The Garden of Darkness

Robin tossed her civics book onto the floor.

“Come on,” said Robin. “Let’s get real for just a moment. He’s like a vampire battening on to a victim. He will suck you emotionally dry. And then go back to Laura.”

“He needs me as a friend.”

“He’s a vampire.”

“Have you read Twilight?”

“Don’t even go there.”

Robin got up off of Clare’s bed, picked up her civics book, and went home.





CLARE WONDERED, FOR just a moment, what Robin would have thought of Darian.

There was no sign of Mirri or Sarai when they reached the porch, Darian trailing slightly behind them. But when they opened the door, Sarai and Mirri almost fell out into their arms.

“We were waiting for you,” said Mirri.

“Hello, Miriam,” said Darian. “I caught your pig.”

“We call her Mirri,” said Jem.

“It’s short for Miriam,” said Mirri. Jem introduced Sarai.

They went into the kitchen, and Mirri and Sarai started to prepare Darian a plate of food. Sarai brought up some apples from the cellar; Mirri got out the jam jar and put a spoon next to it. Then she went into the pantry, stood on a chair and managed to lift down a ham. Mirri wrestled it to the big country kitchen table and started cutting slices.

“What else should I get?” asked Sarai.

“Open the can of pineapple rings,” said Mirri. “My mother always put pineapple rings on ham.”

Finally Darian sat and ate. Clare wondered how long he had been on his own.

“You’ve seen other children?” asked Jem.

“Some.”

“Tell us about them.”

“Well. The children I’ve met were mostly peculiar. Or pathetic.”

“We’re peculiar,” said Mirri.

“You seem all right, though,” said Darian. “Most of the children I’ve seen are seriously weirded out from the struggle to survive. I’ve watched them try to farm, a task at which they mostly fail, and I’ve watched them try to hunt, often badly, and I’ve watched them raid houses for food—which can’t go on forever.”

“So what’s your strategy for getting by?” asked Jem.

“Until things get sorted out,” said Darian, “I’m going to trade stories and news for what I need and then move on.”

“You’re a bard,” said Clare. “Like Homer.”

“Who?” Darian asked.

Clare narrowed her eyes.

Mirri was sitting close to Darian, and, while he was speaking, he absently began to finger a strand of her beautiful red-gold hair.

Clare glanced at Jem, and she could tell that he wanted to slap Darian’s hand away.

And perhaps, if Jem had, everything would have turned out differently. They moved from the kitchen to the living room, where the dark television still sat prominently on its pedestal. Mirri grabbed a cushion and flopped onto her stomach and Sarai joined her. The wound in Sarai’s side was now completely healed. Clare and Jem sat on the sagging sofa, leaving Darian the good armchair. He really looked an awful lot like Michael.

“Did you play football?” she asked him. “Before?” Jem gave her a look.

“Yeah,” Darian said. “When I was a sophomore. Before I quit school.”

“You quit school?”

“Yeah.”

Clare didn’t know anybody who had quit school. She wondered if that’s why Darian seemed so much older than they were, almost an adult. And he looked as if he were only months away from Pest. Weeks even.

“How did you end up in Fallon?” asked Jem.

“I’ve ended up lots of places,” said Darian. “And I plan to keep going. I heard all that rigmarole about everybody carrying Pest, but as far as I can make out, all Pest has done to the survivors is give them a rash. I’m eighteen and I feel fine. The Pest rash doesn’t even itch. I’ve been on the road since I was fifteen, and I’m not stopping now.”

“I’m fifteen,” said Clare thoughtfully.

“Are you in charge?” asked the boy.

“Jem is,” said Clare.

“Doesn’t really matter. I just need a place for the night and someone to okay it.”

“Can he stay?” Mirri asked, hopefully.

“Of course,” said Jem. Clare looked down and found herself gazing into Bear’s yellow diamond eyes. He knew something. He was telling her something. But she couldn’t quite hear.

A little while later Darian opened his pack and unrolled a long piece of felt with pockets in it, of the sort that some people, Clare knew, used to store knives. But in each pocket he carried souvenirs of where he had been. He showed them a handful of gems that winked green and red in his palm, glossy rooster plumes of dark green-blue and red, five acorns in their brown caps, a small clay vase, the tail of a goat. Other pockets he didn’t open. Mirri’s eyes were fixed on the gems. He poured them into her hand.

“For you,” he said. Then he looked at Sarai. “And for you.” He gave her the glossy feathers.

“These look awfully valuable,” said Mirri hesitatingly, as she turned the gems over and over in her hands.

“Nothing’s valuable anymore,” said Darian.