The Garden of Darkness

THE WAGON WAS loaded; Sheba was in the traces, and she took her first steps onto the road. Clare felt, for the first time, that they might make it to the Master’s. Always before it had seemed like a game, but now things had changed. She thought of Noah’s pale body then opened her coat and pulled down her shirt so that she could see her Pest rash. She thought of her father, unburied. And Marie. She thought of her real mother, whose death had seemed like the end of the world.

But it hadn’t been. And Pest hadn’t ended the world, either; the world was just taking a rest.

She touched her face and her neck. No pustules yet. If there were no cure, she might be able to get away with another year. Or two.

“What is it?” asked Jem beside her. “Are you all right?” Before Clare could speak, he felt her forehead; he touched her throat in the places the outbreak usually began.

“I don’t have Pest,” she said. “It’s still just a rash.”

“Don’t scare me like that,” said Jem.





THEY FINALLY JOINED the main highway. For the most part, they had taken back roads to avoid snarls of rotting metal.

That day the temperature went up, and the air was heavy with water that became neither rain nor snow. Mud was everywhere. Mud on their shoes. Mud on Sheba. Mirri had managed to get mud on her face and in her hair. Any attempts to wash her just seemed to spread it around.

Clare and Jem started arguing, and it seemed to Clare that they just couldn’t stop. She didn’t know why, but they were getting on each other’s nerves.

“I’m telling you,” said Jem, “that the mud sucks at the horseshoes. Mud can suck horseshoes right off the horse.”

“You’re not really an expert,” she said. She even recognized her patented high-school cheerleader snotty tone, but she didn’t seem to be able to stop herself.

“Common sense,” said Jem. “Just putting two and two together. It’s a chess thing.”

“Do you think it’s not my thing? Or am I not enough like that girl on the chess team—Rachel whatever—who has a face like a duck?”

“Where did that come from?”

Clare had no idea. She might have said she was sorry right then, but Jem’s look was cold.

“Don’t argue,” said Mirri.

“I can’t help it if Clare’s decided to be a cheerleader today,” said Jem.

“I’m a cheerleader every day.”

“Condolences.”

“Don’t be so superior. You think cheerleaders are stupid, and that’s stupid in itself.”

“Yes. Laura Sparks was a real Einstein. And while we’re at it, why don’t you give that jacket a rest? Or maybe a wash?”

Fury consumed her. Clare turned and faced him, and she made every word count.

“Right now,” she said. “I hate you.”

He looked taken aback. “Well, I don’t hate you.”

“Do you think that means you win?” Clare raised her voice. “Do you think I care?”

At her tone, Bear turned towards Jem and growled softly.

Clare was immediately horrified. It was as if she had aimed a gun at her best friend.





LATER, THEY MADE camp in silence. They ate; they got into their sleeping bags. And the deep night stretched out in front of Clare. She kept picturing her anger—and Bear. Bear growling at Jem. She didn’t sleep. Perhaps Jem slept, but she doubted it. He was too still, and his breathing wasn’t regular.

Clare didn’t understand her anger. Or his.

They broke camp in the early morning. Sarai and Mirri were already up when Jem and Clare woke.

“It’s all right, you two,” Mirri said.

“It’s not,” said Clare. She was, in fact, miserable. She felt locked into her mood, and it wasn’t good.

“I have something I want to say,” Mirri said.

“We discussed it,” said Sarai.

“Here’s what Sarai and I discussed,” said Mirri. “Before you two got up. A long time ago, my parents had a big fight, and my mother said she wanted a divorce. My sister and I got really upset—just the way Sarai and I are upset now. But it was all okay. They went to see someone called a ‘counselor’ and told him all their problems, and then they were happy again.”

“Tell them the rest,” said Sarai.

“Well,” said Mirri. “We think that Sarai should be the counselor, because she’s older than I am, and you should talk it all over with her. Just pretend that she’s a grownup and that you’re married to each other.”

To be spared that, they apologized.

“But,” said Jem to Clare, “just to set the record straight, I was never remotely interested in Rachel Duckface. She didn’t play good chess. Unlike Angela. Who, as you know, was lovely. And she knew what the Benko Gambit was.”

The muddy road slowly grew a crust as the temperature plummeted, and Sheba’s hooves made a crunching sound as she moved through the terrain. It began to snow.