad mood.

  “You’ve all written two pages now, correct?” Opal stood. “Tell me, were you inspired to write when you walked in the door this morning?”

  Someone groaned. “No,” boomed a voice behind Etta.

  In the center of the room, Chase Quinn raised his hand and spoke before Opal called on him. “A lot of us write best at night. These morning writing exercises can be, you know, less productive for us . . .”

  Opal fixed her pale gaze on him. “Am I wasting your time, Mr. Quinn?”

  Chase shook his head and lowered his gaze to his notebook.

  “Sir, I hate to disappoint you, but writing is not about inspiration. Writing is discipline. It is self-control.”

  Etta glanced at her notebook. She knew all about discipline. For years, she’d written one to two thousand words a day. At that pace, she’d be done with her story tomorrow. But lately it felt like the words were trapped somewhere just out of her reach, and the few she managed to wrest loose were maimed and limping.

  Opal’s gray gaze drifted to the windows. “Writing is the pestiferous gadfly that won’t let you take a vacation or day off. It’s what stops you from becoming a doctor or a lawyer, an executive with a corner office and a secretary. It’s what strips you of friends, of children—of noise.” She clenched her fists. “It won’t let you enjoy anything for its own beauty—only for your next poem or story, for your own aspirations. For your own ego.” She let her breath out at once and spun around.

  Opal stacked her papers and inserted them into a manila folder. Then she gripped the folder, plucked her coffee cup from the desk, strode down the center aisle, and disappeared out the door.

  Etta stared down at her tidy handwriting. She’d written two rambling pages about the weather. The wind had started blowing sometime late in the night, and Etta had written about the currents carrying the fog away, ethereal wisps of vapor fanning out above the trees and sweeping out to the Pacific Ocean. There was no point to it whatsoever, but Etta had written for twenty minutes in a row, a feat compared to her progress in the last couple of weeks.

  “Writing is anguish,” a voice came from the front of the room. Etta lifted her head. Mallory Chambers, one of the Poet’s Row students, stood where Opal had a moment before, a smirk on his face. “It’s worse than being on the rag or going through menopause. It’s worse than when I told my mother I’m a raging dike. It’s worse than when I realized that the few people who have read my dismal poems committed suicide straight after, because I make people miserable.”

  Mallory paused, and Etta felt a giggle rising in her belly. She didn’t want to laugh, but Mallory was trying to make his baritone voice high-pitched, and he sounded more like a puberty-wracked teenager than like Opal. Etta stole a glance at Mallory’s twin sister Hillary. Although the fraternal twins had deep-set dark eyes and short, muscular frames, Etta never would have guessed they were related if someone hadn’t told her. Mallory wrote outlandish poems and loved to perform them for the class, whereas Hillary hardly spoke and hadn’t let anyone read excerpts from her novel-in-progress. Rumor had it that Hillary was writing about a pair of siblings whose father murdered their mother when they were children and that it was at least somewhat autobiographical. Hillary stared at her notebook, her face hidden behind her brunette frizz.

  Laughter rippled up from the back of the room. Mallory grinned and took an exaggerated bow. He lifted a hand and cleared his throat. “Writing is my anorexia and bul . . .” Mallory looked up. His face turned scarlet, and his gaze shot to the floor.

  Etta spun around in her chair. Opal Waters leaned against the doorway, looking even slighter than usual, drooping and wan, like a dandelion just before the seeds scattered.

  Before Etta could contemplate how much Opal had heard, the resident author was gone. Etta thought about rising and following after Opal to express her disagreement with Mallory’s words. But she guessed comfort would be the last thing the resident author would want. Apparently the rest of the students felt the same way, because for a long moment, they all sat staring at the door.

  * * *

  Olivia was the first one to rise and stride out of the classroom.

  Etta stuffed her notebook in her book bag and jumped up as her roommate disappeared out the door. Etta squeezed past a group of students converging in the aisle, sailed out the door, and jogged down the stairs to the second floor, hoping to catch up with her roommate. The morning mandatory writing hour would start in fifteen minutes.

  Etta hadn’t seen Olivia since yesterday morning. Both Olivia and Jordan had skipped dinner last night. Etta always felt jumpy when her friends missed required meals at the same time. If the director found out about their relationship, they could be disciplined, perhaps expelled. Or maybe not. As Poppy liked to point out, Jordan’s father owned The Drinking Gourd, a literary magazine that regularly published short fiction and poetry by Buchanan alums, which seemed to gain Jordan special esteem at the academy. He was, for instance, the only student who didn’t have to share his cabin with a roommate.

  Etta heaved open the door to the library. A wall of warmth met her as she stepped inside. The old radiators under the window hissed and clicked. The reading lamps on the glossy myrtlewood tables in the middle of the room were off, and the librarian’s office was dark. But sunlight flooded in through the row of narrow paned windows at the end of the room. Etta walked toward them, glancing up at the shelves that lined each wall.

  Buchanan had collected a renowned private collection of literature about the American West. Last week Etta had discovered signed editions of Norman Mailer’s Executioner’s Song and Mary Austin’s Land of Little Rain. She’d searched for Desert Solitaire, hoping to read Edward Abbey’s famous 1969 inscription to Vincent Buchanan praising the Buchanan Academy as affirmation that the American novel would “defend itself against the ceaseless assault of commercialization.” But the books weren’t in alphabetical order, and if there was any sort of arrangement to them, Etta hadn’t discovered it.

  Etta gazed down on the expanse of grass and the green house, trying to detect movements through the glass roof. Was Olivia helping Poppy tend the cymbidiums? The director’s orchids seemingly required more nurturing than a newborn. Poppy spent much of her unstructured time carting plants back and forth to the sink for watering and verifying that the humidity and light conditions were ideal.

  The door creaked open. Etta swirled around and blinked, trying to adjust her eyes to the shadows.

  “H
ello there.”

  Etta recognized Carl’s twang and stepped forward, blinking to make out his form.

  After a minute the chef stepped to Etta’s side. His brown eyes flashed golden in the light. “Your hair’s on fire.”

  Etta touched her ponytail then dropped her hand and smiled. “Have you seen Olivia?”

  “Matter of fact, I have.” Carl nodded in the direction of the glass door to the archives room. “Saw her in there.”

  Etta swirled around and peered at the dark room next to the librarian’s office. “In there? She wouldn’t be in . . .” Etta let the sentence die on her lips and stared at the embossed words on the door: Buchanan Research Room. By appointment only. The librarian had given the students a brief tour of Buchanan’s archives during orientation. What Etta remembered most was the smell—a pairing of dust and furniture polish.

  “Why would Olivia be in there?”

  “She was damn intent on reading something. Don’t think she even saw me. Must have been about four thirty this morning.”

  Etta stepped toward the archives room. The collection contained editions of all Buchanan’s novels and correspondence, including letters from presidents and other famous authors. Uriah Winston Mills, or “the major,” as everyone called him, never smiled, and he’d looked even more grave than usual as he’d outlined the steps academic researchers took to gain access to the room. First they sent letters of intent to the director. If approved, they were given appointments, at which time Carl drove to Jackson to escort them to Roosevelt Lodge. Researchers were only allowed to take in a pencil and paper or a laptop and were chaperoned at all times. Etta imagined sitting in the cramped room under the librarian’s gaze and shivered.

  She glanced outside. “Was the major in there with her?” The tree branches swayed just slightly in the wind.

  “Didn’t see him,” Carl said.

  Etta squinted into the tinted glass on the door. She could only make out shadows, but she recalled the basic layout of the room: the narrow antique case down the center that displayed World War II memorabilia: a rifle, a uniform, propaganda posters; Buchanan’s writing desk and chair and two leather armchairs in front of the tinted picture window; shelves of acid-free boxes and shiny Mylar-wrapped books; framed posters of the movies adapted from Buchanan’s books. Etta had recognized Gary Cooper in one poster and Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart in another.

  Etta turned back to Carl. “What were you doing here so early?”

  “Needed something to read while I waited for the bread to rise.” Carl extended a book. The red cover was faded and Etta couldn’t make out the title.

  “I got your heart.”

  A moment of silence hung in the room, and then Carl grinned, the skin at the corner of his eyes pinching. “Well, shoot, Etta. I meant for Miss Atwell to get that.”

  “Hey, where’s your hat?” Carl’s golden brown hair had grown since the last time Etta had seen it. It fell across his forehead, making him look boyish, even though a few silvery strands glittered in the sunlight.

  “Wasn’t fixin’ to run into anyone.”

  “You look better without it.” Etta’s cheeks flashed with heat when the words were out, and she dropped her gaze to Carl’s feet. He wore a pair of Nikes in place of his usual work boots. “Do you run?”

  “Only if something’s chasing me.” Carl laughed at his own joke. “Hardin wants me to cover the grounds today. I can drive the truck for some of it, but I reckon I’ll be doing a fair bit of walking.”

  “Cover the grounds? Do you do that a lot?”

  Carl shook his head. “Hardin’s convinced someone’s been hanging out near that old cemetery. Probably just a hiker, and I can’t see what harm anyone could do to a bunch of old headstones. But that’s not the way Hardin sees it. I told him I’d check it out.”

  Etta groaned. “Does this mean Candy’s making lunch?”

  “Don’t worry, she can’t destroy sandwiches. I don’t think.” Carl grinned. Candy, a student at Portland Culinary Academy, was at Roosevelt Lodge for a six-month apprenticeship, and she didn’t seem to have yet learned there were spices other than salt.

  “Where’s this cemetery?”

  “You mean to tell me you’ve never run that far?”

  Etta smiled.

  “It’s up past the swimming hole, off the trail a ways. Used to be a little town up that way, even smaller than Jackson. Most of the graves are as old as things get in these parts. Vincent Buchanan’s buried there, and I’ve heard there are a few other newer graves—a rancher who lived up the road a piece, his wife. You could come with me if . . .” His voice drifted off as he realized that, of course, she couldn’t go.

  Outside, the tops of the trees shook. Etta’s pulse fluttered against her wrists. Had they been talking for five minutes or fifteen? Had the mandatory writing session started? “I’ve got to go,” Etta said, as she twisted around and hurried down the aisle between the tables.

  She hefted the door open, turned and gazed at Carl’s silhouette against the trees. Dust stippled the air around him. “Bye,” she called.

  * * *

  An hour later as everyone else made their way down to the dining room for lunch, Etta exited the stairs on the second floor, padded down the hall, slipped inside the library, and closed the door behind her, inhaling the dry heat from the radiators. She made sure the major’s office was dark before switching on the overhead lights. Then she crossed the room to the archives and gazed at the embossed letters on the door.

  Etta twisted the brass doorknob. It didn’t budge. She pressed her face close to the glass, blinking at the outlines of the display case and shelves, the shape of the armchairs in front of the windows.

  She’d seen Major Mills and Opal Waters in the room on separate occasions. Once when Etta had stopped at the library to print a critique, the novelist Ralph Powell, who was visiting the lodge for a few days on his book tour, was sitting in one of the leather armchairs next to the major. But students? Students didn’t go in the archives. Why did Olivia go in there at four thirty in the morning? How did she get in?

  Etta squeezed her eyes shut. She’d been jealous of Olivia. She hated to even think of it, of that awful word “jealous” in reference to her own feelings. But it was true. Even before the resident authors had chosen Olivia’s play to be produced, Etta had envied her roommate’s silken hair and creamy complexion. She’d wasted many mornings peering into the cloudy mirror in their shared bathroom rubbing at the spatter of freckles on her cheeks and trying to comb her unruly nest just the right way to hide the mole on her neck. One morning she’d gone through half a tube of makeup trying to make the pearly scar next to her eye vanish, although she’d once considered the remnant of a gash she’d gotten while playing tackle football with her brothers as a badge of honor.

  At some point in the last two months, though, Etta had stopped being jealous of Olivia. Maybe it was Olivia’s wide grin or the way she gripped Etta’s arm before revealing whatever piece of gossip she was dying to share. Or maybe it was the way Olivia pulled her crumpled T-shirts from the floor and smelled the armpits before putting them on. Or maybe it was the short story Olivia had written for her critique, which was dark and strange and impossible not to love—an edgy fairy tale written from the perspective of members of an extended family of pig farmers.

  Of course, Etta knew it wasn’t any of those things.

  Olivia had cried, twice that Etta had heard, late at night as Etta lay staring at the ceiling. They were soft sobs, so low and sad that Etta couldn’t bring herself to say anything to her new roommate. But, as it turned out, hearing a person weep in the night made it impossible to envy her in the morning.

  Chapter Five

  Etta stepped into the dining hall a few minutes later. When she glimpsed Olivia sitting at their usual table next to Poppy, tension melted from her neck and shoulders. Olivia was so messy in most ways that her perfect posture always took Etta by surprise. Olivia’s hair was coiled into a loose twist
at the nape of her neck.

  “Excuse me,” a voice came from behind Etta.

  Etta spun around and was standing face to face with Chase Quinn. “Hi Chase.”

  He said nothing.

  Etta stepped out of his way, and he strode past her, his red hair disappearing into the swirl of people moving about the room. Etta remembered a few sentences from her critique of “Ancient Soldier,” and a hollow ache spread through her stomach and into her chest. She wrapped her fingers around the doorframe. Why had she been so cruel?

  Etta looked up, and Olivia was waving at her and grinning. Etta smiled and propelled herself toward their table. She plunked her book bag on the floor and winced at the scrape of her chair as she yanked it out.

  Poppy blew on her beef stew—a medley of shredded meat, carrots, potatoes, and green beans—that might look appetizing, except that morning Carl had mentioned that he’d be covering the grounds again, leaving Candy to prepare lunch.

  “Where’s Jor?” Etta asked.

  Olivia produced a slice of French bread from the basket on the center of the table and extended it to Etta. “Either the lid fell off Carl’s salt shaker, or Candy’s cooking today.”

  Etta groaned. She thought about telling Olivia and Poppy about Carl’s whereabouts, but focused on unwrapping a pad of butter instead. “You don’t know where Jor is?”

  Olivia shook her head and tore a piece of bread off her slice. She rolled it between her palms, forming a ball.

  Maybe he’s mad at you for sitting with Robert North yesterday,” Poppy said.

  Etta opened her mouth to discount Poppy’s comment. Did Poppy have a doctorate in saying the wrong thing to people? Then Etta thought of the way Jordan acted before he disappeared from their porch yesterday. “Are you and Jor fighting?”