An anxious look crossed his face. “I’m charged to bring you both here and back.”
I understood. “He’s met up with some old friends. He’s staying longer. They’ll see him home.” At this rate I’d soon be as good a liar as Peter.
The driver held the door for me, and I climbed in. The horses took off.
Carriage wheels squeaked. The streets were empty at this hour, with half the city at the palace and the other half huddled in bed, so we fairly flew along.
I leaned back against the upholstery and closed my eyes. Gregor’s grave and troubled face watched me all the way home.
In no time we were there. I thanked the driver, wishing I had a coin to give him. Before he drove away, I called out to him.
“Driver! Did you see or hear any sign of someone following us?”
He shook his head. His honest face suggested no deception.
I thanked him again, and hurried toward the door.
Something made me stop. I looked up at the house, which sat like a crouching giant on top of its rise of ground, a waning moon shining down on its towers and gables. The tall windows over the terrace—that had been the ballroom. On a night like tonight, if it weren’t for Coxley’s treachery all those years ago, those windows would gleam with candlelight reflecting off brass instruments, and swirling dancers, platters of meats, and vats of flaming punch.
All the windows, all the rooms, the places my parents slept and ate and cared for me. There they were. I had earned them back, and for what? I would never enjoy the house now. It felt like a cage, a trap. If I went into that box, Coxley might imprison me in it.
The thought of all I’d lost in these last days overwhelmed me.
Soon I would look for Beryl, but first I wanted a moment alone.
I turned from the house toward the gardens. Small gardens surrounded the house and dotted the lawns, but the real garden, my mother’s favorite, stood some distance from the house, on a rise of ground, surrounded by trees. Too far away for Coxley to see me if he came looking, but open enough that I could watch for him and hide if he came.
Frozen grass snapped under my feet. My path was striped by the long shadows of trees. Night creatures scattered at my approach.
The garden sat like a Greek temple overlooking the house, with the moon as its chandelier. A yew hedge surrounded the hilltop. At the apex was a fountain with rows of plantings and walkways radiating outward. Marble columns reached to the heavens, and a statue of milk white lovers in the fountain sat entwined in an eternal embrace. My eyes lingered on Cupid’s ardent form. Begone, thoughts of Gregor!
I looked away.
Beryl’s occasional helpers must have done some tending here. Even the withered stalks of summer’s flowers and the thorny stems of last year’s roses stood in frost-covered dignity. This had once been the masterpiece of the gardens, back when there was a staff to tend it. Mama used to spend hours here in the summertime, picking flowers and painting watercolors. My heart ached, thinking that this spring I would have dug and planted here myself.
“You still can,” Beryl’s voice said.
I jumped and turned around. There she was, sitting on a garden bench.
“Forgive me.” She smiled. “I heard the carriage, and when you didn’t come into the house, I came looking for you. So I snuck up on you and eavesdropped. Two unforgivable sins.”
“That’s all right.” I sat beside her on the bench. “How’d you know what I was thinking?”
Beryl tapped the stone that hung at her breastbone. I saw that she’d woven herself a little pouch to carry it around her neck.
Instinctively, I reached out and touched the stone. One brush with my finger warmed my whole body. The gem glowed white, illuminating Beryl’s face.
“Does the stone tell you what everyone is thinking?”
She shook her head. “No. Well, yes, in a way. You could say that with it, I’m more perceptive of the feelings of those around me. But it is only the people who are open to me, whose thoughts I can know well.”
I rested my head upon her shoulder, looking around at Mama’s garden. “I wish you could have known my parents.”
Beryl leaned her head on mine. “I would like to have known them.”
We sat.
Over the treetops the wind howled, but here in the garden the air was still.
Warm, even. I suspected that had something to do with Beryl.
“How was the ball?”
I groaned.
“That bad?”
“Worse.”
“What happened?”
“What didn’t happen, you mean,” I said. “Peter made the queen faint and the king yell for the guards to capture him. Gregor recognized me. He was not happy. Princess Beatrix gloated over me. And, just as I was trying to leave, Coxley showed up.”
Beryl stiffened. “He did? Are you sure?”
I nodded. “Just before I left.”
Beryl groaned and stretched her arms toward the sky. “What’s the matter?” I cried, alarmed for her.
She said nothing but shook her head miserably.
“What was the invitation you issued him?” I ventured.
Beryl was silent for a while, plucking at a hollow stalk of dried bamboo. “I lured him to the seashore,” she said at last. “I told him I would be there, alone, with my stone.”
I shook my head, disbelieving. “You challenged him to a duel? Coxley? Beryl, what were you thinking? He’s a murderer!”
Beryl’s face was grim. Immediately I regretted my choice of words.
“Lucinda, with my stone he couldn’t hurt me,” she said. “Not unless he took it from me. That’s what he wants, don’t you see? He’s not after my stone for money, the way Peter was. Coxley had his own stone once. He knows what mine would give him. No secret would be safe from him, no plot against him could hope to succeed. With a stone he can deceive, and bind, and rule the entire kingdom of Laurenz. Perhaps the world.”
Gregor. I saw him as he was tonight, standing in uniform in the throne room of the palace, with Coxley bursting through the door.
Beryl went on. “Without a stone, Coxley is a strong and evil man who’ll never die. With a stone, he’d be worse than a devil. A…” She searched for a word.
“A malevolent god.”
I reached out again and touched Beryl’s stone. “But he didn’t get it from you.”
She blew out her breath. “No, he didn’t.”
“Then, what happened?”
She stroked her stone. “I summoned him, thinking I could drive him out of the kingdom. Scare him away, if you will, like a fox driving another fox from its lair. For your sake. For my penance.”
“Your penance?” I asked.
“My kind shouldn’t be here with these stones, Lucinda. I brought this temptation here.”
I tried to suppress my impatience. “So, what happened?”
She laughed faintly. “The women of Saint Sebastien would be aghast if they saw it. We fought. I ordered him to leave, with all the force my stone gives me, but he wouldn’t go. So we fought. He was no match for me then, and he ran away. I chased him to the northernmost borders of Hilarion, then turned back here.”
“But that’s several weeks’ journey!”
She smiled weakly. “Not for us. I thought I could show him there wasn’t room for both of us in Laurenz. But I was wrong to hope it would work. He came back. And now I’ll have to think of something else.”
She was so disappointed, I wished I could comfort her. I had never expected her to rid me of Coxley.
“It’s all right, Beryl,” I said, looking out over my parents’ garden. “There’s nothing holding us here. We’ll go away, far away from here, where Coxley can never find us.”
Beryl didn’t look convinced.
We sat and listened to the cold. Slowly, the tension and fear I’d carried since I arrived at the ball began to slide off me. Gardens can do that, even at night, even in the wintertime. But Beryl sat morose and unaffected by the calm night.
“This is the longest night of the year,” I said, thinking aloud. “The winter solstice. Christmas is in only a few days.”
Beryl said nothing.
“At least you have your stone back in time for Christmas,” I said. It was a feeble attempt to cheer her, and I knew it. But I hated to see her so low. I reached for her hand.
“Thank you for everything, Beryl,” I said. “You’ve given me so much.”
She made a sound of protest. “I’ve given you nothing but sorrow!” she cried.
Her eyes filled with tears. “It’s you that has given to me.”
I put my arms around her. “I had sorrows to begin with,” I whispered in her ear. “You’ve given me things I would never have known. To dance with Gregor… that night will always be with me. And you let me come home. Being here in this place one more time is enough for me. I thought my memories of my parents had died long ago, but now I’ll always carry them.”
I left damp spots on her shoulder when I pulled myself away, a little embarrassed. When I looked back at Beryl, her violet eyes shone.
“Memories,” she repeated eagerly. “That is one thing I can give you. May it ease some of the pain my errors have caused.” She reached into the yarn pouch she’d fashioned and pulled out her stone. She placed it in my palm.
“Lucinda, show me this garden as you remember it.”
Chapter 28
I took the stone reluctantly from her hand. It shone butter yellow and felt warm and moist in my hand, like a new apple.
“How?” I asked.
“Don’t worry,” she said. She wiped her eyes and laughed. The chimes of her voice rippled through the yew trees. “It will be easy. Light the stone, and enter it.”
Enter it? I wanted to protest but something stopped me. Pleading weakness as an excuse no longer seemed like an option. The stone demanded more from me than that.
Light the stone. I held it before my face. Only moments ago it had lit while Beryl held it. Now it lay, cold and dark, in my palm.
Light it.
I squeezed it. Light, please!
The faintest gleam appeared. It gave me hope.
Like a sun, like a star, shine. Give us heat and light, in this longest night of the year.
The inner depths of the stone began to move and glow. It was as if the inside was melting, becoming liquid, a sea of glass filled with fire. That flaming nucleus grew and swelled until the stone was a soft, pulsing membrane in my hand, filled with swirling light. It flooded the garden with light, like an August noon, yet the brilliance of what I carried did not blind me. I held it high over my head, and it baked down on the barren twigs and stalks of the garden.
“That’s right,” Beryl said. “Now, enter.”
Now was no time for doubt. I pulled the stone down and stared into it, willing it to let me enter it. I pressed it against my forehead, feeling it bend but not yield.
Did she mean “enter,” literally?
I closed my eyes. I thought about the light, the liquid fire, swirling around inside the stone. I imagined that same purifying heat spreading over me, burning me without consuming.
I felt a hot bright flash of pain, followed by the most soothing sweetness, like twilight in the spring.
And, even though the stone still lay in my hand, I knew I was inside.
I opened my eyes and saw that we were still in the garden, surrounded by light, but otherwise nothing was different.
Except I was different. I felt light, weightless, as though I could lift up my arms and fly away like a bird, and yet, at the same time, compact, powerful, my limbs lithe and supple.
“Show me this garden on its most glorious day,” Beryl said. “Nothing less than its best.”
I gazed around at the lifeless scene.
“Well,” I began, “the fountain used to work, and there were goldfish swimming in it.”
A burst of china-blue water erupted from the fountains and leapt over the marble lovers. Splashing filled the garden theater with its soothing sound. I ran to the edge and saw a family of fat red and white carp flicking their tails through the rising water.
“And water lilies,” I added. They bobbed to the surface as if they’d been waiting at the bottom for me.
My pulse quickened. I turned to look at Beryl. She nodded encouragingly.
I looked around. The garden existed in my memory, but where were its details?
I felt blind, groping through the fog of my memory. “The yew trees were a bit more trimmed, I think.” Each tree shook itself and dropped its dead excess until they all stood, stately and thick. I began to feel giddy.
“There were red roses along here, and pink and white ones there. Big as saucers, and oh! their scent.” Each bush sprang to life as I spoke it into being, blossoms buxom, leaves thick and glossy, thorns curling out from the stalks like scimitars unsheathing. I stepped back, just in case.
How to describe this delicious power, this heady freedom, to speak life into being! Sunshine broke through the fog in my mind, and my own memories unfurled like these tender plants. With them came more than flowers, but feelings, snippets, whole mornings of pottering around these walks, teasing my puppy, doting on my mother.
“Over here were… peonies, I think.” Lush pink and white blossoms opened on green stalks that rose from the ground. Those had been Mama’s favorites.
Blowsy and bold, like her.
I spun around. “I don’t remember all the names. But there were violets and pansies and daffodils and tulips in every shade, all around here. And there were little trees that blossomed in the springtime. And honeysuckle, and morning glory.” Wherever I pointed, shoots poked through the soft mold and uncurled heavenward; vines wrapped themselves around the Grecian columns and opened yellow and blue blossoms. The more I spoke, the more the light around us grew, and color and perfume filled the air. Bees and butterflies caught flecks of sunlight from no sun that I could see, but the light danced over them as if it were mid-morning.
“I’m afraid I’ve gotten this a bit muddled,” I told Beryl. “I probably have everything blooming out of season.”
“None of it blooms in winter anyway,” she said, smiling. “You’ve done a wonderful job.”
“Oh, but I’m not done,” I said, my heart pounding. An idea had planted itself in my mind that refused to be brushed aside. “There was a little house, over here, with screens instead of walls. We often took our tea there.” The house appeared, complete with chairs and a steaming tea service set on the table.
“And here on this bench,” I said, through the lump in my throat, “was where Mama and Papa would sit in the evenings and talk.”
I closed my eyes, squeezing them hard. Oh, please, please. I opened them slowly, so slowly that through the tangle of lashes I couldn’t be sure of what I saw first, and almost didn’t dare find out.
And still, when I saw, I didn’t dare believe. Maybe desire had painted them in my mind, and they’d flicker away like dreams do when I wake suddenly.
But, no, they didn’t vanish.
I opened my eyes, and my parents were there.
Chapter 29
No other sight in the garden was half so lovely.
Mama sat on the bench, her face upturned to Papa’s. Papa’s arm stretched out to slip a daisy behind Mama’s ear. He looked a bit comical, concentrating on where to put the flower. At last he got it to stay without falling into her lap. She made a teasing face and pretended to return to her book and ignore him.
There they were, so alive, so real. I ran to embrace them.
“Wait,” Beryl called.
I ignored her and flung out my arms to squeeze them both together. How surprised they’ll be to see me now! “Mama! Papa!” I cried.
They didn’t respond.
I halted just inches away from Mama and stretched out my hand to touch her cheek. My fingers buzzed and tingled.
Papa tried reading over Mama’s shoulder, and she elbowed him good-naturedly.
Beryl appeared at my side. I hadn’t heard her approach. I did not turn. The pain in my chest wouldn’t let me. “I’m sorry” she said. “I should have thought to warn you.”
I filled my eyes with the sight of them. So real, I could smell Mama’s perfume. Their voices felt like ancient lullabies.
“I’m glad you didn’t warn me.”
She placed a hand on my shoulder. “It’s best that you let them go now.”
I closed my eyes. When I opened them, Mama and Papa were still there, talking quietly with each other. “Must I? “
“You’re seeing a memory” Beryl said, “sweet as it is. But for your kind, memories of the dead are best seen through the cloudy glass of time and dreams.”
In other words, not seen. Longed for, but unseen.
“There is nothing more I want to see.” With a heavy heart, I said to my parents, “You aren’t here anymore.” They faded and vanished. Mama’s book fell open on the bench.
“I’m sorry, Lucinda,” she said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you again.”
The flowers that had enchanted me seemed drab and wretched now.
“You’ve done beautifully,” Beryl said. “This garden reminds me of my home.”
I sank down onto the garden bench. Mama and Papa sitting, talking—the image hovered before my eyes, so real, so taunting. And yet, for all this fresh hurt, I would do it again. If Beryl’s stone were mine, the temptation to do this every day would be irresistible.
Beryl sat beside me, watching me with concern. I wiped my eyes and blew out my breath. I needed something, anything else, to think about. An idea struck me.
“Beryl,” I said, handing her the stone, “can you show me your home?”
She was reluctant to take the stone from my hand. “I… stopped doing this long ago,” she said, slowly. “Many, many years ago. It was too painful.”
I understood, too well. “Never mind,” I said. “I’m sorry I asked.”
She shook her head. “No. I want you to see.” She reached for my hand and held it. Once again I felt the full sensation of her—living marble, breathing glass, cold and yet full of fire.
“Close your eyes,” she said. I obeyed, and felt the sweep of heat and pain followed by blissful, dewy coolness, and the scent of spring blossoms.