The Gardener

  And that was when Jack started whistling the theme from The Twilight Zone.

  The rain came down harder as Jack steered onto the two-lane Bridge of the Gods across the Columbia River, and started up the mountain road toward Glenwood and the cabin. Jack and I chatted for a while, but it seemed we didn’t have much practice acting normal in freakishly bizarre situations. So we pretty much rode in silence for most of the way.

  As we reached Glenwood and drove through the deserted streets, the girl still just held the chocolate milk and stared out the windshield into the night, the steady hum of the wipers the only sound.

  The cabin was down the second right after the Glenwood Bed and Breakfast, and it was just a few minutes before we pulled into the yard of the cabin. Jack said, “Hit the garage opener, will you?”

  I reached up for the shade. “It’s not here.”

  Jack sighed and turned off the engine. We walked up the steps to the deck, where Jack tipped up an antique milk can and retrieved a key from underneath.

  Inside, he flipped on all the lights.

  The girl looked uncertain and I ushered her in. “It’s okay. We’re the only ones here.”

  She kept a tight grasp on her Yoo-hoo as we entered.

  Jack’s grandpa had made the cabin from old-growth timber. We walked into one huge room with a large kitchen, dining table, living room, and floor-to-ceiling fireplace made of Columbia River rocks.

  I set the bag from the gas station on the table and headed over to pour water into the coffeemaker.

  Along with destiny, Jack’s family also believed in having the fire laid out in the fireplace, ready to go, and Jack soon had it roaring. He said, “I’m gonna go put the truck in the garage.”

  The girl stood in front of the fireplace, one hand outstretched toward the burning logs. The other still clutched the Yoo-hoo.

  After a bit, the coffeemaker started to make slurping sounds, and I pulled a cup out of the cupboard, then hunted for some kind of creamer.

  Leaving the fireplace, the girl looked out the front picture window. Clouds started to break up, revealing the moon.

  I felt like I should say something to try to put us both at ease. “There’s a gorgeous view of Mount Adams. Sits right in the meadow.” Yeah. That didn’t work, because she didn’t reply and I felt even more tense.

  The half-and-half in the fridge was spoiled, so I poured it down the drain. I had to settle for powdered cream, which refused to dissolve entirely in my coffee.

  “Looks like she’s tired.” Jack had come back in.

  “Huh?”

  He nodded at the girl.

  She stood by the window, yawning.

  I went over to her. “Do you want to get some sleep?” This seemed a funny thing to ask someone who recently came out of some freaked-up coma.

  But her eyes drooped as she glanced over at Jack. “Here?”

  Jack pointed down the hallway. “My sister’s bedroom is down there.” His older sister, Vanessa, was at Harvard. She wasn’t as nice as Jack, but just as rich. And much better at taking standardized tests.

  The girl nodded and looked at me. “Okay.”

  “I’ll take you.” I motioned to her Yoo-hoo. “Want me to put that in the fridge?”

  She hesitated, then handed it to me, and I set it on the table.

  Jack said, “There are some pajamas that’ll fit you, I think. And the bathroom is across the hall. There’s all kinds of girl stuff in there; help yourself.”

  I led the way and the girl followed.

  In the guest room, I turned on the light and pulled open a few drawers until I found a nightgown. It looked a bit short for her, but she took it anyway. There was a quilt on the end of the bed and several pillows. “You’ll be okay?”

  She sat on the very edge of the bed, barely touching it.

  “Here.” I spread the quilt over the bed, and then folded down the top. I threw all the pillows on the floor except for two, which I fluffed and lay on the head of the bed. “It’s all ready for you to crawl in.”

  She didn’t move.

  “Okay. So just change and you’ll be set.”

  Her eyes remained fixed on the garment in her lap, then they slowly raised to meet mine. “I’m not sure how.”

  The girl could throw me over a wall, but she couldn’t get dressed?

  She stammered a little. “I mean, there are so many things swirling in my head, and it’s like I have to reach up and catch them in order to use them. But the one about getting dressed, it’s just not … letting me grab ahold.”

  “Well, you just take those clothes off and put that on.” I pointed at the nightgown.

  She looked so helpless sitting there.

  I rubbed my eyes a bit. “Okay. Just … turn around.”

  She stood up and turned around to face the window.

  Stepping in close behind her, I tried to ignore the fact that I was living some amazing fantasy, and instead focused on my latent leadership skills. “Put your arms straight up.” This wasn’t exactly how I’d imagined my first time undressing a girl.

  She lifted her arms toward the ceiling.

  I gingerly grasped the hem of her shirt, a little fearful I might make some wrong move that would cause her to heave me through the wall. Averting my head so I couldn’t see anything, I lifted it off. I instructed, “Okay, now put the nightgown on.” I couldn’t resist sneaking a brief glimpse of her sinewy bare back.

  She struggled a little but managed to get the nightgown over her head. Then her arms got stuck and I yanked a bit until it drifted down, the bottom coming to just above the knees of her red sweatpants.

  “And when I leave, you can just, um, take off your sweats and you’re all set.”

  She turned around so that we were just inches apart.

  I stepped back.

  She almost smiled. “I’ve got it now.” Before I could look away, she dropped her sweats, but the nightgown covered anything I shouldn’t have seen anyway. “I’ll sleep now.”

  Walking backward toward the door, I said, with a little too much cheer, “Good! Fine, I’ll just get the lights—”

  As she started to climb into bed, her short nightgown revealed the back of her legs from the knee down. And I tried not to keep from gasping at the circular scars that covered the entire length of them.

  FIVE

  I’D NEVER SEEN SUCH GNARLED, NASTY SCARS. AND SHE thought I was marked. Then, as the most beautiful girl I’dever seen settled into the bed, she stared at me. Like she was waiting for something.

  From me.

  With one large step, I was at the bedside.

  After pausing for just a second, I tugged the quilt up to her chin, said good night, and flipped out the light. Then I stepped out in the hall, shut the door, and leaned back against it, my heart threatening to burst out of my chest at any moment.

  In the other room, Jack ate pretzels from a blue bowl. He shoved them my way as I sat down. “Sorry, not much food. I’ll get more in the morning. What’s the plan, Mace?”

  Grabbing a handful of pretzels, I shook my head. “No clue.”

  “That was kind of weird how she freaked out when she saw TroDyn.”

  I nodded as I chewed. “Maybe her parents work there or something.”

  Jack grinned. “Maybe she was forced to do a summer internship there, and it fried her brain.”

  “Funny. She just came out of a coma or something. She probably would’ve freaked out at lights of the nearest Seven-Eleven.” I sounded like I was trying to convince myself of something.

  Jack frowned.

  I swallowed. “What?”

  “It’s just weird.” Jack shrugged. “I don’t know. TroDyn owns the nursing home.”

  “So?” I didn’t get what that had to do with anything. “They also own most of the town.”

  Jack leaned forward. “Don’t take this the wrong way. But your mom has this mystery history with TroDyn, and now she works at the Haven?” He jabbed his thumb toward the hallway. ??
?And this girl is there and then gets all run, Toto, run when she sees the lights of TroDyn.”

  I shoved another handful of pretzels in my mouth so I didn’t have to answer. There was no way my mom was involved with that girl any more than taking her vitals every half hour. And, obviously, she had instructions to call somebody if the girl, or the others, ever woke up. It seemed my mom did have some kind of history with TroDyn, but it was over. She didn’t work at the labs anymore. “There’s nothing there. My mom doesn’t know who this girl is anymore than we do.” Again with the trying to convince myself.

  “Still,” said Jack. “I had no idea there was anyone but old people at the Haven. That kind of pisses me off.”

  “Jack, TroDyn has been part of our lives forever. I’m trying to make it part of my future.” But I was curious. “Maybe TroDyn is doing research with accident victims, trying to cure their amnesia. Which would explain a lot.”

  Jack nodded. “It’s easy enough to look up. Maybe she’s just afraid because she doesn’t remember who she is.”

  Although I had no idea what he thought he would find, I grabbed my coffee and followed Jack into the office, just down the hall from Vanessa’s room, where the girl slept. I guess I wanted to be there when he discovered exactly what I knew he would: nothing.

  Jack started to open the connection while I set my cup down and flopped into a leather recliner alongside a tall shelf of books. My eyes started to get heavy.

  “Mace.”

  “Huh?” My mouth tasted scummy. “Did I fall asleep?”

  “Duh.” Jack pointed at the clock.

  I’d been asleep for two hours. “You’ve been online the whole time?”

  “Took me forever. Dial-up sucks.” He held up a stack of paper and flipped a few pages around.

  I rubbed my eyes. “What’s that?”

  “Funny you should ask. TroDyn is very public about their research that pertains to global warming and environmental sustainability. Like, full disclosure. Their scientists publish in all the journals.”

  “Yeah, I know all that.” I had to write a paper to go with my application.

  “That’s not the issue,” said Jack.

  “There’s an issue?”

  Jack asked, “Where’s the best place to hide?”

  I thought about the discovery when I was ten that Mom kept all my Christmas presents on top of the fridge in a brown paper grocery bag labeled coupons. “In plain sight?”

  “Exactly.” Jack held up a printout of a newspaper clipping. “TroDyn is always on the up and up, always flooding the media with massive amounts of information, so much so that it’s more than any journals or newspapers would ever want or need to publish. TroDyn overkill. So they never have anyone knocking on their door. The media is already saturated with TroDyn.”

  I stretched and yawned. “So, it’s what they’re not telling the public?”

  Jack nodded. “Looks that way. And get this, not many scientists have left TroDyn, but some have.”

  “And?”

  “Dude, this is the frickin’ weird part. There are some serious similarities. Listen to this.” He took a sip of coffee before reading out loud, “Donald Andreason, scientist for seven years with TroDyn before starting his own consulting firm, had this to say about his former employer: ‘While my time with TroDyn was enriching to my career, I ultimately decided my best career options lay in another direction, and they amicably accepted my resignation, wishing me well in my new endeavor.’”

  I didn’t see what was so weird about that, until Jack read from another sheet of paper. “Jessica Lee, scientist for six years with TroDyn, recently left to take an academic position at USC. Of her former employer, she had these words: ‘While my time with TroDyn was enriching to my career, I ultimately decided my best career options lay in another direction, and they amicably accepted my resignation, wishing me well in my new endeavor.’”

  “It’s the same.”

  “Exactly.” Jack set the papers on the desk. “Like a piece TroDyn required its former employees to memorize. And here’s another thing.” He tapped the computer screen. “In the twenty-two years TroDyn has been in Melby Falls, there has been a total of thirty-one employees who left TroDyn for various new jobs. They all had the same words for their former employer, and except for one, they all had something else in common.”

  “What?”

  Jack tapped the desk. “Each had their first child born within seven months of leaving TroDyn.”

  I didn’t get it. “They left because they were having a baby?”

  Jack said, “Or in the case of the men, their wives were.”

  “This is really weird.” And if it involved the girl, the whole thing was way too weird for me and Jack to handle on our own.

  He asked, “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

  I said, “We need to take her back?”

  Jack took a sip of his coffee. “The destiny stuff was a load of bull, wasn’t it?”

  “Sorry. I just really wanted to help her.”

  He nodded. “I get it.”

  “I should have let you turn around and take her back.” I sighed. “First thing tomorrow?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Let’s get some sleep. And maybe we can think up some great story to tell my boss that won’t get me fired or put us both in juvie.”

  Just then, we heard a noise.

  “Was that her?” asked Jack.

  “I think so. I’ll go.” I stopped at the bathroom and dug until I found some Scope, then swished for a few seconds before tiptoeing to her door. My rapping knuckles on the wood sounded like thunder. “Hello?”

  “Please.”

  I turned the knob and pushed.

  She was upright in bed, staring out at the moon.

  Taking a few steps into the room, I asked, “Are you okay?”

  She turned to me. “I can’t really hear them anymore.”

  “Who?”

  Her knees bunched up and she dropped her head onto them, then started rocking forward and back. “It hurts, it hurts.”

  I went over and sat on the edge of the bed. One of my hands went out to touch her, but it hovered there in the space between us before I pulled back. “What hurts?”

  “My head. It hurts without them there. It’s so empty.” She turned her face to me. “I want some light.”

  I pulled the string on the lamp. Her eyes were wide in the sudden glare and she shrank back from me.

  I froze. “Did I scare you?” My face had certainly frightened people before, it wasn’t anything new.

  But she shook her head. “I think I just adjust slowly. To new things.”

  I picked at a loose thread on the bottom of my shirt for a moment, not sure what to say. Then I figured, I might as well ask what I wanted to. “Can you tell me about where you’re from?”

  She tilted her head to the left as her eyes looked right. Ask someone a multiplication problem that they have to do in their head, they will look left. Asked for something they already know but have to recall, they will inevitably look right. So I knew she was remembering. Or at least trying to.

  “I was in the seventh row from the back, third from theend.”

  “At the Haven?” I didn’t get it. “You were all just on a couch together.”

  “No.” She looked down again, maybe remembering more. When she raised her head again, her voice was firmer, like she was more certain of the truth of what she was saying. “Before the Haven, in the place before. I was in the seventh row from the back, third from the end.”

  I swallowed, wanting to ask her what she was talking about but afraid she might stop speaking if I interrupted.

  Her eyes glazed a little as she continued her story. “Our position didn’t matter. Our state of being was identical. Calmness and serenity, all shared as one.” She smiled a little as she placed a hand on her chest. “We knew only peace and comfort.”

  Her forehead wrinkled a little. “I was … we were … content. There was no fear or sor
row. But…”

  I waited for her to go on, which she did, after a deep breath. “We breathed as one. We moved as one.” She closed her eyes. “We thought as one.” And then it was almost as if she heard chanting in her head, which she had to join. “There will be no weakness.” Her eyes shot open, widening at her words. “It’s time. I feel it.”

  I couldn’t help myself as I asked, “Feel what?”

  “The one nearest the door. He shivers first, and that slight tremble trickles down row after row, space after space. It hits me.” Her head lowers slightly. “I shiver in response. That is how I know.”

  I whispered, “Know what?”

  She swallowed. “That was how I knew the Gardener was coming.”

  Her eyes widened and she clutched my shirt with one hand, pulling me toward her.

  I tried to ignore the fact that her face was so close I felt her warm breath on my own face. “You remembered.”

  She bit her bottom lip for a second. “But it wasn’t complete, just a glimpse.”

  Her lips were perfect and I could have stared at them forever. But I made myself go back to her eyes. “Maybe you need time to remember the rest?” But I didn’t want her to need more time. I wanted to know more immediately. I wanted her to remember it all, tell me everything about herself.

  “Maybe.” She nodded as she released her grip on my shirt and reached for my hand, holding on.

  Her hand in my mine was soft and warm. Her nails were medium length, nicely clipped. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that partway down, each white tip had a line of a different color white, like a tree has rings. I’d seen that once before, on my mom’s nails when she got really sick with a virus. That white line was an indicator to me that in the recent past, this girl had suffered something physically traumatic. I wondered if it had anything to do with the scars on her legs.

  I met her gaze. There was so much more I wanted to ask her, but she looked exhausted. So I said, “You should really try and sleep more.”

  She blinked a few times, then lay back, still holding my hand. “Will you stay?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “Yes.” And she shut her eyes.

  I leaned forward to turn out the light, but her eyes popped open and she squeezed my hand. “Leave it on. I don’t like the dark.”