The Garden of Darkness

“You said your father died of Pest,” said Jem.

“He did,” said Mirri. “But patches are how my father stopped smoking. He put on the patches and then he needed them less and less and then he didn’t need them at all. He said the stuff on the patch was absorbed right through the skin. Right through the skin. I thought that was pretty amazing. He said I shouldn’t touch them.”

“A nicotine patch,” said Jem.

“I guess,” said Mirri. “Anyway, he hadn’t smoked in over a year when Pest came.”

“So,” said Jem. “The Cure, the Cured, the nightmare, the insanity—they all come down to this little patch.”





THE CURED, AFTER her lacerations had been treated, fell asleep on the sofa.

“I’ll watch her,” Jem told Clare. “You take care of yourself.”

“You have the starting of a black eye,” said Clare.

“Go look in the mirror. You’re a bit disheveled yourself.”

Ramah, Mirri and Sarai went with Clare into the bedroom. The mirror wasn’t reassuring: Clare had cuts and bruises on her forehead and cheek, and her face and arms were streaked with mud.

“You should have told me how I looked,” she said to Sarai and Mirri.

“We were busy discovering that the patch worked like a nicotine patch,” said Sarai.

“That was really exciting,” said Mirri. “And I had the clue.”

“You should wash off that mud,” said Sarai. “It’s getting into the cuts.”

“You look a little beat up,” said Ramah.

Clare considered. Her whole body ached. “Yeah. I feel pretty beat up. But don’t tell Jem. He worries about everything.”

Ramah looked her up and down. “You must be cold. I’ll get you some dry clothes.”

“Look at your neck,” said Sarai to Clare.

Clare looked in the mirror and saw deep bruises on her throat. They were in the shape of a pair of hands.

When Clare went back to the living room, Jem looked up at her anxiously. The tissue around his left eye was dark and swollen, and both eyes were deeply bloodshot. But when she smiled at him, relief lit up his eyes.

Clare and Jem sat together while the Cured slept. Mirri and Sarai, meanwhile, convinced Ramah to shed the goatskins, and then they took her to the bedroom and proceeded to dress her up. When they returned to the living room, Ramah was dressed in an ancient pair of jeans and—retrieved from a box in the attic—an old-fashioned print shift.

Ramah insisted on spreading the goatskins out to dry in the living room. At first the odor was simply appalling, but, as the skins dried, even Mirri stopped complaining. Clare didn’t want Ramah to feel awkward so she said: “Bear smells a little like that when he gets wet.”

Meanwhile Mirri, seemingly intent on the makeover of Ramah, brushed her hair until it gleamed, long, light and wavy.

Ramah would have been, thought Clare, a good subject for a portrait.

Then the Cured woke up. She watched them intently as she chewed her nails.

“I can get you some water, if you want,” Jem said to her.

“You’re the dead one,” she said.

Jem turned to Clare. Clare had tried to arrange a soft scarf around her throat to hide the bruises, but the material kept slipping down and revealing the marks.

“That must hurt,” said Jem.

“Yeah,” Clare admitted. “But it beats being pain-free and dead. Thanks, Jem.”

He turned his head away. Ramah watched them, and Clare thought there was a bemused look in her eye.

And all the time, the Cured stared at them from the sofa.

“We’re going to have to do something with her,” said Clare. “Taking the patch off doesn’t seem to have made any difference.”

“It’s only been a little while,” said Jem.

“You want to eat me,” said the Cured.

“I kind of think it’s the other way around,” said Jem. Ramah stood, watching.

“What are you going to do now?” Mirri asked Ramah. “There’s still a Cured out there.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do,” said Ramah. “The same thing as before, I suppose. Wait out the winter with Bird Boy.”

“I don’t know how you’ve held on this long,” said Jem.

“I didn’t have any brothers or sisters. My parents were—distant. Coping with things is what I do. And Bird Boy is a great help.”

“He seems strange.”

“Does he?” asked Ramah.

Ramah’s eyes were deep green. She looked at Clare and Jem until Clare began to feel uncomfortable.

“Why don’t you come with us to the Master,” said Mirri suddenly. “Both of you.”

Ramah looked up at her sharply.

“That’s a great idea,” said Sarai.

“Jem?” asked Ramah. Her face had, for the first time since Clare had seen her, tensed up. It was hard for Clare to imagine Ramah being afraid of anything, but it was as if she were catching a glimpse of fear in Ramah’s cool expression. “We wouldn’t,” Ramah said, “we wouldn’t try and change anything.”

“It’s probably already written,” said Sarai wisely.

“Whatever that means,” said Mirri.