The place where she could escape the screams.
The wind picked up as she surveyed her surroundings, the scent of jasmine and gardenia a subtle note within the fresh clean smell of moss and soil, among the sweet, lulling fragrance of heirloom roses in full bloom.
Creeping further beneath the canopy of branches, she blinked at the streams of light that broke through the leaves. Glancing up, she couldn’t smile at the sight of white and purple orchids that clung to the bark, couldn’t take pleasure in the fragile beauty of the refuge that had been designed by her hands.
Alice didn’t have a particular path in mind, yet her feet kept moving her forward. Beyond the trees were large swatches of bougainvillea, the sweep of the flowers concealing the thorns that had torn at her skin so often.
Yet, despite the bite of the beauty of nature, she never blamed the plants she’d tended, never regretted her own drops of blood that fed the soil at her feet. She deserved the bites, she deserved the scratches, she deserved the pain that came with the secrets that lay buried beneath her feet.
Before she noticed where she was going, her mind so lost in thought she hadn’t paid attention to her path, she came upon a wall of jasmine, the vines so thick and tangled, she wouldn’t have seen the fence that lay beneath them unless she’d already known it was there.
Reaching out, she ran a finger along the spires, her feet still moving her closer to the place she’d been warned about so many times before.
The unending whispers cautioned her to turn back, to run from this place that would be her destruction, but her curiosity won out.
She needed to remember this place.
To remember the secrets that had long been silenced.
Her hand found the small gate that was practically locked tight by the vines that grew over it. Ripping at them, Alice ignored the sap that bled from the plants, white and sticky against her skin. The dark green leaves and white flowers littered the ground at her feet, her body struggling to uncover the gate and the truth.
What lay beyond would be what destroyed her because the gate wasn’t only designed to keep a person out, it was designed to hold the phantoms in.
The hinges groaned loudly, a high pitch screech that echoed across the expanse and carried in the wind a warning cry that begged for her to step back into the dreams that she’d created for herself.
A shudder traced along her spine until it blossomed out over her chest, shoulders and arms. Despite the weakness in her legs, she took a hesitant step forward to observe the secrets that had been waiting for her behind the veil of beauty she’d planted as a disguise.
Seven smalls headstones lay crumbling and forgotten, each one bearing the name of a child that had never had the chance to breathe life into their lungs.
Seven names.
Seven dates.
Seven heartbeats that had never been.
Unmarked space followed those headstones, large enough for the plots of two adults, of two people that weren’t loved enough for their final resting places to be marked. Low lying plants now covered those lonely spots, weeds with yellow and white flowers. It was obvious that no person had cared for them in a long time, and Alice felt a pang of anger and also regret for the bones that lay beneath. She didn’t need to guess who was buried there, the whispers told her as memory flooded back, as her body shook and trembled on the knowledge of everything she’d become.
Stepping further, she froze in place, the land open and begging, a shallow grave not yet covered or filled. It was the final piece of the insidious puzzle, the reminder that blew apart the veil so thoroughly that she could look inside and see the truth.
Bending down to run her hand over the freshly turned soil, she felt a tear slip down her cheek, and she jumped in response to the cruel hand that landed on her shoulder.
“I told you not to come here, Alice. I warned you.” His voice was soft, regretful, a warning in the way his tone crept along her skin as the heat of his palm seeped into her cold shoulder. “Why? Why did you have to break this one rule?”
Her heart ached at the soft agony in his fractured voice. Closing her eyes, she clenched her fist over the damp earth that lay in clumps at the edges of the open grave. Memories like spider webs across her thoughts, the pain and torment becoming more pronounced with each one that made itself known.
“The garden,” she whispered, her voice not sturdy enough to be anything else. “I remembered the garden, about what is buried there beneath the ground.”
As a hush fell between them, and as the wind sang its haunting song, Alice understood the price of what had been hidden here in this place for so long.
The price wasn’t to love the man that stood above her.
It wasn’t to pretend to be the family he’d never had.
The price was to bear witness to the monster that was concealed within him, to remain silent while loving him, to endure the carnage and remain strong.
12:35 p.m.
Gray walls.