The Night Gardener (14 page)

His eyes drifted to a pair of long, rusted garden shears hanging from the side of her pack. “I thought you never came near these woods,” he said.

“You thought correctly,” she said, gracefully tucking the shears out of view. “But when I spied Master Windsor racin’ toward the city on that carriage of his, I figured it was worth the risk to check on my investment.” She smiled in a way that let Kip know she was talking about him. “You may recall promising me a story.”

“That was my sister who promised it, not me,” Kip said. “I dinna tell stories. Molly’s fixin’ supper in the house, if you care to call on her.”

The woman glanced toward the house but quickly looked away again. “Here’s close enough for me, luv.” Kip could tell she was nervous—for all her jokes and stories, she was just as scared of the sourwoods as everyone else. “No need to interrupt your work. I only come to put a niggle in your ear. And to make sure you two lambs weren’t”—she hummed, as if searching for the right word—“indisposed.”

Kip did not know that word, but he understood her meaning. “You thought we was dead,” he said.

The woman laughed, which was no kind of answer. “You got a keen eye for what’s what. It’s not like me to be so dramatic, but when two whelps disappear into a place such as this”—she gestured to the wooded isle—“you can’t help but fear the worst.”

Kip looked hard at the woman, trying to disentangle her teasing from her truth. What did she really know about this place? “Back when we was on the road, you said there was somethin’ tragic about these woods. You called it ‘the other thing.’”

The woman gave a cryptic smile. “I’m not sure your sister would appreciate me frightening you.”

“I ain’t afraid,” Kip said. “Well, I
am
afraid … but I’m not afraid of
being
afraid. If that makes sense. True is still true, even if it’s bad. That means I want to hear it.”

“That’s a rare thing, in a boy or a man,” she said. “Your sister raised you up right.” Kip wanted to tell her that Molly didn’t raise him—that he was raised by Ma and Da—but he held his tongue. The
old woman drew a churchwarden pipe from her pack and stuffed it with tobacco from a pouch around her waist. She lit the bowl and began smoking like a man. The smell reminded Kip of autumn leaves. “You know by now that Master Windsor grew up in that house,” she said.

“He moved away when he was a boy,” Kip said. “They told my sister it was some kind of bad fever that took his whole family—left him an orphan.”

The woman nodded. “He is an orphan … though I’m not so sure about the rest of your story.” She drew a deep breath and released it. “I remember the night it happened—it’s the sort of night you don’t quickly forget. ’Twas a terrible storm, howlin’ winds, cold rain. Sometime in the wee hours, there’s a wailing sound come down the village road—the kind of scream that sets your every hair on end. Folks rush out of doors to find young Master Windsor—no older than you—in his nightclothes, soaked to the bone, not even shoes on his feet. He’s pale as a ghost and thin, too. We hardly recognize him. He’s frantic with fear and keeps saying something evil’s come for him—come for his parents.”

Kip suddenly wished very much that he were not having this conversation. He wanted to be at the stables, in the house—anywhere but on the bridge, talking to this old woman. Still, he had to know. “Did they find out what it was?” he said. “The evil thing that was after him?”

“We may be superstitious around these parts, but we aren’t
heartless. A few of the men got together rifles and dogs and lanterns and rode out here. The house was wrecked twice over from the storm. Furniture tossed, doors ripped open, windows smashed … and nothing else.”

Kip swallowed. “What about his ma and da?”

“Gone.” She pointed the long stem of her pipe at him. “So tell me this: What kind of fever turns a house inside out and makes flesh-and-blood people vanish into thin air?”

Kip had no answer. He tried not to think of that screaming boy in the stormy road. He tried not to think of what evil might have taken the boy’s family. He looked at the woman and saw she was watching him carefully—probably waiting to see what effect her story had made upon him. “I dinna believe you,” he said sharply. “If any of that stuff had happened to Master Windsor when he was a boy, there’s not a thing in the whole world that would bring him back here.”

The woman nodded, puffing. “You’d be surprised. Windsors aren’t the first to try and lay claim to these here woods—I’ll wager they won’t be the last.” Her eyes lingered on the house, looming large in the dusky shadows. “There’s somethin’ about this land that draws folks in, even when every bone in their bodies is telling them to run far, far away …” Her voice trailed off, and she was silent for a long while.

Kip was beginning to wonder whether she had forgotten about him altogether when she turned to him with a wooden smile. “Now, if you’ll forgive me, I’d like to get clear of these parts before the moon’s
out.” She stood up and tied her stool to her pack with a bit of loose rope. She jabbed a finger in Kip’s direction. “Maybe don’t tell that sister of yours what I said about Master Windsor. We wouldn’t want to frighten her.”

“I won’t,” he said. But he crossed his fingers as he said it.

The old woman curtsied and faced the road to the west—the opposite direction from where she had come. She adjusted her pack. “Always walk in a straight line, I say. Don’t ever turn back.” So saying, she started down the path, humming and jangling as she went.

Kip watched her disappear around the darkening bend, his hand clenched tight around the button.

hen Molly arrived at her room that night, she found a gift on the bed. It was a long dark dress, carelessly folded. Atop the dress was a note:

Molly—

This is an old frock for which I no longer have any use. I thought you might want it to wear on your errands. It may want hemming.

It was written in Mistress Windsor’s hand. Molly wondered what might have prompted this sudden show of generosity. Constance did not strike her as the sort of person to give gifts with no strings attached. Was this a peace offering or was it a bribe? Molly thought back to their conversation at the top of the stairs. The woman had been so flustered, so unlike herself. She had not wanted Molly to see the ring. Was she buying her silence?

Whatever the motive, a new dress was a new dress, and Molly was only mortal. She set down the note and picked up the garment. It was well worn but well made—certainly finer than anything she had ever owned. She ran her fingers over the thick fabric, which she thought might be called “velvet.” The color was almost black but for the edges, which glowed green when caught by the light. Molly loved wearing green because of the way it made her red hair even redder.

She shed her food-spattered uniform and knickers. The night air was cold against her bare skin. She shivered, quickly pulling the dress over her body. The fabric was as soft as down. The dress was clearly intended for someone who had servants, and it took some struggle for Molly to lace up the back without help. She eventually managed, though, and stood straight like Mistress Windsor, wishing she owned a piece of jewelry to place at her neck. She turned her hips and felt the long skirt swish from side to side at her feet.

Molly walked to the mirror above her dresser and looked at herself. She had hoped that the dress might make her appear transformed, statuesque even, but it did not. The gown was loose around the bodice, and the skirt hung limp around her legs. She looked exactly as she was: a fourteen-year-old servant wearing a rich woman’s cast-off clothes.

Molly wondered if she might be helped with a little “propping up”—a phrase her mother used to utter. She dragged her battered trunk from the wardrobe and opened the lid. She knelt and rummaged through the rags in search of a petticoat that might fill out the skirt. Molly’s old clothes were even more ragged than she remembered—all
of them threadbare and stained. She reached the bottom of the trunk, where she found the letter to her parents, right where she had hidden it. She expected to feel the top hat but found only more clothes. Molly frowned. She leaned over the trunk and pulled out clothes with both hands, heaping them onto the floor. She stared into the now-empty trunk …

The top hat was gone.

Molly sat back, her eyes searching the walls. Someone had gone through her private things, and they had taken the hat. She thought about who in the family might have done it. Penny? Alistair? Master Windsor? Mistress Windsor? Her eyes fell on the clothes scattered at her feet. She reached out and removed a dry leaf from the pile. Or was it someone else?

Molly was startled by a rapping at her window.

She turned around to see Kip, crouched on the grass. Molly was not expecting him that night. Ever since the weather had turned, he had insisted on sleeping outside in the stables with Galileo. Molly glanced at the leaf and wondered whether he had made the smarter decision. Still, there was no sense in alarming him with news of the missing hat. She quickly stuffed everything back into the trunk—including the unsent letter—and stood up.

She smoothed out her velvety dress and opened the window. “Too cold for you?” she said.

Kip didn’t bother to climb inside. “Galileo’s gone missin’.”

“The little sneak!”

“That’s exactly what I said.” He hopped back from the open window. “C’mon on, then.”

Molly gave an irritated sigh. She pulled a coat over her dress, slipped on some boots, and climbed atop her bed. She cast a final glance back at her room before crawling through the window and into the darkness.

The air surrounding the house was damp and cold. Already a dewy fog had descended on the entire valley, making it feel twice as dark as it should. “You sure this canna wait for tomorrow?” Molly said, lighting her lantern on the third try. She clutched the hem of her skirt, trying to keep it above the wet grass.

“I’ve already circled the yard twice,” Kip said, ignoring her question. “We’ll have to try the woods.”

Molly raised her lamp, trying to see the edge of the forest through the fog. Even though it was spring, the air was winter-cold. She silently chided herself for not taking time to change into warmer clothes. “It’s on your head if I catch fever and die,” she said, walking with Kip toward the trees.

“You shouldn’t joke about that.” He hobbled between two low hills. “Besides, I ain’t the one who decided to go outside wearin’ nothing but … whatever that is you’re wearin’.”

“It’s one of Mistress Windsor’s old dresses. She let me have it.”

Kip slowed and looked at her sideways. “They’re givin’ you gifts now?” His tone was unusually serious, and Molly couldn’t tell whether he was speaking with concern or jealousy.

“I can get you one, too, if you’d like,” she said, mussing his hair.

Kip pulled away and reaffixed his cap. “It’s my fault Gal’s out here. I was late bringin’ his oats. He musta got hungry and went off to find his own supper.”

Molly did not need to ask why her brother had been late. She knew that every day at sundown he watched the main road—sitting later and later into the night. Sometimes, through the upstairs window, she would see him alone at his post. Perched atop the bridge, waiting for a letter that would never come. “Still no postman?” she said, trying to keep the guilt from her voice.

“Not yet,” Kip said. “But it wasn’t the post that kept me late. That old witch Hester came by. She was askin’ for you.”

It took Molly a moment to realize he was talking about the storyteller they had met in the road. The realization was not a pleasant one. The woman had a way of seeing right through Molly, and the idea of her being alone with Kip seemed dangerous. “What did she want?”

“You gave her your word you’d come around the village and tell her about the Windsors,” he said. “Or don’t you remember?”

Molly didn’t like the tone with which he said this; it felt like an accusation. “I remember just fine. Only I’m not sure the master an’ mistress would like me tellin’ tales to nosy old hags.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t ’a promised you would,” he said and continued on toward the trees.

Usually Molly had to slow down to let Kip keep up, but tonight he was moving fast; it was all she could do to keep apace of him without
running. For this reason, she was grateful when they reached the woods and he was forced to slow down. The floor of the forest was just as uneven as the lawn, and the canopy of branches hid the moon, leaving only Molly’s lamp to guide them. She walked alongside her brother, calling out Galileo’s name, shining her light at their feet so they could look for hoofprints. Kip didn’t like to carry a lamp. He claimed he could see in the dark, but Molly knew it was really because he already had one hand on his crutch and didn’t want to lose use of the other.