The Garden of Darkness

Jem pulled the sleeping bags and mats out of the wagon; it was warm enough to sleep without the tent. Clare didn’t feel like vomiting anymore, and when Jem put his hand on her forehead and then her throat, she didn’t shiver.

“Your fever’s broken,” said Jem. “You’re going to be fine.”

“I told you I felt better.”

“I’m glad it wasn’t Pest,” said Jem.

“I thought you were certain it wasn’t Pest.”

“Yeah, well. There wasn’t much point in worrying you. I was worrying enough for both of us.”

It took a while for Clare to get comfortable. First she burrowed deeply into the sleeping bag to stay warm. Then she overheated and tried lying halfway outside the bag, her arms behind her head.

“Are you through squirming?” asked Jem.

“Sorry.”

She settled, and she realized how deeply tired she was. She looked up: the night was like velvet, and there was no moon.

Finally they lay side by side under the brilliantly starry sky.

“Jem?” Clare said.

“What?”

“I don’t think there were ever this many stars before.” She thought he would say something about the lack of air pollution or the clear air of the hills.

“Probably not,” said Jem. “Probably not.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHILDREN’S CHILDREN





THEY WALKED AND talked, and it was on that walk that she really began to know Jem. She was, in fact, so absorbed in their conversation that she didn’t even particularly notice when they passed a body slouched by the side of the road. Both of them unconsciously gave it a wide berth. It was Bear who should have put Clare on the alert, but she was too busy listening to Jem to notice how he moved between her and the body, ears pricked, at the ready.

When the body lifted its head and stared at Clare with red-rimmed eyes, she had to stifle a scream.

“It’s a Cured,” said Jem quietly.

“Do we run?” asked Clare.

“We run.”

Clare got Sheba into a shambling trot, but the Cured made no attempt to follow. He simply lowered his head again.

Sheba slowed to a walk. Jem put a hand on Clare’s shoulder. “It’s okay,” he said. “Secretariat has out-run the Cured.”

“He didn’t look well,” said Clare. “Maybe they’re dying out.”

“Even if they are, the world still won’t be safe. As supplies get tight, we’re going to have to do more than check behind people’s ears before we trust them.”

“You trusted Abel as quickly as I did. And Bird Boy. And Ramah.”

“Ramah’s pretty obviously all right.”

“You have a crush on Ramah.”

“Are you jealous?”

“Absolutely.”

Clare smiled at Jem. And then it occurred to Clare that it was odd that the person she now trusted most in the world had been there in high school with her all along.





THAT NIGHT, CLARE was down in her dreams, struggling with something vast and evil, just as Beowulf had with Grendel, just as Perseus had with the sea monster, but she was only Clare and the thing was as large as the universe. She called out “Michael” and watched as the letters of his name trickled one by one into the void. She was suffocating and there was no one to rescue her.

Jem woke her up. They were squashed together in the tent that they had hastily put up the night before, when the weather had abruptly changed, and it had started to drizzle.

“You were having a bad dream,” said Jem.

“Sorry if I woke you,” she said.

“Clare—”

“What?”

“It’s morning. Almost. And I have to go pee. That’s all. I’ll be right back.”

Clare rolled up her sleeping bag. She had to pee, too. When they had all been travelling together it had astonished her how much waste four—and then six—people could produce. She didn’t know why the old world hadn’t been swimming—everywhere and all the time—in crap. Maybe it had been.

She put her rolled sleeping bag in the back of the tent. She had grown a little shy of Jem since he had turned fourteen. Thirteen, to her, didn’t really seem to count. But fourteen—she thought back to the night she had curled up in Jem’s bed with him, and it seemed long ago. It felt as if they had been a lot younger then. She remembered how warm he had been. His arms around her. And yet it had been odd being curled up together by the fire when they were staying with Tork and Myra. It was odd now, sleeping side-by-side—even if they were kept apart by separate sleeping bags. She couldn’t say that such physical proximity was unpleasant—she was too close to Jem for that. But odd.

Jem and Clare sat in the warmth of the tent and ate granola bars. The flap was open, and they gazed out at a world that was rapidly being overtaken by nature.

“What flavor’s yours?” asked Clare as she chewed.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” said Jem. “Chocolate banana.”

“Chocolate banana granola?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s disgusting.”

They finished eating. Clare pulled her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs.

“You look like you’re trying to disappear,” said Jem.