Nightfall Gardens (10 page)

“What was that?”

“That he was scared and hungry and was only stealing from the pyramid to feed his younger brother and sister who were starving in a nearby village.”

“What did you do?” Lily asked.

“Why, I let him go. When the other death warriors found out what had happened, they were furious and sentenced me to a century of suffering. From that point on, I was looking for a way out. I waited longer than I care to remember, until one day I found myself walking on a path and looking back into the White Garden. Who knows how long I was there or how I was able to free myself; the Gardens muddy the thinking of those trapped there. Luckily, I was discovered by one of your great-great-great-great-great-grandfathers and he was kind enough to have faith in me. All of the household staff are reformed evils from the gardens,” he said.

Lily couldn't believe what she was hearing. “Polly and Ursula as well?”

“Oh my, yes. There's no place for us in the outside world, so we stay here serving the Blackwood family.”

It sounded like a sad existence, but Lily kept that to herself. “And you knew my father and mother?” 

“Master Thomas was rebellious. He and Miss Moira thought that if they fled, they could escape their past. They didn't understand that the past is not something you can escape. May I be excused now?”

“I have one more question,” Lily said. “What was my Great-Aunt Abigail like? What happened to her?”

Ozy smiled until the parchment on his face looked as if it might rip. “She was my favorite. Miss Abigail was the most intelligent of all the Blackwoods I've had the pleasure of knowing. She knew this house better than anyone. She believed that the box used to bind us all was hidden somewhere here.”

“What was she going to do with it if she found it?” Lily asked.

“She thought there was a way to undo all of this and free her family and those of us seeking redemption. An old fairy tale, but she believed it quite emphatically.”

“What about the others?”

“Her father and mother laughed at her. Miss Deiva was more concerned with chasing boys than paying attention to her.”

“What happened on the day she disappeared?”

“Your great-aunt was like a ghost the last few weeks of her life. Always exploring the house, scribbling in a notebook she carried. Her mother warned her how deadly this house is, but she wouldn't listen. Many a Blackwood and servant have died here. In its way, Nightfall Manor is as deadly as the gardens outside. I saw her that morning, right here at this same table. 'I'm getting close, Ozy,' she told me. 'There’s something I have to do first, but soon we'll be free, once and for all.' After breakfast, Miss Abigail left and I never saw her again.”

Lily broke a biscuit in two and dipped it in her tea. “What do you think happened to her?”

“The house, madam. Something in the house got her,” he said. “We scoured this place from top to bottom and couldn't find her.” Ozy looked at the floor and Lily was surprised to see a tear in one corner of his eye. It must have been centuries since any liquid touched his dried skin. The butler backed away from the table. “I must go now to prepare the turning of your gran's room.”

'If only I could understand this book,'
Lily said,
looking hopelessly at her great-aunt’s coded journal.
'There must be someone who can read it.'
But who could she trust? If the journal contained clues about Pandora's Box, then it was a secret that needed to be guarded fiercely. It couldn't fall into the wrong hands.

Lily spent the rest of the day trying to make sense of the diary. She held it up to the windows in the sitting room to see if it was covered in secret ink, but nothing was there. Outside in the
Shadow Garden, caped figures were building what looked like a stage in a clearing. She watched them for a while and then drew the symbols on paper and tried rearranging them, but all that did was make her more confused.

In the late afternoon, Lily went in search of the library. She found the room, massive and gloriously jumbled with books. The walls soared a hundred feet high and were filled with countless dusty books. A skylight illuminated the collected history of the Blackwood family. Books were stacked in heaps on the floor waiting to be shelved. The room was filled with the musty but comforting smell of knowledge.
'Where do I start?'
She thought. Lily picked up a random book about herbology from one of the stacks. She put it down and pulled a book from a nearby shelf:
A Secret History of Sea Creatures
.  Lily perused another book:
I, Banshee, the Autobiography of a Death Foretold.
” Nothing there either. She spent the next two hours without discovering anything that would help untangle the mystery of her aunt's journal.

That evening, Lily went to call on her grandmother. If anyone might know what the journal meant, it would be Deiva. When she got to her door, though, Polly came out and looked at her with pity in her white eyes. “Your gran's feeling poorly today, she is. I'm afraid the gilirot's taking its toll. You'll have to come back tomorrow
, my lady. Your gran needs rest.”

Lily went to bed that night with a heavy feeling in her heart. Deiva wouldn't live much longer and then what would happen? Would she be chained to
Nightfall Gardens forever, until the same fate awaited her?

The next morning she made sure to be up bright and early so she would be out of her room before Ursula arrived. After her morning tea, she took Abigail's journal to the sitting room to pour over it one more time. She was surprised when she looked out onto the
Shadow Garden and saw the cloaked figures had finished building the stage and that a performance was about to take place. Lily placed the book on the table next to her, curious to see what was happening. An actor dressed in a red mask and red robes came onto the stage and gesticulated with his arms as though he were telling a story. A moment later, the play began. Lily pivoted the antique brass telescope toward the stage so she could get a better look at the action. A woman in a blue muslin dress capered on the stage, wearing a silver mask that covered her face. A young man in a black mask chased after her. Every time he tried to grab the girl, she danced out of reach. Another man, dressed in gold with a gold mask, entered on the opposite side of the stage. As soon as the girl in blue saw him, she flew to his side and they embraced in a long kiss. The man in black’s shoulders sagged and he stalked off the stage in anger. That was the end of the performance.

The man in the red mask swept back on and put his hands out for the actors to take a bow. The three came to the edge of the platform and bowed low at the waist, yanking their masks away as they did. When they stood, Lily gasped. The woman was her mother Moira, the man in gold was her father Thomas and the man in black was her Uncle Jonquil.

Before she could react any further, two men in wolf cloaks dragged a girl onto the stage with her hands tied behind her back. An executioner, hooded in black, walked behind them. He carried a double-edged ax that looked sharp and heavy enough to cleave marble. The girl was hauled to a post where her head was placed on a block. Lily hadn’t seen her face, but she didn’t need to. She would have known the soft blue dress and white blond hair flowing around the girl’s face anywhere. Didn’t she see it everyday when she looked in the mirror? She was looking at herself.
‘They are trying to frighten me,’
she thought. Still, Lily couldn’t manage to take her eye away from the telescope. The executioner raised the girl's head so Lily was looking into her own tear-streaked face, and then he pulled his ax back. Lily closed her eyes as it came down. When she opened them seconds later, the stage had vanished as though nothing had ever been there.

“My father says the
Shadow Garden is the worst of the three,” Cassandra said, standing next to her. Lily had been so intently watching what was happening that she hadn’t noticed the green girl arrive.

“Why?” Lily asked. The image of the executioner’s ax coming down on her neck played again in her mind.

“It’s the most deceitful and deadly, an inverted mirror of the world outside where all of the creatures from nightmares live. I’m to keep away from it at all cost and never walk past it at night. One of the many superstitions my father has. What did it show you?”

“My own death,” Lily said.

Cassandra laughed. “Then you won’t die. At least not today.” The green girl snatched Abigail’s diary from the table. “What’s this, then?”

Lily grabbed for it, but Cassandra was already out of reach and flipping through the pages.

“My great aunt’s diary,” she said. “Give it back.”

Cassandra frowned and handed it back to her. “Hopefully, you can make more sense out of it than I can.”

“Not really,” Lily said. “I’ve been trying to decipher it all day, but can’t understand a word.”

“Doesn’t surprise me.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s protected by magic. I can feel it.”

“You can feel magic?” Lily asked.

“It’s one of the many things I can do. Why are you in such a rush to figure out what’s inside here?”

Lily thought about holding back the truth but realized she had to trust someone and right now, she didn’t have any better options than the green girl with yellow hair. She told her about how she’d chased her aunt's ghost and about the room where all the history of humankind played out on the walls. She finished by describing the secret passage and the spider she’d fought.

“I don’t know what to do next,” Lily said. “But if there’s a chance Abigail was right and we can close Pandora’s Box, we have to try.”

The gardener's daughter walked over and sat on the windowsill. The Shadow Garden was empty below. “I’ve never considered a life without Nightfall Gardens, where my father and I wouldn't know constant death or danger. I'm not even sure Osbold and I could fit in out there.”

“You could come with us,” Lily implored.

“And be freaks in a sideshow?” Cassandra said angrily.

“Maybe one of our doctors could cure you,” Lily said.

“There's nothing wrong with me,” Cassandra snapped.

“Of course,” Lily said. “I only meant you could travel to
London and Paris with me.”

“What's that?”

“The grandest cities on earth,” Lily said. “More amazing than Nightfall Gardens and far less deadly.”

“I doubt that. Anyway, you’re the one that dreams of being a fancy lady with fineries,” Cassandra said. “I could never leave my father. What would he do without me? He's half-crazy since my mother died when I was a baby.”

“How did she die?” Lily asked gently.

Cassandra's eyes narrowed. “I don't know you that well, Blackwood. I'd ask you to mind your own business before you pry into others’.”

“I didn't mean —.”

“Your lot never mean to,” Cassandra said. Her shoulders sagged as though recalling a painful memory. “All you need to know is my mother died when I was a wee bairn. I never knew her.”

“I'm sorry,” Lily said.

With that, the green girl picked up Abigail's diary and thumbed through it again. “Well, we'd better get started.”

“Doing what?”

“You don't think I would sit idle if there was a chance to close this place once and for all? What would happen to the world if all of this evil came spilling back in to it? Your precious
Paris would be no more. Not everyone is as selfish as you,” Cassandra said.

“I don't know where to start,” Lily said.

“We start by finding out what kind of magic is protecting this book and then we figure out a way to read what’s inside.”

“How do we do that?”

“By visiting Raga,” Cassandra said.

“Who’s Raga?”

“A person who can understand any form of magic. If she’s not in one of her trances, she can tell us what type of spell has been put on this book and what we need to do to unlock its mysteries.”

“Every door in this house is watched to make sure I don’t go outside,” Lily said exasperated. “How do you expect to get me past them?”

Cassandra smiled. Her teeth gleamed white against her green skin. “You did say something about secret passages to the outside, didn’t you?”

10

Arfast and the Firedog

There were no such things as seasons in Nightfall Gardens. Summer didn't hearken in long sunny days. Fall didn't mean the changing of the leaves to fiery autumnal colors. Winter didn't bring cold or snow. Spring didn't herald rebirth or the renewal of the lands. Every day was the same — dismal, gray, and overcast.

Jonquil warned them that the sun never came to
Nightfall Gardens. “Enjoy it while you can,” he'd said. “For once we're inside you won't feel sunshine again until the next time the gate opens.” Silas hadn't known how true his uncle's words were. Three months with no sun and the boy's skin was the color of alabaster. Silas found the lack of light affected him in other ways as well. He was moodier and more prone to serious thoughts. Some days when he worked the grounds with Mr. Hawthorne, he thought he'd go mad if he looked up and saw the dark, bruised sky perpetually heavy with rain.

“How do you stand it?” he asked one day. “A person can learn to stand anything if they have to put up with it long enough,” the groundskeeper replied. “There's some who go off their rockers after a while, like Mad Abraham, a dusk rider who rode his horse into the Labyrinth one day and never returned. Usually, when this happens, people leave as soon as the gates open and go far enough that this place is only a nightmare in their sleep. Me? I don't mind it though. It's the infernal heat I don't like.” 

It had been a month since the riders returned and still Jonquil wavered between life and death. Mr. Hawthorne gave the wounded riders a serum made from Devil's Claw and tended them with healing poultices as best he could, but the other riders including Brayeur had slipped away quietly over the past weeks and now only his uncle was left, sweating out toxins, while Skuld was in charge of the dusk riders. Silas sat with Jonquil every evening, telling him about his day. Sometimes his uncle babbled and raved about something in the mist and once he thought Silas's mother was there. “Moira, I'm sorry. Why'd you leave? I could never tell you. I wouldn't do that to Thomas.”

“It’d be a right favor if someone put him out of his misery,” Larkspur said one evening over a fire as the flames reflected yellow off of his eyebrows and beard. He lifted a tankard of ale and poured it down his mouth and the front of his shirt. “Eldritch poison rots to the core. It turns blood black and burns a person alive until they are roasted like a pig.”

“What do you suggest we do then?” another rider called out.

“Only what Jonquil would do for us. Put him out of his misery,” Larkspur said.

Silas lay in his bed, eyes closed, prepared to jump up and battle anyone that would injure his uncle.

“That’s enough,” Skuld said, emerging from the shadows. “If anyone can survive, it’ll be him. I won’t hear anym
ore of that talk while the Gardens are more alive than I’ve ever seen them.”

“I’ll hold my peace for now, One Arm,” Larkspur said kicking his chair into the wall where it smashed to splinters. A group of riders jumped up with their hands on sword hilts and turned to face Skuld. “We were all close to Jonquil. But if there comes a time he’s no longer the man he once was, neither you or anyone else will stop me from doing what’s right.”

“Let me guess who the leader of the dusk riders would be then?” Skuld said. He loosened the leather straps of the ax at his side.

“I’m honored you think so highly of me,” Larkspur said. “For I’d certainly make a better leader than a man who got his arm gnawed off by a wolf.”

“Your belly makes a big target,” Skuld said. “It’ll be hard for you to laugh with your guts spilling on the ground.”

“I wonder how you’ll scratch your nose with your other arm gone,” the giant said, tapping his fingers on his sword handle.

Silas sat up, letting the blankets slip off him and yanking out the dagger he carried for protection. The dusk riders were forming into groups: those who supported Skuld and those who backed Larkspur. The two men were nose to nose with hatred in their eyes. If something didn’t happen soon, there was no telling where it would end. As if someone could read his mind, the flames from the fire shot up as if gasoline had been poured on them and a firedog shot from the chimney. The dog was the size of a Labrador retriever and was made entirely of flames that crackled from its body. It bounded from the fire with a growl and lit up the room with its glow. 

“What kind of trickery?” shouted one of the riders. He snatched at his sword and took a swing at the dog as it leaped on all fours and barked at the riders, racing in circles around the room. The rider’s sword swept through the dog and it raised one leg, flames squirting from its underside, catching his pants on fire. The rider beat at his breeches and poured a jug of water on himself to extinguish the flames.

The firedog raced around the room, jumping from bed to bed while the riders tried to catch it. It barked and yipped and wagged its tail. The dog had no eyes, only the ever-shifting fire that seemed to give it shape.

“Come here, pooch,” Larkspur said, getting in the way of the dog. “You wouldn’t hurt your old friend, would you?”

“I’d be careful or your breath could burn this whole place down,” Skuld said.

“Once I’ve settled this witchery, I’ll settle you,” Larkspur said. He leapt at the dog as it passed, but missed and crashed through a table. His massive bulk upended ale tankards and sent dirty dishes flying.

“Is that your plan?” Skuld said with a smirk. “Destroy all the furniture in here and he'll have no place to hide?”

Larkspur wiped gruel from his face and propped himself on an elbow. “If you've got a better suggestion, I'd like to see it.”

“I'll show you how a trueborn dusk rider handles such mischief,” Skuld said, stalking toward the firedog that was now chewing on firewood in front of the chimney.

Silas looked about the room at the tattered group watching with amusement. It was then that he noticed Arfast at the back of the crowd. The young trickster was cupping a ball of flame that he juggled from one hand to the other. Every time he moved his hands, the firedog moved with him. As he watched, Arfast looked over at him and winked. The trickster opened his hands and blew out the flame, as Skuld was preparing to cleave the firedog with his ax. Nothing remained of it but the smell of brimstone.

“It ran in fear, did you see that?” Skuld said thumping his chest.

Larkspur retrieved a wine pouch from the floor where he lay. He laughed. “Is that what you call it? It seemed to me it left at its own leisure.”

“Mayhap I should buy you a pair of spectacles the next time the gates open,” Skuld said.

The giant flashed a wine-stained grin and the tension drained from the room as the riders took to cleaning the broken table and discussing what had occurred. While this was happening, Silas saw Arfast disappear out of the bunkhouse into the night. He slipped on his boots and followed.

The red moon hung so low overhead that Silas felt sure that if he reached up he could touch it. Heavy rainclouds scuttled across the sky, buoyed by high winds. The mist crept across the dew-covered meadow towards the bunkhouse. Silas thought he saw flashing yellow eyes inside the shrouded fog and then they were gone. Arfast was striding towards the gardens fast enough that he had to jog to catch up with him. The rider stopped near an ancient Maidenhair Tree that was close to the entrance of the Labyrinth. Bushes that were twenty feet tall marked the barrier of the garden. They ran along until they disappeared into the fog. Unlike the other gardens, there was no way inside the labyrinth without going through the entrance. Silas listened to see if he could hear anything coming from inside, but all he heard was the sound of wind blowing against leaves.

Arfast grabbed hold of the gnarled trunk of the tree and swung himself onto the lowest branch. He turned back and smiled at Silas. “Well, what are you waiting for? Are you going to climb with me or not?”

With those words, the young rider began pulling himself from one branch to the next until the only thing that could be seen was the white of his wolf's cloak. Silas looked toward the distant lights of the bunkhouse and grabbed the knotted bark, following after. He felt the sap under his fingers and the sting of pine needles as he shimmied up the branches. His face was streaked with sap by the time he came to the limb where Arfast sat with his feet dangling over the side. From here, they could see the length of Nightfall Manor and over the three gardens to where the world ended in a blur of fog. Something snorted in the Labyrinth and Silas thought he saw a horned figure with a human chest hurtle down one of the pathways and away into the maze. Paths zigzagged and crisscrossed leading in different directions inside the Labyrinth. It would be easy to get lost there and wander until you died of starvation or went mad, he thought. Who knew what resided inside the puzzle path. “All of the old gods that existed and those who are to come,” Mr. Hawthorne told him once.

“That was a neat trick with the firedog,” Silas said.

“I picked that up from the mist people,” Arfast said. “Those two seemed in no mood to listen to reason, so I came up with a way to stop them.”

“Larkspur was going to kill my uncle,” Silas said.

Arfast cut a small branch from the tree and began whittling. “Easier said than done. He'd never have been so bold if Jonquil wasn’t sick. Even now, your uncle has more friends than any man in the bunkhouse. If Skuld hadn’t stopped him, someone would.”

A light flashed in one of the rooms of Nightfall Manor and Silas saw his sister very clearly. Lily was standing at the window looking out at the wild tangle of gardens were he was hid. 'She can't see you,' Silas thought. 'You're out here with all the beasts that would do her harm.' A great feeling of tenderness welled up inside of him for her, locked in the strange house with no company except for the housekeepers, their dying grandmother, and Cassandra, the green girl, who was filled with some great rage. He watched until the light turned off and the manor was quiet once more.

“My sister,” Silas said.

“Aye, she looks out that window every night before she goes to sleep,” Arfast said.

Silas felt a momentary flicker of irritation that the rider hadn't brought him here until this night. “Spying on her, are you?”

“You couldn't blame me if I did,” Arfast said grinning. “But no, this Maidenhair is the highest point in the Gardens. I like to come here and keep a lookout on things. Sometimes its almost peaceful.”

“How'd you end up here?” Silas asked. The red moon was obscured for a moment as a blanket of clouds covered it, leaving them in near total darkness. Arfast's face and wolf cloak were all he could make out in the dark.

“I was drawn here, same as the others,” Arfast said, and Silas heard the sound of his knife shaving wood in the dark. “
Nightfall Gardens calls to those who listen, but very few find their way here. Fewer still live long after they arrive.”

“Do you have family out there?” Silas asked, thinking of Thomas and Moira.

“I have a mother who loves me and a father who would kill me if he ever laid eyes on me again,” Arfast said.

“What did you do?” Silas asked. The clouds drifted away and the red moon was back. Its light spilled like blood upon Arfast who had whittled the branch to splinters.

“What I had to. My father was a small man with a great temper that he took out on my mother and myself. He was quick with a bow or compliment to our landowner, but to those who loved him, he was violent and cruel. He believed the world was cheating him out of his share and was full of envy at those with more. If someone had wealth, he coveted it. If someone's wife was prettier or child was better behaved, he wished ill upon them. He was a coward with everyone but his family and blamed us for all of his bad luck. My mother, a timid kindly woman, was most often the one to receive the brunt of his fists, especially as I grew older, for he became fearful of me. 'Don't stare that way, boy,' he used to say, after he'd thrashed my mother for dropping a plate or forgetting to sweep the hearth. 'She asked for it. One day you'll understand.' I bided my time and waited until the chance came to pay him back for what he'd done.” The trickster's voice dropped to a whisper and it seemed as if the whole garden was listening to the sad tale.

“What did you do then?” Silas asked.

“A horrible evil,” Arfast said. “One that I've spent these many years regretting. One that drew me to the Gardens to pay my penance.”

A wolf howled in the mist. It was followed by a return call from somewhere in the Gardens.

“I came from fishing the stream behind our house and found my mother on the floor. Her face was battered and she could barely open her eyes, they were so swollen. My father was standing over her, yelling about a goat that had escaped from its pen. Something that was his fault, not hers. A wild rage overtook me and I grabbed a boiling pot from the fire and flung it into his face. He screamed as the bubbling liquid burned his flesh and ran into the doorway, trying to make his escape. I helped my mother to her feet and went to find him. He hadn't gone far. He couldn't. The scalding liquid burned him so badly that it blinded him. His eyes were burst eggs in their sockets.”

Silas was at a loss for words. The story was more horrible than he'd imagined. “What happened after that?” he asked finally.