Nightfall Gardens (5 page)

“Why so pale and wan?” the goat man from the carriage said. He leaned over Silas with a jewel-encrusted razor in his hand and light reflected from its wicked surface. His voice was melodic and Silas imagined the goat man must have a beautiful singing voice. Silas felt for the knife Jonquil had given him but it was lost when he was tossed from the carriage. The goat man leaned over him. He smelt of fresh summer days and hidden springs. The razor pressed against Silas’s throat. “Don’t worry. I’ll give you a permanent grin so you’re always happy!”

At that moment, the goat man’s mouth dropped open in a wide O and he arched his back as a knife blade came out the front of his chest. The razor slid from his hand and he collapsed next to Silas.

Lily stood over her brother. Her blue dress was splattered in blood. She clutched Jonquil’s knife. “He was going to hurt you,” she said in shock.

The tide of battle turned in their favor. Arfast charged the goat men, slashing like a man possessed. Jonquil reloaded his blunderbuss and leveled a round at the nearest grotesquerie. Skuld waded through them with his battle-ax. The remaining goat men bounded back into the woods, leaving their dead and fallen behind.

“This one won’t bother you again.” Arfast said, nudging the body of the goat man with the red bandana.

Lily’s eyes were troubled as she turned from the creature she killed.

“What are they?” Silas asked. Blood beaded on his neck where the razor had touched him. He didn’t care to think about what would’ve happened if the goat man pressed harder.

“Pans. They came from the Labyrinth in the Gardens,” Jonquil said. He pulled the blade from the goat man’s back with a sucking sound and wiped it on his pant leg. “They escaped through the gate years ago and have caused misery for travelers ever since.”

“Why not run away from here?” Silas asked. Half a dozen bodies were strewn about the road. Skuld walked among them to see if any still held the breath of life.

“The Gardens draw them and will not let go,” Jonquil said. “They can’t bear to be too far from the possibility of what exists there.”

“Enough dawdling. More will come if we wait much longer,” Skuld said. He drank from a flagon of red wine that he pulled from his cloak. When he was finished, he scratched the stump of his right arm. “Wretched thing always itches after a battle.”

Silas helped Arfast and Skuld drag the bodies of the dead to the woods. The road lay clear ahead of them again.

“Ride on top and keep your eyes open for danger,” Jonquil said to Silas. “The Pans are vengeful and won’t forget what happened today.” His uncle went to tend to Skuld’s wound.

Silas stopped Lily as she climbed into the carriage. Her face held an expression like a sleepwalker who believes they are dreaming.

“I’ve never killed anything larger than a cockroach in my life,” Lily said. There were swollen circles under her eyes.

“You did it to save me,” Silas said. “Don’t trouble yourself on this.”

“Those things couldn’t have been real,” Lily said. “What if there are more monsters like this at
Nightfall Gardens? I can’t go there alone.”

“You won’t be alone,” Silas said.

For the next two hours he rode on top of the carriage, scanning the woods for glimpses of the Pans. Twilight came and they crossed a river that was swollen with water from recent storms. As the carriage started to climb into the mountains again, he caught his first glimpse of Nightfall Gardens. There was nothing else it could be.

The ancient-looking palace rose out of nowhere to dominate the landscape. It was protected by a high stone wall that stretched to the horizon. He saw a jumble of towers, spires,
and walls of windows that soared toward the heavens. Statues of gargoyles dominated the eaves. Gaslight flickered on either side of the entry. Nightfall Gardens seemed to grow larger and smaller as Silas watched, as though it were breathing like a living thing.
‘I can feel its presence from here,’
he thought.

“Home,” Arfast spit out as though it were poison on his tongue. He turned to look at Silas. “Pray this is as close as you ever come to it, boy.”

Silas lost track of the mansion as the road curved. A harvest moon appeared over the mountains guiding their way. Soon, they came to a dilapidated inn. Chickens played in the yard and smoke curled from the chimney. No horses or people were anywhere in sight. Their carriage came to a stop. Jonquil climbed out as the tavern keep appeared. Silas gasped when he saw him. The man’s face, neck and arms were tattooed with strange hieroglyphs of jackal-faced men, pharaohs and pyramids.

“Finnegan!” Jonquil exclaimed, grabbing his friend in a bear hug.

“Come to drink with the damned?” his friend said, laughing.

“You’re too nimble for the old god,” Jonquil said. “You’ll slip through his net yet.”

“None do,” Finnegan said. “But at least I live with true love in the meanwhile.”

A woman, dark and beautiful and mysterious, came out of the inn. “Hello Jonquil. I wondered what all this noise was. I hoped it wasn’t my husband talking to the chickens again.” She smiled.

“They’re better conversation than you think,” Finnegan said. “So to what do we owe this pleasure?”

“Hello, Amunet,” Jonquil said to the wife. “Perhaps I can talk with the two of you alone for a moment.” He put his arm around their shoulders and steered them back into the inn.

“Why does he have those tattoos?” Silas asked.

“Markings,” Skuld said. “So Osiris, the god of death, can track him.”

Arfast chuckled. “Mad Finnegan did something that’s only been accomplished a few times in the history of the world.”

“What?” Silas asked.

“He stole something belonging to a god. Amunet, Finnegan’s wife, died of the shaking fever shortly after they were married. The poor man went wild with grief and journeyed into the White Garden, until he brought her back. They left Nightfall Gardens so Osiris couldn’t find them. The old god’s been angry ever since.”

‘They must be mad,’
Silas thought.
‘Yet, I’ve seen things today I don’t know how to explain.’
He hung over the side of the carriage and peered in at his sister. Lily was clutching her hands and biting her lower lip. A pensive look was on her face.

“Perhaps you should stay. I would feel awful if anything happened to you,” she said.

“We’re in this together. At least until mother and father rescue us.” He tried to smile.

“
If
they are able to rescue us,” Lily said. She looked up at him.

Jonquil came back with Finnegan and Amunet. “It’s settled then,” he said, pulling his cloak tight about him. “You’ll stay here until your parents arrive.”

Silas dropped to the ground. “No,” he said. “I’m going with you.”

“Don’t start this again, lad. Your mother and father are already losing one child.”

“They are losing no one. I’m coming along,” he said.

“You’re weak,” Jonquil said. “You’ll do no one any favors, only put us in danger.”

“You can train me,” he said. “I won’t leave Lily.”

His uncle took a threatening step toward him. “This is no life of fine feather beds and warm summer sunshine. You’ll lose the light, you’ll lose all you’ve known and you’ll probably lose your life.”

“I don’t care. I’m coming,” Silas said.

A horn blew in the woods.

“Pans,” Skuld said.

“We have to go,” Arfast said, unsheathing his sword.

“Blast it all,” Jonquil spit in the dirt. “I’m sorry Finnegan, Amunet. We’ve brought trouble down on your house.”

“Don’t worry about the wee goaties,” Finnegan said. “I have a couple of muskets that will take the fight from them.”

Jonquil sighed. “Get in the carriage then, boy. And never forget you do this of your own free will.”

“I won’t,” Silas said.

The carriage rumbled down the road minutes later. The moon loomed larger on the horizon, one moment appearing yellow and the next red through a trick of the light. Skuld pushed the horses as they entered the final miles to the house. Silas watched out the window as Nightfall Gardens came into view again. The house was heavy with the weight of its own existence. It shifted and moved as he watched.

“Somebody’s following us.” Jonquil stared out the other window.

Silas looked back and saw two horses charging down the road. Their riders were bent forward, cloaks flapping with the wind. They were only pinpricks but he could already tell who they were.

“Mother, Father!” he said.

Lily pushed him out of the way. “Where? What are you talking about?”

Silas pointed. “They’re coming!”

“Your parents never had the sense God gave a goose,” Jonquil said. He rapped twice on the carriage roof and it jolted forward.

Nightfall
Gardens was ahead of them now. A grand promenade of dead trees led to a black gate tipped with spikes. A stone wall crumbling with age surrounded the property. Silas and Lily had never seen a house so large and foreboding in their lives.

“The gate’s closing,” Silas said.

“What?” Jonquil turned from watching Thomas and Moira. The riders were coming up on them fast.

“The gate’s closing,” Silas repeated again.

Jonquil looked. The two gates leading to Nightfall Gardens were coming together. “No!” he shouted. “It’s too soon.” Skuld must have seen the same thing, because the horses went even faster. The carriage was rumbling so hard it felt as though it was coming undone.

“They’re going to catch us,” Lily said. For the first time since the journey had started there was eagerness in her voice.

Their parents were so close Silas could see the grim determination etched on their faces and the froth on their horses’ mouths as they drew closer. He glanced in the other direction and saw that the gates were halfway closed. Skulls made from stone, smoothed by centuries of rain, guarded either side of the entrance.

“Hang on,” Jonquil yelled as the carriage struck the closing gates. There was a maddening scraping sound. Lily and Silas were pitched to the floor and the carriage went up on two wheels and slammed down as it passed on to the grounds before grinding to a halt. Silas made it to a window in time to see his parents charging at the gates as they slammed shut. One second Moira and Thomas were there, and then there was a flash of a light that blinded him. When Silas opened his eyes, his parents were gone and nothingness existed on the other side of the gates. It was only then that he realized Lily was watching the whole thing over his shoulder.

Jonquil straightened his cloak and smiled unpleasantly.

“Welcome to
Nightfall Gardens,” he said.

5

Most Cursed of the Cursed

Wolves howled in the creeping mist as the carriage rattled to Nightfall Gardens. The moon was blood red and so large it threatened to swallow the house.
‘Everything’s darker here,’
Lily thought. She put her arm out the window and the night was so thick and gloomy that it seemed to have actual weight.

“You’ll get used to it,” Jonquil said. They were his first words since the gates closed minutes before. “It’s always dusk or dark here, but to a Blackwood that spells home.”

“What happened to our parents? To the world outside the gate?” Silas asked. He was looking back toward the entrance. An impenetrable whiteness existed on the other side of the wall.

“The gates only open on the world a few days every year,” he said. “Your parents are trapped outside and we’re trapped inside. Now, enough questions, Deiva can explain the rest.”

The carriage pulled to a stop in front of the entrance. The house stretched as far as the eye could see in all directions. Parts of Nightfall Gardens seemed thousands of years old, others looked like they’d been built yesterday. Winged gargoyles guarded the doors and roof.

Lily climbed down from the carriage. She glanced up at a candlelit window and thought she saw a hunched figure pull away. Curling fingers of fog blew across the grounds. Hundreds of fragrant night-blooming flowers grew in a nearby garden.

“Dragon flowers for protection,” Jonquil said. “The first lesson for both of you is never walk in the Gardens at full dark. The Smiling Ladies and others are about that would do you harm.”

The front door creaked open and a woman with skin the color of a slug stood there holding a candle. She was bald and her eyes were white with no pupils. Her skin oozed, leaving wet tracks on her maid’s uniform. She gave a toothless grin on seeing Jonquil.

“Didn’t think we’d be seeing you again so soon, Mr. Jonquil. Close one, that was,” she gurgled.

“You won’t get rid of me that easy, Polly,” he said.

“Why this must be Miss Lily. Bless my heart if she isn’t the spitting image of Miss Moira,” the maid said. “And I’m as dumb as a grub worm if Master Silas here doesn’t look just like his father.” She glanced into the dark. “Where are my manners? Come in, come in. There are nasty things about right now.”

  Lily thought she felt the house move under her as she entered. Silas stayed close by her side. Jonquil followed behind them. Polly glided along in front, leaving a glistening trail on the floor. “Miss Deiva will be happy to see you, she will,” the maid oozed. 

The grand entrance of the house had fallen on hard times. Torn tapestries displaying images of past Blackwoods covered grimy walls. Moldings were coming undone. Cobwebs filled the corners of what must have once been an impressive room. A majestic chandelier glinting yellow could have used a good dusting. Lily gasped when she looked at it. Displayed in each of its hundreds of crystals, she saw tiny screaming faces calling for help.

“Look,” she said grabbing Silas by the arm.

“What?” her brother asked.

Lily pointed towards the chandelier but there was nothing there. “I could have sworn —.”

Polly made a wet giggle. “Oh, there are many tricks of the eye here. Many tricks indeed.”

They followed her up a winding staircase. The candle cast the only light, and darkness poured from the walls, a moving liquid that sucked at the tiny flame she carried.

“How is she?” Jonquil asked.

“Still won’t leave the room,” Polly
said. “Says Abigail visits her in the witching time.”

“Nonsense,” Jonquil said.

“That’s what I told her. Told her it was only in her head, I did,” Polly said. She glided along the carpeted corridor. The candle was held far in front of her as if she were afraid the flame would get close and sizzle her skin. “Miss Abigail’s been gone these many years, I said.”

The candle sputtered as they came to another hallway. Lily heard what sounded like children’s voices whispering beneath one of the doors. “
Come in, come in and play with us,”
the voices said. From behind a different door someone was crying. “
Please, no more. I can’t take any more
.” Silas grabbed her hand and squeezed. She could feel him shaking with fear. Polly and Jonquil continued their conversations as though the sounds were no more than flies buzzing on the wall.

“So, what news from the Gardens?” Jonquil asked.

“Terrible, terrible,” Polly said with a shake of her gelatinous head. “Ill omens are everywhere. Wolves were caught trying to sneak into the Labyrinth and Shadow Garden. No one knows why. A family from Priortage was found with the life drained out of them. The Gardens are restless, and it’s taking all your men to hold back what lives inside.”

“It’s worse than I thought,” Jonquil said.

“Dark days. Dark days indeed. But now Miss Lily is here. I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” the maid said.

They came to a rounded door at the end of the hall. Polly banged three times. For a moment there was no answer, and then the clipped tones of a highborn woman responded. “Come in and be quick about it.”

Lily didn’t know what she expected her grandmother to look like, but it wasn’t the woman sitting in the chair by the window. Deiva was dressed all in black, with a veil covering her face. Her hands were the only part of her that could be seen and they were so white as to be lifeless.

“Why do you come so late at night?” Deiva asked Polly. “Didn’t I tell you I wanted no visitors?”

“Begging your pardon, Miss, but your son has returned with your grandchildren,” Polly said.

“Thomas? Thomas is here?” Deiva said, showing a spark of interest.

“No Miss. Your other son, Jonquil,” Polly said.

“Oh,” Deiva slumped in her chair. “Bring them forward if you must, but be careful not to disturb anything.”

‘She lives in the past,’
Lily thought. A table was set for two in part of the room, but the food had long moldered. The white tablecloth was brown with age. A man’s belongings were everywhere: a hunting jacket hung over a chair, a pipe filled with tobacco set next to an ashtray. A cabinet filled with ancient weapons was open in a corner. Dust covered everything as though the room hadn’t been aired out in decades.

“I’ll leave you to it. Ring the bell if you need anything,” Polly said. She slid up to Lily and Silas. “I’m so glad you’re home. I could just eat you up, I could.” The maid squeezed them on the cheeks. Her fingers squelched against their skin and left slime on their faces.

Lily started to recoil in disgust but decided that would be bad manners. When the maid was gone, she and Silas scrubbed their cheeks.

“Well, let me see them,” Deiva said. “Your father will be home any time now and I have to be ready for him.”

“Mother, Father is never —,” Jonquil started.

“Enough!” Deiva said, her veil fluttering. “He’ll be coming from the Gardens soon and then it’s time for dinner. Let me see what Thomas has been doing while you’ve been wasting your time chasing hobgoblins in the petunias.”

Jonquil gritted his teeth and nudged the children forward. Their grandmother straightened her dress with her toadstool-colored hands. Every so often she glanced out the windows as though expecting someone to arrive.

“Who do we have here?” she said as Lily and Silas approached. “Come to your grandmother.”

Lily smelled the sickly scent of something rotting. Intense eyes examined her through the black veil. Deiva placed an icy hand on her face, turning it from one side to the other. “Hmmm. You look exactly like your mother. Let’s hope you don’t have her arrogant attitude. What’s your name, child?”

“Lily, Grandmother. I only hope I take after my mother and not
other
members of the family,” Lily said trembling with rage.

Deiva laughed, the sound like water pumping from a rusty well. “Too true, too true. Many lilies grow here in
Nightfall Gardens. They protect from evil and witches and are the flower that fairies sup. Let’s hope you’re rightly named, for Blackwood women are the most cursed of the cursed.”

Their grandmother turned to look out the window as though afraid of missing something that might come out of the fog that obscured the gardens. When she was certain the grounds were empty, she scrutinized Silas.

“I see your father in you and also my Great Uncle Octavius. His eyes were the same as yours. There was always a merry twinkle about him and song on his lips but he forgot an important rule: Never trust the Gardens. He lay down for a nap without noticing the Bleeding Heart roots that were hidden nearby. When he awakened, the roots were peeling his skin like a blade peels a potato. We heard his screams all the way from the house. By the time they freed him, he was nothing but a bloody lump of muscle. He never again forgot where he was after that. I hope you’ll be more careful.”

The house creaked and groaned. Light rain pattered against the window. Lily’s jaw dropped with surprise as the room doubled in length before her eyes.
‘That can’t be possible,’
she thought. But did anything in the last few days make sense?

“I’m sure you have many questions,” Deiva said. “I’ve been outside of the Gardens in your world. I know how different it is. It’s our burden to be Blackwoods, though, and that means never being at ease.”

“Why?” Lily asked.
‘My poor mad grandmother may have settled herself long ago to this fate, but the great stages in Paris are calling to me and I won’t be satisfied until I’m upon them.’

The old woman gave one last longing look out the window and trundled to a shelf where she removed an ancient leather book. Deiva’s black dress dragged the floor. The train was covered in filth.

“It’s in here, all of it,” she said. “The story of how our family became the most damned in the history of the human race. How we ended up caretakers of Nightfall Gardens and why when the last female Blackwood dies, the Gardens will open and everything foul, noxious, and evil will spill out and signal the last days.”

Deiva thumbed through the book as she talked. The parchment-like pages were so brittle that they looked as though they might crumble and blow away. The letters were written in an archaic script Lily had never seen before.

“The fall of our family makes for rich reading if you understand old speak,” their grandmother said.

“Tell us, then,” Lily said. The long journey, the nightmare of
Nightfall Gardens, all of it was wearing on her.

“Patience my dear. You’ll learn that trait here. Time is all one has in this place,” Deiva said. “Would you like to know about the first Blackwood then?”

“I’ve already told you I would,” Lily snapped.

Their grandmother laughed again. “Indeed, you did. Take a seat then,” Deiva turned to their uncle. “For the gods’ sake, Jonquil, sit down. You’re making me nervous.”

Jonquil rubbed his hands anxiously on his cloak.
‘He’s out of his element,’
Lily thought.
‘But why should that be? This is his home.’

Lily and Silas sat next to their grandmother at the window. The rain tapped softly against glass. The smell of sickness radiating from her was overwhelming. Deiva reached under her veil and scratched her face. Lily heard something burst and leaned away from her.

“Ahh, itches like the dickens. Now where was I? Oh yes, the first Blackwood. I suppose she wasn’t so different from the generations that came after. Little did she know one moment of curiosity would doom us all — but those are the rules the old gods play by.”

Thunder and lightning crashed outside the window where the heavy fog met the gardens and jarred the candles on the table. Mad shadows danced upon the walls.

“These were the first days when strange beasts rode upon the waves and people were fearful to go out at night for what lurked in the forest. Old gods walked in human disguise. Dragons ruled the air and the dark was controlled by the undead. It was a time of sadness and fear. Evil blanketed the land and no place was safe. The first humans were hunted and killed almost to extinction.”

Lily felt gooseflesh prickle on her skin.
Nightfall Gardens was oddly quiet. Jonquil shifted in his chair as though he couldn’t find a comfortable spot.

“But as there was bad, there was good,” Deiva continued. “And one of the old gods, Prometheus, took pity on humankind. He forged a box from the very fires of the earth that could contain the wickedness of the world. He trapped that evil inside the box and locked it so at last there was paradise. Without their enemies, humans multiplied and there came a time when people forgot how it had been. The old stories faded from memory and became nothing more than fairytales told over campfires, until they were so distorted that there was little truth left in them.”

The moon was gone now. Thunderstorms rushed across the sky. Lightening flashed green deep within a cloud. Deiva pressed her face against the glass as the rain started pouring. “Do you think he’ll be safe out there?” she said. “He and his men should be home anytime now.”