The Garden of Darkness

“Who are you?” Jem asked the Master. “What were you before Pest?”


Clare wasn’t listening. She was drifting on a flow of her own thoughts. She looked at the paintings. One showed two adults in a house, the woman knitting. Outside on the lawn stood a child, but she wasn’t playing with her toys, she was standing by what looked like a pet sheep and looking away with her ice-blue eyes. The eye-color looked as if it had been added to the painting. And the shadows around the toys were all wrong, as if she were in a different world than the adults. The plate screwed into the frame was blurry to Clare, but she stared at it until the words became clear. ‘Mourning Picture. Smith College Art Museum.’

Clare turned her attention to the Master again.

“I was and am a doctor,” said the Master. “A pediatrician, originally. There’s a certain irony there, don’t you think? But at the end I was a research scientist. And I think it’s safe to say that I know more about Pest than anyone living or dead. I was close to a cure before Pest shut everything down. A real cure. My name is Doctor Andrew Sylver.”

“The patches on the Cured,” said Jem, after a pause. “‘SYLVER.’”

“Yes.”

“You made those people insane.”

“Yes. But not on purpose, of course. The side-effects are unfortunate, but soon enough there’ll be no Cured in the world—the patches were only ever designed to last a year, while we developed a real cure.”

“Can’t you cure the Cured as well?” asked Jem.

“Well, no,” said the Master. “No. Their madness is too far advanced. Their brains are like, well, like cheese.”

Clare seemed to rise to the surface for a moment, out of the tide of her thoughts.

“Why blue eyes?” she asked.

“I love my blue-eyed children,” said the Master. He shook his head as if bemused, and his hair fell back from his neck.

“You’re wearing a patch,” said Ramah.

“I had to endure the Cure, yes,” he said quickly. “I needed the Cure to gain the time to find a real cure. Which I have.”

Clare didn’t think this was a good time to point out that the patch had made him insane.

She slid quietly to the floor. Such weakness. And nothing to be done.

Almost immediately, she could feel Jem’s arms around her, pulling her up onto his lap. Then he was unbuttoning the top buttons on her shirt, and she could feel his cool hands on her burning neck.

He was so gentle, so tender. She was grieved for him when she felt him touch the telltale blisters that she had discovered less than an hour before.

“Pest,” he said softly.

“I’m sorry,” said Clare.

And it occurred to her, now that it was too late, that she loved Jem, and that she had loved him for a long time. Knowing she loved him was like knowing her heart was still beating. Clare would have given a lot to have the time to talk about it with him, not least because he was her best friend. And Clare wanted to explain to him how he had saved her from the danger of her silly, selfish self.

She closed her eyes and as she did she felt something wet on her face. Someone was crying.





CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

ASHES, ASHES





CLARE CAME OUT of her delirium to find that they were back in their bedroom. She stared up at ‘Diana and the Hunt’ and ‘The Royal Picnic.’ She turned her head then and saw Ramah and Jem by the bed, watching her.

“She’s coming out of it,” said Ramah.

“For now,” said Jem bitterly.

Clare propped herself up on her elbows.

“I feel better,” she said hoarsely.

“I’m glad,” said Ramah. Jem was silent. Clare looked at him.

“It’s the kind of feel-good that comes before the final relapse,” said Clare. “Isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Jem, finally. “It is.” This time Ramah was silent.

“I guess it won’t be long, then. I don’t even get three days.” She touched her face with her hand and felt the lesions on her skin, especially around her eyes and mouth. Soon she wouldn’t be able to speak.

“I guess I’m pretty ugly,” she said.

“Not to me,” said Jem.

“The Master brought us here and left,” said Ramah. “He says he’s going to announce that you have Pest. He wants to show you to the children; he wants to scare them. We don’t know where Bear is. Still in the compound, maybe.”

“I wouldn’t have minded,” Clare said.

“What?” asked Jem.

“Being matched with you. I wouldn’t have minded.”

“We can talk about that later. You’ve been delirious.”

“There is no later.”

Clare thought of the first time she had seen Sarai and Mirri and Jem. She had thought of Jem as a little kid. She remembered further back, to the cabin she had lived in, first with Chupi and then alone, to the stag in the cabbages, to Bear’s breath on her face.

“I don’t want to die here,” said Clare.

“Clare,” said Jem.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t see it before.”