Eden's Garden

He was late. Carys stopped by the stone archway, her breathless, headlong rush abruptly halted.

Maybe he’d forgotten. She took a deep breath. Her fingers closed around the precious scrap of paper in her pocket, clutching it tight. She was being silly. There must be something happening up at Plas Eden. His aunt could have sent him on an errand. Or his grandmother asked him to walk the dogs for her. Something he couldn’t help.

He probably thought it would take her ages to escape. It hadn’t been just Mam and Dad and her sisters, but well-meaning cousins and neighbours crowded into Willow Cottage that morning. And the eager questions through the winding streets of the little village where everyone knew her name and, today of all days, wanted to know her business.

A white delivery van passed by on the road behind her, slowing as it reached the main entrance, then speeding up as it set off up the driveway to the crunch of tyres over gravel.

Well, she wasn’t staying here alone, just a few steps from the main road, for all to see and laugh at. Carys lifted the rusty latch of the wrought-iron gate and pushed the protesting metal open just enough to wriggle inside the archway, pulling it to with a sharp squeal.

Entering the curve of the high stone walls was like stepping into another world. The road and the village, with its glimpse of the sea on the horizon, vanished. Trees surrounded her, their branches swaying slightly in the breeze. As the leaves parted, she could make out a blue expanse of lake. Steep green lawns led down to the water’s edge, topped by the imposing, ivy-clad facade of Plas Eden.

It was strange, seeing the house from this unfamiliar angle. Close to, Plas Eden was slightly shabby, in a homely, comforting sort of way. Between the ivy, white paint peeled away from the masonry. Moss collected where roof slates had slipped or broken, and the skinny beginnings of a tree sprouted from a broken edge of guttering on one side.

From here, reflected back at itself in the waters of the lake, it looked more like a National Trust place. The kind you went round in hushed voices with a guide, careful not to touch the gilded furniture behind swathes of protective rope, or go anywhere near the ancestral portraits by Reynolds and Gainsborough, each priceless and alarmed up to the hilt.

If only David were here next to her, filling her world with his presence and telling her it was all going to be okay. Carys shut her eyes, holding on to the soapy, real-wool smell of his jumpers, the smile that lit up the seriousness of his face. The warmth of his arms around her and the rapid beat of his heart when she leant against him.

Maybe she’d got it wrong. Maybe he hadn’t said the first archway, but the second, further down the path, deep inside the Plas Eden grounds. At the entrance to the secret hollow where the statues lay.

Carys peered uneasily through the trees. ‘Eden’s ghosts’, the village called them. She’d heard Mam and some of the older people talking about the statues sometimes, their voices taking on that sad, wistful tone they used when they remembered something lost forever. David had always promised to take her there, but somehow he never had. It was as if they were too precious, and the memories they held too painful for him to share, even with her. Until now, perhaps.

Well, action was better than just waiting, Carys told herself. And David
might
be there, wondering where on earth she’d got to. In any case, it wasn’t as if Eden’s ghosts were real ghosts; just weathered statues, carved out of stone.

She set off down the path, between ancient oaks and birch saplings, towards a circular pond. As she reached the bank, she could make out the greening figure of a woman marooned within the blackly glinting remains of water, holding out a vessel of some kind, as if in forlorn offering to passers-by.

Carys shivered. All those stories Dad had told them about the Plas Eden gardens came flooding back. Stories of fountains shooting great sprays high into the air. Of cleverly constructed waterfalls and secret hideaways. Of flowers set in swathes of colour around benches and rose-covered arbours. Of grapes and melons and a kitchen garden that had once grown everything a great house could possibly need.

At the time, the stories had seemed like a fairytale. Something that belonged to a castle far away, with princesses in towers and knights in armour, not to a tiny village tucked away in the Welsh hillsides. A village that, even to her loving child’s eyes, had been unmistakeably shabby, and was now, with her newly adult gaze, about as run down and back of beyond as you could get.

Carys swallowed. That gap between house and village hadn’t mattered at all when they’d been kids. She’d been welcomed at Plas Eden to keep the Meredith boys company, especially after other friends began to make their excuses, as if merely being there would bring enough ill luck to last a lifetime.

It hadn’t seemed to matter this past year, despite that crease of worry between Mam’s brows, and the wariness of David’s Aunt Rhiannon. They were old people who didn’t understand, she’d told herself. And it wasn’t as if she was going to mess up her exams or get herself pregnant. No way. She was eighteen now. An adult. She wasn’t stupid. Nor was David.

‘Cari!’

She breathed deep in relief as David came hurtling down towards her, mop of fair hair catching the sunlight, stones flying this way and that into the ferns along the edges of the path in his haste.

‘Hi,’ he said, coming to a halt, apology written all over his face.

‘Hi.’ Cary smiled, feeling oddly shy. Her stomach was making its usual abrupt plunge off a cliff edge, while all her limbs tingled as if they belonged to somebody else. Usually, she would rush straight into his arms, where the tingling would soon merge into the take-your-breath-away sensations that left her barely able to stand.

But today was not a normal day.

‘I’m sorry.’ His smile was rueful. ‘I was on my way out, but then that idiot phoned again. Aunt Rhiannon was still teaching her art class, and I didn’t get to the phone in time. So Nainie took it.’

‘Oh.’ Carys bit her lip. Nainie was David’s grandmother, the owner of Plas Eden and seriously old. ‘Was she okay?’

‘She was a bit upset, so I waited until Rhiannon got back.’ He scowled. ‘I know he’s a Meredith and some kind of cousin, but he’s still a total arse. Nainie’s had enough to deal with, without cousin Edmund going on and on about how we’re ruining Plas Eden and he could have done it better, and he should have inherited it anyhow. He was back on about that again, and how he was coming over, or sending some private investigator to “sort us out”.’

‘What a horrible thing to say! Poor Nainie.’ Carys had always had a soft spot for old Mrs Meredith, who was gentle and kind, and never seemed to notice whether Carys was a girl from the village or the daughter of landed gentry.

‘Oh, she’ll be fine.’ David was wry. ‘Edmund was still ranting away like anything when Rhiannon got back. He won’t listen to me because he says I’m too young and I’ve been brought up on their “lies”, and all that garbage. So I put Rhiannon on. She’ll tell him where to get off, no problems.’

Carys grinned. She’d overheard enough gossip in the village to know that Rhiannon was still regarded as an outsider with outlandish London ways. The ‘London’ bit was mostly Rhiannon’s flowing dresses of bold, multicoloured patterns, worn with Doc Martin boots and a silk scarf in her fair hair. Along with a habit of speaking her mind.

Carys hadn’t personally been at the receiving end of the speaking-her-mind bit, but there was something slightly exotic and uncontrollable about Rhiannon – like a brightly feathered bird of unknown temper, whose beak looked uncomfortably sharp. She didn’t envy anyone in the path of Rhiannon’s temper, once she got going.

‘Well?’ David had brushed today’s drama at Plas Eden to one side and was watching her expectantly.

Carys took a deep breath, the butterflies back in her belly. ‘I got one ‘B’. That was for Biology.’

‘And?’ He was still watching her, confidence in his eyes. He’d meant it, all those months he’d said he believed in her. Which had been slightly unnerving, because it wasn’t how it was meant to be. That was not the Golden Rule of Finding a Boyfriend, at least according to Mam and every magazine Carys could lay her hands on. Listen to a boy. Show how interested you are in his concerns. Don’t talk too much, especially not about yourself. Above all, never, ever show signs of being cleverer than him.

David Meredith, being heir to Plas Eden, was of the unmistakeably Lord-of-the-Manor kind, and so – as far as Mam and the magazines were concerned – the ‘B’ alone should have done for her, good and proper. He should have been at least halfway to Australia by now.

‘As’, she confessed.

‘I told you so!’ She was caught up and swung around and around, until she was dizzy. ‘Three As and a B. Hey, you could get into Oxford with that.’

‘I don’t want to get into Oxford.’ Her family weren’t like the Merediths: she would be the first
ever
to get to university. That was quite scary enough, without any thought of posh people looking down their noses at a Welsh village girl with just her grant to live on and no sense of style.

‘But you
could
.’ He was beaming at her in unmistakable pride. ‘And that’s what counts.’ He grinned. ‘Huw’ll be pissed, when I tell him. He only got a B and two Cs. He’ll have to go to his second choice, or try through clearing.’

Carys tactfully hid a smile. She couldn’t help it. David and his brother had been to Rushdown, the only private school in the area. Rushdown was a magnificent Victorian mansion perched on a cliff just outside the nearest town, with views over the sea and Talarn’s famous ruined castle. Carys and her sisters had had to make do with Talarn Secondary, with views of the local housing estate and a slightly dubious reputation. But Carys had still managed to get better A levels than both Huw and David. In fact, the best results in all of Talarn, according to the reporter from the local paper. Who had still concentrated on getting lots of shots of the pretty girls, slightly to Carys’ relief.

‘Come on.’ David grabbed her hand and led her through the second arch to a series of stone steps where the trees thickened, allowing only the faintest touch of sunlight to trickle through into the undergrowth.

‘Where are we going?’

‘To the statues, of course. I want this to be really special.’

Carys allowed herself to be guided along, down the steps and into the deepest, most hidden part of the garden. The bottom step opened up into a flat expanse of ground filled by young oak and slender, silver-trunked birch. Leaves flickered, sending a sighing into the branches above them.

‘Come on,’ said David, feeling her hesitate. ‘It’s okay, there’s nothing scary. It’s just a bit overgrown, that’s all.’

As they made their way between the thick ferns and moss, Carys found her eyes adjusting to the gloom. Faint streams of light fell into green pools on the ground, like the aisles of St Asaph Cathedral where Dad had once taken them to hear the singing: not because he was particularly religious, but because it was beautiful. High above, the branches opened up into a clear circle, revealing a distant glimpse of sky.

‘It’s a glade,’ she said, her voice hollow and echoing.

David turned, his eyes glinting in the reflected light. ‘You’re not superstitious, are you?’

‘No, of course not.’

He pulled her close to him. ‘This was Mum and Dad’s favourite place. We all used to spend so much time here when me and Huw were little. It felt like our own little world, where we could always be safe. Except Mum would never let us stay once it got to dusk: all that stuff about glades being special places for the Druids and the Celts.’ His voice had become thoughtful. ‘They thought woodland glades were places between worlds, where the living and the dead could meet.’ She felt him shudder. ‘When I was a kid, I sometimes used to think, used to hope, even…’ His voice trailed into silence.

Carys held him tight. David’s parents had both been killed in a terrible train accident on their way to London, when David was nine. Carys had only been seven, but she remembered vividly the pictures of the twisted wreck that had filled the papers and the TV news for weeks afterwards. She knew there was nothing she could say to him. There was nothing anyone could do or say. Just be there with him, until it passed.

‘We can go,’ she suggested.

David shook himself. ‘It’s all rubbish, of course. That stuff about glades. And there’s no point, really, trying to hang on to the past. Now’s what matters. You and me. Anyhow, I’m supposed to be showing you the statues.’ Pride entered his voice. ‘So? What d’you think? Pretty cool, eh?’

She’d forgotten about the statues. Carys peered around her, not quite sure what she was looking for. Slowly, as her eyes adjusted, stone figures began to emerge from the darkness between the trees. They were taller than she had imagined: life-size, each resting on a large slate base. Stone eyes gazed out at the intruders, solemn and watchful, like pieces on a chessboard, waiting for the next move.

And their faces – as the carved features sharpened all around her, Carys felt a sliver of cold sneak down her spine. They weren’t like any faces of statues she had seen before. They wouldn’t quite leave you alone. As if, Carys thought, they were real people, caught inside a stone shell.