by Ksenia Anske
“So much for being worried sick about me,” muttered Lilith, shutting the front door. “What was that for?”
“What?” Panther innocently looked up.
“You know what. The ugly joke.”
“Oh, that. I duly apologize, but your mother is not my beauty ideal. Not furry enough,” growled Panther. “Can you bring me some steak for breakfast? Please?”
“I can’t believe you have the nerve to ask for it.” She slid on Panther a collar that hung from a leash fixed by the door, and stomped into the hall without a glance back.
Bouquets of fresh roses graced the table, their petals painfully red. Lilith cringed, trying not to think about the source of such vivid color.
“Eat. I need to eat,” she muttered, picking out a place to sit and automatically greeting people.
The Blooms were a very large family, its legacy firmly rooted in the gardening business. Naturally, most Blooms were floral experts, cousins and second cousins and third cousins to Ludwig Bloom’s direct descendant, Alfred Bloom. He and his late wife, Eugenia, had a son, Daniel Bloom, who in turn had a daughter. Lilith. It meant that one day the Bloom mansion and its rose garden would belong to her.
The entire property. I will own this entire property. Since dad’s idea of a garden is to mow it clean and make it into a dog-race field, maybe grandfather is hoping that I can sway him to keep it. Or, wait. Maybe...maybe he wants to avoid dad altogether? Lilith froze. Could that be what grandfather announced yesterday? Giving the property over to his granddaughter? It never occurred to her until now, and it made her even more determined to uncover its secrets. No way she’d want to own a murderous garden that ate people. Never.
Lost in thought, Lilith pulled out an unoccupied chair. Immediately, everyone at the table turned to look, asking her the typical empty questions about how she slept and how come she’s not at the race with her parents and what her plans were for the day and does she like the garden. Lilith frowned, her suspicions confirmed. The day before hardly anyone noticed her.
The Schlitzberger twins arrived and plopped down on either side of her.
“We heard you got lost yesterday,” Daphne said with a nasty smile, stacking her plate with waffles.
“In ze rose garden,” Gwen added, grabbing a roll.
Daphne slapped her sister’s hand. “Zat iz mine! I saw it first.” They proceeded to bicker at each other.
Lilith scanned the table for Ed. Disappointed, she turned to face the twins.
“Incidentally, one of my favorite pastimes is searching for bones of dead people,” she said. “You know, skulls and such. I cover the best specimens in fluorescent paint and dangle them at night in front of people’s windows. Took me a while to find one yesterday. It’s a nice one, though; has all of its teeth intact. What room are you staying in, by the way?”
Daphne’s face lost color. “Mutter!” she squealed, pointing at Lilith and firing off a string of German words.
Irma Schlitzberger, squeezed into a purple sweater no doubt of Gabby Bloom’s handiwork, leaned over.
“Tsk-tsk, Daphne. It iz not nice to speak in German in front of your friend, when your friend doez not understand a word. Am I right, child?”
Other guests watched the exchange with interest.
Lilith’s face turned hot. “Excuse me. I thought I mentioned it before. I’m not a child—”
“Aber Mutter, sie...” Daphne interrupted, throwing shrill words at her mother, which Irma returned with scolding remarks. Meanwhile, Gwen stole the roll from her sister’s plate and stuffed it into her mouth.
“Hello.” Someone tapped on Lilith’s shoulder. She turned.
A boy around ten stood by her chair. He had a very smart look about him, his dark hair neatly parted in the middle. He smelled like hair gel.
“Um, my name is Patrick. Patrick Rosenthal. I’m from Seattle. I came here for the Bloom family reunion. It’s very nice to meet you, cousin.” He stretched out his hand in a practiced movement, his face splitting into a practiced smile. Even his speech sounded practiced.
“And, um...This is my sister, Petra.” He pushed a little girl ahead of him, barely seven. She had an aura of sugary sweetness about her. It was the girl who demanded more cake, Lilith remembered.
“Hello!” she said brightly. “I’m Petra. What’s your name?” Petra grinned, showing a missing tooth.
“Lilith Bloom.”
Petra pressed a piece of paper into her hand. “It’s a letter from our cousin Ed. It’s probably a love letter. Our cousin Ed—”
“Petra!” Patrick said sternly. “He’s not our cousin, he’s a step-cousin. We’re not even related. Mom told you—”
“Sabrina Rosenthal. Delightful to meet you.” A woman shook Lilith’s hand, and Lilith recognized—with horror—the face of one of the heads; the one with the angular jaw.
“There she is, the lovely girl. You were hiding from us, weren’t you? Norman Rosenthal. I happen to be your father’s only second cousin.” A heavy-set man, the grown-up version of Patrick, shook Lilith’s hand. Lilith felt numb. His face belonged to the other head. Gripping her chair, she soon found herself surrounded by a crowd of relatives eager to chat.
“Trude Brandt, young mädchen,” said an old lady, Lilith’s room neighbor. Lilith thought she looked better with the green paste on her face. “I will talk to your grandfather about your behavior.” She shook a gnarly finger.
“Hanna Haas.” A mousy looking woman with large teeth and even larger glasses pushed forward a wheelchair. “My mother, Heidemarie Haas.”
Heidemarie resembled a dried out ghost sitting amidst blankets, her eyes blind. She seized Lilith with shaky hands, palpating her face and relaying something to Hanna.
“My mother says you look just like your father, when he was your age. My mother says—”
Sabrina interrupted, asking something. Petra talked over Sabrina, Patrick talked over Petra, and Daphne talked over everyone else. Voices turned into a blur, smells mixed into a suffocating reek, and just when Lilith thought she couldn’t take it anymore, another horrible sigh penetrated the air.
Lilith not so much heard it as she felt it, jumping from freight. Nobody seemed to notice a thing. Her heart thumping wildly, excusing herself left and right, she gorged her food, eager to escape into the garden to start her investigation in earnest.
Chapter 7
The Bloom Heir
The rest of the breakfast turned into a nightmare. People chatted Lilith up, offered her food, poured her juice, smiled at her, and took pictures with her, until at last she managed to excuse herself under the pretext of a bathroom visit. She marched out of the hall, careful not to break into a run, dying to tell Panther about the sigh, and dying to read Ed’s note. She clutched it in her sweaty palm so tightly, she was afraid the words may have melted off.
Panther waited by the door, tail wagging.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot about your steak. That woman-thing! Did you hear it sigh again?” Lilith whispered urgently, sliding off the collar.
“Not that I recall.” Panther licked his muzzle, looking suspiciously smug, like he wasn’t hungry at all. “I did hear an elephant sing, however. It was rather painful.”
Lilith arranged her features into a scowl, when another sigh shook the air. She flinched, Panther growled. They rushed out of the vestibule so fast that neither of them noticed two servants coming from the kitchen.
She ran into them head-on, sending trays of apple strudels to the floor with a loud twang. Ed’s note flew out of her hand and landed under an overturned bowl of vanilla sauce.
“No!” Lilith cried, darting for it. Two women in black dresses and white frilly aprons blocked her, picking up their fallen load. One of them straightened and Lilith almost fell to the floor herself.
The hook-nosed head stared at her. Lilith remembered this woman now. She served dinner, took dirty plates away, and brought clean ones. Her watery eyes made Lilith’s skin crawl. The second servant stood up, spor
ting the dark-skinned head. Her plump lips parted into a smile at the sight of Panther.
“Did little miss hurt herself?” asked the first servant in that familiar raspy voice. Gray hair pulled into a bun revealed an egg of a skull, and Lilith thought that she could be Gustav’s sister.
“No. Not at all. I’m fine, thank you.”
Panther inconspicuously edged toward the overturned trays, snatched an apple strudel, and swallowed it whole, hiccupping.
“I’m Agatha, ze housekeeper. And zis is Monika, ze cook.”
Monika waved and said, “Hallo!”
“It iz unfortunate zat we meet over ze spilled sauce.”
Lilith thought that both the housekeeper and the butler matched the mansion’s creepiness perfectly.
“I...I didn’t see you. I’m sorry,” said Lilith. “I apologize profusely. Can I help—”
“No need. We will take care of it.” The housekeeper waved the girl aside and nudged the cook. Panther, his muzzle smudged with vanilla, jumped aside and pretended to study the ceiling. Lilith helplessly watched Monika scoop up Ed’s note, together with the pieces of a broken bowl.
“Little miss didn’t sleep well?” Agatha asked.
Lilith startled.
“Little miss needz to sleep, to see better where she iz going.” Agatha’s eyes flashed.
Dread filled Lilith’s stomach. She took off at once, her soles skidding on the polished floor, until she made it out into the garden, breathless.
“That Agatha woman, if I may so observe, looked like a horse,” Panther growled. “Now I will have a headache. Can’t decide who is uglier, she or your mother.”
“Not funny. Did you hear what she said? Did you see her eyes? She was there! How else would she know that I didn’t get any sleep?” said Lilith.
Panther clamped his muzzle shut in an effort to look like a non-talking dog.
“Hey, don’t ignore me. I’m asking—”
Preceded by the crunching of the gravel, Alfred Bloom strolled toward them, Bär at his side. Lilith felt the urge to flee. The garden seemed to move with her grandfather, accenting his burgundy suit with a reddish glow.
“Good morning, my dear girl!” he said with exuberance.
Lilith forced herself to smile, hoping her racing heart wouldn’t betray her voice. “Good morning, Grandfather.”
Bär grumbled. Panther grumbled back.
“Did you...have trouble getting away from the lot of them?”
Lilith could only nod.
“Ah, don’t mind them. They’re eager, of course, to make your acquaintance after my dinner announcement yesterday, the one you...missed,” he said with disapproval.
I think I know what it is, Grandfather, thought Lilith, composing her features into a mask of attention. “Can’t wait to hear it.”
“I hope I’ll be the first to break the news. Before I do...would you mind giving me an explanation for your disappearance? We were all rather worried.”
“Oh, that. We got lost,” said Lilith, shrugging.
“Lost? In my rose garden?” Alfred continued the mockery that Daphne started at breakfast, yet somehow Lilith thought that mentioning her hobby of dangling human skulls in front of people’s windows wouldn’t do the trick this time.
“By we you mean...?” He walked closer.
Lilith took a step back. “Panther and I.”
“You got lost with this...creature? In my garden? Honestly, dear. Think about it. Dogs are supposed to help you find your way out, not get you lost. I tell you, a whippet is not a dog, it’s a joke. A breeder’s mistake.”
Panther snarled. Bär roared.
“Wouldn’t you agree?” Alfred grabbed a handful of Bär’s skin, at which the mastiff rumbled in pleasure. “This is what I call a dog. I can get you a puppy, if you’d like; to take home. What do you say?”
Panther stiffened. She picked him up, petting him reassuringly.
“I’m terribly sorry, Grandfather, but I have to decline,” said Lilith politely. “At my age, when responsibility is merely a word that doesn’t have much meaning, taking care of something as exquisite as a mastiff might be well beyond my abilities. But thank you very much for your incredible offer.” She wanted to curtsy, but then decided it would be overkill.
“Pity,” said Alfred, his smile dying. “Oh well. Perhaps it’s for the best. Why don’t you train on this...parody of a dog, before you decide whether or not you want the real deal.”
Panther sneered in the most condescending way a dog has ever mastered.
“Excuse me, but—”
“Take Bär, for example. He is trained not to pollute my roses. Gustav told me that he saw your...pet relieve himself under a bush. I simply can’t allow this to happen in my garden. GUSTAV!”
The butler seemed to appear out of thin air, as usual, and grabbed the whippet right out of Lilith’s arms. Taken by surprise a second time, she snatched at thin air; Gustav had stepped out of her reach already. Panther barked hysterically. Bär launched into a series of guttural woofs that sounded suspiciously like laughter.
It took Lilith enormous willpower to suppress her anger. “My apologies. It’s my fault. I wasn’t stern enough with him. He won’t do it again, I promise. As I recall, my mother told me you were going to take me on a garden tour?” Lilith waited, her face frozen in excited anticipation.
Alfred narrowed his eyes. “Yes...yes, of course.” He seized her arm and walked her onto a pathway. Before disappearing behind a turn, Lilith glimpsed enthusiastic relatives pouring out of the back doors, evidently searching for her. Her skin crawled. On some level she was glad to escape their incessant inquiries.
She silently tugged along, breathing deeply to calm herself. If she assumed correctly, the man next to her has murdered people. Simple childish pleading didn’t work with men like him; Lilith read enough Sherlock Holmes books to know that. She had to be in complete control of her emotions to win. But to win what, exactly?
Within a few minutes of brisk walking, they waded deeper into the maze. Another turn, and there stood the overgrown arbor, its twisted canes parting like a doorway. They passed through. Instantly, a foul fog surrounded them and Alfred stopped.
“Now...where was I?” he said dreamily. “Ah, the dinner announcement. I read my will yesterday.” He turned Lilith to face him, holding her shoulders. Her eyes watered from the stench. They stood in the same spot where she and Panther landed yesterday. The sighing woman-thing must be close, she thought, somewhere beyond this tunnel.
“Lilith Bloom, my only granddaughter. I have decided to make you the sole heir to the Bloom property after I die. Do you accept?”
He burrowed his beady eyes into hers.
Lilith felt rooted to the spot. She guessed it right, so why did her tongue feel like a stuffed sock all of a sudden?
“Oh, I’m...I’m eternally grateful,” she stuttered, wanting to add, Dead bodies included? Her hands shook. “Thank you, dear Grandfather. I’m honored beyond words. May I ask, what exactly constitutes the Bloom property?”
“The mansion and the rose garden. Everything inside the fence belongs to me—to the Bloom family. But I would say that the garden is the best part.” He sneered.
Goose bumps broke on Lilith’s skin.
“What you’ll see next stays strictly between you and me, is that understood?”
Lilith nodded, feeling her spine turn to ice.
“I need an actual answer.”
“Yes, Grandfather.”
“That’s my girl.” He patted her cheek. His palm felt rough and its warmth made Lilith flinch. She always thought the hands of a murderer should be cold and clammy.
“Your father...let’s just say I don’t expect him to change his mind. He never liked working in the dirt. The second he gets his hands on the garden, he’ll uproot every bush and turn it into a racing course for his...creatures. I can’t rely on him. You, on the other hand...” He peered into her face, his sickening breath inches away. “You seem to be
rather interested in organic matter.”
“What exactly do you mean by organic matter?”
He didn’t answer, leading her to the clearing.
Patches of fog licked a circular glade the size of a small meadow. Surrounded by impenetrable bramble, the place resembled a roofless rotunda. In its center, dotted with flaming roses, grew a shrub about thirteen feet tall. It stunk mercilessly. Alfred extracted a pair of gardening shears from behind it and thrust them at Lilith. “A true rosarian is not afraid of a few scrapes. I sense a true rosarian in you. Would you like to try? Prune it. Go on, fancy your grandfather.”
“Excuse me, but...” started Lilith, struggling to hold the heavy tool upright. It looked too gruesome to be a normal gardening tool. “How do I do it exactly?”
“Let me give you a little demonstration.” Fast like lightning, Alfred snatched the shears and hacked away at the bush, getting rained on by twigs, leaves, and petals.
“This,” he lectured, “is how a master rosarian does it. Watch and learn, my dear girl.” He danced around it in an almost feverish glee, describing what he does and cutting with astonishing speed.
“You snap off the old heads—it’s called deadheading—for the new buds to bloom, see?” Lilith’s grandfather never stopped moving. “Roses are delicate and capricious, you have to grab them by the throat while they’re timid, then they’re yours.”
Lilith tried not to breathe; the stench overwhelmed her. She wondered if her grandfather sensed it. He snipped at the roses with astounding speed, breathing laboriously while carefully stepping between piles of sprigs. This reminded her of yesterday’s nightmare.
A sigh of relief issued directly from the bush. Alfred camouflaged it by loudly slamming the sheers shut and sticking them into the ground.
“Well...” He held something behind his back. “Do you accept my offer?”
Lilith couldn’t speak, petrified and disgusted.
He thrust at her a bouquet of roses.
Distracted, she took it. Thorns dug into her palm, drawing blood. It trickled onto the ground and disappeared without a trace, as if the garden sucked in every drop and wanted more. With a cry, Lilith threw the roses away.
