The Night Gardener (23 page)

The man’s mouth made the shape of a smile. He let go of his watering can, which fell to the floor with a heavy slosh. He reached a bony hand into his cloak and removed a fistful of dry leaves. Molly watched him crush the leaves into a fine dust and then raise his open hand to his lips.

He blew onto the dust, and it swirled through the air, all around her—

And then the world went dark.

ip was at the top of the stairs when his sister’s body fell. One moment she was standing in front of him; the next she was crumpled on the floor, facedown, not moving.

“Molly!” Kip dropped the lamp and scrambled to her side. He shook her body. “Molls, get up!” His voice sounded faint in his ears, and his stomach was churning. “We have to run!” He turned her over, and her head lolled to one side like a dead weight. He could see specks of leaves stuck to her hair and face. Her eyes were closed, and she looked very pale.

The night man took a step closer, a poisonous grin on his face.

“Molls, you gotta hear me!” Kip shouted, pulling her away from the man. He saw the green closet door was open—if he could just get her inside.

Molly took a sharp breath and clutched his coat. “N-n-no!” she moaned, throwing her head back. “You canna leave us! You canna …” She was not talking to Kip but to someone in a dream.

Kip could see her eyes rolling beneath closed lids. Already, tiny
beads of sweat were forming across her brow. He glared up at the night man, who was standing over them. “Make her better!” he demanded. “Wake her up!”

The night man raised a hand, and a gust of wind struck Kip, knocking him back from Molly’s body. Kip tumbled down the stairs, legs over arms, slamming his shoulders and face against the hard wooden steps. His hand caught hold of the banister rail and stopped his fall. He pulled himself to his knees, wincing. He thought he could taste blood in his mouth. He reached out for Courage but could not find it. His crutch lay at the bottom of the stairs—hopelessly out of reach.

Kip heard Molly moan. He looked up to see the night man kneeling beside her, his back to Kip, the watering can at his side. “You stay away from her!” he screamed.

The man did not even look up. He removed the rag from his cloak and pressed it to Molly’s forehead. Kip knew he could not help Molly—his only chance would be to draw the night man away from her. He searched around him for some sort of weapon. The only thing nearby was his lamp, which he had dropped when Molly fell. He grabbed hold of it and threw it at the man, as hard as he could—

Pwhoof!

A blinding burst of light hit Kip’s eyes as flames erupted in the darkness. The night man roared as fire swept over his cloak. His arms swirled and thrashed, trying to snuff out the flames. The man staggered to the top of the stairs. He snarled at Kip, his face contorted with rage.

“I said, Stay away from her!” Kip let go of the banister and half ran, half slid down the steps. He hit the foyer floor with a hard crash. He could hear the night man descending the stairs behind him. The whole house shook with the force of his gales. Kip grabbed hold of his crutch and staggered out the open front door. He hobbled across the moonlit lawn, his bare feet sliding on the wet grass. He did not know where he was going; he only knew he had to get the man away from the house, away from Molly. The cloth was still around the end of his crutch, and he tripped several times. Somewhere in the darkness behind him, he could hear the night man stalking the lawn—searching for him.

An angry howl split the air and knocked Kip flat. Apparently the man had spotted him. Kip pulled himself up. He covered his face and staggered toward the woods.

The forest shook and shuddered as wind sliced through branches and bushes. Kip stumbled blindly over the rough ground, shielding his face with one arm. Branches clawed at his clothes and hair. He could hear the night man behind him, getting closer and closer …

Kip kept going as fast as he could until he thought his heart would explode. He fell to the ground, trying and failing to catch his breath. Every part of him ached. He looked up and saw that he was at the very edge of the grounds. He could hear the river flowing in the darkness. The ancient garden—whose pale flowers bloomed only at night—shone around him. The wind had stopped. Everything around him was still.

A sudden coldness crept over Kip, like a shadow sliding across his body. He turned around to see the night man standing behind him. The
man didn’t look winded or angry. He was just a fact of the surroundings, like the moon and the soil and the trees. Smoke wafted gently from the edges of his cloak and hat. Kip saw that his hands and face were unmarked. The flames had slowed him down—but nothing more.

Kip knew what would happen next. The night man would use his crushed-up leaves to put him to sleep—just like he had done to Molly and the Windsors. And then he would kneel down and fill his watering can with … what? Sweat? Tears? No, something
deeper
. He would somehow steal the very
quick
of Kip’s being. All to feed the tree.

The man sprang toward him, hands outstretched. But before he could reach Kip, his body snapped backward, as if restrained by some invisible tether. The night man snarled, pacing at the edge of the flowers, his terrible, nothing eyes burning with fury.

Kip scrambled back, dragging himself deeper into the garden, where the man, for some reason, could not follow. A sharp gust of wind shook the forest, and then everything was silent.

Kip slowly turned around, blinking into the moonlight. He pulled himself to his feet, staring at the glowing forest floor. The woods were calm. Not a leaf stirred. The night man was gone.

Kip’s eyes fell on something dark sitting at the edge of the garden, something the man had left behind. He hobbled toward it and knelt down to study the object. He picked it up in his trembling hands. It was small and thin and woven from roots and twigs—

It was a
gift
.

olly awoke the following morning to find herself in her bedroom, warm sunlight shining in through the window. She was under the covers but still dressed. Her memories of the night before were cobwebby and incomplete. She recalled following the night man into the house but not much after that. She ran a hand through her hair, which was twined with bits of broken leaves. Why couldn’t she remember?

She washed and dressed and went upstairs to prepare breakfast, resolving to find Kip the first moment she could. Master Windsor was waiting for her in the kitchen, a small bag in his hands. “Th-th-this is for the market,” he said, not even looking her in the eye. “I’m sorry it’s not more.”

Molly took the bag of coins. She could tell without opening it that it would barely cover food for the week. “You’re providin’ for your family, sir,” she said firmly. “That’s never somethin’ to be ashamed of.”

The man gave a weak smile. “I pray you’re right,” he replied.

Molly felt certain she knew where the money had come from. It
alarmed her to think that the tree’s provisions had lately become so paltry. Still, some money was better than none, and she set out for the village with Kip shortly after breakfast. Molly had asked her brother along because he was better with the horse and because she hoped they might be able to talk about what they had seen in the house the night before.

Kip, however, seemed to be in a more pensive mood and spoke very little as they rattled up the valley roads. After an hour of sparse conversation, they pulled onto the main road that ran through what counted as a “village” in Cellar Hollow. It was a small cluster of cramped buildings with thatch-roofed houses and white plaster walls. Smoke trailed up from one or two chimneys, filling the air with a pleasant fragrance that mingled with hot food from the rows of stalls and carts that lined either side of the road.

The good weather seemed to have drawn people from their farms, and the market was uncharacteristically busy that morning. People flowed between the buildings like a shambling brook. Kip parked the wagon alongside some other horses, and Molly climbed down with her basket and bag of coins.

While Molly did not begrudge Bertrand’s limited funds, it did make her task more difficult. The villagers knew that Molly worked for Master Windsor, whom they knew to be a wealthy man. Because of this, they seemed unwilling to haggle or bargain, and some of them even quoted higher prices to Molly as she wandered between the stalls. At the rate things were going, she would be lucky to buy enough to make soup, let alone meat.

Molly picked her way through the bustle, brushing against shoulders and pushcarts and locals. She saw a few girls her age who looked to be selling milk and needlepoint pictures. Stray livestock and the occasional small child skittered under her heels. Molly closed her eyes, savoring the smells and sounds. She found it comforting to be close to so many other people, to so much life.

Kip, for his part, did not seem to be enjoying the errand. He hobbled alongside her, eyes fixed on the ground. “You’re gonna have to talk sometime,” Molly said.

He nodded. “I know. I’m just findin’ the words.” Slowly, haltingly, he told her what had happened after her collapse. He told her how he had drawn the night man away from her body. How the man had chased him all the way to the moonlit garden at the edge of the sourwoods. And how, when Kip was utterly trapped, the night man had inexplicably disappeared.

“I keep askin’ myself why he didn’t hurt me,” Kip said, staring into the crowd. “He wanted to, I could tell. But when he came at me, somethin’ stopped him cold in his tracks. Like he couldn’t go no farther.” He sighed. “It don’t make sense.”

“We’re well past makin’ sense,” Molly said, feigning interest in some onions she couldn’t afford. For some reason, Kip had been spared by the night man. She was grateful, but she hated the way it placed a rift between them. She peered into a barrel, looking for rotting vegetables she might be able to salvage with a paring knife. “What’d you do after he let you go?”

Kip dipped his fingers into a bin of dried beans. “I came back to the house to help you. But when I got there, it was like none of it’d happened. There was no wind, no leaves—just a few muddy tracks and a broken vase. You were gone, too.” He looked up at her, and Molly realized for the first time just how frightened he must have been. “I searched the whole house before I found you, safe in your room, sleepin’ soundly under the covers.”