The Garden of Darkness

“Bear’ll heal,” said Jem. He sat down next to Clare and took her hand.

Meanwhile, Bird Boy pulled down the tapestry to reveal a door. Abel tried it. It was locked, and, like the door to the basement, it took a Yale key.

“Damn,” said Ramah.

“Ramah,” said Mirri. “You never swear.”

“He got away,” said Ramah.

“Or we got away from him,” said Mirri.

“Clare’s not in good shape,” said Jem. He squeezed her hand. “We need to get her to Thyme House. I want to get her to Thyme House. Once we’re there—” He broke off.

Once they were there, Clare thought, she would be able to die quietly, with all of them around her. With Jem beside her. And maybe, if he were there with her, she could die without fear. Was that too much to hope for?

It seemed that it was.

Clare watched their faces change as each of them—Mirri, Sarai, Abel, Bird Boy, Tilda—took in her appearance. She saw shock, anger, fear, and, in Mirri’s face, a kind of triumph that she did not understand. But in Jem’s face, she saw only a deep anguish and defeat.

“Hurry, Mirri,” said Sarai.

“I’m hurrying,” said Mirri. “She looks terrible.” And Mirri was suddenly fumbling with a box. She opened it and reached in without hesitation, but— “This is so gross,” she said.

Then she was applying leeches to Clare’s arms and chest.

For the first few moments, Clare felt nothing, and then there was a tingling sensation. She realized that Jem had his arm around her. But memories crowded out the present. She saw into her deep past. She saw her own real mother dancing with her in the kitchen; Robin’s face as they bicycled down the dark streets; her father walking away from the wreck on the highway; the first earth she had shoveled on Noah’s body. The memories came faster and faster. And then she was two beings: an almost-grown who was no more than a small reflection in Jem’s eye, and, at the same time, an infant, far, far away and long ago.

Clare came back to the present. She watched the leeches impartially as blood oozed out from around the places they had embedded their mouths.

“I was starting to wonder about those leeches,” Clare murmured.

“Mirri’s been feeling so terrific, you see,” said Sarai.

“And no more rash.” Bird Boy nodded sagely. “Not after the leeches.” He unzipped his sweatshirt and obligingly showed his chest, which was free of any mark. “So we came.”

“I’m not going to die?”

“No,” said Mirri and Sarai and Bird Boy and Tilda and Abel. “You’re not.”

“I feel strange. But not bad. Good.”

Jem tightened his arm around her.

Clare lifted her hand, meaning to touch his face, but she couldn’t seem to find him in the dim light.





DARK TIME PASSED before Clare stirred in Jem’s arms again. He helped her sit up.

“I feel better,” she said. “Better than the last time I felt better.”

“The Pest welts are already going down,” said Mirri. “I can’t tell you how awful you looked.”

“Then don’t,” said Jem.

“We came as fast as we could,” said Tilda quietly. And Clare saw that they all looked very dirty and very tired—there were deep circles under Sarai’s eyes.

“We didn’t sleep at all,” said Mirri.

“You slept, Mirri,” said Abel. “Bird Boy carried you for hours.”

“She was tired,” said Bird Boy.

“We are so glad you’re not dead,” said Mirri.

“How did you find us?” asked Ramah. “This place is a labyrinth.”

“I was talking to Britta and Doug,” said Dante, “when your friends arrived. Clare’s dog knew them right away, and I brought them here.”

“Thanks,” said Ramah to Dante. “You came through.”

Dante looked down, but he was smiling.

And then they were all chattering, like the ragtag band of ill-disciplined almost feral children that they were. They weren’t particularly clean, like the Master’s children. But, thought Clare, they had come through. They had pulled together. They knew what love was.

“I hate to interrupt all this,” said Ramah finally, “as I always seem to do, but the Master’s still out there. Somewhere between us and home.”

“And what about his children?” asked Dante. “You can’t just leave them. Us.”

It occurred to Clare that, always and already and forever, everything was complicated.

She looked around. The Master’s collection room looked completely different to the last time she had seen it. It was just a room with some paintings and statues, its mystery gone. She liked one of the paintings: children in a looming room.

“That’s a Sargent,” she said.

“You’re wandering,” said Jem.

“Maybe,” said Clare. “It’s kind of hard to focus.”

“But we have to,” said Ramah.

“Master must be somewhere close,” Dante said. “He wouldn’t leave his stuff behind. He likes his stuff.”

They searched the room. Mirri kept trying to use a plastic wand with sparkles in it as a divining rod.