The Garden of Darkness

by Gillian Murray Kendall

  “Meat tonight, meat tonight, meat tonight,” the little ones sang.

  “I am a provider!” yelled Tork. He waved his good hand in the air, his contemplative mood gone.

  CLARE AND JEM got ready to leave early the next day, even though they had been up late feasting on venison. Myra stood and looked at them as they packed. Tork was crying.

  They explained they had to rejoin their friends and about the quest for the Master.

  “It’s possible he’s found a cure for Pest,” said Jem. “And if he has, you’d all be safe. We could grow into one big family.”

  “If he has a cure, he has a price,” said Tork. “Maybe we just ain’t meant to grow up.”

  Clare put her arms around Myra and Tork, and suddenly it was a melee of hugs and tears.

  “You belong here in the city, I guess,” said Clare. “But we don’t.”

  “You can come and join us whenever you want,” said Jem. “I’ll draw you a map before we leave.”

  “A map?” asked little Stuffo, as if Jem had casually mentioned building a surface-to-air missile.

  “I can figure out a map, Stuffo,” said Tork. Then he looked doubtfully at Jem. “But I would get Clare to help you make it if I was you. You know, so it’s clear.”

  “You think Clare’s more accurate?” asked Jem.

  “She is with a shovel,” said Tork, admiration in his voice.

  It took Sheba a few moments to start moving. The wagon was loaded with as much as it could carry: flour, corn meal, cured meat, cheese, canned vegetables, sugar, salt, kerosene, batteries. And then there was tea for Ramah, a feather mask from a costume shop for Bird Boy and model horses and books for Mirri and Sarai. It had taken Clare a while to find Abel a gift, but she had finally settled on a T-shirt that read: ‘Happiness is a Rainbow.’

  Sheba pulled into the harness with a will, and the cart slowly began to move. Clare and Jem walked beside the horse. The street they followed was broad and straight, and every time that Clare looked back, she could see the wild pack standing and watching them. Finally, as the road curved, Clare saw Tork and Myra put some young ones on their shoulders, and they all waved madly. Then they were gone.

  AFTER BEING WITH the wild pack, the city was weirdly silent. On the flat, they found they could make good time. When they reached the hilly roads at the edge of the city, however, Sheba strained more and more at the harness. At the top of one of the hills, they had to stop to let Sheba rest and give her water. Going down was even harder than going up. Soon the terrain began to change. Brush grew into the road and there were houses instead of apartments, some of them perched precariously on the hills. As evening came in, they began to leave the houses behind. The road leveled out, and there were fewer obstacles.

  Then suddenly Clare stopped walking.

  “Jem,” said Clare.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t feel very good.”

  Jem stepped back and looked at her. “What do you mean?”

  “I feel weak, I have chills and my head aches.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?”

  “I just did.”

  Jem put his hand on her forehead.

  “You’re feverish,” he said. Then he pulled her shirt away from her neck. He sighed with relief.

  “No sign of Pest, though.”

  And then Clare was sick, right in front of Jem, right in a splotch of withered grass by the side of the road.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “We’ll stop for the night. As long as it’s not Pest, we can deal with it.”

  “Are you sure it’s not Pest?”

  “Sure.”

  “I can lie in the wagon, and we can keep moving.”

  Jem looked at her. “You’ll puke on our provisions.”

  “Point taken.”

  Jem got her some water from a nearby stream, and then he unhitched Sheba, and they set up camp for the night. Jem boiled the water carefully before giving it to Clare.

  “I’m going to hobble her and let her graze on the new grass for a bit,” he said. He came over to Clare and gently brushed the hair back out of her face.

  “I feel awful,” said Clare.

  “It isn’t Pest,” Jem repeated.

  “Do you think it’s the fever the wild pack talked about? That killed some of them?”

  “You’re not going to die. You didn’t come through the first wave of Pest to die of some kind of stomach bug. I’ll make you some soup. I’m betting that venison you were digging into at the feast last night was under-cooked.”

  “You’re not sick.”

  “I didn’t dig in with quite so much enthusiasm.”

  For the next few hours, Clare gave herself up to the fever and vomiting. Finally she slept for a little while.

  “I feel better,” she said when she woke.

  “Really? You’re the color of cheese.”

  “I’m not sure I’m ready for travel. Can we stay here tonight and start late tomorrow?”

  “Sure.”

  Jem pulled the sleeping bags and mats out of the wagon; it was warm enough to sleep without the tent. Clare didn’t feel like vomiting anymore, and when Jem put his hand on her forehead and then her throat, she didn’t shiver.

  “Your fever’s broken,” said Jem. “You’re going to be fine.”

  “I told you I felt better.”

  “I’m glad it wasn’t Pest,” said Jem.

  “I thought you were certain it wasn’t Pest.”

  “Yeah, well. There wasn’t much point in worrying you. I was worrying enough for both of us.”

  It took a while for Clare to get comfortable. First she burrowed deeply into the sleeping bag to stay warm. Then she overheated and tried lying halfway outside the bag, her arms behind her head.

  “Are you through squirming?” asked Jem.

  “Sorry.”

  She settled, and she realized how deeply tired she was. She looked up: the night was like velvet, and there was no moon.

  Finally they lay side by side under the brilliantly starry sky.

  “Jem?” Clare said.

  “What?”

  “I don’t think there were ever this many stars before.” She thought he would say something about the lack of air pollution or the clear air of the hills.

  “Probably not,” said Jem. “Probably not.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHILDREN’S CHILDREN

  THEY WALKED AND talked, and it was on that walk that she really began to know Jem. She was, in fact, so absorbed in their conversation that she didn’t even particularly notice when they passed a body slouched by the side of the road. Both of them unconsciously gave it a wide berth. It was Bear who should have put Clare on the alert, but she was too busy listening to Jem to notice how he moved between her and the body, ears pricked, at the ready.

  When the body lifted its head and stared at Clare with red-rimmed eyes, she had to stifle a scream.

  “It’s a Cured,” said Jem quietly.

  “Do we run?” asked Clare.

  “We run.”

  Clare got Sheba into a shambling trot, but the Cured made no attempt to follow. He simply lowered his head again.

  Sheba slowed to a walk. Jem put a hand on Clare’s shoulder. “It’s okay,” he said. “Secretariat has out-run the Cured.”

  “He didn’t look well,” said Clare. “Maybe they’re dying out.”

  “Even if they are, the world still won’t be safe. As supplies get tight, we’re going to have to do more than check behind people’s ears before we trust them.”

  “You trusted Abel as quickly as I did. And Bird Boy. And Ramah.”

  “Ramah’s pretty obviously all right.”

  “You have a crush on Ramah.”

  “Are you jealous?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Clare smiled at Jem. And then it occurred to Clare that it was odd that the person she now trusted most in the world had been there in high school with her all along.

&nb
sp; THAT NIGHT, CLARE was down in her dreams, struggling with something vast and evil, just as Beowulf had with Grendel, just as Perseus had with the sea monster, but she was only Clare and the thing was as large as the universe. She called out “Michael” and watched as the letters of his name trickled one by one into the void. She was suffocating and there was no one to rescue her.

  Jem woke her up. They were squashed together in the tent that they had hastily put up the night before, when the weather had abruptly changed, and it had started to drizzle.

  “You were having a bad dream,” said Jem.

  “Sorry if I woke you,” she said.

  “Clare—”

  “What?”

  “It’s morning. Almost. And I have to go pee. That’s all. I’ll be right back.”

  Clare rolled up her sleeping bag. She had to pee, too. When they had all been travelling together it had astonished her how much waste four—and then six—people could produce. She didn’t know why the old world hadn’t been swimming—everywhere and all the time—in crap. Maybe it had been.

  She put her rolled sleeping bag in the back of the tent. She had grown a little shy of Jem since he had turned fourteen. Thirteen, to her, didn’t really seem to count. But fourteen—she thought back to the night she had curled up in Jem’s bed with him, and it seemed long ago. It felt as if they had been a lot younger then. She remembered how warm he had been. His arms around her. And yet it had been odd being curled up together by the fire when they were staying with Tork and Myra. It was odd now, sleeping side-by-side—even if they were kept apart by separate sleeping bags. She couldn’t say that such physical proximity was unpleasant—she was too close to Jem for that. But odd.

  Jem and Clare sat in the warmth of the tent and ate granola bars. The flap was open, and they gazed out at a world that was rapidly being overtaken by nature.

  “What flavor’s yours?” asked Clare as she chewed.

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” said Jem. “Chocolate banana.”

  “Chocolate banana granola?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s disgusting.”

  They finished eating. Clare pulled her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs.

  “You look like you’re trying to disappear,” said Jem.

  “I wouldn’t leave you alone. Otherwise, poof.”

  Later, they passed farms and fields, and stopped at one horse farm to replenish the feed they’d already given to Sheba. The barn was silent, and the air was still. They found the granary with no difficulty, but not without first having to pass the body of a man hanging from a beam. A chair was overturned beneath him. Jem righted the chair, and they moved on.

  WHEN THE FIRST three stars had appeared in the sky, they came across two delayed-onset children—a boy and a girl. They sat on a porch. They were, at first, so still that Clare and Jem almost went right by them. When one of them moved, even Sheba shied. And then the boy spoke.

  “You’re not Cured, are you?” The boy who spoke was maybe as old as seventeen.

  “They’re way too organized to be Cured, Sam,” said the girl. “And they’ve got a horse. And a dog. I’ve never seen a Cured with animals.”

  Clare tried not to stare at the girl. Her shirt was cut low enough that Clare could see the dappling of the Pest rash, but that wasn’t what caught her eye. The girl looked to be about fourteen. And she was very obviously pregnant.

  She saw Clare looking at her.

  “Two months to go,” she said, and she actually smiled. “The baby’s not Sam’s—we got together after Pest. But he’s going to be the father. I’m Becca.”

  Becca heaved herself out of chair with the help of Sam, who carefully took her arm.

  “I’ll get started on dinner,” said Sam. “We have enough for all of us. For tonight, anyway. We don’t get many visitors.”

  “We don’t get any visitors,” said Becca. “I hope you’ll stay for the night?”

  Becca spoke tentatively, and Clare suddenly realized that she was shy.

  “We’d love to,” said Jem. He and Clare exchanged a look.

  “But after tonight,” said Clare, “we’re headed towards a place that may have the cure, and we’re moving fast. Would you like to join with us? It’s not just Jem and me. We’re meeting up with others. You could come.”

  Both Sam and Becca smiled.

  “That’s kind,” said Sam.

  “But we’re not going anywhere until after the baby,” Becca said.

  “It’s still wonderful that you’ve found your way to us,” said Sam. “I’ll just go out back and send a chicken to its doom. Chicken’s good for Becca. We found a book on what to expect when you’re expecting, and it was pretty firm on what to eat.”

  They ate together in a small dining room. The wallpaper had a pattern of alternating daisies and cornflowers. Sam and Becca provided dinner—the chicken, potatoes, beets. In exchange, Jem and Clare gave them a bag of beans and some fine flour. Jem helped carry everything to the table, while Sam set out the dishes. Jem treated Becca as if she might break.

  Sam and pregnant Becca. They would have to live a lifetime in a couple of years. Or less. And then, Clare thought, Becca would need to find another, younger, child to mother her child.

  That night Clare and Jem shared the only other bedroom in the house. Jem slept in a sleeping bag on the floor. Clare had won the bed after a coin toss. But after Clare heard Jem tossing and turning on the hardwood floor, she pulled back the covers, pointedly. He climbed in next to her, sleeping bag and all. It had felt more odd to Clare having him on the floor than having him in the bed.

  “Good night,” she said.

  “Good night,” said Jem. There was a pause.

  “What’s going to happen to Becca?” Clare whispered to Jem.

  “She’ll do the best she can.”

  “But Sam must be only a few months from Pest. Maybe a year.”

  “I know.”

  “And Becca’s just a baby herself.”

  “Go to sleep. You’ll feel better. All this whispering is worse than my sister’s slumber parties.”

  They hitched up Sheba at dawn. Bear stayed close to Clare.

  “You really won’t come with us?” Clare asked Sam and Becca.

  “Becca and I are fine,” said Sam. “We’re going to be fine.” And he put a hand on her round belly.

  “You really could come with us to the Master’s,” said Clare. “Think of the difference it would make to your baby if there were a real cure.”

  “If Pest comes, it comes,” said Sam. “But I don’t really think it’s going to come. We have to be immune, or we would be dead by now, don’t you think?”

  “Actually, Sam,” said Clare. “I don’t think so. I don’t think we’re immune.”

  He smiled at her indulgently. “Don’t worry so much,” he said. “I’m going to be here, and I’m going to take excellent care of Becca both before and after the baby comes. I won’t let her down by dying.”

  “Oh, Sam,” said Clare.

  But he just smiled and put his hand on her shoulder, as if to comfort her.

  Clare could hear Becca saying goodbye to Jem. Becca laughed.

  “He’s kicking,” she said. “Want to feel?”

  Jem put his hand on her belly gently. “Wow. When my cousin was going to have a baby, it never kicked this much. This is great.”

  Becca looked pleased. Sam went back to the porch, but Becca lingered.

  “If you find the cure for Pest,” she said to Jem, “come back.”

  “Why don’t you let me show you our route?” Jem said to her. He pulled out the map, and they bent their heads together over it. Sam didn’t seem interested.

  Then it was time to move on. “Come and find us if you need to,” said Jem.

  “I will,” said Becca. Then she paused. “We will.”

  “THEY DON’T BELIEVE they’re infected,” said Clare when the old farmhouse was behind them.

  “She d
oes,” said Jem. “I can tell.”

  “Maybe they’ll follow us.”

  “Strange to think about. A baby, I mean. I guess it’s all starting over again. Still. Fourteen years old. My age.”

  “When you put it that way, it’s kind of scary.”

  Jem seemed thoughtful, even sad, as they walked, and Clare saw him looking at her from time to time. She looked away. There were no words, but she understood.

  The terrain had leveled out, and Sheba didn’t have to work as hard. Her ears flicked back and forth as though she were listening to something none of them could hear.

  MASTER

  “I WANT TO hunt them Cured, too,” said Charlie.

  “You haven’t even been debriefed yet,” said the Master. “You haven’t met the other children properly. We need to know you before you go on this hunt.”

  “I bet I’d be good at killing them Cured. Undo me now.”

  “Debrief you.”

  “That. Then we’ll hunt them Cured.”

  They had begun to sight the Cured more and more frequently. The Cured had pilfered from their stores, and one of them had approached a toddler, Ryan. Ryan was unhurt, but the Master thought it was just a matter of time before one of the children was taken or killed. All the children wanted to help with the hunt, although they had no real idea of what he had in mind. But this Charlie seemed like a canny child. A child who might prove useful. What in the Master’s youth had been called a Forward Child. He was a new arrival, but he was eager, very eager.

  “Give me the details of your past,” said the Master. He sat back, prepared to hear yet another version of what was essentially the same story. Mother dead. Father dead. Sisters dead. Brothers dead. He had felt for a while now that debriefings were unnecessary, but he wanted to appear concerned, fatherly—and very much in charge. Besides, there was always the chance that he would hear something important. Because something was nagging at him; it was as if he had forgotten something; it was as if there were something he should know, but didn’t, or something that was coming that he should be aware of. That unsettling feeling sometimes made him roam the woods at night. Then he would return, powerful in the thought that he was the most frightening thing out there.