The Night Gardener (19 page)

Kip breathed a deep sigh, trying to expel the tightness from his chest. He knew it was dangerous to stay in this place, but for some reason he couldn’t make Molly understand. He stared at the woods lining the ridge of the valley. They were lit with golds and reds and deep purples—the warm palate of a setting sun. He blinked, thinking again of his parents, who were somewhere far, far away, looking at the same sun. “I suppose we could stay a bit longer,” he said. “Just to see if another letter comes.”

“Thank you, Kip.” Molly hugged him, and he hugged her back, clinging to her with everything in him. He felt her body shake, letting out silent tears. Molly had tried so hard to protect him, but now it suddenly felt like she was the one who needed protecting. “Do you want to read it again?” he said.

Molly pulled back, wiping her eyes. She nodded. “Maybe just once more.”

olly spent the next two weeks in a haze of excitement and expectation. What had started as one letter had soon grown to four, and not an hour passed that she didn’t find herself wondering when the next special delivery might come. After all this time thinking she and Kip were alone, the letters had given her hope.

“Master Alistair?” Molly called, a stack of sheets under her arm. “I’m here with the linens.”

She heard no response and pushed the door open with her shoulder. Alistair’s bedroom was a place Molly generally tried to avoid, going in only to change linens and the pots. The air in the room was thick with the foul odor of armpits and unwashed feet. Molly opened the window, briefly pausing to watch her brother load a wheel-barrow outside the stables. She went to the bed and pulled back Alistair’s quilt to reveal a mess of toffee wrappers and powdered sugar and chocolate crumbs and dead leaves. She rolled her eyes, knowing it would take twice as long to wash the stains from these sheets.

Molly stripped and remade the bed, wishing very much that she could take a short rest upon its feathery surface. She sat on the corner, yawning. Lately the chores had been catching up to her, and she was often tired. She needed something to take her mind off work and worries. She slid a hand into her apron pocket and removed a stack of worn envelopes: letters from Ma and Da.

Apparently her parents had been caught in a typhoon, whose whirlpool had sucked them straight through the center of the world and launched them out of a volcano in the South Seas. She smiled at the volcano detail—no doubt an embellishment by her father. He was the sort of man who stepped out for a box of matches and came back with a story of how he’d snatched it from the devil’s own pocket.

Molly still hadn’t sorted out what she believed about the letters. She had initially been afraid that they were some sort of prank. But with each new letter, writ in Ma’s hand, Molly had become more and more convinced that they were real. Certainly they were
unusual
—but unusual was different from untrue. Kip was afraid of the tree; that was why Molly hadn’t told him about the knothole. But she knew the truth: the tree was magic—not storybook magic, but the real thing. And why shouldn’t real magic be a little frightening?

How the tree worked was still a mystery. When she had tried sending a letter of her own through the knothole, a gust of wind had knocked it back. The tree seemed to grant one specific wish to each person: Master Windsor got money, his wife got jewels, Penny got
her storybooks, and Alistair got lots and lots of sweets. Molly glanced toward the boy’s open closet, the floor of which was filled with caramel drops and chocolate bars and licorice wheels and peppermint sticks, all sorted into neat little piles. She stared at them, wondering what they might taste like.

The door opened behind her. It was Alistair, a new paper sack clutched in his hand. Molly stood, stuffing the letters back into her pocket. “I was just changin’ the bed.”

Alistair looked from her to the closet. “Did you take any?” He rushed to his pile of sweets, sitting down cross-legged like a child. “Because I count it every morning.”

“I’m surprised you can count that high,” she muttered, collecting the dirty sheets.

Alistair was too busy checking for signs of theft to respond. He opened the brown bag and dumped out what looked to be peanut brittle, which he added to the store. Molly watched him sort through the piles. His face had taken on a fat, flabby quality in recent weeks. The rest of him had followed suit, and Molly knew it was only a matter of time before one of her chores would include letting out the seams of his clothes. She had not yet spoken to anyone about the tree and thought it might be time. “Can I ask you somethin’?” she said, folding her arms. “I know where you’re gettin’ all those sweets from … But why sweets?”

Alistair narrowed his eyes, perhaps trying to discern whether he was being mocked. He shrugged. “They were just waiting for me.”

Molly nodded. Somehow the tree had known that he longed for sweets. Just as it knew that she longed to hear from Ma and Da.

Alistair dug into his pocket and removed a red gumdrop. He stood and held it out to her. “Would you like a piece?”

She had never once tasted a gumdrop in her life. It looked sticky and soft and delicious in his pale palm. “Are you offering?” she said.

“No!” he said brightly. He popped it into his mouth, chomping loudly. “If you deserved sweets, then the tree would give them to you.”

Molly shook her head. “I canna help but feel sorry for you.”

He snorted. “
You?
Sorry for
me
?”

“Any wish in the whole world, and all you can think of is your stomach.” She turned toward the door, but Alistair blocked her way.

“It’s not like that,” he said.

Molly cocked her head to one side. “Really? What’s it like, then?”

He shoved his hands into his pockets. “When I was little, before Penny even, Father used to take me round to the sweets shop in town. ‘Get whatever you want,’ he’d tell me. And together we’d look at all the different kinds. I used to agonize over what to pick. I didn’t want to seem greedy, and I wanted him to be proud of me, so in the end I’d just get one small thing—a lolly, maybe, or a square of fudge—even though I wanted more. I’d take that sweet home and have to make it last the whole week, sometimes even longer.” He drew another gumdrop from his pocket, this one yellow, and rolled it between his fingers. “When we sold our things and had to move away from town, I realized what
a fool I’d been as a little boy. I should have grabbed all the sweets I could. Father never took me to a sweets shop again.” He shoved the gumdrop into his mouth, chewing violently.

Molly felt a sting of sympathy but only a slight one. Even if Alistair’s desire for sweets had come from some deeper loss, that loss had transformed itself into plain gluttony. “There’s lots worse that can happen to children than losing their sweets,” she said quietly.

Alistair shifted his weight, his mouth tightening. “You think you’re so much better than the rest of us? You and your secret letters?” Molly gasped, which seemed to please him. “I know all about them. I’ve seen you reading them to Kip out my window.”

Molly put a protective hand over her apron pocket. “The letters are none o’ your business, and you’re not to speak of ’em again.” Her voice was shaking.

A grin of discovery crept across his face. “Your brother doesn’t know where they come from, does he?” He took a step closer, close enough that she could hear the crackle of his spittle as he chewed. “Suppose someone told him? Would that bother you?”

Molly clenched the dirty sheets to her body. Her heart was pounding in her ears. She took a slow breath and then forced herself to smile. “Do whatever you please, master.” She took a step closer, meeting his dark stare with her own. “Though, I should warn you: it’s a dangerous game to cross the person who cleans your chamber pot. I might just
accidentally
spill it all over your precious sweets.”

Alistair’s face froze. “You wouldn’t dare!”

Molly shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe I already did and forgot to tell you.” She leaned close, whispering, “How’s that gumdrop tasting?”

His mouth fell open as horror washed over him. Molly had done nothing to his sweets, of course, but the idea had planted itself into his mind, and that, it seemed, was enough to keep him in check.

“Back to work.” Molly hefted the sheets in her arms. “Lovely talkin’ with you.”

She turned around and left the room before he could see her smile.

n Tuesday the postman finally came to Windsor Manor. Kip spotted the man on the road and ran to meet him at the bridge. “Any more special deliveries?” he said, out of breath.

“Ain’t heard of no special deliveries. Give this here to your mistress.” The postman handed Kip an envelope and rode on without another word.

The letter inside was not special, and it was not from Ma and Da. It was from Master Windsor, who had written from town to say that he had hired a doctor to check up on his family while he was away. Kip was to pick him up in the village the following morning. The Windsor children took this as bad news, complaining that they felt fine and didn’t need a doctor. Kip, however, was excited. He had never met a real doctor before.

Kip met the man in the village just after breakfast. “Master Windsor’s still in town with the carriage,” he said, scooting to one side. “You’ll have to ride up front with me.”

“It offends me not,” said the corpulent doctor, climbing onto the wagon. “The better to observe the local flora and fauna—I have something of a passion for the natural world.” He produced a handkerchief from his pocket. Inside was a leaf. “Observe this specimen I found while riding out from town this morning. Look at the size of this petiole. Why, it’s positively prehistoric!”

Kip looked at the leaf, which seemed ordinary enough to him. “Very impressive, sir.” He snapped the reins, pulling out into the road.

“Impressive … and perhaps
unnamed
.” He tucked the specimen back into his pocket. “Who knows what medicinal value such an herb might possess? The next time I visit, I shall have to bring along some equipment from my laboratory for testing.” The doctor wore a dark blue coat, white gloves, and a tall black hat. Kip eyed the black leather bag sitting on the man’s lap. Some letters were painted across the side in expensive gold script—