Nightfall Gardens (7 page)

Mr. Hawthorne wiped his neck. “This wretched heat is too much. Aye, she’s right. But not just there; evils are breaking out from all the gardens.”

“Why?”

“Waiting for your Gran to pass, more than likely. Happens whenever a new Blackwood takes over. Least that’s what I’m told. I’ve only known Deiva. Think this should about do it.” The gardener put his hands on his hips and eyed their handiwork.

They spent the rest of the day planting pink and yellow vespertines in front of the mansion. Silas kept careful watch of the windows but never caught a glimpse of his sister.

“Twilight-blooming flowers repel spirits trying to find a way inside. This old house has more than enough creepy crawlies already,” Mr. Hawthorne said. “I don’t understand how Deiva and the others stand it, cooped up there all day.”

Gloomy gray dusk was turning to night. The gardener leaned against his shovel. Wolves howled off in the mist.

“Well, we’d better get along, lad. It’s none too safe after the red moon rises,” he said. They followed another path to the bunkhouse and passed near a stone circle with a sundial in its middle.

“At first light, I’ll give you a tour of the gardens and then we’ll start digging an irrigation ditch for the new field I want to plant. Too much work and never enough time,” Mr. Hawthorne said.

The dusk riders were sharing wine out of skins and playing jimmy knife when Silas came in, not long afterward.

“Couldn’t hit the side of a hellcat,” one of the riders, flush with drink, yelled. He was stout, with three day’s growth on his cheeks. The other riders laughed.

Arfast was 20 paces from a beam gouged with nicks from all the knives that had struck there before. A crude circle was drawn on the beam and two knives barely larger than a letter opener were stuck deep in the wood. He whipped a handful of knives out of his wolf’s cloak and began juggling them.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Larkspur,” Arfast said. “Of course, if you’re certain we
could
make a friendly wager.”

“Wager? And what would that be?” Larkspur said. He sat forward and slapped his knee with laughter. The other dusk riders roared along with him. “The jimmy knives are too thin and weigh too little. They won’t carry that far.”

“What if I prove you wrong?” Arfast said.

“I’ll skinny dip in
Leech Lake,” Larkspur said. He took a long pull on his wine skin and it dribbled down his cheeks.

“Not good enough,” Arfast said. “I want some of that tobacco you brought back when the gates were open.”

Larkspur scratched his chin. “How much?”

“Five smokes.”

“It can’t be done,” the mountainous rider said. “You’re mad.”

“And I’m telling you, I can get
these
knives in that circle,” Arfast said.

“For argument’s sake, let’s say I win. What do I get?”

“What do you want?” Arfast asked.

“I like that dappled gray that you ride,” Larkspur said. He winked at the other dusk riders and they laughed. “It’d handle my considerable bulk well.”

“All right, then,” Arfast said. “Do we have ourselves a deal?”

“Who am I to turn down such a sweet offering? Deal,” Larkspur said. He spit on his palm and shook with Arfast to seal the pact.

Silas looked around at the room. There were a dozen or more riders crowded inside. With the exception of Larkspur, they were a hard, grizzled-looking bunch. Arfast was the youngest, except for himself. Skuld sat at a table alone. His cloak was thrown open to expose the tapered nub of his right arm. Some riders played cards at another table. A bluish haze from the oil lamps filled the air. Everyone watched as Arfast took the knives and readied to throw them.

“Okay. I’m going to put these knives in that post, all the way from here,” Arfast said.

“In a blind pig’s eye,” Larkspur said.

“The last time I checked, your eyesight was perfect,” Arfast said. The riders ached with laughter and even Skuld smiled.

Larkspur’s lips tightened. “Do it and stop your babbling.”

“All right, then,” Arfast said. He turned toward Silas who was standing at the entry. “Come here, boy.”

“Me?” Silas said. He took a step back as all eyes turned towards him.

“Do you see any other boys here?” Arfast said.

Silas approached as though weights were tied to his feet.

“Yes?”

Arfast bent and grinned at him. “Be a good lad and go put my jimmy knives in that bull’s-eye for me.”

“What foolery is this? Larkspur roared. He stood up so quickly that his chair fell over. His massive gut quivered with rage.

Arfast handed the knives to Silas and pointed him towards the bulls-eye. “I didn’t say
how
I would get the knives there.”

“Cheating little —,” Larkspur lunged for Arfast as the room erupted with laughter and cheers. Two of the riders grabbed him by the arms and pulled him back. Silas walked down the aisle and shoved the knives into the center of the target.

After his initial anger wore off, Larkspur chuckled at how he’d been outwitted. “I’ll be more careful with my words the next time,” he said, handing over the tobacco he’d rolled. Arfast put an arm around the big man. “If it’s any consolation, I don’t think I’ll be able to pull that trick again.”

The lamps were turned down as the riders retreated to their bunks. Soon the night gave way to the sounds of snoring and men breathing heavily. The night shift headed out for patrol. Silas was preparing for bed when a hand fell on his shoulder. Skuld could only be half-seen in the light.

“How was your first day?” he asked.

Silas told him about the vegetable patch and plantings they had done.

“Then you had a more useful day than us. Devilish quiet out there. I don’t like it,” he said.

“When will Jonquil be back?”

“Could be a week, could be next month. Depends how deep in the fog he has to go. Now get some sleep, lad.”

It wasn’t long before the lamps were extinguished and Silas was fast asleep. He dreamed intensely but remembered nothing. When he came to, it was the middle of the night and he saw a crack of moonlight as the bunkhouse door closed.

‘Who’s up at this time?’
he thought. Silas slid from his mat and crept to the door. The other riders were sleeping. One of them muttered in his slumber.
‘Something doesn’t feel right,’
Silas thought
.
He pushed open the well-oiled door and slipped into night. Clouds swept across the sky, obscuring the hanging fruit moon. Insects sang from nearby fields. For a moment, he thought he had lost the person who snuck from the cabin, but then he saw a form striding toward the mist, his wolf head cloak pulled up so he couldn’t tell which rider it was.

Silas dropped off the porch and followed the figure. The dew was heavy on the ground and soon his pants legs were soaked. Little patches of mist curled in the air as he neared the trees. The fog became heavier as he entered the forest and it wasn’t long before he could see no further than a few feet in front of him.

He thought he’d lost the rider completely when suddenly he came into a clearing. The mist was so thick Silas almost stepped into the rider before spotting him. The man was turned away facing the woods. Silas crouched behind a tree. The wait didn’t last long. Something stirred in the trees. A wolf with a tattered white coat loped from the forest. One side of his face had been mauled when he was younger for no fur grew there. The skin was puckered and scarred.

“Did you get what I requested?” the wolf growled.

“I did, sire,” the rider said, bowing to his knees.

“And it’s true that the girl is here?” the wolf continued.

“Yes, my lord,” the man said.

Heavy tendrils of fog covered them for a moment. It was so thick, Silas thought, that if he touched it, the mist might be solid. Wolves howled from every direction. A breeze parted the mist and they were visible again.

“Good, then our time is almost come. Soon, the Gardens will be ours and all the foul things inside will spill forth to reclaim the world.”

The wind grew stronger and it ruffled Silas’s shirt collar and cooled his neck. He tried to submerge the terror he felt. The wolf with the ravaged face sniffed the air.

“You were followed,” he snarled.

“It can’t be. I put a dream draught in the other riders’ wine. They won’t wake until morning,” the man said.

“Fool!” The wolf said. He took a menacing step toward the rider.

“I’m sorry, my liege,” the rider said and fell to his knees.

Silas backed away, trying to keep his legs from collapsing with fear. He found the trail and ran through the mist toward the bunkhouse. Trees appeared and disappeared around him. The darkness felt like a living presence. A stitch burned in his side as he burst into the open. The bunkhouse was ahead and Nightfall Gardens towered over everything as usual. A solitary light burned in one of its windows. Silas looked over his shoulder and a scream ripped from his throat. The wolf was bearing down on him. His mangled face was pulled back revealing fangs the size of paring knives. For every step Silas took, the wolf gained three.

“Help!” Silas yelled. “Somebody help me!” Nobody answered. For one moment, he thought he heard laughter coming from the Gardens but the next it sounded like the tall grass swishing around him. The wolf was almost on him.
‘Turn and fight,’
he thought. It was his only option. True, he’d be ripped limb from limb but at least he’d be facing the enemy.
‘I’m sorry, Lily,’
he thought. Silas spun.

The wolf was seconds away. His eyes blazed with fury. The wolf landed in front of Silas and growled. “It’s been a long time since I’ve killed a Blackwood. This will be a treat.”

Silas couldn’t have imagined what would have happened if a lone figure on a white horse hadn’t raced from the mist at that moment. The man was gaunt, with receding white hair and pale blue eyes. He was dressed in a white cloak with light chain mail, and he hoisted a sword above him. The ground shook as he vaulted the distance between Silas and the wolf.

“Not you,” the wolf said. “Not now.”

The rider said nothing. He only cantered his horse and blocked the way to Silas.

“Thank you,” Silas said. The man looked down at him and nodded. There was something oddly familiar about his face. The red moon broke through the clouds and for one second, Silas could see through the man. He was insubstantial, a ghost. He gestured for the boy to go.

Silas turned and ran. He was almost back to the bunkhouse before it occurred to him why the man looked so familiar.
‘That ghost was my grandfather,’
he thought.

7

Locked in Nightfall Manor

Lily was left to explore the house every day, except for in the afternoons, when Polly brought her to Deiva’s room. Her grandmother never seemed to leave her chair near the window. “I want to make sure that I see him when he comes back,” she told Lily.

Once, Lily did see her grandfather. Deiva was telling her the history of the mist people. “They’re descended from a band of gypsies that entered when the gates were open and asked to play music for our family. When they realized what this place was, they never wanted to leave. We told them they could have the land that leads into the mist. No one knows how far or deep it goes. You lose the ability to see after a while.” Deiva was this far into the story when she cried out and pointed out the window. “There he is. Do you see him? He’s come home!” Lily looked out the window and saw a man with long white hair canter out of the fog on a horse. He stopped and stared at the house as though looking straight at them. Then, he disappeared back into the mist. “No!” Deiva shouted. “Not again. Not for the thousandth time.” Minutes later, her grandmother was complaining about the rain and seemed to have forgotten she’d just seen the ghost of her husband. “I do hope he comes home soon,” She said. “No one catches cold more quickly than him.”

Lily soon realized that it would never be truly possible to know the house. There were knowable things and then there was the unknowable that surrounded her at all times and filled her with a sense of dread. On the knowable front were the employees that made the great house hum. Ozy, the butler, was a mummified old man whose main duty consisted of making sure the dinner table was set. The dining room was a luxurious affair as big as a train depot with intricate molding on the ceiling and ornate paintings on the walls. Since Deiva refused to leave her bedroom, Lily ate there alone. Ozy shuffled about, his skin so dry it fell off him like snowflakes as he served the dishes. He had a hooked nose and the fire of life sparked dim in his eyes. Under his faded suit, Lily saw gray bandages wrapped around most of his body. He rarely said a word, except for “Anything else, my lady?”

Ursula cleaned Lily’s room every morning. Her face was elfin and her arms were covered in thick spidery hair. A unibrow formed a solid line over her large eyes. Lily had never met such a happy person in her life. “Beautiful day, miss. Nothing like a great big rain cloud blowing in to cheer one up,” she’d say with a smile, or, “You’re looking a little green under the gills today, Miss. Wonderful, Wonderful.” Not matter how cheery her disposition, Lily felt depressed when the chambermaid was around. Sometimes a black haze descended over her and she would lie in bed, crying and feeling hopeless as the young girl whistled a funeral dirge and
swept her room. “There, there, Miss. You’ve got to stay upbeat. Just remember it’ll get worse before it gets better.” As soon as Ursula finished cleaning and left the room, Lily’s mood would immediately lighten. It was Polly who told her why that was. “She’s a Glumpog, poor thing,” the housemaid said. “Nicest girl you’d ever meet, but the death of the party. Her kind feeds off sadness and depression. It fills the room wherever they are and she can’t do anything about it, the dear.” After that, Lily made sure to be gone before Ursula stopped by for her morning cleaning.

There were other staff Lily saw flitting down the halls toward their appointed task, but those two and the housemaid were the most consistent presences in her life over the next couple of weeks. Polly was the one who exerted the greatest influence over the house and was also the one that stopped her when Lily tried sneaking out through one of the many entrances. “Now where exactly do you think you’re going, miss?” The housemaid slithered in front of her as Lily prepared to go out a glass door into one of the gardens. “I need fresh air,” Lily said, annoyed. “The air out there might kill you, miss,” Polly replied, leaving slug tracks as she closed the door. She smiled, and Lily saw that the maid didn’t have teeth, only white gums. “No, much safer in here, where you can be protected.” Another time, Lily decided to sneak out in the middle of the night, but when she opened her bedroom door, she saw a white cocoon as big as a person was hanging from the ceiling. She stared at the dripping mess and then the shell broke open. Polly’s face, wet and gleaming, shoved through the side. “It’s not safe to roam these halls at night, ma’am,” she said. Lily was so stunned that she turned back without a word and went to bed.

When she wasn’t trying to escape, Lily spent her time exploring the vast, drafty house that changed its shape depending on the day. Sometimes the house would have four floors, sometimes five and other times seven. Rooms would move and one evening she wandered for hours searching for her bedroom. One afternoon, Lily packed a lunch, determined to walk the whole house, but didn’t finish a floor before it was too dark to see. “Nightfall Gardens lets you know what it wants you to,” Polly said when Lily dragged herself back exhausted. There were ground rules the maid laid down before she allowed Lily to go on her jaunts. “Never enter a room with closed doors, no matter who or what you hear inside. When you come to the old part of the house where the walls turn to stone, don’t go further. Never go into the attic. That’s something you could ask Mr. Thomas and Mrs. Moira if they were about.”

Lily went a week before breaking the first rule. She was on the third floor, looking for a room with an open door, she’d discovered the day before. The room had two armoires filled with women’s dresses that looked as though they might have been in style a century before. The dresses were long and colorful with big hoops under the skirts. There was a chest stuffed with wide-brimmed hats with ostrich feathers. She’d spent the day trying on dresses and imagining walking the streets of
Paris.

She was beginning to give up hope she’d ever find the room again when her mother called from behind a closed door. “Lily, Lily, help! Your father and I are locked up here.” If she’d thought about it, she would never have opened the door; after all, her mother was on the other side of the gates, and if it was her, how could she know it was Lily that was passing? But the voice was so undoubtedly Moira’s that Lily threw the door open without a second thought.

Light, gray and overcast, filtered through a window into the bedroom. It must have belonged to a girl at one time. A canopy with white netting hid the figures lying on the bed. The wallpaper was pink and patterned with tridents and sea monsters. A gold music box was open on a dresser. One wall of the room was stacked high with porcelain dolls, glass-eyed, with fake hair. Their faces were painted with red lipstick and each wore clothing from a different period in time. She saw lords, ladies, footman, clowns, sailors, babies, and more. If she’d been in New Amsterdam, Lily would have stopped and admired them in a storefront, thinking of all the things she’d buy when she was the toast of the city, but now they barely registered.

“Mother,” Lily said, “is that you?” She crept across the room to the bed. Two figures were shadowed behind the curtain.

“Hurry, before they come back. Untie us,” Moira said.

Lily saw her mother thrashing on the bed, trying to break free. “Hang on and I’ll —.” She yanked the netting away and stumbled back in terror. Two life-sized dolls were laid across the bed. Their glass eyes shifted towards her. Their fake eyelashes blinked. The dolls were porcelain copies of her mother and father.

“Come give your mother a hug,” the Moira doll said, pulling itself up from the bed.

Lily scrambled backward towards the open door. She saw movement around her. The dolls were coming to life. The Moira and Thomas dolls stood and jerked toward her as if being pulled by invisible strings. Sharp pain shot through her ankle, and Lily lost her balance and fell to the floor. A red tin soldier with a rifle and a needle-sized bayonet was stabbing her over and over in the ankle. Lily kicked and sent the toy flying across the room. Something grabbed her hair and started pulling. Lily reached back, grabbing the doll and flinging it into a wall. She pulled herself to her feet as more dolls reached for her. Lily took two springing steps away from them on her good ankle and grabbed the wall for support. The dolls were swarming her, yanking her dress, trying to pull her down. The door was maddeningly close. Ceramic hands encircled her throat and she was staring into the shifting glass eyes of the Moira doll. Lily felt the air being crushed from her. Her dress ripped as the smaller dolls tried to topple her. Lily’s vision clouded as the last of the air was choked out of her.
‘So nice to rest,’
she thought. A vision of her family weeping and standing around her grave came to her then, and she kicked at the dolls that clung to her legs. Her hand searched a nearby table. It found nothing but empty space, until at last her fingers touched a candelabra. She swung it into the face of the Moira doll with the last of her strength. The doll’s face exploded into tiny shards and the hands loosened their grip. She struck it again and again, smashing it to dust. The Thomas doll reached for her and Lily turned on him, shattering his head with a blow. He fell lifeless to the floor. As she watched, the other dolls fled underneath the bed and into a closet. Lily hopped outside of the room and shut the door, dropping the candelabra on the carpet. She leaned against the wall and felt hot tears in her eyes. For one moment she’d actually believed it was her parents, and now they’d been taken away from her again.

Lily didn’t tell anyone about what had happened in the room and no one asked, not even Polly, when she limped in to see her grandmother the next afternoon. If the maid had eyebrows she might have raised them, but instead she looked straight at Lily and left her and Deiva without a word.

One of her favorite rooms in the house was a sitting room that overlooked the Shadow Garden. The room had three large windows that ran from the floor to the ceiling, comfortable chairs for afternoon tea, and a fireplace that was scrolled with ironwork. From here, Lily could see all the way out to the mist behind the gardens. She looked for Silas through a brass telescope that Ursula brought her but never saw him or Jonquil, though once she did see Skuld leading horsemen along a path as though they were searching for something.

The
Shadow Garden was aptly named. It always seemed to be dark over the trees and winding paths, as though what dusky light fell on the rest of Nightfall Gardens was unable to penetrate that area. The trees were twisted and stunted; many of them were dead. Rosebushes bloomed so bright that they could almost blind a person. Lily sometimes saw shapes moving through its grounds, but when she focused the telescope there was nothing there.

One stormy day, when the wind was so strong that the rain blew sideways and the house shook, Lily saw three women walking along one of the paths in the garden. The women wore white gowns and had the palest skin Lily had ever seen in her life. They put their hands out to feel the rain. Ursula entered with a pot of steaming tea on a tray and, as always happened when the maid was near, Lily's mood turned hopeless and forlorn. “Who are those women?” She asked. “Wot women, me lady?” Ursula repl
ied. “The three walking in the Shadow Garden,” Lily said.
'Though, I don't know why it should matter,'
she thought.
'Life is terribly pointless. The most a person can hope for is a tombstone that's spelled correctly when they die.'
Lily shook her head to push the dark thoughts away. The teapot and cups clattered on the tray. Ursula's nose twitched and her chin quivered. Her unibrow furrowed. “Is something wrong?” Lily asked. “Beggin' your pardon, tho — those are the Smiling Ladies,” Ursula said. She dropped the tray on a table and leaned against a chair for support.
'She's scared witless,'
Lily thought. “And who are they?” she asked. “Someone you don't want to meet, unless you're ready for eternal sleep. Excuse me, I've said too much,” Ursula said, fleeing the room. As soon as she was gone, Lily's mood lightened. She looked back through the telescope, but the women were gone.

When she'd been at
Nightfall Gardens for more than a month and was going crazy from loneliness and boredom, Lily finally made a friend. She was in the sitting room, scanning the Shadow Garden, when Polly glided in, followed by a girl who was near her age. The girl was taller than she was and wore a brown woolen dress. Her hair was blond, tinged with the same color green as her skin. The girl shifted uncomfortably and scowled at her.

“You're green,” Lily said stunned.

“Observant as her brother,” Cassandra said to Polly. “These Blackwoods are sharp ones.”

Polly slid across the floor, leaving a slimy track in her wake. She put a sticky hand on Lily's shoulder. “You'll have to excuse me, my lady,” the maid said.

“What for?”

“It's been a long time since we've had a child in the house, and those that live here are used to our solitary ways. We forget what it’s like to feel alone. I thought you might like to meet the only girl your age in the gardens.”

“Who is she?”

“Cassandra, the groundskeeper's daughter.”

“And why is her skin green?”

“That's a question best saved for her,” Polly whispered. “Though truth be told, I'd wait until I knew her better. She has a bit of a temper.”

The maid oozed out of the room and left the girls alone. They stared at each other in silence until Cassandra spoke. “So how long is this going to take?” she asked.

“Is what going to take?” Lily replied, curious about the new girl.