The Night Garden (31 page)

“You have to promise me you won’t try the honey again,” she said. “You have to promise that I’m enough for you, right now, just as I am. If I can’t make you happy like this, I can’t make you happy at all.”

He bowed his head and thought of how much he’d wished she had been with him in the hospital, when he’d thought he was still on the top of the mountain, dying in his plane. He had told Olivia that he understood what he was getting into when he asked to marry her, but he thought now that he hadn’t understood it. Not really. The hard, interminable
knowing
that she might never be touchable, that she might never be willing to leave the farm, that his life would have to shift and mold to accommodate hers—it was like facing down a hard brick wall
that, until now, he’d been telling himself he could walk straight through. But he said, “I love you, Olivia. I’m not leaving you. Not for anything.”

She looked up into his face, her eyes obscured in shadow. Her voice trembled. “Will you stay with me tonight?”

“Here?”

“Why not? The mosquitoes won’t bother you. Not if you’re near me. It’s a side effect of being inherently toxic, I guess.”

She lowered herself onto the moss, her white dress making a dim circle around her, and his brain brimmed over with tormenting images, soft moss, warm air, discarded clothes, the possibility of things in the night they could not do. But he said, “Sure.” He lowered himself to the moss with some stiffness, but once he was off his feet and lying down, his head pillowed by moss that covered a stone, he felt as if he were cradled in warm water, weightless and painless. He’d never been so comfortable in his life.

She looked over at him from a few feet away, her head turned sideways on the moss. “Sam. For what it’s worth, I want to thank you. For trying.”

He didn’t think
you’re welcome
was the right thing to say, so he said nothing. He slid off to sleep, and as he did, he dreamed that he and she were floating on a sea of living green water, each on lifeboats, drifting in different directions.

The Cherry

In the morning Olivia woke in the Moss Garden alone and shivering. She’d been warm and comfortable all night, with the most exquisite sense of safety she’d ever known. And she’d had wonderful dreams of the feel of Sam’s body against hers, so perfectly familiar and right, so intense it felt as if he really were holding her, his hand around her waist, one knee nestled between hers. But just moments after the sun rose, a deep chill had stolen over her, the kind of chill that ices the bones, and she turned over to see that Sam was no longer beside her on the bed of moss. It was only the peacock there, jewel blue and gleaming in the morning light, blinking at her dumbly. Sam had gone home.

As the morning passed, she felt a strange sense of being outside her own body, floating through the hours. She visited her Poison Garden and was glad to see that it was once again beginning to grow as it normally did, so that she had to clip back her poison ivy with garden shears. She gathered the boarders just outside the maze entrance and gave them instructions for the day’s work, not quite sure if the Penny Loafers were looking at her a little differently or if it was all in her head. As Olivia gave out assignments, Mei stood with her arms crossed over her black tank top, a bored look on her face like a child at school.
Her belly was more pronounced by the day, her face more rounded. All of the Penny Loafers had volunteered for various tasks in the maze—except for her.

“And what about you, Mei?” Olivia said in front of all of the other boarders. “Do you feel like working in the Swamp Garden today? It’s a little bit more shady and cool.”

Mei lifted a shoulder. “Nah. I don’t feel like it.”

“Are
you
doing okay?”

“Oh, fine. I just don’t feel like working. I’m going to go hang out in the barn. Unless …” She narrowed her eyes at Olivia. “Unless you’re going to tell me not to.”

Olivia recognized a challenge when she heard it. She didn’t know whether Mei had told the others about the truth of her condition. After the ambulance had taken Sam away, Mei had found Olivia sitting on a stump near the peacock pen, and she’d said,
So I guess now that I know your secret I’m a liability, huh? You going to kick me out of the barn?
And Olivia had told her,
Of course not!
She’d thought briefly about lying—
I only said I was poisonous because I would have said anything to get you to help him
—but she found that she was exhausted from hiding and couldn’t bring herself to tell one more flimsy lie. Her poisonous condition seemed irrelevant when Sam had almost died in front of her just moments before, and she couldn’t give even another ounce of her energy to worrying about protecting her secret. At least, not then.

She did, however, ask Mei if she wouldn’t mind keeping the things Olivia had said to herself. Mei had looked at her and smiled:
Sure. What’s it worth to you?
And Olivia had laughed, and then Mei had laughed, and that was that. But in hindsight, Olivia wasn’t entirely sure that Mei was joking.

She took refuge in the idea that if Mei ever decided to tell the others about her condition—or if she’d told already—it was unlikely anyone would believe her. This was not Olivia’s first brush
with exposure. There was always gossip of one kind or another about her swirling around Green Valley: Anything Mei might contribute would be a drop in the proverbial bucket, just one more wild speculation to go with all the wild speculations that went around. Plus, Mei would leave the barn, eventually. All the Penny Loafers would. New people would hear about the maze and come to stay. Stories would change hands. Facts and theories would morph and bend, an idea would disappear one moment and reemerge as something unrecognizable the next, and soon Olivia’s unplanned confession to Mei would become a thing that might as well have never happened at all.

Aware that the other boarders were paying close attention, she told Mei, “The rules are, if you want to stay, you’ve got to work. None of us care what work you do, just as long as you do something.”

Mei scowled deeply. Olivia felt the tense scrutiny of all of the boarders as they wanted to see how the scene would play out. “What if I don’t feel like working?”

“If you don’t want to help out as best you can, then that’s your choice. But you’ll have to go stay somewhere else. Everyone here understands that. They prove it every single day when they head into the garden maze. Isn’t that right?”

The boarders were quiet.

Mei mumbled something under her breath that Olivia didn’t quite hear and chose to ignore. She didn’t know how much longer she could be patient with the girl. And yet, Mei seemed to believe that it was only a matter of time before Olivia turned on her—and Olivia wanted to prove otherwise. To show her that she didn’t need to be afraid of accepting help. As the boarders headed for the tool sheds and outbuildings, Olivia planned to take Mei aside to talk with her again—later, after they all had cooled down.

The hours of the day went slowly by. And as they did, Olivia
found she could hardly muster any small sliver of worry about what the boarders might or might not be saying about her when she caught them looking in her direction. In the space between busy chores—the gaps in work that allowed her mind to wander—it became impossible not to feel how a person’s spirit could become so heavy that it made her body heavy, too. The moment was coming when she would see Sam again. But she felt no joy at the thought of the reunion. In the course of their night in the Moss Garden, something had changed.

By early evening—after she’d given up on work, taken a long shower, and slipped into a light-as-air sundress—she’d made up her mind. And the decision had come with a kind of anesthetized, dull acceptance. No more fighting with herself. No more roller coaster of hope and despair. She would fall back on her old, dreamless life, and it would have to be fine.

When at last she saw Sam striding across the barnyard toward her in the late afternoon, she stood still and waited near the door of her silo, vowing to herself that she felt nothing, that the sight of him did not make her heart speed, that her body was not already weeping with desire for him, and that the small pains she would cause him now would spare him big pains later on. She loved Sam. She wanted his happiness more than her own. She understood, on a practical level, that Sam had taken the risk of eating Pennywort honey for
both
their sakes. But his action had reinforced her fear that he would not be happy unless she was different than what she was. And more than that—there was no telling what prolonged exposure to her might do to him. She would not let him put himself at risk again.

As Sam crossed toward her, walking quickly, then jogging, then beginning to sprint, she tried to hold on to the finality of her decision. But Sam’s face as he neared her was bright, almost ecstatic, and even without knowing what had made him so happy, his obvious joy and excitement washed over her, a feeling
not unlike watching the sun rise over the mountains, filling the valley with light.

“Olivia!”

In the distance, she heard a rumble that must have been thunder. And she realized the scent of lightning was in the air.

“Olivia!” He was breathless when he reached her, his eyes brighter than she’d ever seen them, and he took her by her upper arms.

“Sam—what are you—”

She couldn’t finish the question; he’d kissed her. Her eyes flew open. She tried to pull away. “Sam!”

“Olivia—it’s okay,” he said, his lips moving against her. His arms came around her, one hand a pressure at the small of her back, pulling her against him, the other at her neck, his thumb hitting the pulse that beat hard below her jaw, angling her mouth beneath his, and then she closed her eyes and couldn’t stop kissing him if she wanted to. His body was hard against hers, his shoulders wide under her hands, his kiss relentless. The thunder rumbled and she thought,
Is this a dream?
She touched his face, felt the stubble of his cheek, arched her back for the pleasure of friction against her breasts, ran her hand into his hair.

It was Sam who broke the kiss; his eyes were black and dancing. He pulled away only enough to look at her. She saw a flash of lightning, heard thunder like the snap of a whip echoing over the hills. Sam didn’t turn his head. His lips were parted, his breath coming fast, his hands running over her, everywhere.

“Sam—you kissed me.”

“Oh yes. I know. And I plan to do it again.”

He leaned in, but she stopped him with her hands on his chest. “Wait. You have to tell me what happened.”

He groaned. His thumb ran along her bottom lip even as he licked his own. “This morning. I woke up in the garden with my
arms around you. I thought I was going right back to the hospital again. But I’m fine, Olivia. I’m completely fine!”

She thought of the night, of how warm she’d been, then how cold. They’d found each other in their sleep. She could have hurt him. She tried to move away. “We should go slow. You’re still recovering.”

“No. No more going slow.”

“But we don’t know that it’s safe.”

“I know my own body. Trust me. It’s safe.” He tugged her bottom lip down with the pad of his thumb, then threaded his hands in her hair. “I’m not waiting. Not another second. Please don’t make me.”

He kissed her again, openmouthed and hot. Her whole body flushed with heat. She felt an odd sensation on the top of her head, but she could barely register it. It took a moment to realize it was raining.
Raining!
She pulled away from him, laughing. The rain was coming down hard and fast—too much rain all at once—but she didn’t care. She lifted her face to the sky, and the rain fell warm and cleansing in fat, heavy drops, and then Sam was kissing her again, her wet cheeks, her eyelids, her mouth, and touching her through her soaking clothes. His kiss shifted, an increased urgency. He drew her up against him.

“Olivia,” he said. Little silver droplets clung to his eyelashes. “Ask me inside.”

She looked into his face, held between her two hands. The thunder was rumbling, and through it she could hear the songs of birds. If there was a thing she meant to tell him, all thoughts of it were gone. “Yes,” she said. And she took his hands tightly in hers and laughed, and then dodged through the silo door, the scent of rain dragging in behind them.

Rose-Colored Glasses

For a night and a day the rainfall continued, the initial downpour tapering off and giving way to a slow, steady, soaking rain. With preternatural quickness, Green Valley revived. The grass went from dull yellow to a bright, youthful green. The fish in Hemlock Pond did airborne backflips with quick-flashing vigor, and flowers that should have closed in bad weather opened wide. Only the valley’s goats were annoyed by the change in weather; they hunkered under a plastic roof behind the salvage yard, and glared at the dance of rain.

While Olivia and Sam made the most of their newfound closeness, the rumor mill was grinding away. But this time the engine that powered the latest speculations was located smack in the center of the Pennywort farm. The source was credible: One of the Penny Loafers had said that she’d heard Olivia Pennywort say that she couldn’t touch Sam Van Winkle because if she did she would hurt him. The girl, Mei, spared no detail:
She made me check his pulse because she wouldn’t touch him. Would you let somebody do that to your boyfriend if you could just do it yourself?
Some women defended Olivia—everyone knew she didn’t like to be touched. She’d always been that way. And Mei must have misheard.

But Mei was emphatic:
She told me flat out that she’s poisonous. Seriously. She said it. There’s something weird about this place and it all starts with her.
As the boarders scrutinized evidence and swapped explanations, word about Olivia’s odd behavior began to spread, fanning out into the community as beans were exchanged for dollars over the counter of the Pennywort farm stand.

But Olivia had no idea. From her high silo window, she saw the whole of Green Valley, the gray clouds over her rust-red barn, the trees appearing greener as the dust dribbled off their leaves, and it was as if everything was opening up in a new way—herself included. As far as she could tell, all of Green Valley was reeling in the same high giddiness she was, as if the rain were as potent and intoxicating as wine. This, she knew, was love: the feeling of the outside world reflecting her inner joy right back at her. The feeling that happiness was a circle, with no beginning or end. She didn’t know if Sam’s immunity to her skin was permanent or temporary, but she was too preoccupied to spend much time worrying about it. In their haven in the silo, there was no room for the past or the future: only what was now.