The Garden of Darkness

“Wrong time of year,” Jem said.

“Not for pumpkins. We could have pumpkin pie. My mother—” Mirri trailed off. She looked at each of them as if, for a moment, she didn’t know where she was. Then she went out the door.

“Jem!” Mirri came running back a second later, barging into Sarai, who almost fell. “You’re not going to believe this. I found a pig! There’s a real live pig digging around in the garden. It’s eating the squash.”

They all went to see and, sure enough, there it was, a huge pink thing rooting through the garden.

“Let’s catch it,” said Jem.

Mirri, Sarai and Clare stayed in the garden while Jem went into the house to look for a rope. Clare kept one hand firmly entwined in Bear’s fur. The dog was trembling with excitement, intent on the pig, and quietly and steadily drooling.

“I read somewhere,” said Sarai, “that you can eat every part of a pig. Except the squeal. That’s a joke, of course—about eating the squeal, I mean. Because of course you can’t eat a squeal. A squeal’s a sound.”

“I don’t want to try to eat a whole pig,” said Mirri. “Especially this pig. I want a pet pig.”

“What about bacon?” asked Sarai.

“I’d eat bacon,” admitted Mirri.

“It’s lucky I was raised Hindu,” said Sarai. “We eat pork, but not beef. I bet my parents would relax the rules, though. If they were here.”

“They wouldn’t begrudge you a steak—if we could come up with one,” said Clare.

“Well,” said Sarai dubiously. “A steak. I don’t know.”

“What about you, Clare?” asked Mirri. “What can’t you eat?”

“Supposedly no pork,” said Clare. “But we ate it anyway. And we ate an unfortunate dessert called kugel.”

“I eat anything,” said Mirri.

Jem returned with the rope.

“Here we go,” he said.

“I’m taking Bear inside,” said Clare. “He’s way too excited about the pig.”

Jem nodded. The others were already approaching the big pink sow. Clare saw Sarai slip in the muddy garden and almost go down.

Inside the house, for a reason she couldn’t articulate, Clare decided to go up the stairs. Bear was close by her side. At the top, there was a door on the right.

Clare opened the door. She saw a vase with a tangle of dead flowers in it. A gilded mirror. Part of a bed. She opened the door wider.

There was a dead little girl on the bed.

The girl carried no mark of Pest, but she was terribly wasted away, and her lips were cracked and parched. There was something odd about the shape of her legs under the covers. Clare lifted the sheets and saw that the girl was wearing leg braces. When she saw the crutches in a corner of the room, she realized that the girl had probably been left behind to die when everyone else was fleeing Pest. She may even have still been alive when Clare was in the Loskey cabin. Clare suddenly felt weak.

She heard footsteps on the stairs, and Jem entered the room.

“We’ve got the pig. Then we found Bear, but not you.”

She watched him take in the scene. She heard yet more footsteps, and then saw Sarai and Mirri standing behind Jem.

There was a flutter of blue outside the door, and then it was gone.

“Someone left her. Just left her,” Clare said. “And she didn’t have Pest. We could have saved her. We could have—”

Jem pulled a sheet over the girl’s face and put his arm around Clare.

“Let’s go home. Come on, Clare.”

“We could have done something.”

“No. We couldn’t have. We didn’t know.”

They went down the stairs, into the garden, and started herding the pig into the road.

“Do you like the pig?” Mirri asked Clare shyly. Clare was too shaken to answer her, but Sarai did.

“I like it,” said Sarai. “It trundles along like a big pink barrel, don’t you think, Clare?”

“We could call it ‘Barrel,’” said Mirri. “Or maybe ‘Wilbur.’”

When they got home, Sarai and Mirri went to pen up the pig while Jem took Clare into the bedroom.

“You need to lie down,” he said. “I don’t think you’re okay yet. I’ll be back in a few minutes. I just need to settle Mirri and Sarai and do something with that damn pig before your dog eats it.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t faint on me.”

“I’m not the fainting type.”

He closed the door behind him. And standing there behind the door, half hidden in the murky light, was the Cured-in-a-blue-dress.

Clare was terrified.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

The Cured-in-a-blue-dress seemed to be struggling. Her contorted face looked tortured as she worked her mouth.

“Watch Mirri,” she said.

Clare stared at her.

“I know Mirri gives you food,” Clare said. “I know you must care for her. We won’t let anything happen to her.”