Nightfall Gardens (8 page)

“Being here, in the house. I have lots of work and none of it’s going to get done while I'm inside. Not all of us are allowed the luxury of a cup of a hot tea on a chilly afternoon,” Cassandra said, irritated.

“You think I
want
to be here?” Lily snapped. “That I wouldn't rather be back in New Amsterdam or anywhere but this drafty house where every room is haunted and I can't see my brother or parents?”

“You're a Blackwood. This is where you belong, your royal highness,” Cassandra said, mocking her with a curtsy. “Now, if you'll excuse me —.” She backed towards the door.

“You said you knew my brother,” Lily interjected. In the city, she would never have talked with the children of the people who worked backstage at the theaters where they played. Silas was the kind-hearted one, the one who stopped to comfort the stagehand's daughter when she skinned her knee or who made fast friends with the street urchins that lived nearby. Even then, Lily had dreamed of bigger things, grand parties and newspaper headlines proclaiming her the toast of Europe. One month at Nightfall Gardens, unable to confide in anyone, had broken her down. She was desperate for contact with anyone, including this green-skinned girl.

“Oh, I know him. Stuck a pitchfork in his side because I thought he was a Shade,” Cassandra said. She itched at the dress as though she wasn't used to wearing such finery.

Lily came out of the chair. “What? Is he all right?”

“Hardheaded as ever,” Cassandra said. Her expression loosened when she saw how concerned Lily was. “Gave him a healing potion. He was back to being a nuisance in no time. Shouldn't have snuck up on Osbold and me.”

“Who’s Osbold?” Lily asked.

“My gargoyle,” Cassandra said.

“You have a gargoyle?” Lily said in wonder.

“Is everything a question with you? Of course I do. They won't allow him in here though. Technically he's a creature of the Gardens. Not that the slug of a housekeeper and other staff aren't,” Cassandra came to the window and peered at the
Shadow Garden. “Never been in the house before,” she said, rubbing her hand against the chair. “Not much call for the gardener's daughter to come calling.”

“Let me show you around. At least what I know of it,” Lily said. She reached for Cassandra, but the gardener’s daughter jerked away as if scalding water had been thrown on her. “You mustn’t ever – no one can touch me!” She backed into the curtains.

“What's wrong? I didn't mean any harm,” Lily said.

“Neither do I, but harm is what will happen if you or anyone touches my skin,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Beggin' your pardon, ma'am, may I be excused?” Cassandra asked. The toughness was back in her eyes.

“Not until we get some custard puffs from the kitchen,” Lily said, wanting more conversation from the green girl, even if it meant taking her abuse for a while longer.

The kitchen was on the ground floor in the back of house. Lily filled a plate with the puffs and they sat and ate them on the main stairwell. While they were eating, a door slammed upstairs and they heard horrible moaning, followed by running feet thudding down the hallway. Polly came into the entry, a moment later with a broom in her hand. “Who knows what kind of ugly has broke free this time,” she said, gliding past them and up the stairs.

“Does this happen all the time?” Cassandra asked.

“They say it didn't used to be so bad,” Lily said, setting the empty plate on the stairs.

“But your gran is dying,” Cassandra said.

“Yes,” Lily said bitterly. “And when she does I'm expected to take over and spend my life here.”

“It’s the lot of the Blackwoods,” Cassandra said.

“But I didn't do anything.” Lily balled her hands into fists.

“Doesn't matter. We all bear the burden of those who went before us,” Cassandra said.

“What do you know?” Lily asked exasperated.

“A sight more than a city girl from outside the gates. I've grown up with a fear that at any moment something could happen and I’d die. Stray an inch off of the paths and something will grab you. Wake up in the night with a tree branch scratching at your window and every nightmare you've ever had is outside your door.”

“How — how do you stand it?” Lily asked.

“It’s what I know,” Cassandra said. “How long do you think I would fit in out there —,” she gestured toward the nothingness beyond the wall that separated the house from the world. “— looking like I do.” She stood to leave. “On that note, I have to go. Osbold is going crazy without me and I need to help my father finish the planting.”

Cassandra was at the door when Lily called out. “Can you come back again?”

The green girl stopped in the open door. “Why?”

“Because I don’t have any friends and I need someone to help me explore the house.”

Cassandra gave her a hard look and then made up her mind. “Okay, friends it is. I'll come again in two days.”

“One more thing, please.”

“What?”

“Tell my brother to take care of himself and that I love him,” Lily said.

Cassandra chewed her lips. “I try to avoid him when possible. But I'll pass along what you said.”

That night, Deiva seemed in a better mood than usual. One of the windows was cracked to let out the sour stench of the gilirot that was eating her alive. She wore her usual black dress with a veil covering her face, but it was pressed and washed. Candles illuminated every corner of the room. She was even drinking a glass of red wine, raising the veil to take dainty sips, accidentally giving Lily glimpses of the weeping sores that covered her face.

“There she is, my beautiful granddaughter and my ticket away from here someday — but not tonight, mind you. Tonight, we drink and celebrate,” she said.

“What are we celebrating?” Lily asked, taking the glass her grandmother thrust into her hand.

“Abigail, my dear, we're celebrating my sister Abigail,” Deiva said. She gently tweaked Lily on the nose and fell back into her chair.

“What's the occasion?” Lily said, taking a seat across from her grandmother. The red moon was up and looked large enough to swallow the house, gardens and all.

“It's her birthday, my dear. She disappeared many, many years ago. How is it possible you know none of this? Your father will get a scolding, the next time I see him. He kept you in secrecy about your birthright.”

'And bless him for that,'
Lily thought. How horrible it would have been to know what her destiny was.

“My sister, for all of her virtues, was unable to accept her lot in life,” Deiva continued. “She was obsessed with finding a way of freeing us from
Nightfall Gardens and trapping the things that live here so they could never get out.”

Lily's heart raced in her chest. “Is such a thing possible?”

“Of course not. Don't you think we would have found it if there was?” Deiva said. “It’s a family legend. Nothing more. Believe me, plenty of Blackwoods have gone mad trying to find a way to free us of this curse. Abigail paid for it with her life.”

“How do you know that?” Lily asked. If there was a way to close
Nightfall Gardens and make sure nothing ever escaped, then she could have a career on the stage.

“Because she told me,” Deiva said. “Not two hours ago when she came to visit. Of course she came tonight. It's her birthday.”

Candle light illuminated Deiva as she raised her veil to take a drink of wine. Lily stared into a far corner so she wouldn’t see the disease that was rotting her grandmother. Deiva caught her looking away and laughed. “Does my appearance disgust you? There was a time when I was a vain little peacock like you, but your grandfather’s absence stripped me of that. Then the gili got hold of me and took the last of my illusions.”

“What — what happened to Abigail?” Lily asked. She waited until the veil fluttered back over Deiva’s chin before she looked in her direction. “How did she disappear?”

“How does anyone? One moment she was here and the next she was gone. She was acting strange months before she ever vanished. Abby spent all of her time in our ancestral library, reading the history of our family and scouring the ancient tomes that are there.”

“We have a family library?” Lily asked.

“Oh my dear, I forget how little you know. Yes, we do. That is, if you can find it. The room moves around, like many in Nightfall Gardens do.”

Something screamed, deep and terrible, outside in the dark, as though it was being killed, and Lily jumped in her seat. Deiva looked out the window at the twisted trees and mysterious vegetation that led into a wall of fog.

“The gardens are restless, much like they were on the night Abby disappeared. The dusk riders were busy with all the breaks that had happened and evils that were loosed. Several of the riders died. No one knew my sister was gone until the next morning.”

Deiva was the one to discover Abigail's empty chamber, the one Lily was living in now. Her bed hadn't been slept in and there was no evidence that she tried to sneak out of the house or that one of the spirits of the gardens might have gotten her.

“The gate was closed, so she couldn't have gotten out that way, either,” Deiva said. “The only thing we ever found was a sapphire pendent of hers that one of the maids discovered in a hallway on the fifth floor.”

“What do you think happened?” Lily asked.

“This house — this house is almost as dangerous as out there,” her grandmother said, gesturing outside the window. “Abby poked and prodded until the house took her. She told me that she was close to finding out a way to end the curse. But I didn't believe her. I still don't.” Deiva's head lowered on her chin. She was growing tired from the wine.

“When your sister visited tonight, what did she say?” Lily asked.

“Hmmm,” Deiva shook her head to rid herself of slumber. “She said to give you a message — to be careful — that you're the last of the Blackwood women and great evils are coming for you. I could have told you that and saved her the trouble. The beings in the Gardens have been trying to kill us as long as this place has existed.”

Her grandmother nodded off shortly after that. Lily watched Deiva's veil flutter in and out with sleep and quietly slipped from the room. Noises came from several of the doors on the way back to her room. Icy voices cajoling her to come inside, things that thumped and rolled on the floors. Hysterical tittering came from behind one door and ocean waves crashing against a beach came from another. Lily tuned them out as she had ever since the incident with the dolls.

She was thinking over her great-aunt's disappearance when she turned down the hall toward her bedroom and saw the girl coming out of her room. The girl was near her age, with straight black hair and a pinched face.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Lily said surprised.

The girl looked directly at her and then turned and fled down the hall in the opposite direction.

“Wait! Who are you?” Lily yelled, though the face looked oddly familiar. It was one she'd seen before.

The girl didn't respond, just kept running.
'Oh no you don't,'
Lily thought, taking off after her. It would have been wiser to wake Polly and tell her what happened, but by that time the girl would have gotten away. Also, Lily never again wanted to see the cocoon the housekeeper slept inside.

She chased the girl to the end of the hall and up a narrow flight of stairs to the fourth and fifth floor. On the fifth floor only a few gas lamps sputtered along the halls, making it difficult to see. The hall was dark and quiet. Its walls were covered in ornate gold wallpaper peeling away to reveal the exposed wood underneath.

Lily saw the girl running in and out of shadows, her long, old-fashioned dress held up so she could go faster. “Hey wait, stop!” Lily shouted, but the girl didn't stop. Behind Lily, the gas lamps began extinguishing, one by one, leaving only impenetrable darkness and the light that was ahead of her. Near the end of the hall, the girl, stopped and looked back at Lily. They stared at each other long enough for Lily to realize who it was, and then the girl opened a door and went into a room. “Abigail!” Lily said, but it was too late. The girl was on the other side of the door. Lily's heart beat frantically in her chest. Why had her great-aunt lead her to this room? At the other end of the hall, the lamps began to go dark with a hiss. Soon, the hallway would be black as a tomb and she would be trapped. The second-to-last lamp went out and now the only light left came from a lamp across the hall. Lily remembered Polly's instructions never to enter a room with a closed door. As the last gas lamp went dark, Lily turned the knob and entered the room.

8

Whispers of Eldritch

“Come on, lad. Put your back into it,” Mr. Hawthorne said. The groundskeeper was fanning himself with a hat as though it were the middle of summer and not another dusk-gray day where rain looked like it would fall at any time.

Silas was finishing planting the last row of witch vine on the south side of
Nightfall Gardens. One thing he'd learned in the last six weeks was that the house needed constant fortification against the forces of darkness. Whether it was dragon's heart by the doors, tiger's jaw under the windows or any of the hundred other species that protected the house, he and Mr. Hawthorne spent a good part of each day, making sure everything was blooming. Withered plants were removed and fresh ones planted. Every week, a section of the house was uprooted and replanted. “Sometimes a plant can look perfectly healthy but all its magic is gone,” Mr. Hawthorne told him. “The house is under constant assault from the things wot live here. Nothing they'd love better than to get at your sister.”

Silas finished planting the last witch vine and wiped sweat from his forehead. His skin was beaded with dirt and sweat and he daydreamed about a hot bath instead of the cold buckets of water he poured over himself at the end of each workday. He was leaner than when he'd arrived and his hair curled to his eyebrows. He leaned against the hoe and looked up at the windows, but as usual there was no sign of Lily.

“Let’s go, lad. This wheelbarrow isn't going to fill itself, and soon dark will come. Best be away from the Gardens when that happens,” Mr. Hawthorne said. Thirty minutes later, they set off past the Shadow Garden. By now, Silas knew all three of the gardens, at least in theory. Mr. Hawthorne had given him a guided tour his second day and told him not to mind anything he might see. “Most of the beasties don't know where they are anymore, but the ones that do will do anything to make you stray from the path. Remember, you're safe as long as you don't leave the trail. Once you're in the garden proper, heaven have mercy on you.”

The
Shadow Garden was the most foul of all of them for it was the one that was conjured by the human mind. Rosebushes bloomed so vibrantly that it was as though they were fed on blood. White trees leeched of their color stretched into the depths of the property. No insects sang there and a chill came from within, like cold off an ice block. Light seemed to evaporate when it hit the edge of the dark grass. Inside the Shadow Garden, there were plenty of spaces to hide and watch. “Three gardens for the three evils that gorged on human misery,” Mr. Hawthorne recited as though it were something he'd learned as a child. “The Labyrinth for the old gods, the Shadow Gardens for the monsters sprung from the imagination, and the White Garden for the spirits that make a mockery of death.”

Silas pushed the wheelbarrow ahead of him along the smooth path. The red moon that was always a ghost on the horizon was beginning to creep up in the gray sky. Mr. Hawthorne was following him, lecturing about plants as he did every evening on their way home, when something stirred in the trees beside them. Silas thought he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, but when he looked, he only saw bleached trees shaking with the evening breeze. “Highly lethal to humans if eaten, but one of the most powerful magics if used properly,” Mr. Hawthorne said, explaining the different beneficial properties of Blood Creeper extract. Silas thought that if the groundskeeper were cleaned up, his thick mustache trimmed and he were given a tweed jacket, he would look like one of the college professors the Blackwood family played for in Waxahachie. He glanced back, feeling a burst of warmth for his mentor, and that was when he saw the woman watching from the trees. She was beautiful, but not in the same way as his sister or mother. They were universal beauties who could turn the heads of royalty or beggars on the streets; this woman's beauty resided in her earthiness and the smile that lingered about her red lips, even though she was long dead.

“Horatio,” the woman said. Her voice was barely above a whisper and sounded of the night.

“Faster, lad,” Mr. Hawthorne said ignoring her. Silas could see fear and something else in the groundskeeper's eyes.

“Are you afraid to stop and talk with your wife?” the woman asked. Her voice seemed to come from all around them. She was standing apart from the trees now, and in the red moonlight he saw how much Cassandra resembled her.
'Who is this?'
Silas thought.

“It's not my wife, but a demon from hell,” Mr. Hawthorne said, his voice cracking with emotion. He put a hand up to wipe away the tears that were there. “Now go on, lad. Faster.” He stumbled after Silas as the woman followed along at their side.

“That's not true,” the woman said. Her voice encircled them. In the red light, her skin seemed almost transparent. She was as white as the trees in the garden and her eyes were dark. Her fingernails were ragged and sharp as razors. “I'm your Belinda. I'm the one you married under the poplar trees by the winding brook. Ah, what a day that was. All of the riders in their fine wolf cloaks and the mist people came from miles around. Even Mrs. Deiva and her husband came from the house to watch. It was a celebration that lasted for days.”

“Stop it, witch! Don't sully her name,” Mr. Hawthorne said.

Silas looked back and gasped. The groundskeeper was staggering blind from the tears and was inches away from stepping off the path into the Shadow Garden.

“Mr. Hawthorne, watch where you're going,” Silas said, slowing the wheelbarrow again.

Belinda hissed at him and turned back to her husband. “It was a celebration that lasted all the years of my life, through the birth of our daughter and many a planting.”

“No more,” Mr. Hawthorne said. “Leave me be.”

“I tried to get you to leave. The three of us to go through the gates and start a new life, but you wouldn't do it, wouldn't leave behind the centuries your family took care of this forsaken land. Look at me now,” Belinda said, posing in moonlight. Her jaws opened so wide Silas could no longer see her face, only a mouth with dozens of sharp, crooked teeth so that he wondered in amazement how she ever managed to keep from tearing her lips apart. “Do you like what the Smiling Ladies have made me?”

“No, no. It can't be,” Mr. Hawthorne said. His cheeks were wet with tears. “I would have done anything to help you.”

“Except risk your own life,” she said. A thick, red tongue rolled out of her mouth and waved in the air like an insect antenna.

“Cassandra, I had to think of Cassandra,” he said.

“How is my daughter? Tell her that Mother can't wait to give her a kiss,” Belinda said with a cold laugh.

Mr. Hawthorne stopped walking. He was standing feet away from crossing into the
Shadow Garden. The woman who had been his wife was beckoning him to her with the claws that used to be her hands. As Silas watched, the groundskeeper took one, then two steps towards her.

“No!” Silas yelled. He dropped the wheelbarrow and it dumped over the earth and dead witch vines. He grabbed the groundskeeper and pulled him away from the garden. “Mr. Hawthorne, Mr. Hawthorne, please. Think of your daughter.”

The groundskeeper looked as if he didn't know who Silas was, then recognition stirred in his eyes. “You're right, boy. It wouldn't be fair to Cassie. I'm tired, though. Sometimes a man gets so tired.”

“Let’s go,” Silas said, lifting the wheelbarrow. “Everything looks better after a good night’s sleep.”

“You'll pay for this,” the woman called as Silas and Mr. Hawthorne left the trail. “I'll feast on your sister's blood, you fool.”

They were nearing the groundskeeper's cottage before either of them spoke. “Best not bring this up around Cassandra, lad,” Mr. Hawthorne said, tired-sounding. “It'll only upset her.”

Silas was emptying the dead vines in a compost heap behind the barn when Osbold landed on his shoulder and nuzzled tenderly at him. In the past month, he and the little gargoyle had become fast friends. The same couldn't be said for Silas and the groundskeeper's daughter. If anything, she took a particular pleasure in insulting him and his family. The nicer he tried to be, the meaner it made her.

“There he is, old jelly-bean eyes,” Cassandra said, coming around the barn with a smirk on her face. The different colors of his eyes were a favorit
e insult of hers. “Did you chip a nail helping with the planting?”

Silas thought of the thing in the
Shadow Garden that had claimed to be Cassandra’s mother and ground his teeth.

“You'll never guess where I spent my day,” she said, leaning on the fence to watch him muck out the last of the wheelbarrow.

“No, but I imagine you'll tell me,” he said.

“Fine, then. Since you asked, I spent the day with the lady of the manor, Lily Blackwood.”

Silas stopped and looked at her. Cassandra had a pleased look on her face. “You saw Lily?”

“In the flesh. Not nearly as unpleasant as her brother. She invited me back again in two days.”

“How — how was she?”

“As fine as anyone can be in her situation. She told me to give you a message.”

“Well, what is it?”

Cassandra ignored him. She put her hands behind her back and began to whistle while pretending to walk an invisible line so she could draw out his torment. When Silas wouldn't give her the satisfaction of an irritated look, she spoke. “Oh, all right. She said to tell you that she was fine and that she....,” the groundskeeper’s daughter paused as though she were going to vomit the word. “And to tell you that she loved you.”

“And what did you tell her?” Silas sighed in relief that his sister was fine. Osbold rubbed his leathery skin against the side of Silas’s head and picked at something in his hair.

“I wondered how a girl so beautiful could have such an odd-looking brother,” Cassandra laughed. “Come on Osbold, let’s leave the stable boy to finish his chores.” She put out her arm and the gargoyle flew and perched on her arm.

“You'll tell her I'm fine as well?” he said.

“I'm not in the habit of being a messenger,” she said. “It's lucky for you I'm in a good mood tonight.”

'What did I do to make her hate me so?'
Silas thought, as he approached the bunkhouse. A group of lathery horses were tied in front and he almost broke into a run when he saw his uncle's among them. It had been more than a month since Jonquil and the other men had headed into the mist and though none of the riders mentioned it, Silas could tell they were nervous. “Not normal to be gone so long,” he heard Larkspur say one night after he'd drank two flagons of wine. “We need to go after them.” There were ayes from the other riders. Skuld banged his one good arm on the table hard enough that it rattled the wooden plates and cups. “If Jonquil's been gone so long it’s because he's got a good reason.” Silas almost told Skuld about the man he'd seen talking with the wolf that night, but at the last minute decided to keep it to himself. Which didn't mean the boy hadn't tried to figure out who it was. There were 32 riders in the bunkhouse. Seven of those Silas discarded instantly; they were old riders who couldn't do more than cook, keep up the camp, and talk about their glory days. Silas also discounted his uncle and the men with him, and that knocked the number down to 20 — still large, but more manageable. He was inclined to take Arfast and Skuld from the list as well, which made the number less. From there, he observed the remaining riders and their routines, trying to deduce the mysterious person, but with no luck. Silas slept lightly and watched who entered and left the bunkhouse, but whoever it was, he never repeated his journey into the woods.

Voices spilled from the bunkhouse in excitement as he approached. The front door was open and oily light fell on trampled mud in front of the barracks. A pair of dusk riders stood in the shadows watching the meadow for signs of anything approaching. Their wolf cloaks were filthy yellow and they clutched muskets to their chests.

“How long?” Silas asked, stepping onto the sagging porch.

“Nought as the crow flies,” one of the riders said. “Came out of the mist as though they were being chased by the devil himself.”

A scream of pain from inside the bunkhouse ripped the night, followed by the sound of someone shouting “Hold him down!” Silas moved towards the door and the rider blocked him.

“What are you doing?” Silas asked.

“It's your uncle, he —.” Concern etched the rider's features. “He's hurt badly.”

Silas pushed past the man and entered a bunkhouse that was scrambling with activity. Chaos reigned. Men were running back and forth. One rider was throwing boxes from a cupboard, wildly searching for something. Another collected herbs and potions from a dusty shelf. Three men lay on cots and were being forced to hold still. “They've gone mad with fever. Bring me water,” Larkspur shouted. He was feeling the temperature of a rider whose face boiled red and eyes looked ready to pop from their sockets. Veins throbbed in the man's forehead and neck. Larkspur pushed him back down on the cot. “Hurry, he doesn't have much time.”

Silas searched the room for his uncle. A group of riders huddled around a table deep in discussion. Skuld was shouting. “Tell me what happened again. Blast it!” Silas saw Brayeur, one of the riders who went with his uncle, stretched out on a cot with a bandage over one eye. His skin was a sickly yellow and a rank odor poured from him. Brayeur couldn’t have been more than thirty, but something had sapped his energy and he spoke as though it exhausted him. “I've told you, I don't know. We followed strange trails into the mist until we were lost. That was when the attack happened.”