The Garden of Darkness

“I’ll keep you safe,” he said.

Then the Master looked up at the painting of the four little girls. He tried to read the future in their faces, but the shadows around the glowing children only seemed to mock him.





CHAPTER NINE





THE FARMHOUSE





THEY MOVED SLOWLY, and Jem and Clare took turns helping Sarai, who, after some painkillers that Jem had found in the pharmacy, was both still in some pain and woozy from the drugs. When they reached the farmhouse that Jem, Mirri and Sarai had claimed as their own, it was full dark.

Once they had settled Sarai in bed, Clare collapsed on a sofa, Bear at her feet. She was too tired to worry about the Cured or the master-of-the-situation’s cure or what was going to happen next. She noticed vaguely that the others slept in the same room, but before she could really take in the arrangements at the farmhouse, she was in a dreamless sleep.

In the morning, Mirri and Jem showed her around while Sarai slept; Sarai had a low fever, but there was no redness around the stitches, and she slept soundly.

“The penicillin should kick in and get rid of that low-grade fever,” said Jem.

“Sure?”

“Sure. And if I’m wrong, we’ll give her Cipro.”

Clare didn’t know what Cipro was, but her confidence in Jem had grown steadily. Sarai would be all right.

When they went outside, Bear gave Clare an almost begging look, and she released him to go and explore the area. Now in the full light of day, Clare could see that the farmhouse had a wide porch. A barn next to it was tilted at what seemed like an impossible angle, and its red paint was peeling in long and interesting looking strips. In front of the house, a flower garden bloomed with golden marigolds and red and orange zinnias; nearby, a stone wall overflowed with phlox no longer in bloom but still full of vigor. Nothing had been pruned or weeded.

“The vegetable garden’s in back,” said Jem.

“The garden’s work,” said Mirri. “But we’ll take you scavenging. We break into all kinds of houses looking for food. That’s fun. Except for the dead bodies.”

Jem had a stick in his hand and was brushing the top of the grass with it. A grasshopper jumped out of the way, and he watched it go.

“Sometimes I can’t believe the world is still working at all,” Jem said. “Trees, grasshoppers, flowers. Pest hasn’t touched them.”

“If humans get going again,” said Clare, “maybe we’ll let everything thrive this time.”

“And we’ll have Peace on Earth,” said Mirri, primly.

“‘Peace on Earth,’” said Jem. “I don’t know about Peace on Earth. But it’s a nice day.”

It was a nice day. Clare wondered how many nice days she had left; she thought about the messages broadcast by the man who called himself the master-of-the-situation. The Master. If he didn’t have a cure, Sarai and Mirri would be, at the most, fourteen and twelve when Jem died. Clare would have died a few years earlier. If there were a cure, they needed to find it.

“We’re not staying here forever,” Mirri said as if reading her thoughts. “Jem says we’re sinking into leth-ar-gy here. That’s one of Sarai’s vocab words. He also says that eventually we’re going to run out of food. But Jem doesn’t think we’ll really need a cure for a while because he’s only thirteen.”

“I may be mistaken,” said Jem. “We may need to move sooner than I thought.” He glanced at Clare and then looked away.

“Well,” said Mirri. “Clare’s fifteen, and she’s all right.”

“She’s all right now,” said Jem.

Clare realized with a start that there was a woman in front of the barn, sitting on chair. Clare couldn’t make out her face, but her clothes were a bright splotch of blue.

“It’s the Cured-in-a-blue-dress,” explained Mirri.

“A Cured?” Clare stopped walking.

“She’s not like the other Cureds,” said Mirri quickly.

“We’ve gotten used to this Cured,” said Jem. “And so far, so good.”

“Used to her?” asked Clare.

“She followed us here,” said Mirri. “She doesn’t attack. She’s a pacifist Cured.”

“She picked up our trail after we found Mirri,” said Jem. “She doesn’t seem to want to harm us. She never comes close, but she won’t go away.”

The woman in blue stood up, and even at that distance Clare thought she saw the marks of Pest. The woman’s face looked like someone had put a thumb down and smeared it.

“She’s kind of like one of the family,” said Mirri.

“No,” said Jem. “She’s not.”

Clare looked from Jem to Mirri. She had the feeling that they’d had this argument before.

“Aren’t you at least a little afraid of her?” asked Clare.