Nightfall Gardens (6 page)

“Mother,” Jonquil said gently.

“No, you’re right. He’ll be safe and I must continue the tale.”

“You said that the old gods died,” Silas said.

“Well, yes and no. Some died and some were locked in Prometheus’s box. They were none too happy about that either. Be that as it may, one afternoon many years ago, a young woman named Pandora discovered a man raging with fever by her family’s well.”

Deiva opened the book and began reading from the ancient pages:

He must have been handsome when he was younger, Pandora thought. The man’s hair ran to his shoulders and his eyes blazed golden. He was dressed in beggar’s garb and carried a rucksack that had seen ten thousand miles.

“Are you sick?” she asked.

“Of all but life and a taste of water for my lips,” he said.

Pandora filled a dipper and he drank heartily. When he was finished, the man lay back and closed his eyes. It was then that she noticed how ill he really was. She put a hand against his forehead and felt the fire burning within.

“We must get you back to the house,” she said.

“Nay,” the man said. “Let me die here in the sun.”

“You mustn’t talk that way. There’s a healing woman in the village. I can run and fetch her.”

The man smiled wearily. “I would be gone by the time you came back and besides, there’s nothing to fear in death.”

Pandora was young, though, and death terrified her.

“Don’t worry, child,” the man said. “I have lived longer than most. What’s your name?”

“Pandora,” she said.

“Mine is Prometheus,” he said. “I ask only one favor of you.”

“Name it and it shall be done.”

“There is a box within my travelling satchel. When I am gone, I want you to drop it deep in the well and never say a word about it.”

Pandora nodded.

“You must promise me that you’ll never open it, for what’s inside spells ruin for all,” he said.

“I promise,” Pandora said.

“Good child,” he said.

Prometheus began raving about the old gods Zeus and Hera and the creatures of the night such as demons, succubi and ghouls. He talked until his throat was raw about those evils waiting for their chance to destroy humankind.

Night came. Prometheus grew quiet. His heaving chest gave the only sign that he was still alive. Pandora opened his rucksack and found the box. It was made of a heavy dark wood and scorched with the imprint of fire. She turned the box in her hands and thought she heard gold coins jingle. ‘What if there’s treasure inside?’ she thought. Did she really know who Prometheus was? He might be one of those mad misers that lived like a pauper with chest full of rubies hoarded in their yard. The box was beautiful, after all. Why would he want her to throw it away and not give it to her? The longer she held the box, the more jealousy tore at her heart. Finally, she could contain herself no longer. ‘It’s mine,’ Pandora thought. She searched frantically through the bag until she found a silver key.

Prometheus slept quietly now. His face was waxen and only a little pulse beat in his brow.

‘He was delirious. He would want me to have it,’ Pandora thought. The madness overtook her and she turned the key in the lock. The lid exploded open and a black cloud poured forth from the box. Pandora screamed as every evil that had ever existed began swarming out of the box and covering the earth.

“No,” she screamed, realizing what she’d done.

The lid slammed shut in her hands and Prometheus stood in front of her, his eyes burning with fury. “Do you know what you did?”

“Nuh – No. I only wanted to see what was inside,” Pandora stammered.

“You promised,” he said “Because of you, who knows what terrors have escaped into the world.”

With the last of his strength, the old god captured those dark beings that had escaped and carved an in-between place where all the terrors of the world could dwell. Prometheus realized humanity would never be safe while the box was around, so he buried it deep within the gardens of this new place. As punishment for her broken promise, he made Pandora and her family the gatekeepers that would watch over it until the last female of their line died. Their curse in life to make sure all the wicked and dark things locked up in the gardens would never be free to torment humanity again. When the last female dies the end days will be signaled.

Deiva closed the book. Candles sputtered and flickered around the room. Cold pressed against Lily. Dampness filled the air and she wished for a thick blanket to cover herself from the dank air. The rain continued beating its fingers against the glass. Their grandmother was quiet for a moment, her face hidden behind the veil.

“Pandora was the first Blackwood,” Deiva said. “A hundred generations have been cursed to this place because of her moment of weakness. So much for the gods being merciful.”

“But I don’t understand,” Lily said. “What’s to keep us from leaving and letting this whole place fall to the ground?”

“Absolutely nothing. Many times I’ve come close to it as well. But the evil that exists here, the threat of it being freed and what it would do keeps me here as it did my mother and her mother going back to the start of time.”

Lily felt a great rage. She didn’t want anything to do with this place. She wanted carriage doors opened for her and dinner at the finest restaurants in
Paris. Applause and adoration were what she craved. Not life in this horrible, horrible place. “I didn’t ask for this!” she said.

“Neither did I, yet here we are,” Deiva said.

“I want to go home,” Lily said. “Nightfall Gardens will take care of itself.”

“Even if we let you, you couldn’t leave now,” her grandmother said.

“Why?”

“Because the gate only opens once a year and after it’s closed no one can come or leave,” Deiva said.

“We rode in the gates. We could also ride out of them,” Lily said stubbornly.

“If you managed to make it through them or over the wall, you would find nothing on the other side. Do you think you’re the first to think of this? Every Blackwood who has tried has never been heard from again,” Deiva told her.

Lily fumed and crossed her arms.
‘If there’s a way out of here, I’ll find it,’
she thought.

Jonquil stood, wiping his hands on his jerkin. “Come on, lad. It won’t be long before the cock crows and you’ll need strength to start your new job.”

“New job?” Silas said.

“Aye, you’ll stay with me and the other men in the bunkhouse. In the morning you’ll meet our head gardener, Mr. Hawthorne. If anyone can teach you about this place it’s him. His family’s been tending these Gardens almost as long as we have.”

“A gardener? But I want to stay with my sister,” Silas said.

“Our place is outside,” Jonquil said. “You’ll do more good by working the gardens and learning all you can. Now say goodnight to your sister.”

Silas and Lily exchanged goodbyes. As they hugged, she realized that when he was gone she would be alone in this strange house.

“Be careful,” she said.

Silas grinned. “I’ll be fine. Get some rest.” As he walked out with Jonquil, he turned to his grandmother. “You said the evils here are the ones that escaped when Pandora opened the box. What happened to those still inside? Where is the box?”

“If I knew I would have solved a question that’s riddled this house since the moment it came into existence. Prometheus hid it well. Many have spent their lives searching for it, not all for noble purposes. Some wanted to loosen the dark lords that are still harbored within, biding their time to escape.”

When they were gone, Deiva went back to the window. “Polly will show you to your room. There is much still to discuss, but I must wait for your grandfather to come home. He should be here any minute.”

Lily left her like that, peering out the window through her black veil, waiting for a man decades dead to return.

“Your grandmother is a fine one, a fine one indeed,” Polly said as she slid the way up another flight of stairs. “Took me in when no one else would, she did.”

They followed a confusing zigzagging path of hallways until they came to a room with a comfortable-looking feather bed and a fireplace that burned merrily. Old photos were displayed on top of a dresser. A stand-up mirror was reversed and facing the wall. Lily’s trunk was already there.

“This used to be Miss Abigail’s room, it did. That is, until she disappeared all those years ago.” Polly’s skin seeped in the light from the fire and her white eyes reflected tiny flames inside of them.

“Who’s this?” Lily picked up a photo of two intense looking girls with black hair.

“That’s your Grannie Deiva before gilirot got her and that’s her little sister Abby. Tragedy it was when that happened.” She shook her head. “Pull the bell if you need anything. And words of wisdom to live by: Don’t go into any rooms unless you’re absolutely certain what they are. This house will play ten tricks to Sunday, it will.”

Polly shut the door and left Lily alone for the first time in days. She unpacked her trunk and readied herself for bed.
‘Silas and I are trapped,’
she thought and tried to push it away. She took her brush out and began combing her hair, something she always did to calm herself. When she got up to 30 strokes, she turned the mirror around so she could see how she was doing. Lily felt a scream lodge in her throat at the ghastly reflection staring back at her. It was as if she’d been dead for months. Her skin fell away in patches, revealing bones underneath. There were blank holes were her nose should have been. Her hair had fallen out in clumps and, instead of eyes, empty sockets stared back at her. Her arms and legs were rotting flesh covered in a nightgown. She flipped the mirror over and shoved it into the wall so hard she was surprised it didn’t break.

Lily climbed into bed and burrowed under the blankets waiting for the nightmare to end
.

6

The Green Girl

This wasn’t how Silas imagined his first day. His morning started with Arfast booting him out of the pallet in the bunkhouse where he was sleeping.

“Rise and shine, bucko,” Arfast said. The three dozen or so dusk riders living in the windowless room with a potbelly stove were drinking coffee from tin cups and struggling into their clothes.

“Listen up,” Jonquil told the men. “We’ve received disturbing reports of mist people turning up dead with no marks of injury on their bodies. I’m taking some riders north to look into what’s happening. While I’m gone, Skuld will lead the patrols. I don’t need to tell you how dangerous it’s been recently or to be careful.”

For the rest of the morning, Silas tried to catch his uncle alone, but every time he approached, Jonquil seemed too busy. He finally caught him as his uncle saddled up his horse. The rest of the riders were busy tying down their packs and singing bawdy songs.

“You’re to work with Horatio Hawthorne in the Gardens while I’m away” Jonquil said. His face was icy and devoid of emotion. “Listen to him and show you have more brains than your father does. The house is off limits as well.”

“But Lily —?”

“— Will do just fine without you under foot. It’s time for both of you to grow up. If you ever hope to reach adulthood, you’ll heed my words.”

Jonquil and the others rode off through a sea of grass into the mist surrounding
Nightfall Gardens.

Horatio Hawthorne showed up at the bunkhouse not longer after. He was lean and rangy with a shock of unkempt hair and a walrus mustache. His chin seemed to disappear into his neck. He thrust a hoe into Silas’s hands. “Hope you’re not afraid of blistering those dainty hands,” he said.

They made their way to a vegetable patch first. Silas noticed that the house was ever a presence that loomed over things here. It appeared to have added new balconies and chimneys overnight.

“Oh no, not again,” Mr. Hawthorne said, wrenching his hair.

Up ahead, the gate to the garden was smashed to splinters. “Blasted trolls,” Mr. Hawthorne said, kicking the trampled carrot garden. “All my hard work, ruined.”

Silas studied the remains of the broken fence and earth imprinted with massive footprints. A gray gloom that spelled afternoon thunderstorms hung overhead, though the way the gardener acted, it might as well have been a summer scorcher.

“Can’t abide this heat,” Mr. Hawthorne said, wiping sweat from his brow. “Riles the trolls something fierce. Well, don’t stand there, lad. We have to patch this fence or we’ll have every troll in the Gardens sniffing around.”

As they worked, Mr. Hawthorne told Silas about his family. “We’ve tended these gardens, pretty near as long as you Blackwoods have been here. At least that’s what my da’ used to say. Great-Granddaddy ten times back was an alchemist. He got the call here, like people do. Every time those gates open, somebody wanders in sayin’ that they dreamed about the place. Once you get it in your blood, it’s hard to leave.”

Mr. Hawthorne spit as if the outside world left a bad taste in his mouth. “Don’t know how people abide all that sun. Stuffy as the inside of a soggy boot, I say.”

Silas, who felt damp and clammy, could have used a little heat. The sky was the color of a dark bruise and the clouds were as gray as day-old mash.

“Anyways, Great-Granddaddy had deep magic and a green thumb. Concocted all manner of potions to make food grow in this blighted place — and protect the people that live here,” Mr. Hawthorne choked up on the last part.

Silas looked up from where he was pounding the last post back in place. Tears were streaming down the gardener’s cheeks, leaving tracks on his dirty face.

“Mr. Hawthorne, are you okay?”

“Oh fine, lad. Fine,” he said, wiping the tears away with the sleeve of his shirt. “Sometimes old memories bubble up just when you thought you’ve put them to bed.”

The gardener shook the gate to see how sturdy it was. “This won’t stop a blind brownie. I need my spell toolbox. Be a good lad and fetch it from my cottage.”

“Spell toolbox?”

“Aye, it’s full of all kinds of fix-ems. My daughter Cassandra can show you where it is. Just follow this path and whatever you do, don’t leave it. No matter what you see or who calls to you. Do you understand?” Mr. Hawthorne clutched him so hard by the wrist that a twinge shot up his arm.

“You’re hurting me,” Silas said.

“This is nothing compared to what’ll happen if you leave the path,” Mr. Hawthorne said.

Silas left Mr. Hawthorne and set off down the trail. It was his first time in
Nightfall Gardens alone and he tried to map it out in his mind. There seemed to be three distinct gardens that sprawled the length of the house. The furthest was full of dead trees and lush rosebushes that pained his eyes with their color. The next was a maze of hedges so high he couldn’t see into it. The one that was closest was the most beautiful. He passed an entrance that sloped toward a massive lawn. Wisteria plants blossomed and scented the air. There were benches for contemplation under shaded cherry trees. At the far end of the lawn was the statue of a hooded figure that was corroded with age. Beyond that, the garden turned to other paths.

“Silas,” Lily stepped from behind a tree. She was wearing a red dress that ran to her ankles and her hair was pulled up and tied with red poppies.

“Lily, what are you doing here?” Silas asked. He stopped and took a step toward his sister.

“I wanted to take a walk in the garden. Won’t you come with me? It’s so lovely in the shade,” Lily put out her hand for her brother. Her voice was oddly flat and emotionless.

Silas started for her and remembered what Mr. Hawthorne told him.

“Lily, is there something wrong? Why are you talking that way?”

“Come walk with me where we can always be together,” Lily said, in the detached voice. She was standing as close to the path as she could without stepping on it. Her eyes flashed red and blue in the light. As he watched, her shape blurred and solidified.

Silas backed away, his feet crunching upon the gravel of the path. “Lily? Who — who are you?”

“Lily? Who— who are you?” the Lily-double mocked back. The voice was shrill and sounded nothing like his sister now. Her shape blurred again, and this time Silas saw a shadowy figure with claws for hands. When it shifted back to Lily, some pieces of her face weren’t where they should have been. One eye was higher than the other. Her jaw sagged.

“Come walk with me. Come walk with me forever,” the figure shrieked as Silas fled down the path.

His heart thudded in his chest and his nerves felt as if they were being pulled to the surface of his skin.
‘What was that thing?’
he thought.
‘How could it look like my sister?’

Silas followed the path until it led out of the trees and manicured landscape and he came to a cottage and barn in the middle of a field. Behind them sat a hot house through which he could see the outlines of plants growing inside. Not far away, a wall of mist obscured the edge of a forest. He was coming up the walk when he heard beautiful singing from inside the barn.

“Oh, one day, the darkness will go.

Take away all our woes.

Heavy burdens will be put down

And
Nightfall Gardens will fall to the ground!”

He came to the entrance of the barn, just as the song ended. Inside, he saw empty horse stalls and a pen holding the fattest cow he’d ever seen. Hay and animal droppings were strewn about the floor. Pigeons cooed in the rafters overhead.

“Hello?” he said. Silas looked about but saw no one inside.

As if his voice were the cue, a girl jumped out of one of the stalls. He only had time to observe two things before something crashed down on his head, blinding him. She was wielding a pitchfork… and her skin was green.

“Get him! Get him, Osbold,” the girl cried. Silas was turned and thrown into a railing. He struck it hard enough to crash through, landing in mud and slop. He reached up, feeling for the bucket that had been dropped on him. Before he could take it off, a foot smashed down on his hand.

“Oh no, you don’t,” the girl said. “Watch him, Osbold. That’s a good boy. Keep your eyes on him.”

“Cassandra?” Silas said, hoping he remembered Mr. Hawthorne’s daughter’s name.

“Don’t start your devilry with me, spirit. How did you slip free of the garden?” the girl said, jabbing Silas with the pitchfork. He bit down to keep from screaming.

“I’m Silas Blackwood,” he gasped, trying to swallow the pain. “Your father sent me for the spell toolbox.”

“Blackwood?” The pressure lessened in his side. “We’ll find out about that soon enough.”

The bucket was knocked from his head and Silas blinked in the light. Cassandra stood in front of him, pointing the pitchfork at him. Her skin was the green of ivy after a cool rain. Her jasmine eyes narrowed at him. Even her blond hair was tinged the color of a fresh sprig.

“Watch him, Osbold,” she said. Something grunted at his side. Silas saw leathery wings, a dog-like face and curved horns. The creature couldn’t have been more than two feet tall. It thrust its chest forward and gave a pitifully thin squawk.

“What — what is it?” Silas said. He propped himself up on his elbows in the mud.

“Are you daft?” Cassandra said. She plucked a vial from a wooden toolbox and tossed it to him. “It’s a gargoyle… runt of the litter. Mother and father didn’t want him. Now drink that and we’ll find out what your true shape is.”

“Drink it?” Silas eyed the milky concoction in the vial skeptically.

“That is, if you don’t want to meet the end of my pitchfork again. I don’t care who your family is.”

Silas unstopped the bottle, smelled the putrid substance inside, and swallowed it as quickly as he could. The liquid burned going down. His stomach churned as though he was going to throw it up but somehow he didn’t. After a minute, Cassandra pulled the pitchfork back and stood it against the barn wall. “See, now that wasn’t so hard. Was it?” Osbold flew across the room and landed on her shoulder.

Silas climbed to his feet and felt his sore side. “Do you always greet guests like that?”

“We don’t get too many people making house calls here,” she said. “Usually, it’s Shades or other nasties that have managed to free themselves from their garden. Didn’t used to happen so much, but these days nothing is to be trusted.”

Cassandra lobbed him another bottle. “Put this where the pitchfork kissed you and you’ll be healed in no time.”

Silas scooped some of the greasy ointment from the bottle and rubbed it on his chest. He immediately felt a cooling sensation. “Thanks,” he said.

Cassandra picked up the toolbox and handed it to him. They came close to touching in the exchange and she jerked away, making Silas lose his grip. The toolbox fell and something glass broke inside.

“Clumsy oaf,” she said angrily. Cassandra knelt and opened the box. Inside, a vial full of purple liquid was shattered and turning to smoke. “Tracker spray. It helps you find the way if you’re lost. Luckily, it wasn’t something worse.” She stood up and looked down at him. “Next time, be more careful.”

“You’re the one that made me drop it,” Silas said. He was hard to anger, but once he started there was no turning back. He reached to snatch the toolbox from Cassandra and again, she jumped away from him. This time, he gripped the handle and didn’t drop it. “Afraid, I’ll bite?” he said.

Osbold growled in his throat and his wings fanned out. Cassandra pouted as though she’d bit into a sour apple. “You Blackwoods are insufferable.”

Silas stomped off without a further word. When he passed the garden where he’d seen the fake Lily, there was nothing but empty lawn and the statue of the hooded figure. Mr. Hawthorne was on his knees examining the damaged crop when he returned. “Not nearly as bad as I thought,” he said. “We’ll put so many spells on the fence they won’t know Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum from Fiddle-De-Dee.”

Mr. Hawthorne opened the spell toolbox and rummaged through vials and bottles of all shapes and sizes. “Essence of owls’ bane, goblin sweat, mermaid tears, now where is it? Ah hah!” He found what he was looking for and circled the fence, sprinkling the clear liquid on the wood while muttering an incantation.

“See anything unusual along the way?” the gardener asked as he finished with the first bottle. He took another out and started pacing the fence again.

“I saw something that looked like my sister, only it wasn’t,” Silas said. He followed the gardener, lugging the toolbox. “What was it?”

“A Shade, most likely,” Mr. Hawthorne said. “That’s the
White Garden, where all of death’s surrogates live. Being dead, they despise the living. Demons, Banshees, Succubi, the Lords of the Underworld, the Wicked Crones —all call it home. Death itself is nothing to be afeard of, of course, but these are the creatures that suck the marrow from the living and rob them of life’s natural end. They’ll try to seduce you, but as long as you don’t leave the path, they can do no harm.”

“Cassandra said they sometimes get out of the garden,” Silas said.