The Garden of Darkness (24 page)

“We welcomed him in with open arms,” said Clare.

“He fooled me, too,” said Ramah. “Until he slaughtered the goats. I would have let him in when he first got here, but Bird Boy wouldn’t let me.”

“Darian’s dead now,” said Clare.

Ramah said nothing.

Clare went indoors to find Jem. Mirri passed her on the way out, and Clare heard Ramah speaking to her.

“They’re very close,” said Ramah. “Clare and the boy.”

“Of course,” said Mirri. “
Anyone
can see that. And his name is Jem.”

Clare found Jem in the living room. He was sitting on the stairs alone, and he looked unhappy.

“What is it?” asked Clare.

“I was just thinking—“

“What?”

“You seem so much older than I am these days. I’m never going to catch up.”

“Really? I was thinking of how different fourteen is from thirteen.”

“Yeah,” said Jem. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

R
AMAH INVITED THEM
to bring Sheba into the house for the night, in case the Cured came, but the horse refused to go near the door. Sheba was gentle and mild and soft-eyed, but she would not move. So, while Sarai and Mirri settled into Ramah’s guest room, Clare and Jem, with Bear, made camp in the muddy snow.

Once Sheba was tethered and the tent was pitched, Jem and Clare looked at each other awkwardly. It felt odd without Mirri and Sarai there.

“You sleep first,” Clare said to Jem. “I’ll keep watch.”

“Clare?”

“What is it?” she asked, but Jem was quiet for a long moment.

“Nothing,” he said finally. “Let’s check on Sheba.”

The mare was asleep on her feet in the moonlight. Clare could see a star between her ears, and silver light seemed to run down her sides and pool around her hooves.

“It’s as if she were made of light,” said Clare.

“It’s some kind of optical illusion,” said Jem.

“You would say that,” said Clare.

“No bickering.”

“You know what?”

“What?”

“I’ve never hated you, either. Ever.”

Jem looked at her, and the moonlight was in his hair too. Then Sheba moved a foreleg in her sleep, and more light seemed to pour down her in a steady rivulet.

So Clare was taken off guard when the attack began.

The faces of the two Cureds, a man and a woman, seemed to rush up into the firelight, but the light that made Sheba glow did not touch them.

“Go away,” yelled Jem. As he scrambled to find the heavy flashlight, the man grabbed at Sheba. The woman laughed. Then she had Clare by the arm and was twisting it.

Bear took her down.

Clare grabbed Bear’s back, not wanting to see her dog kill the woman, but then the man turned away from Sheba and attacked her. Clare fought back, and she was strong, but the man was stronger. He managed to get his hands around her throat.

It was all happening so fast, too fast. She saw Sheba, wide awake now, pulling back on her tether; she heard Jem shouting something; behind him, the door to the house opened and Ramah came running towards her; Bear was turning away from the woman, but it all seemed too late, too late. Clare pulled at the hands around her throat, but the man was strong and there were now large black patches swimming through her vision. Then there was more and more black and all the light seemed to be pouring away.

Jem reached her even before Bear did. She was so lightheaded that the thought seemed to register from far away: Jem was coming for her. And then she was breathing again and the black patches began to recede as Jem tore the Cured away from her. The Cured ran into the night. The woman Cured lay, unmoving, on the ground. And then Jem’s arms were around Clare, and Clare was embarrassed because the tears were streaking down her face, and the moonlight was on Jem’s face, just like the light that had made Sheba glow. Clare didn’t hear Ramah, although she could see she was speaking.

“Jem,” Clare said. And then the darkness took her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

THE VISION GARDEN

W
HEN
C
LARE CAME
to, they were still outside. Jem had his arm around her.“She’s back,” he said to the others. Mirri and Sarai clearly wanted a family hug, but Jem kept them at bay. “She looks kind of fragile.”

The woman Cured was still alive, and they helped Ramah and Bird Boy tie her hands with duct tape. They couldn’t bring themselves to hurt her. Not in cold blood. Not when she was so injured and bewildered; it wasn’t her fault she was a Cured. Finally they managed to get her into the house. Clare came in leaning on Jem.

They dragged the woman to the sofa, tied her feet, and covered her with a blanket so she wouldn’t get cold. Her scarred face was encrusted with blood. She lay there, helpless, unconscious, her thin hair spread out on the pillow.

Clare gently pulled away from Jem. Leaning down, she put her ear to the woman’s mouth and, with her hand, tried to feel for a pulse.

“She’s alive,” said Clare.

“Did you think your dog would kill her?” asked Ramah.

“Yes,” said Jem and Clare together.

Ramah fetched some towels, warm water and disinfectant. She washed away the blood from the woman’s face and discovered puncture wounds on her neck, chest, and arms.

“Your dog missed the jugular by an inch,” said Ramah.

“What’s the juggler?” asked Mirri.

“Jugular,” said Sarai. “It carries blood.”

Mirri was impressed. “Your vocab list is working.”

The Cured opened her eyes. One of them was half obscured by a flap of flesh, but they could see that the other was a deep brown. She moaned and moved into a corner of the sofa. As she did, her hair was pulled away from her neck, and they could all see the orange patch behind her ear.

“Tell us your name,” said Jem.

“I want to kill you,” said the Cured. “I could feed on you.”

“She’s decompensating,” said Ramah.

“What does that
mean
?” asked Mirri.

“Even her craziness is breaking down.”

“We need to look at the patch on her neck,” said Jem.

Ramah brought some tweezers from the bathroom and a little plate from the kitchen. When she saw this, the Cured began to struggle, and Jem and Clare had to hold her down. Quickly, Ramah used the tweezers to peel off the patch. It was about the size of a quarter. She placed it on the plate.

“I see that one dead,” said the Cured, pointing at Bird Boy.

Ramah pulled Bird Boy away from the Cured, and then sent him to play with Bear. Ramah, Clare and Jem bent over the plate and examined the patch. The sticky side was face up, grey and featureless. Ramah turned the patch over, and tiny letters at the edge were clearly visible. SYLVER. The patch was much thicker than Clare had thought it would be, about the size of two quarters pressed together.

“I wonder how it works,” said Clare.

Mirri, Sarai and Bird Boy came over to look at the contents of the plate.

“I wish we knew what ‘SYLVER’ actually means,” said Clare. “Before my family and I left the city, I saw ‘SYLVER’ spray painted on a notice about the Cure. I had thought the cure was an injection.”

“I want to know why the patch isn’t skin-colored,” said Mirri.

“Why should it be?” asked Jem irritably.

“My father’s was skin-colored.”

Ramah looked at Mirri thoughtfully. The others stared.

“You said your father died of Pest,” said Jem.

“He
did
,” said Mirri. “But patches are how my father stopped
smoking
. He put on the patches and then he needed them less and less and then he didn’t need them
at all
. He said the stuff on the patch was absorbed right through the skin
. Right through the skin.
I thought that was pretty amazing. He said I shouldn’t touch them.”

“A nicotine patch,” said Jem.

“I guess,” said Mirri. “Anyway, he hadn’t smoked in over a
year
when Pest came.”

“So,” said Jem. “The Cure, the Cured, the nightmare, the insanity—they all come down to this little patch.”

T
HE
C
URED, AFTER
her lacerations had been treated, fell asleep on the sofa.

“I’ll watch her,” Jem told Clare. “You take care of yourself.”

“You have the starting of a black eye,” said Clare.

“Go look in the mirror. You’re a bit disheveled yourself.”

Ramah, Mirri and Sarai went with Clare into the bedroom. The mirror wasn’t reassuring: Clare had cuts and bruises on her forehead and cheek, and her face and arms were streaked with mud.

“You should have told me how I looked,” she said to Sarai and Mirri.

“We were busy discovering that the patch worked like a nicotine patch,” said Sarai.

“That was
really
exciting,” said Mirri. “And
I
had the clue.”

“You should wash off that mud,” said Sarai. “It’s getting into the cuts.”

“You look a little beat up,” said Ramah.

Clare considered. Her whole body ached. “Yeah. I feel pretty beat up. But don’t tell Jem. He worries about everything.”

Ramah looked her up and down. “You must be cold. I’ll get you some dry clothes.”

“Look at your neck,” said Sarai to Clare.

Clare looked in the mirror and saw deep bruises on her throat. They were in the shape of a pair of hands.

When Clare went back to the living room, Jem looked up at her anxiously. The tissue around his left eye was dark and swollen, and both eyes were deeply bloodshot. But when she smiled at him, relief lit up his eyes.

Clare and Jem sat together while the Cured slept. Mirri and Sarai, meanwhile, convinced Ramah to shed the goatskins, and then they took her to the bedroom and proceeded to dress her up. When they returned to the living room, Ramah was dressed in an ancient pair of jeans and—retrieved from a box in the attic—an old-fashioned print shift.

Ramah insisted on spreading the goatskins out to dry in the living room. At first the odor was simply appalling, but, as the skins dried, even Mirri stopped complaining. Clare didn’t want Ramah to feel awkward so she said:

“Bear smells a little like that when he gets wet.”

Meanwhile Mirri, seemingly intent on the makeover of Ramah, brushed her hair until it gleamed, long, light and wavy.

Ramah would have been, thought Clare, a good subject for a portrait.

Then the Cured woke up. She watched them intently as she chewed her nails.

“I can get you some water, if you want,” Jem said to her.

“You’re the dead one,” she said.

Jem turned to Clare. Clare had tried to arrange a soft scarf around her throat to hide the bruises, but the material kept slipping down and revealing the marks.

“That must hurt,” said Jem.

“Yeah,” Clare admitted. “But it beats being pain-free and dead. Thanks, Jem.”

He turned his head away. Ramah watched them, and Clare thought there was a bemused look in her eye.

And all the time, the Cured stared at them from the sofa.

“We’re going to have to do something with her,” said Clare. “Taking the patch off doesn’t seem to have made any difference.”

“It’s only been a little while,” said Jem.

“You want to eat me,” said the Cured.

“I kind of think it’s the other way around,” said Jem. Ramah stood, watching.

“What are you going to do
now
?” Mirri asked Ramah. “There’s still a Cured out there.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do,” said Ramah. “The same thing as before, I suppose. Wait out the winter with Bird Boy.”

“I don’t know how you’ve held on this long,” said Jem.

“I didn’t have any brothers or sisters. My parents were—distant. Coping with things is what I do. And Bird Boy is a great help.”

“He seems strange.”

“Does he?” asked Ramah.

Ramah’s eyes were deep green. She looked at Clare and Jem until Clare began to feel uncomfortable.

“Why don’t you come with us to the Master,” said Mirri suddenly. “
Both
of you.”

Ramah looked up at her sharply.

“That’s a great idea,” said Sarai.

“Jem?” asked Ramah. Her face had, for the first time since Clare had seen her, tensed up. It was hard for Clare to imagine Ramah being afraid of anything, but it was as if she were catching a glimpse of fear in Ramah’s cool expression. “We wouldn’t,” Ramah said, “we wouldn’t try and change anything.”

“It’s probably already written,” said Sarai wisely.

“Whatever
that
means,” said Mirri.

“Of course it’s written,” said Jem. He caught Clare’s hand. “Right, Clare?”

“Right.”

It was a moment that Clare was never to forget. She realized for the first time that maybe it was possible to form a new community as well as a new family.

“We would like to come,” said Ramah. “It’s kind of you to open your family to us.”

Bird Boy made a sound like a dove.

And so then they were six.

I
N THE EVENING
, Sarai and Mirri huddled with Jem and Clare, as if to reassure themselves that all was well. When their eyes started to close, Jem sent them to bed. Ramah and Bird Boy, meanwhile, had gone outside to stand guard over Sheba, in case the other Cured came back. Bird Boy had Jem’s hammer. Ramah had her bow and arrows and, much more practical at close range, an axe.