The Garden of Darkness

“He gets what we all get,” said Dante quietly. “A world with people in it. He thinks we don’t have the luxury—that’s what he said, the ‘luxury’—of waiting until we’ve grown up to start the world over. Sometimes, to those of us who’ve been here a while, he stops talking about the cure.”


“That’s—” Jem seemed at a loss for words.

“That’s interesting,” said Ramah. “Even though it’s not quite what I thought was going on here. Still.”

“I hope you’ll decide to stay on,” said Dante hopefully.

Clare didn’t know how to convey to him that their staying under those circumstances was an impossibility beyond impossibilities.

“I should just set Bear on you,” she said finally.

“No,” he said. “Please don’t.”

“We need to look around some more,” Jem said. “This place has secrets. Like those photographs.”

“We’ve looked at the upper floors,” said Clare. There was a silence.

“Do you have a basement?” asked Ramah.

Dante blanched.

Clare thought of the basement of the gold house that they had explored in Fallon. Of the terrible smell of decay underlying everything. Of descents into Hell.

“What’s the matter?” Jem asked Dante.

“We’re not allowed in the basement.”

“Make an exception.”

“There aren’t any. Exceptions.”

“Dante,” said Clare. “We’re just going to go, anyway. You’re only making it more appealing.”

“I’ll ask Britta if it’s all right,” said Dante, and he hurriedly left the room.

“Seems like Britta’s very much in charge here,” said Jem.

“I don’t like her,” said Clare.

“She can’t handle a goat,” said Ramah.

“A brave new world,” said Clare. “I don’t think Dante’s read as much as he thinks he has.”

“It’s a cult,” said Ramah abruptly.

“You think?” asked Jem.

“Yes.”

“Whatever it is,” said Clare, “when Master’s away, Britta’s the head of it. I think we need to get out of here.”

“We need the cure,” said Jem firmly. He didn’t look at Clare as he spoke, but she knew: he was thinking of her.

“If he has the cure,” said Ramah. And she was only stating what Clare was already thinking.

The three of them sat in the darkness on the big bed.

Clare looked out the window. The moon had cleared the trees and now cast giant shadows onto the lawn.

“I could stay here,” she said, “and you two could go back to Thyme House.”

There was a moment’s silence, and then Ramah laughed. “I can just see you matched to Doug.”

Jem was not amused. “We’re not leaving you.”

“Ramah, at least, should go back,” said Clare.

“I don’t think so,” said Ramah. “Cults are interesting.”

There was a knock at the door. It was Dante again.

“Britta says that, when Master’s come back, you can do all the exploring you want.”

“I bet you don’t even like Britta,” said Clare.

Dante looked startled. “That’s not the point.” But when he said it, Clare thought that some small thing had given way inside of him. Clare felt that they had begun to slip into Dante’s psyche, and that if he spent just a little more time with them, they could open him like an oyster.

“Do you want to come with us or not?” asked Jem.

“Yes,” said Dante meekly. “I do.”





CLARE SLIPPED DOWN a staircase, opened a door and let Bear loose in the compound. For what they were planning, Bear was likely to be a liability rather than an asset. Jem took the heavy flashlight from his bag.

No one was roaming the halls; they could hear the sounds of snoring and the rustling of bedclothes and mutterings of uneasy sleep, but everything else was silent. Even the Cured had given up wailing. Dante took them to the door to the basement. The door had a small jagged mouth for a Yale key.

“I can’t pick this,” said Ramah. Jem leaned forward and turned the handle, and the door swung open.

It was a deep basement. The passage was narrow, and they had to go single file. Clare didn’t count the stairs, but before they came to the bottom, her ankle had begun to hurt. She’d already put a lot of stress on it, but it wasn’t just her ankle; she ached all over. And she had a headache behind her eyes.

“This is it,” said Jem, and stopped. Clare, behind him on the stairs, started to fall forward and almost knocked him over.

“Easy,” said Jem.

“Flashlight out of my eyes, please,” said Clare. “My headache’s bad enough.”

Finally they all huddled together at the end of a long, wide hallway. Clare felt air coming from under the nearest door.

“This is a lot more scary than I imagined,” whispered Dante. “I didn’t picture the dark.”

“Nobody pictures the dark,” said Ramah. “That’s the nature of dark.”

Jem stepped up to the door. As he did, it slowly swung open, and cool air rushed out into the hall.