Nightfall Gardens (9 page)

“And you didn't see what it was?”

The rider swallowed. “I caught only a glimpse.”

“What did you see?”

“A man,” he said.

“A man did this?” Skuld said, disbelieving.

“I don't know. I only saw him for an instant.”

“What did he look like?”

“The mist plays strange tricks,” Brayeur said.

“Tell me. Blast it,” Skuld said. Across the room, one of the injured riders called out for his mother in a delirium.

Brayeur stared lost in memory, struggling to find the exact words to describe what had attacked them.

“I heard the screams before I saw him. We'd been traveling for days, through a mist thick enough to test a man's sanity. I could barely see the horse in front of me. We were past the villages, well into the area where the nothingness starts.”

“Why would you go that deep? It's too easy to get lost and never find your way back,” Skuld said in disbelief.

“
I can’t— can’t remember clearly. We were tracking whatever was dragging the villagers from their homes and killing them. It was Jonquil who discovered the tracks beside the cabin. We found the bodies nearby, fresh dead — an old man and a little boy. They were — they were skinned alive, empty husks, all of the good stuff scooped out of them,” The rider rocked back and forth at the terrible image.

“And you followed th
e trail?” Skuld said, trying to get the man back on track.

“Yes, deeper into the mist until everyone thought we were lost, but Jonquil wouldn't quit. Kept saying we were going to catch up with whatever it was. That we could stop the killing. And then, instead of us finding it, the creature found us.”

Brayeur told Skuld how he’d heard screaming coming from the direction in which Jonquil had gone. The sound was strange in the blinding mist and had echoed from different directions until he was disoriented. His horse whinnied with fear and it took all his skill to calm it down. Somewhere to his right, a rider called out, “Stay back, I warn you,” an explosion followed as a flintlock was fired. He pulled his own pistol and loosened the strap on his sword. Every rider was prepared for death, for they lived in its constant shadow at Nightfall Gardens, but that didn't mean any wanted to die. “Riders to me,” Jonquil called from the fog, but Brayeur couldn't tell where his call had come from. Another shriek came from nearby and he gripped the gun tightly, his palm sweating. A body flew from the mist and landed close enough that he could tell it was Fenwick, one of the riders. His skin looked as though it'd been turned inside out; he was a mess of blood and gore. Brayeur spurred his horse forward and charged directly into the creature.

“What did he look like?” Skuld asked, more gently now that he'd heard the horrible story.

“He was seven feet tall. Aye, the tallest person I've ever seen and his arms were no bigger around than a whipping branch, but stronger than ten of us. His skin was hard as iron and sickly gray. His beard touched his knees and I saw live things moving inside of it. Whatever he was, I saw no eyes, only empty sockets where they used to be. A pair of antlers grew from his forehead and glistened with blood and poison,” Brayeur shuddered at the ghastly memory.

Silas saw a flash of recognition cross Skuld's face, but one second later it was gone.

“And how'd you get out of that mess?” Skuld asked.

Brayeur laughed so hard that Silas thought the others were going to have to hold him down and force draught of the mina worm down his gullet to calm him. “My gun,” he said, when he could continue. “I pulled the trigger and it backfired, blew me off my horse and near killed me. When I woke up, he was gone, one of the riders was dead and the others were torn and injured.”

“And why would he leave without finishing the job?” Skuld asked.

“Who’s to say he didn’t? We're poisoned, can't you tell? It's searing our blood and killing us.”

“What could do such a thing?” One of the riders asked Skuld.

“Eldritch,” Skuld said after a long pause, and Silas felt fear go through the room at the name. Several of the riders started muttering. “Couldn't be,” one of the riders said. “
Jonquil chased him into the nothingness. No one has ever come back from that.”

Skuld frowned. “Then
no one
did a lot of damage to five of our best riders,” he said. “If it’s true he's back, then we're in more trouble than I thought.”

Silas pushed out of the group and saw Arfast helping tend one of the wounded riders. “Where's Jonquil?” he asked, looking for his uncle.

The young rider looked up at him as he cleaned a gash on the rider’s chest. The warmth and humor that was normally there was gone. “No lies, little one. He’s injured something fierce,” Arfast said.

Silas gasped when he realized his uncle was spread out on the cot in front of him. Jonquil’s face was shriveled and the color was drained from him. Even his lips were white. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he burned with fever. He was so ghostly looking that Silas was surprised when his chest heaved to draw breath. Jonquil’s mouth moved as if he were trying to speak.

“What’s wrong with him?” Silas asked.

“The poison has worked its way deep. It’s powerful dark, from the times when the old gods walked. Nothing works against it,” Arfast said. As if to prove his point, he poured blue liquid from a vial on the wound and Jonquil thrashed with madness as it turned from aqua to bubbling black. “It’s too strong.”

“What about Mr. Hawthorne and his spell box?” Silas asked.

“A
rider is already on his way to him. Pray he knows what he’s doing,” Arfast said. “Because if he doesn’t, there’s nothing else to be done. This will kill them all before long.”

Silas’s heart dropped. He’d just met his uncle, and while he couldn’t say he exactly liked him, Jonquil held a great many answers about this place and no matter what, he was still family.

Across the room, one of the injured riders thrashed and screamed, trying to push off the men who were holding him down. “Watch your uncle,” Arfast said. “I'm going to help them.” His cloak swept behind him as he turned to help the others subdue the man.

Silas thought of his play, the one he'd left at the Golden Bough when he'd decided to save his sister. The monsters he'd conjured in his head for that play were nothing compared to the terror that they faced here every day. He touched Jonquil's boiling forehead and his uncle's hand shot out, grabbing his wrist hard enough he thought it was going to snap. His uncle's eyes opened and stared right through him.

“Thomas?” Jonquil said. His voice was shaky with fever.

“It's Silas, your nephew,” Silas tried to pull his hand away. The grip was locked so hard he couldn't move.

Jonquil's eyes cleared for a brief second. “Silas? Of — of course. Where am I?”

“You're at the bunkhouse,” Silas said.

“My men?” his uncle asked.

“They're okay,” Silas lied.

Relief flooded Jonquil's eyes. “That's good. It was my mistake. Didn't realize what it was until -.” He started to fade and then came back. “It's starting.”

“What is?”

“I didn't realize how close they've come. How long they've planned,” his uncle said.

“Who? What are you talking about?” Silas leaned closer. He could smell the sickness radiating from Jonquil. If Mr. Hawthorne wasn't able to help, none of them would last long.

“No time,” Jonquil said in a ragged whisper. “Don't trust anyone. There are traitors in our midst.”

“Who?” Silas asked, but it was too late. His uncle collapsed from exhaustion as the fever ravaged him. The door opened and the groundskeeper came in, his shirt collar undone, hauling his spell box. “Where are they?” he said. “Everyone clear back and let me get to work.”

Only later, when he was safely in bed, would Silas ponder his uncle’s words and the ill omens they held for Nightfall Gardens.

9

Lily Sees Her Death

The wallpaper was moving. That was the first thing Lily noticed when she entered the room following Abigail. Stories were weaving themselves on the ochre-colored wallpaper. Intricately detailed shapes were coming into existence.

'Where is she?'
Lily thought. Her aunt had vanished and left her alone in this abandoned room. A candle burning on a nearby roll-top writing desk and a battered wardrobe in one corner were the only other furniture there.

The shapes continued to draw themselves on the walls. Lily stepped closer to watch. She saw a creature with the head of a snake and body of a human whipping a group of people who fell on their knees in worship. On another wall, witches warmed a pot for dinner while children locked inside a cage screamed for help. In a different scene, a dragon with scales so detailed that they formed ten thousand diamonds flew over a village, burning it to the ground. In yet another, a man was chained to a mountainside as vultures feasted on his flesh. Scenes of horror, too many to comprehend, passed before her eyes. Night creatures came forth to drag families from their beds. Goblins made slaves of humans. The old gods walked the earth and destroyed with no thought of the lives they were taking. The images shifted and changed on the walls, like some magic lantern show of terror that played over and over again. Lily's stomach tightened and she felt she was going to be sick.
‘Abigail wanted me to see this. Wanted me to understand what was at stake. This was what the world was like before Prometheus trapped all of the evil inside the box'
she thought, watching as a tentacled creature came from the depths of the ocean and pulled a ship under the waves. Tears stung her eyes as a young girl, much like herself, was chased through dark woods by wolves. The girl came to a cliff and jumped into a ravine rather than be torn apart by their jaws. The scenes continued. This was what her ancestor had almost unleashed on the world. This was why Lily was here. She shuddered at the thought of all of these things free to roam the world. Once they were loose, there would be no more theater, no more Paris, New Amsterdam, or anything. The world as she knew it would cease to exist and countless people would die. All because of her.
'No,'
she thought.
'It’s not my fault. I shouldn't have to pay for a mistake that a relative made centuries ago. It's not fair.'
Lily ran her hands along her goose-bumped arms. More images and stories unfolded, each more ghastly than the one before. Monsters with claws and fangs made sport of the humans they caught. Gigantic worms burst from the ground and swallowed homes. Malignant spirits drove people to the brink of madness and beyond. “Enough,” Lily said, putting her hands over her eyes, only to discover that they were wet with tears. “Enough, please make it stop.” But still, the images didn't end. She turned to flee, and that was when a drawer on the writing desk slid open.

Lily didn’t want to look inside, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she'd been brought here for some other reason than to be reminded of her family history. She got the candle from the table and brought it close. A slim journal was lying in the drawer. Lily removed the book and shut the drawer.
Abigail Blackwood
was stitched onto the cover. She tucked it under her arm and looked once more at the walls. Now an end scene was playing out, where all the evils were being pulled inside a box being held by a man that could only be Prometheus. Lily watched for a moment more and left the room.

Back in the safety of her bed, Lily opened the moldering book. On the first page was a map of the house with different rooms and floors penciled in with various colors. Several rooms had X's drawn across them.
'I'm not sure how useful this is, since the house is constantly changing,'
she thought. Still, the main hall and kitchen were in the same place, and she saw other rooms such as the library, a solarium, and an indoor swimming pool, that she didn't know existed. Passageways lined the walls behind some rooms, including Abigail's bedroom where Lily was now. She got up and knocked on the walls until she heard a hollow sound. It didn’t surprise her that a house so alive as Nightfall Gardens should be full of secret passages connecting different floors the way arteries controlled the flow of blood to the heart. Still, when her fingers found a notch in the woodwork and pressed it, she cried out when the wall slid back with a groan, revealing a cobwebbed opening.

Wind sucked at her candle flame. She smelled stale air and something rotten coming from inside. Far off, Lily heard pipes knocking and scuttling sounds like fingers tapping on bricks. After the night’s festivities, she wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed. Instead, she swept the cobwebs aside and entered the passage. A chill crept down her back. Candlelight reflected pale yellow from the stone of the corridor until it was swallowed by darkness. A breeze ruffled her hair and blew through the passage. She took one and then two tentative steps, the candle held in front of her for protection. The knocking grew louder the farther she went. It was an urgent, rhythmic banging that sounded like a boiler about to explode. The scuttling sound was there as well, buried underneath. One second it was a whisper at her ear, the next it sounded as though it were coming from above. Ahead, two shafts of light penetrated the passage.
'Where's that coming from?'
she thought. Lily stood on tiptoe and found herself looking through the eyeholes of a painting into an extravagant music room. Red moonlight fell on gilt-edged wallpaper and a grand piano. A golden harp that looked beautiful enough for the gods themselves to pluck was next to the piano. None of that was what caught her attention, though: a man wearing a powdered wig, a yellow coat, and high breeches with buckled shoes was pacing the room. He sat down at the piano, cracked his knuckles as if about to play and then shoved violently away from it and began pacing again. He did this once, twice, three times. Right then, the man turned toward the painting as if he knew he was being observed and rushed towards her. In that brief instant she saw that his face was nothing more than decomposing flesh over a long dead body.

Lily stepped away from the painting and forced herself to stifle a scream. The knocking from the pipes grew louder and the
scuttling seemed almost at her feet. She waited a long moment and still shaking, peered back into the room and found herself staring into a pair of red rimmed eyes that shifted from side to side and stared out at her. Lily ran back toward her room.
'I've had enough excitement for tonight,'
she thought as she fled down the passage. The knocking grew more distant and she saw light spilling from the opening to her room. Only then did she realize that the scuttling sound was following her and seemed to be growing louder.
'What is—'
Lily got no farther with her thought. A spider the size of a small kitten was hanging from the side of the wall. Its fangs were dripping venom that smoked as it hit the floor and its eight black eyes reflected candlelight. Red stripes ran along its back. It made a chattering sound as it came at her.

Lily moved with the reflexes of someone who was exhausted and angered with nothing to lose. She thrust the candle at the spider and it recoiled from the flame and sprang to the floor, its front legs clicking like hands rubbing together at a juicy prize. Lily's one overriding desire was to get in her room and shut the door on this nightmare. The opening was right behind her. She could see her bed and Abigail's open diary lying on top of the covers. But the spider wasn't going to let her go that easy now that its prey was in sight. A strand of silk shot from the underside of the arachnid into her face. Lily ripped at it as the s
ilk began to harden and suffocate her. At the same moment, the spider charged her exposed legs, chirping in victory. This time, she did scream. She thrust the candle at it again, but the spider didn't slow down. As Lily backed into her room, she felt for the notch that controlled the secret door. The door groaned and began to swing shut as the spider appeared. Its legs waved in the air and it danced with triumph. “Get — out — of — my — room,” Lily shouted, and now she was angry, angrier than she had been since the glass dolls attacked her. She drove the spider back with the flame, coming so close that the spider let out a screech when it touched the hot wax. Lily thrust the candle at it again and this time the spider hesitated. It didn't notice the door swinging shut until the last second when it made a desperate plunge back toward its home. It wasn't fast enough, though. Lily saw the spider trapped in the closing door and then it was gone, leaving behind nothing but a pair of pencil-sized legs. She put her head to the wall and thought she heard screeching on the other side as she collapsed on the floor in exhaustion.

Ursula was the one who found her the next morning. “Rough one last night, my lady? I've had plenty of those, I have. Me old mom used to say there's nothing that can't be solved by a hot glass of lizard pus. Madam Deiva might frown on that though, so this steaming cider will have to do for ya.”

As usual, Lily felt an unbearable depression weigh down on her whenever the housemaid was around. Tears stung her eyes as she thought of the night before and the misery of her life. “There, there, miss. It’s going to be another overcast day with a chance of thunderstorms. You can't ask for better than that,” the housemaid said and waggled her unibrow at Lily.

Only after Ursula had cleaned her chamber and was gone did Lily begin to feel like her old self. She took Abigail's diary and went down to the cavernous dining room, where she waited for Ozy to bring her morning tea and biscuits. She saw him several minutes before he got to the table, balancing a silver tray in his shaking hands. Lily had asked him once if he needed help and he had given her a look that could have curdled milk. She’d never asked again.

As she waited, Lily flipped through the book and was frustrated to find that everything was written in a nonsensical code of pyramids, waves and zeros. It was no language she recognized.
'Abigail must not have wanted the wrong person to get their hands on this book,'
Lily thought.
She turned back to the map of the house; on the next page was a map of the gardens. The Labyrinth, Shadow and White Gardens were all there, as well as the mist land that tapered off into nothingness. The map showed the entrances and exits to the gardens. In addition, tunnels extended from the house into the center of each.
'Why would they want access from the house to the gardens?’
Lily thought. She was pondering this when Ozy finally arrived with breakfast.

“Good morning, madam,” the ancient butler said, taking a minute to place the shaking tray on the table. Lily fought the urge to snatch it from his hands in impatience. Ozy poured her a cup of tea; his hands trembled so badly it sloshed over the top of
the cup onto the table. From this close, Lily could see through the wisps of his ginger hair to the parchment-colored skin beneath. Liver spots the size of birds’ eggs crowned his skull. The butler's lips were a thin slit and dust plumed from his mouth. The ancient bandages he was wrapped in poked out around the neck and sleeves of the suit. What purpose they served, Lily had no idea.
'How much he must have seen and how many Blackwoods he must have served,'
she thought,
spooning sugar into her tea. An idea came to her.

“Ozy, how many years have you been here?” she asked, taking the first sip of hot tea.

The butler paused as though no one had asked him a question in a very long time. Lily could almost hear him thinking behind the faded brown of his eyes. When he spoke it was a voice that sounded full of sawdust. “Seven — no — eight generations of your family. Before that I was there,” he gestured with emaciated fingers towards the outside.

“The gardens?” Lily asked.

“The White Garden, my lady. I was a vengeance spirit meant to protect the tombs of one of the ancient pharaohs from looters and others who would do it harm.”

“You were a mummy?” she said, intrigued.

Ozy stiffened as though insulted. “I would never use such a base word to describe us. That description was the product of some overactive writer's imagination. I prefer the term death warrior.”

“But you're basically a mummy,” Lily said, trying not to snicker. “So why are you no longer a — death warrior.”

“Are you sure this is appropriate conversation for morning tea?” Ozy said. “I'm positive that, if I still had a digestive tract, it would upset my stomach.”

Lily bit into a crumpet. “No, go ahead. That is, if you don't mind telling me.”

“It's not a long story, madam,” he said. “Many creatures of the Gardens are pure products of evil or malignity, who want nothing more than to harm or enslave those who are weaker than they are. Others are there by no fault of their own, only the unfortunate accident of their birth. I was one of the latter. Even when I walked the pyramids, I questioned what I was doing. I didn't have the violent nature of my kind. I learned that the hard way.” Ozy stopped as though transported back into an ancient memory.

“What happened?” Lily asked, pouring herself another cup of tea.

“A young child snuck into the tomb one day looking for the hidden treasure that was there. I came upon him in one of the chambers as he cleared it of all the gold and silver inside. It was my job to torture him unto death, but when he turned around, I saw the truth.”