Nightfall Gardens (4 page)

At sunset, the carriage struggled to the peak of the mountain and stopped so they could take in the majestic scene. The sun was the color of a ripe plum on the horizon while the sky was a thousand shades of reds and yellows. From here, Lily could see all the way to
New Amsterdam. The famous city looked no larger than a matchbox. On the other side, the mountain dropped precipitously into a shaded valley through which a mighty river roared. Beyond that, other mountains trailed off into the frozen north.

“Fridgeir’s Valley,” Jonquil stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Another day’s journey and we’ll be home.”

The carriage descended, rocks sliding out from under the wheels. More than once it seemed as though the horses were losing control and the carriage was going to plummet to the valley below. At the last minute, Skuld would restrain the horses, whipping them and shouting a string of obscenities that echoed off far mountain walls.

When they could no longer see the road, the drivers found a place where they could camp for the night. Arfast made a fire and once again they supped on hardtack and apples. Lily was hungrier than ever and growing angrier by the moment. She glared at her uncle with hatred. He was the one who had kidnapped her from her family. Because of him, she was hungry and her parents were worried. She was tired and covered in road dust and there was nowhere for her to run, except into these desolate mountains.

Jonquil caught his niece glowering at him. The ragged scar on his cheek shone in the firelight. “Yes, you definitely take after your mother,” he said.

After dinner, Lily dragged her furs as far from the men as she could. Even through the furs, the ground was hard and rocky. A tree root pushed into her back. She rolled on her side and tried to rest. Sleep evaded her. The fire burned to coals. Stars shimmered through the lime-green band of the Northern Lights overhead. She imagined herself performing on the great stages of the world, jaunting from party to party, heralded in the press as the greatest actress of her time. She would wear pearls, diamonds and expensive gowns. No more hand-me-downs that her mother stitched together. There would be handsome princes and sheiks who courted her. Everything happening now would be a bad dream.

The sound of something moving softly in the dark brought Lily out of her fantasy. She heard crunching rocks and feet padding near the carriage. She sat up and stared into the dark. The sound was gone now, if it had ever been there at all. She looked where the men slept. Jonquil and Skuld were spread out near the remains of fire. Where was Arfast?

  At that moment, Lily heard a commotion from the woods and Arfast yelled, “Got you!” Jonquil and Skuld stirred. Lily climbed to her feet. The guardsman pushed a lanky boy in to the clearing. She couldn’t make out his features in the dark.

“Caught us a live one,” Arfast said. He threw the boy to his knees in front of Jonquil and Skuld.

In the glow of the fading firelight there was no mistaking who it was.

“Silas!” Lily said, running to her brother.

4

Song of the Pans

When Silas saw Jonquil abducting his sister, he raced to the prop room and down into the tunnels. A plan was already forming in his mind. He followed one of the passages to the sewer that ran below the street. Water dripped from the ceiling. Fungus glowed in the dark on the walls. The fetid smell made him gag. He tried not to think of the rat, big as a dog, that had stood on its hind legs and chittered at him the last time he was there. An iron ladder, thick with rust, led to the street above. Silas scrambled up it, afraid they would already be gone or that he had misjudged where he would come out. He pushed the manhole cover out of the way and was relieved to see he was directly below the carriage. Voices came from the front where the horses were. “Poor girl has no idea what awaits her,” a leathery sounding man said. “That’s why Jonquil isn’t giving her a choice in whether she comes or not,” a younger sounding man replied.

Silas crawled over cobblestones and out behind the carriage. A ladder led to the roof where Lily’s trunk was. He climbed it, careful to make as little noise as possible. Once he was on the roof, he crept to the trunk and popped the latch, afraid it would make a noise loud enough to draw attention. Below, he saw two men wearing the same kind of coat as his uncle. They cinched the horses, making sure all was ready for the trip. “A real tragedy, but it always has been for Blackwoods,” the older man said. Silas opened the trunk carefully and climbed on top of her clothes, pulling the lid after him so it was only open an inch.

For two days, he jounced and jostled as the carriage raced through farmland and climbed into the mountains. Silas was curled in the trunk, his long legs up under his chin. Every so often he cracked the lid and peeked at the passing countryside.
‘Where are they taking her?’
he thought. Then,
‘How do we get out of here?’

On the first night, he snuck out of the trunk well after everyone was asleep and crept to the woods where he could relieve himself. Mountain surrounded him on every side. The forest was louder with creatures than a city intersection busy with people.
‘We wouldn’t make it far in there,’
he thought. On the way back, Lily opened her eyes as he passed. He froze on the spot and waited. His sister stared for a moment longer, closed her eyes and went back to sleep.

The carriage ascended to the top of the mountain the next day. Silas felt its wheels sliding under them as they went higher. He could hear the older man whipping the horses onward a
nd cursing a blue streak as he bounced inside the trunk. They reached the mountain’s peak near sunset. After a short rest, the carriage continued its journey, this time going down the other side of the mountain. Silas tried to remember the geography lessons his mother taught them. If he was right, these were the Fangfir Mountains or the gateway to the north. They were supposed to be haunted. The few people who lived there were a superstitious lot who wore talismans to protect from the Evil Eye. It was rumored that some of the people still worshipped the old animal gods. There was supposed to be a tribe of headless people who lived in the shadows of the mountains. Silas had read a newspaper story about a farmer at the foot of the Fangfirs who claimed to have been put under a spell and slept more than 100 years. The drawing with the story showed a wizened man with a beard stretching to his knees, blinking in sunlight. Travelers passing here were regularly robbed or found murdered.
‘And this is where our mother and father are from,’
Silas thought.

After everyone was asleep, Silas climbed down from the carriage. He moved slowly, careful to make as little noise as possible. Jonquil and his men slept close to the glowing embers of the fire. Lily was further away, by herself. His stomach growled and he clutched it with his hand as though he could quiet it down. The air was thin and crisp as he stepped into the trees.
‘There’ll be food and a comfortable bed at the end of all this,’
he thought.

A branch snapped behind him and a hand, hard as steel, clamped his neck. “Nice night for a walk, eh boy?” the young man said, wrenching Silas’s arm behind his back. “No reason to be shy. We love company.”

He was propelled towards the campfire. Jonquil and his other man were waiting with weapons drawn. Lily was the first to see him. “Silas!” she said. “Oh Silas, how did you get here!” Before anyone could stop her, she ran and embraced him.

“It’s a bedraggled mountain rat,” the older man said, clutching the ax that they used for cutting firewood in his one good arm. Jonquil stared grimly at the boy in front of him. “I’m afraid it’s worse than some nighttime thief, this is my nephew. How did you find your way here? Are there others with you? Tell me now!” Their uncle’s face was a raging torrent of anger.

“I — I hid in the trunk,” Silas said and told his story of the last two days.

“Very dangerous,” Jonquil said. He spit in the dirt. “You thought you could spirit your sister away from men of the dusk? It was a fool’s errand.”

“What other choice was there?” Silas asked. “To leave my sister to people I don’t know?”

“Walk away and trust she can take care of herself,” he said. “This isn’t a children’s game. There are dark forces at work here. Now, leave me to think,” Jonquil turned to walk away.

Lily cleared her throat. “Wouldn’t it be better if he came along? If I’m going to take over Nightfall Gardens, I’ll need people I can trust.”

Jonquil stopped. “What you say is true, but
Nightfall Gardens cares nothing for Blackwood men, only the women. It’s a hard life for the dusk riders, and that’s exactly what your brother would become. It’s always been that way.”

“I’m not afraid,” Silas said.

“You say that now lad, but wait until the Smiling Ladies try to kiss you, or you’re lost in the Labyrinth with nothing but the starless night as a companion. Only an idiot wouldn’t be frightened,” Jonquil said. He and his men crouched by the fire to discuss what they were going to do with the boy.

“It was very foolish what you did,” Lily said when the two were alone, though secretly she was pleased. “Do you think mother and father are coming after us?”

“As quickly as they can,” Silas said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they catch up with us before Nightfall Gardens.”

“What will happen then?” Lily asked.

“I don’t know,” Silas said truthfully. He thought of his parents battling the three men from the north and shuddered.

Their uncle came over. He had pulled the wolf cloak tight about him and its jaws full of teeth seemed alive. “We’ll take you as far as Eyum and then you must go back. We won’t be responsible after that.”

“No!” Lily shouted.

“I can take care of myself,” Silas said.

“No doubt you can, but if you knew where you were going — ” Jonquil said to Silas, then pointed at Lily “ — and if you knew what you were asking of your brother, neither of you would be in such a rush to ask for the sacrifice.”

There was no more sleep that night. Arfast and Skuld covered the fire and erased all signs that they had been there, while the others loaded the carriage. Silas rode with his sister inside as the carriage inched down the mountain in the darkness.

“We should be in Eyum by afternoon. Then you can put this behind you, boy, like your father and mother. Forget that any such place as the Gardens exists,” Jonquil said.

“And Lily?” Silas asked. His sister was ghostly in the moonlight coming through the open carriage windows.

“She has no choice,” their uncle said. “Best for each of you to forget the other exists.”

Dawn came hours later. The sky lightened imperceptibly, until Silas could see the trees and valley that loomed in the distance.

The three traveled in silence. Silas turned plots in his head to save his sister, but all of them ended in defeat. Lily’s brow furrowed as she daydreamed about standing ovations and roses thrown at her feet. Jonquil brooded more deeply the closer they came to home.

The road was little more than a washed-out rut at the bottom of the mountain. They saw no signs of life until they came upon an overturned carriage shortly before noon. It was a mail wagon used to deliver parcels from one end of the land to the other. Bags of mail were ripped open and envelopes blew in the grass at the side of the road.

Arfast stopped the carriage and jumped down. He looked into the wagon and studied the nearby ground. “No one’s here,” he said. “I see blood stains on the seat.”

“Bandits,” Jonquil muttered.

“What did they do with the driver?” Lily asked.

“Probably dragged him into the woods and killed him,” their uncle said.

The words chilled Silas and his sister. Days ago, the worst thing that they worried about was Celeus Talbot falling off the stage drunk. They were crossing into a land that neither had ever imagined.

The uneasy feeling only grew stronger as they approached Eyum. The houses in the village were made from the slate that was found in abundance in the valley. A stone church with a crooked spire and a graveyard that was hundreds of years old were the centerpiece of the town. They only saw one person, a farmer’s wife, leading two sickly cows down the road. She pitched a sign to ward against the Evil Eye when they passed. Silas noticed black crosses painted in charcoal on many of the doors.

“What are those for?” he asked.

Jonquil stared at him. “Those are houses that have been struck with the plague.”

Silas felt a lump in his throat. It was decades since the Great Plague had struck New Amsterdam and other cities and brought them to their knees, but no one had forgotten. One in every three people was afflicted; most of those died, raving of madness and burning with thirst.

“I thought it had been wiped out?” Lily said.

“Many things that shouldn’t be exist the closer we come to our ancestral home. This is spoiled land,” their uncle said.

“You won’t leave me here?” Silas said. Panic overtook him as he remembered that Jonquil had said this town would be his final stop.

“I’m not that cruel, lad.” Jonquil tapped twice on the carriage ceiling. The horses picked up pace and soon the town was behind them. “We’ll leave you at Mad Finnegan’s near Nightfall Gardens. He’ll have a bed to spare until your parents come looking.”

Evening fell early in the valley. Shadows stretched across the mountain floor as they made their way deeper into the woods. White-capped mountains loomed in front of them as they bumped down the rocky trail. Jonquil pulled a blunderbuss from under his cloak and watched more closely out the windows.

“What do you see?” Silas asked. He and Lily leaned forward to look at the road going past.

“Maybe nothing, maybe something. Either way, I’d pull my head back, if you don’t want it taken off,” he said.

The carriage began to slow. Arfast called back. “A tree’s fallen across the road!”

Jonquil’s lips twitched in a thin smile. The wolf eyes glowed in the dusk. “Take these,” he said, handing over a pair of blades that looked sharp enough to cut air. They were heavy in Silas’s hand. He handed one to his sister.

“I don’t know how to use this,” Lily said. She switched the knife from hand to hand as though it were distasteful.

“You’ll learn soon enough if a marauder breaks in here,” Jonquil said. He opened the door. “You’re Blackwoods. Act like it.”

Silas leaned out and watched Arfast and Skuld trying to move the tree that was blocking them from passing.

“What is this then?” Jonquil said as he approached his men.

“Someone chopped it down on purpose,” Skuld said. “I don’t like it one bit.”

“You don’t like much, do you old man?” Arfast joked as the two lifted the tree and dragged it out of the way.

“What’s happening?” Lily asked.

Silas was about to answer when he saw a flash of red in the trees and marauders sprang from the woods and attacked the carriage. There were a dozen of them, dressed in rags and wielding rusty swords and antique pistols.

One of the men charged Jonquil. In the fading light of day Silas swore he could see twisting ram’s horns on the man’s forehead. His uncle pulled the trigger on the blunderbuss and the bandit’s head disintegrated in a cloud of smoke.

Lily screamed at the sound of the weapon firing and dropped the knife to the floor. The door of the carriage ripped open and a bandit with a goat face peered at them and smiled. He was covered in course hair and his eyes were golden. Pointed nubs of horns rode above his devilish eyebrows. A red bandana was tied around his neck.

“Well, well, what do we have here?” he sniffed the air with his pointed snout. “Blackwoods, I reckon.”

He reached in and grabbed Silas, who was frozen with fear. “I’ll be back to play a sweet song for you on my flute,” the goat man said bowing to Lily. “As soon as I finish with this stripling.”

Silas was thrown from the carriage, and the air was knocked from him when he struck the ground. The battle raged all around. He saw Arfast fighting three goat men, swinging a sword and driving them toward the woods. Jonquil traded blows with a creature that stood seven foot tall and was encased in brown fur with horns the size of truncheons. There were humans as well. Skuld was hacking at the wooden shield of one of the goat creatures when a filthy man with matted hair stepped from the trees with a bow and arrow. Silas tried to warn him,but his lungs burned as he drew breath. The bandit notched an arrow and shot Skuld in the shoulder. His uncle’s man bellowed, lashing out, and bringing his ax down on the goat creature before attacking the archer who was notching another arrow.