The Garden of Darkness (21 page)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A DEATH

“D
ID YOU WAKE
up Rick?” asked Clare of the sibyl-like figure at the end of the bed.

“He’s asleep,” said Tilda. “But not as asleep as Noah. I can hear him breathing. Rick. Not Noah.”

Jem was still leaning against Clare. He was sound asleep. It was chilly in the room, and, after lowering Jem to the bed, Clare covered him with another blanket. Hoping that there would be no need to wake him, she followed Tilda to the bright blue tent, which was outlined by the glow from the woodstove.

Tilda made a move to go in, but Clare stopped her.

“No, I’ll go.”

Clare only had to touch Noah’s shoulder to know.

She left Tilda at the door of the tent and went to get Jem. When she entered the bedroom, it took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Then she was by Jem’s side, shaking his arm, telling him to wake up. His breathing and his warm flesh reassured her.

Life.

He stared at her, confused. Then, muddled by sleep, he reached out and pulled Clare to him. “Clare?”

“Bad news,” she said.

“Clare! Are you all right?” He started to clamber out of bed. “Is it Sarai? Mirri?”

She could hear the others stirring.

“It’s Noah. He’s dead.”

“Where’s Rick?”

“Still asleep.”

“How could he possibly sleep through someone dying?” asked Jem.

“I guess he was tired,” said Clare.

“Where’s Tilda?”

“I left her by the tent.”

By then Sarai and Mirri were out of bed, and Jem explained to them what was happening. Mirri was out of the bedroom before Clare could make a move to stop her. Sarai followed. Tilda was standing in the dark, Bear by her side.

“What if Rick won’t wake up either?” Tilda said.

“I’ll wake him up, don’t worry,” Clare said. “You stay out here with Jem.”

“Clare, do you want me to—” Jem started to say.

“No. It’s okay.” As Clare entered the tent, Bear gave a low whine and made as if to go with her, but she put him in a sit.

Clare tried not to look at Noah as she shook Rick gently awake. For a moment, she wished that Jem had come into the tent too. Rick must have been bone tired as it took her some time to rouse him. The tent was stuffy, and Clare smelled the underlying odor of death. When she finally made Rick understand what was happening, he brushed her aside and turned to Noah’s body.

“Aw, damn.”

Rick covered Noah’s face with a blanket and, with Clare’s help, carried him out of the tent.

They laid Noah in the center room. His body was red-gold in the light of dawn, but turned to greenish-blue as the sun rose higher in the sky.

“He knew it was coming,” Rick said.

“Pest,” said Clare.

“Yes,” said Rick.

Now that she could see him more clearly, Clare could make out the pustules on Noah’s throat and the lesions on his face.

Tilda turned away.

“Pest usually takes three days,” said Clare. “And it’s not usually so subtle. He didn’t look sick at all last night.”

“The stiff neck,” said Jem.

“I thought Pest only got you when you were
old
,” said Mirri. “Older than Noah, anyway.”

“He was already seventeen,” said Rick. “Although he was younger than I am.”

“I’m sorry,” said Clare.

“At least he didn’t suffer,” said Sarai.

“‘At least he didn’t suffer,’” said Rick, mocking Sarai. “‘At least he didn’t suffer.’ He’s
dead
. God.”

Sarai looked stricken. Bear gave a low growl, but when Clare put her hand on his head, he stopped.

“We’re
all
sorry,” said Clare.

“You’re all going to be where he is soon enough,” Rick said. “She’ll go first, though,” he said, and looked at Clare.

“Hey!” said Jem.

“It’s okay,” said Clare.

“It’s not,” said Jem.

There was no doubt in Clare’s mind that Bear was picking up on the tension; he stood stiffly between her and Rick.

Rick turned his back on them and began packing up the bright blue tent.

“That was a mean thing to say about Clare,” said Mirri. “I didn’t think you were
mean
.”

Rick looked up at Mirri. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry about all of it, Clare. Jem.”

“It’s okay,” said Clare, but Jem was silent.

Rick called Tilda. She came over to him right away, and he squatted down and took her by the shoulders.

“We have to move on now,” he said. “We have to hurry south now so that I can keep taking care of you.”

“Clare told me you’re going to the Master,” said Jem. “There’s no need to keep up the going south lie. We most certainly won’t be hangers on. You’re free to get there first.”

“If you know where I’m going, you should know that Clare ought to be coming with me. With us.”

“That’s Clare’s choice.”

“Stop talking about me as if I weren’t here,” said Clare. “It’s annoying.”

Tilda broke the tension. “I want Noah,” she said.

“Noah’s with the dead now,” said Rick.

“Will he come back?”

“No, sweetie. He won’t.”

“Can they come with us, too?”

“It would be best if she came.” Rick looked at Clare. He paused. “But they can all come if they like.”

“Good of you,” said Jem.

There was a glitter in Rick’s eye that Clare didn’t like, but then it was gone.

“Maybe Master can bring Noah back to life,” said Tilda.

“There isn’t a cure for death,” said Rick. “We’ll leave Noah’s body here.”

Jem nodded. Rick looked at him and sighed.

These are good people,” he said finally to Tilda, “they’ll help us bury Noah. And we won’t forget him.”

“Everyone counts,” said Mirri. “And funerals are good.”

T
HE GROUND WAS
still hard with frost. They took Noah to the edge of the woods where they covered his body with earth as best they could before building a small cairn over him.

Tilda hugged each of them while Rick looked on. She made a move to hug Bear, but Clare said, “better not.”

And then Bear surprised them all by padding over to Tilda and nuzzling her.

“Maybe we’ll meet later,” Rick said. He was looking at Clare again.

“Goodbye,” said Jem.

“You know that it’s time to go,” said Rick. “For her. I wish you luck. I really do.” He held out his hand to Jem, and, after a second, Jem took it.

“This is for you,” he said to Clare and handed her a map. “The best way to get to I-80 and Herne Wood. To the place Master’s talking about. I marked the trail.”

Then Clare, Jem, Sarai and Mirri watched Rick and Tilda until they had climbed the rise behind the house and disappeared from sight.

“I didn’t like Rick so much,” said Jem. “But considering everything, he held up pretty well. He liked you, Clare.”

“Maybe.”

“Did you like him?”

Clare laughed.

CHAPTER TWENTY

JEM’S BIRTHDAY

T
HEY DIDN’T FINISH
preparing for their departure until Rick and Tilda had a day’s head start on them.

Clare returned from the washing line, where she had hung out their sleeping bags to air, to find Mirri in the center of the living room, drawing. Her picture showed a giant next to a globe of the world. He had shoveled children into his mouth; arms and legs dangled from his lips

“What’s this?” Clare asked.

“I did
not
like Noah dying,” Mirri said. “I had a bad dream. I drew it.”

That night Clare and Jem waited for Sarai and Mirri to go to sleep before they crept from the room and went to sit by the woodstove. The glowing embers warmed their faces. Clare closed her eyes and imagined spring, her hands full of thyme and rosemary, and then a summer garden, where someone she trusted walked towards her under a cold moon.

“Rick was right, you know,” said Jem. “It’s only a matter of time before you grow into Pest.”

Clare silently contemplated the winking coals as the fire began to die down. Then she sighed. “I’m just not that old.”

Jem ignored her comment.

“When we go,” he said. “We need to go at a faster pace. If Mirri and Sarai can.”

“Mirri and Sarai would follow you at any pace. Anywhere.”

“And you?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“What’s ‘yes?’”

Clare smiled.

“You look like the Cheshire cat,” said Jem. “And your answers are just as cryptic.” Clare could tell he wasn’t really troubled by her reply.

They sat by the woodstove companionably.

“My birthday’s coming up,” said Jem. “Soon, actually.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“It didn’t seem like an auspicious occasion.”

“Fourteen. You’re catching up to me.”

“When’s your birthday?” asked Jem.

“May fourth.”

“
Alice
. That sounds about right.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s Alice Liddell’s birthday—the girl who inspired
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
.”

“You know the weirdest things.”

“I like Lewis Carroll. And we’ve certainly gone down the rabbit hole.”

T
HE NEXT DAY
they were up and on the road early. As they walked in the cool air of the morning, Mirri dropped back to flank Clare.

“Will we be together at Master’s?” she asked.

“We’ll stick together,” said Clare, giving her backpack a hoist, “until world’s end.”

“The world’s
already
ended. I just don’t want us to come apart when we reach where we’re going. So do you promise we’ll always be together?”

Clare promised. Perhaps Clare should have considered the difficulties that might lie ahead of them, and perhaps she should have sensed the weight of the promise, but it didn’t really matter. She would have promised anyway.

The next day it snowed lightly for a while before the snow turned to steady rain, which, while camped miserably under a lean-to, they tried to wait out. They set up the tent, but the rain dripped steadily onto the roof until it was saturated.

“And I didn’t even keep the warranty,” said Jem, but nobody laughed. Sarai was shivering, and Clare wrapped her in two sleeping bags. Sleep was sporadic that night.

The rain did not let up the following day, and they were becoming very tired, wet and quarrelsome when Mirri spotted a house amongst a copse of trees.

“We’ll try it,” said Jem.

The ceiling in the living room leaked, but the biggest bedroom was dry, and so they moved all the blankets and comforters and sleeping bags they could find inside it.

“Notice something?” Clare asked Jem.

“Yeah,” said Jem. “No bodies.”

“Nice change.”

It was four in the afternoon. They all put on whatever dry clothes they could find and huddled together under the covers in the middle of the room. They finally slept soundly, lulled to sleep by their exhaustion and the murmur of the wind and rain.

And it rained.

When Clare woke up, it was still raining. She found herself curled around Sarai, who was holding on to Mirri for warmth. Jem’s arm was around her waist. She tried to disengage herself without waking any one of them up. They didn’t stir. They had slept through the late afternoon and the night.

Clare started making breakfast, and the rest of them soon came to the kitchen, drawn by the smell of hot food. Everybody’s mood improved as they ate.

“Beans, beans,” sang Mirri. “The musical fruit; the more you eat the more you toot!” Sarai giggled, and she wasn’t usually a giggler.

“The more you eat,” Sarai joined in, “the more you see that beans, beans are the fruit for me!” Mirri peered at Clare as if to see if she were shocked. Jem laughed.

“Let’s do the cemetery song,” said Sarai.

“That’s the
best
,” said Mirri.

Sarai began. “If you laugh when hearse goes by, you will be the next to die; they wrap you up in a bloody sheet—”

“And bury you a hundred feet deep.”

“Chorus!”

“The worms go in, the worms go out. The worms play pinochle on your snout. Your stomach turns a ghastly green, and pus pours out like sour cream; you spread it on a piece of bread, and that’s what you eat when you are dead.”

“Second verse!”

“That’s all right,” said Jem. “We’ll stick with the first verse.”

“Do you know the one about diarrhea?” Sarai asked Mirri.

“
No
,” said Mirri. “
Teach
me.”

“Other room,” said Clare.

They stayed in the house and spread their wet clothing across chairs to dry. And still it rained.

Clare and Jem started preparations for leaving, assuming that the rain had to give at some point. A plague and then a deluge. If there were a God, he had their attention.

The packing made Sarai and Mirri unhappy, but when Clare told them that it was Jem’s birthday, the girls were ecstatic. Packing ceased.

Together they made a carrot cake—with flour, orange food coloring and a couple of very old carrots they found in the pantry. In the evening, they cooked it over the wood stove. It tasted terrible, but Jem loved it. Mirri handed him one of the two Breyer model horses she had hidden in her bag; Sarai gave him, very quietly, a locket with a wisp of her hair in it.