The Wicked Garden (16 page)

Gretchel kicked and wailed as he held her. Her eyes were wild. Afraid of hurting her, Eli let her go.

Gretchel ran as fast as she could, away from the truck, away from the Wicked Garden.

When Eli caught up with her, she was in the cottage kitchen, drinking a glass of water. “What was that all about? Did you really not realize you were in the truck?”

“I didn’t. No one but Grand Mama is supposed to go into the Wicked Garden. It’s forbidden,” she said, chugging more water.

Gretchel didn’t realize that she was naked, filthy, and dripping wet until Eli wrapped a blanket around her.

“I don’t understand what happened, Gretchel. I thought you were having a good trip. I’m so sorry.”

Eli looked so scared and sad that Gretchel was quick to reassure him. “I
did
have a good trip. For a while, it was the most beautiful and real thing I have ever experienced,” she said trying desperately to catch her breath. Then she walked to the bathroom and began furiously brushing her teeth. She could still taste dirt.

He watched her cautiously. “You were screaming again, Gretchel. Like you used to. I should have stayed awake and taken care of you. I’m so sorry.”

“You were there. I heard you.”

Eli held his head. “I
was
there. I dreamt that I saw you in a hole, and you couldn’t get out. It’s what woke me up this morning. What does that mean? I remember poppies and a hole. What were you doing there?”

Gretchel gave him an exaggerated shrug. “Maybe I have a death wish.”

“Don’t say that!” Eli couldn’t help thinking about Gretchel’s scars—the scars that she had inflicted on herself. He shuddered.

Gretchel changed the subject. “I have a horrible headache.”

“That’s not uncommon after a trip.” Eli found some ancient aspirin in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom.

“The phoenix came to life, Eli.”

He stared at Gretchel as he handed her the aspirin bottle. “The one from the painting?” She shook her head. “I saw it, too, in my dream. I watched you follow it. I don’t remember everything, but I remember sailing, flying over the ocean, looking for you.”

She smiled and touched his face. “Most of the trip was beautiful, Eli. And amazing. Do you remember being on the poppy?” He nodded and smiled back at her. Gretchel cleaned herself up a bit and got dressed. She called to Eli from the bedroom. “I’m ready for breakfast. Have you ever had biscuits and gravy?”

“Yeah, in Carbondale, at Mary Lou’s.”

“Ah,” she replied, “But you’ve never had mine.”

Gretchel zipped around her mother’s kitchen like she was playing tag and the ghost was it. Eli sat quietly at the table, drinking his coffee.

“You still get up and run, Baby Girl?” her mother asked as she walked toward the coffee pot. Gretchel glanced at the clock; it was barely six in the morning.

“I do, Mama. I don’t always run, but I rarely miss greeting the dawn.” Her mother gave her a sad smile. “Besides, I have to get up early for my job,” she said, and continued stirring the gravy.

“I’m so proud of you. You’ve come a long way, Baby Girl.”

“Stop it. You’re embarrassing me.”

Miss Poni slowly walked into the kitchen. “I thought I smelled sausage gravy.”

“Eli never had it before he moved to Illinois, Grand Mama. Can you believe it?”

Miss Poni sat across from Eli at the table, and locked him in her gaze. Gretchel saw him squirm. “Grand Mama, please stop staring. He’s taken,” she said with a forced laugh.

Miss Poni turned her steely eyes on her granddaughter. “You opened a door last night.”

Gretchel focused on the cast iron skillet in front of her. “Let it go, Grand Mama.”

“Yes. I see that’s what you’re trying to do.” The old woman paused for a moment, considering. “Just be careful, Baby Girl, you’re messing with powers you can’t control.”

Gretchel spun away from the stove to glare at Miss Poni. “I said
let it go
.”

Unperturbed, Miss Poni turned back to Eli. “Something very special happened last night.” Eli choked on his coffee as he blushed an astonishing shade of violet-red.

Gretchel slapped a dishtowel against her leg. “
Let it go
, Grand Mama!”

The old woman ignored Gretchel’s outburst. “Do you have something for her, Eli?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Another gift. You have another gift for her, a very important gift,” she said.

Eli sputtered. Miss Poni was undoubtedly the most unnerving woman he had ever met—and that included his mother. “Well, yes…. If Gretchel wants it, I’d like to buy her a tattoo.” Eli turned toward Gretchel. “The phoenix. It would look fantastic on your back, Gretchel. I’m sure Will can use the money, and I know he’d do a fantastic job. You’ve seen his work. He's really good.”

“But that would cost a fortune
.”

“No
.” Ella was adamant. “No tattoo.”

“Mama, I’m nineteen-years-old. And when have you ever been able to stop me from doing what I want, anyway?”

Ella gave her daughter the icicle eye. “Never, but that won’t stop me from trying.”

Miss Poni rejoined the conversation. “Are you sure there’s nothing else you have for her?”

“Enough!” Gretchel shouted, slamming a casserole dish full of gravy in the middle of the table.

Miss Poni gave Gretchel a laconic glance before addressing Eli again. “Son, can you do an old woman a very small favor?”

“Of course. How can I help?” he asked.

Miss Poni pulled an old notebook from the pocket of her chenille robe and handed it to Eli. “The pages seem to be stuck together.” Eli took the notebook and flipped through its pages with no trouble at all. All the women in the room—Gretchel, Ella, Miss Poni—watched him with curiosity. He began to feel foolish.

“Here you go, ma’am. It seems fine now,” he said as he handed the notebook back to Gretchel’s grandmother.

“I guess you had the magic touch,” Miss Poni said with a smile.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Oregon, 2010s

It had been a couple of weeks—long, slow, painful, weeks—since Ame had gotten in touch with Eli. He had stayed close to his computer anyway, just in case, stepping away occasionally to eat, use the toilet, and dip into his stash. He was well and truly stoned throughout most of this period, but he still retained enough self-awareness to realize that he was behaving in an obsessive manner.
Jesus,
he thought,
I’ve turned into my mother
.

He was pretty sure that he had scared Ame away. Every creepy thought he could imagine she might be thinking was rolling through his head. He was having trouble focusing on anything else. He knew he was projecting, but he also knew that he was probably right. He knew, furthermore, that his situation was getting kind of messed up. He hadn’t been out of the house, or taken a call, or seen Rebecca while he waited to hear from Ame. The situation was… not cool.

So, one Saturday morning, he finally put down the one-hitter, shut down his laptop, and made the scenic, hour-long drive to his parents’ place. The estate seemed quiet as he rolled up the long, meandering driveway. Of course, the estate
always
seemed quiet. Eli’s parents were big into quiet.

“Eli!” his father called from the living room. Peter was perched on the coffee table, arranged in lotus position. “I was just thinking of you, and here you are. Our prince has returned.”

Eli repressed a sigh and ran his hand through his hair as he tried to dispel some of the tension he could already feel constricting his head.
Why the coffee table?
After reciprocating a very enthusiastic embrace, Eli stepped back to take in his father’s pink paisley bathrobe. “You look ridiculous, Peter.”

“You don’t say?” Peter gave his attire an appraising glance as if it was the first time he had seen it. “Well maybe I should just get rid of this silly thing, then,” and with that, he dropped the bathrobe to reveal that he was wearing nothing underneath.

Eli had seen his father naked so often and in so many circumstances that he might have gotten used to it, but…. No. No, he hadn’t. Eli picked up the discarded robe and held it out to his father with an imploring look.

Peter grinned, and resumed his pink paisley finery with a flourish. As he twirled, Eli got a fresh glimpse of his father’s many tattoos, all various depictions of the Arcadian goat god Pan.

Peter claimed that he was a descendent of Pan, and Eli was convinced his father actually believed this. Which made sense, really, since Peter was the horniest person Eli had every met, and he was quite capable of causing panic among even the calmest of people.

Eli eyed the long growth of hair on his father’s chin. “What’s with the facial hair? You look like you’re channeling Lane Staley.”

“Was going for more of a ZZ Top thing, if I can hold out that long,” Peter said itching the long, grayish, brown beard. “Think I can braid it yet?”

Eli shook his head
—no,
no, no
—as he made his way to the dining room, where a Lego village stretched out from wall to wall. He knelt down, picked up a couple of pieces, added them to a building, and then turned back to his father. “How was Greece?”

“Magical, as always.”

“Right. Stupid question. Is mom here?”

“You’ve actually caught her at home, son. It’s a rare treat indeed. You know where she is.”

They passed the first-floor bathroom as they walked toward the east side of the house, and Eli nearly gagged. “You ate Mexican last night, didn’t you?”

“
Si, señor
, and I savored every last morsel,” his father said with a devilish grin.

“I thought mom banned Mexican food.”

“I enjoy breaking rules. Bring on the punishment, and I’ll enjoy that, too.”

“You might be enjoying your punishment, but I don’t think Mom’s enjoying
this
,” Eli said as he sprinted down the hallway, stopping at a set of double doors.

He hadn’t passed through this threshold in a long time, and he wasn’t eager to do it now.
What am I doing here?
he asked himself.
I’m trying to escape my own obsession, and I’m walking right into hers
. He opened the doors anyway.

“Eli!” Diana called. She ran and hugged him, then backed up and on tiptoe slapped him on the side of the head.

“What the hell?” he yelped.

“
That
, son, was for screening calls from your mother. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for two weeks! Answer your phone when I call, damn it.”

Eli rubbed his head and collapsed on a sofa. He regarded his mother. She was dressed in black cigarette pants, a printed black and white silk blouse, and towering black heels. Dressed to the nines even at home—an obsessive perfectionist if ever there was one. “I’m much easier to track down than you are, Mother. I can’t believe you’re even here.”

“I have been here for you anytime you’ve ever really needed me,” Diana insisted as she scooted Eli’s legs off the sofa to sit down next to him

“What about Dad? Don’t you think he gets bored without you here?”

Peter roared with laughter. Diana cackled. “Darling, in our forty-two years together, I have never—and I mean
never
—known your father to be bored.
Really
, Eli.”

“Perhaps Eli’s too miserable to think clearly, Diana,” his father laughed.

“You think my misery is funny?”

“A little, yes,” Peter smiled, grabbed Eli’s face, and gave him a big kiss on the forehead. “Lighten up, son.”

Diana shook her head, still chuckling, “What brings you out of your seclusion today, Eli, and why the hell have you been hiding out anyway?”

Eli stammered, “Uh, I’ve just been busy.”

Diana snorted. “That hardly seems plausible. What have you been doing—traveling, writing, taking photographs…?”

“Sure…. I’ve been….”
Damn it!
Eli realized that he had committed a grave tactical error. He was not a busy man, and his mother knew it. What
Eli
knew, however, was that, at the first mention of the Solstice Twins, Diana would forget everything else. “Say, Mom, can you explain these numbers to me?” He pointed to a dry erase board covered in numbers and notes.

Diana took the bait without hesitation.

“The thirteens follow a pattern. All the descendants of the twins that I’ve been able to trace were thirteen when they lost their fathers.”

“You know Gretchel lost her father young,” Eli said.

“And remind me again how old she was, Eli?” Diana bristled at any suggestion that Gretchel was part of the prophecy.

“I don’t know.”

“And her mother is alive, yes? And her grandmother, too?”

“They were seventeen years ago.”

“Exactly. None of the women in this bloodline lived past the age of forty. Every one of them committed suicide by drowning. It would take an incredibly strong woman to break this kind of cycle. What was Gretchen’s grandmother’s name?”

“Her name is
Gretchel
, Mother, and they called her grandmother Miss Poni.”

“Sounds like a hillbilly. And her mother’s name?”

“Ella,” Eli said quietly. “Her name is Ella.” He descended into memory for a moment before he pulled himself out of it. “What does the twenty-one mean?”

“Surely you remember this from the prophecy, son.
Look to the twenty-first to find the second. Find her, and all shall be redeemed.
I’m certain that ‘the twenty-first’ refers to the twenty-first descendent, but it might also mean the twenty-first century. And the second, of course, is your true love.”

Eli looked at his father and both men shared a dramatic eye-roll. Eli tried to avoid engaging with his mother when she mentioned this aspect of the prophecy, but he was feeling feisty. “Gretchel’s birthday is June twenty-first, on the Summer Solstice,” Eli said.

Diana looked at her son. “You never told me that.”

“You never asked. You never cared about anything concerning Gretchel,” he shot back.

Reluctantly, Diana when to the dry-erase board labeled
Gretchen
. Her name was written across the top in big letters, but there was very little written underneath. She jotted down this new information. Eli stepped up behind her, erased the N with his finger, and replaced it with an L. He returned to the couch.

“I never cared about Gretchen because the Cailleach specifically said that the second woman to wear the amethyst would be the descendant. Gretchen was the first, Eli, and she’s not the one! I’ve told you this a million times. And she betrayed you! I don’t want you to have anything to do with that woman. I won’t have your heart broken again.”

Eli looked to his father for support, but Peter was smiling at something no one else could see. “What are you doing?” Eli asked him. Peter didn’t respond. He let out a chuckle, as his eyes followed some invisible delight. Eli shook his head in frustration.

“Mother, I’ve told you that Gretchel’s family is Scottish, right?”

“That doesn’t mean they are descendants. It will be the second woman to wear the amethyst, Eli!”

“Well, they were witches, too. Miss Poni had advanced magical skills. I saw her start a bonfire with a flick of her wrist.”

Diana looked at him skeptically. “Were you stoned, Eli?”

“No, mother, I was
not
stoned.” Eli rubbed the vein in his temple that was beginning to throb. He sounded like a teenager, he
knew
he sounded like a teenager, and he hated it. When the throbbing subsided somewhat, he managed a slightly more mature tone. “I saw that at Gretchel’s nineteenth birthday party. Does that matter at all?” Diana turned her back to him, and, somewhat grudgingly, added a note below Gretchel’s name. Eli could tell that she wasn’t sure it
didn’t
matter, and that she was slightly perturbed by that fact. He suppressed a triumphant grin, but just barely.

Eli stood up again. He went to th
e board that traced the descendants of the Solstice Twins from the 1600s—when the first twin had burned—as far as Diana had been able to trace them. He counted the names. There were only sixteen. “So, Miss Poni would be seventeen, Ella eighteen, Gretchel nineteen, and Ame twenty.”

“Ame? Who the hell is Ame?”

“She’s Gretchel’s daughter.”

His mother stared at him a moment.

“And how do you know that Gretchel gave birth to a daughter?”

Busted.

              “I met her. Entirely by chance. We’ve chatted online a couple of times.”

             
Diana was clearly torn between upbraiding her son for having any kind of contact—even vicarious contact—with Gretchel, and trying to figure out what, if anything, this new data meant. She couldn’t resist the pull of the whiteboards. She scanned them for a full minute before saying, “Let it go, Eli. This Ame is irrelevant. Gretchen is not the one.”

Eli felt rage stirring in his chest. “What, exactly, are you planning to do when I find this promised girl? What is your role in this mystery, anyway—besides playing pimp for your son?”

Diana let that last remark go. “Once you lead me to the second girl, I’ll listen to her stories and try to help her and her family. I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, but I do know the amethyst pendant is the key that will unlock a box, and that opening the box is the next step in ending the cycle of violence that has plagued the descendants of the Solstice Twins.”

Eli wondered if his mother knew how absolutely insane she sounded. Doubtful. Both his parents lived in some kind of parallel universe. It was a wonder he wasn’t in a padded cell by now.

“The amethyst isn’t the key, honey love.”

Eli and Diana had forgotten that Peter was even in the room, but there he was, curled up in the Eero Aarnio ball chair in the corner, lighting a bowl carved from a piece of stag’s antler.

“What do you mean it isn’t the key?” Diana’s affection for Peter was limitless, but her patience with him was not, and the Solstice Twins were
her
territory.

“For a transpersonal psychologist, you have a pronounced tendency towards literalism, Diana.” Peter smiled at his wife while she scowled at him. “But I truly believe that the key works figuratively. I’m not saying that the key isn’t real. I’m just saying that the amethyst might not be a physical tool that opens a mechanical lock. Maybe it’s a symbol, a sign, a metaphor….” Peter’s voice trailed off as he took a hit.

Diana shook her head—once, decisively. “No. You’re wrong. Carlin said the amethyst was the key. I heard it with my own ears. The amulet will open the box.”

“What box?” Eli asked.

He was ignored.

“The amethyst may open the box, but it isn’t a key like the one that unlocks our front door. I’m just looking at it from a different perspective.”

“You don’t know anything about this, Peter. I’ve been researching this for forty years. You’ve caused enough trouble by encouraging your son’s useless, destructive hope.” Diana turned to Eli, “And
you
, you leave that girl—that Ame—alone. Her mother ripped your heart out once, and she’ll do it again if you let her.”