The Garden of Dead Dreams (27 page)

“Wait. I’ll get dressed.”

Etta snapped her gaze to Poppy. “No. You might be in danger.” An ache radiated through Etta’s arms, surged into her chest, and for a moment, she wondered if something terrible was happening, except then a surge of energy followed, pulsing through her. She stepped toward the door then whipped around. “What does a rhododendron look like?”

Poppy narrowed her eyes. “Don’t they have rhodies in Michigan?”

Etta shrugged.

“Well, there are over a thousand species in the genus.”

“Do any of them smell like nutmeg and cinnamon?”

Poppy stared at her for a long time then shrugged. “Only rhodies with white or pale flowers are fragrant.”

“Okay. So I should look for pale flowers?”

Poppy’s thin eyebrows came together. “Sure. In April or May—when they’re blooming.”

Etta’s heart raced.

Poppy moved toward her bookshelf, which was crammed with horticulture tomes. “It could be fragrantissimum. It’s the most common fragrant variety. I’ve never thought it smelled like nutmeg and cinnamon, but I suppose. The flowers are large.” Poppy held up her hands to indicate the size of the flowers. “Mother planted them. She loves smelly things. The bush itself is rather uninspiring, kind of straggly.” Poppy’s gaze lifted to the ceiling. “This time of year, they’ll still be green, with dark, sort of hairy leaves. Fragrantissimum is sparse. A lot of gardeners use it for trellises and walls.”

“Yes,” Etta whispered. “For walls. That’s it.” She spun around, grasped for the doorknob, and hurled herself outside, bringing her hand to her eyes to block the sunlight. She propelled her aching legs forward one step at a time.

Etta Would have assumed that nobody else had visited the cemetery for decades—even a century—if she hadn’t known that Galen and Carl had both been there in the past month. Within a couple of steps, ivy, ferns, and shrubs tangled around her feet. The paths had long given way to foliage, which was now gnawing away at the graves themselves. She halted, blinking at the beams of sunlight that eased through the gaps in the canopy.

A fallen Douglas fir lay decomposing over a family plot in front of her. A wooden grave jutting from the remains said
Baby Mary
in rudimentary carved letters. Etta knelt and cleared the vines from a granite face in front of her. Moss had filled the hand-carved letters, making most of them unreadable. She traced her fingers along them, making out only
Sarah, wife of
and the year
1843
.

Etta sat down on Sarah’s headstone. Her chest ached with each inhale. Everywhere she looked were dark green leaves—coiling, climbing, and tangling. She might have sat for a long while mesmerized by them, watching the way the breeze made them dance, as though they were teasing her.

The voices brought her attention back to the forest’s chatter—the low groan of the trees, the birds and squirrels scuttling through the branches, and Reed and Poppy arguing.

“She’s okay,” Poppy said.

“Betrayed persons often experience post-traumatic-like stress symptoms.”

“What are you talking about?” Poppy let out a high-pitched laugh. “You seriously think she’s in love with you?”

Etta stiffened. Reed either didn’t respond or his response was smothered by the sound of the bird warbling far above.

“She’s not in love with you . . .” Poppy struggled to speak through her laughter. “She’s in love with Carl,” Her voice echoed through the cemetery.

Etta cringed and pushed herself to her feet, spinning around to face the gate. Poppy straightened her lime green jacket and glanced up then caught sight of Etta and jumped backward. Poppy’s buggy eyes swept back and forth across the cemetery. “This place is spooky.”

Etta followed Poppy’s gaze. A beam of sunlight fell on a crude statuette of an angel. Its wings were eroded, half of its face eaten away by lichen. Reed stepped to Poppy’s side. “Is Galen here?” he whispered.

Etta’s pulse swelled into her temples at the thought of Galen—his nervous tick, his stammer, the crack of the dissertation striking the wall, the gun against Carl’s jaw, the explosion of the airbags, the car spinning around and around. She tried to focus her eyes on something, anything. The jungle of plants seemed to have multiplied in just the last minute. “We’ll never find it.”

“Where’s the garden?” Poppy asked.

Etta stared at her.

“Fragrantissimum doesn’t grow wild.” She wrinkled her forehead and glanced around.

“No. Vincent Buchanan would have planted it. The year he wrote “The Garden of My Summer,” which was . . .” Etta looked at Reed.

“1967,” he said.

Poppy’s eyes grew wide. “Well, I guess some rhodies do have a long life expectancy. The species that grow wild here are Pacific Rhododendron, or macrophyllum.” She pointed to a thick shrub on the other side of the gate. “That’s one. With the spotted leaves. They bloom bright pink in the spring. Fragrantissimum looks different . . .” Poppy moved forward, weaving around brambles and headstones, picking her way through the undergrowth, pausing occasionally to touch a leaf, to lean over and examine a plant, her ponytail swinging behind her. Etta and Reed followed. They walked for awhile, stepping around graves and trees, meandering through the undergrowth. It quickly started to feel like a labyrinth with no end.

Had Matthew Lowther walked this path thirty years before, looked for the same plant? They halted in front of an iron fence. It was smaller than the fence they’d entered through, but everything else looked the same. Poppy bit her lip and turned in a circle.

“They look like monsters.” Reed pointed to some deciduous trees a few feet away from them. They’d already lost their leaves, but thick moss clung to their claw-like limbs, dangling like fringe. Ferns sprouted from their mossy bark.

“They’re Big Leaf Maples.” Poppy stepped toward the trees, “Oh my gosh. Look.” She weaved through the cluster of maples, ducking under the moss hanging from the low branches. Etta and Reed followed.

Poppy moved toward another tree. It stood alone in a clearing—skeletal, a tangle of barren branches twisting from a gnarled trunk.

“Sakura,” Poppy whispered. Etta snapped her eyes to Poppy’s, but Poppy just stood gazing at the tree. “It’s a sakura.”

Etta pushed down a wave of dizziness. “I don’t understand.”

“Sakura means cherry blossom in Japan. They’re kind of like Japan’s official tree. They grow over three hundred species of them. I’d guess this one’s a weeping variety.” Poppy stepped back and looked around. “Cherry trees require a lot of sun. Someone probably cleared the area to plant it, which might be why that cluster of Big Leaf Maples grew. They like land that’s been cleared, like clear-cut areas.”

“Someone planted it?” Etta whispered.

“The cherry tree, I mean. No one would have intentionally planted Big Leaf Maples in a cemetery. The roots destroy whatever they come into contact with—patios, foundations, sidewalks. Gravestones, coffins.”

Etta tried to push away the image of coffins being ripped apart by twisting roots. “When was it planted?”

Poppy squinted at the cherry tree then brought her hand up and touched the bark. “It’s lost some limbs and the bark’s cracking. It’s near the end of its life. Some cherry trees don’t live long at all – fifteen to twenty years. Others live nearly a century.”

“They symbolize death.” Etta jumped at the sound of Reed’s voice. He stepped toward her. His glasses were sliding down his nose. “That’s why the Japanese celebrate them. They represent the transience of life. The blossoms burst into brilliance and die only days later at the pinnacle of their splendor. Just like soldiers. During World War II, they painted them on the side of their kamikaze planes.”

Poppy stepped toward the maples. “If they started growing shortly after the cherry tree was planted . . . They don’t look full grown. But they can live for three hundred years or so, so I guess that doesn’t say much.”

Etta thrust her fingers into her pocket and grabbed at the crumpled paper, trying to steady her hands enough to smooth it out. The paper was worn and disintegrating at the corners, but the typewritten words were still legible. She tried to find words to explain where it had come from, and then gave up and read it aloud:

Winter comes to the garden of dead dreams

Rain puddles on yesterday’s lives decayed

Wilts azaleas once lovingly displayed

Turns decay to life with relentless streams

Washes away September’s pale sunbeams

Winter clouds above and memories fade

Moss coats barren bark in the season’s shade

Here, truth is more enshrouded than it seems.

I have searched the deserted forest floor

Have hunted secrets sleeping with the souls

Have sought out stories about peace and war

and pondered the men who once dug these holes

The garden of his summer you must score

The truth is there behind her marking stone

M.L. November 2, 1985

Poppy gasped. “We’re not looking for the fragrantissum. We’re looking for the snow azalea.”

“No. It’s got to be a rhododendron,” Etta snapped.

“Azaleas are rhododendrons. And this one is popular in Japanese gardens. Plus, it has a strong scent—like cloves.” Poppy spun in a circle then she was on the move, picking her way through the brush. “Rhodies like shade,” she called. Etta hurried to follow, but her shin collided with a granite gravestone buried beneath the undergrowth. She hunched over to grab her leg. She limped to catch up to Poppy, moving to her side, clenching her teeth.

Poppy grinned as she stared at a woody bush that towered over her and Etta. She plucked off one of the oval leaves and rolled it around in her fingers. “It’s a snow azalea.” Then her grin faded. “Now why are we looking for it?”

Before Etta could comprehend the next sound, Reed’s voice echoed into her head. “Get down.” He was pushing Poppy to the ground, his hands flying over his head.

Etta spun around and blinked. It took a moment for the figure to come into focus—the silken braid across the shoulder, the fitted leather jacket, the skin-tight leggings, the gun pointed at Etta. “I told you to go home.” Opal’s voice was taunting.

Edwin Hardin stepped up beside Opal Waters, his flesh more waxen than usual, his eyes sunken.

“Of course, I didn’t realize you weren’t welcome there. It turns out heretics who defile the
Holy Testament
by churning out soft core porn aren’t welcomed back into the folds of fundamentalism with ice cream socials. How much self-loathing does it require to create an entirely fictitious identity for yourself, Loretta? And I thought you weren’t creative.”

Etta’s mouth fell open.

“Yes, your mother does like to chat, doesn’t she? Especially about you.”

Etta tried to force in a breath. She brought her hand up and grasped at her neck.

“You thought you were the only one who could play sleuth?” Opal’s gray eyes moved back and forth. “What exactly do you think you’re going to find here? It’s all ashes and dust. Nothing more.”

Etta felt something crawling up her shin. She stiffened and jerked her head down, ready to shake whatever it was from her leg. Poppy was yanking on her pant leg, her buggy eyes bulging.

Opal laughed. “I suppose we should give you credit. You’ve surpassed at least a dozen worthless idiots who call themselves Buchanan scholars. Of course, academic research is laughable. The morons are so taken by a shift in narrative style in an author’s fourth work, so intent on establishing whether he fits into Modernism or Post-Modernism that they somehow miss that he wasn’t who everyone thought he was.” Opal cackled, and this time it sounded so loud and out of control that Etta’s body seized. “Not bad, Loretta. But the proof is all that matters. Without that nobody is going to believe a washed up romance writer with nothing but a pile of badly-written trash to her name, depending on what name she decides to use that day, of course. The thing about lying—once you make it into a habit, no one believes anything you say.”

“Loretta’s books are rather titillating, but badly written?” Petra Atwell’s raspy voice echoed into the clearing. “No offense, Opal, but I imagine most people would choose them over your maudlin verse. Besides, one might think that a vamp who trades sex for a job and uses it to steal an old man’s estate might be less priggish about such matters.”

Etta blinked. The rifle the memoirist gripped in both hands dwarfed her small frame, and her hair glowed in the beam of sunlight glinting through the trees.

“I didn’t realize we were having an Annie Oakley look-alike contest.” Opal’s voice was ice-cold.

“Annie Oakley shot a twenty-two.” Reed, who was standing now, scrutinized Petra’s gun through his crooked glasses. “Ms. Atwell’s is a thirty ought six.”

“Very good,” Petra rasped. “What’s Opal’s carrying? A cap gun?”

Reed squinted at Opal. “It looks like a forty-five.”

Etta jerked her gaze to Poppy, who was tugging at her pant leg again. Violet’s pants were so loose Etta feared they might slip off her hips if Poppy kept it up. Poppy was mouthing something.

“Now, let’s think,” Petra said. “Why would Opal be pointing a forty-five at Loretta? And why would Edwin be standing there like the wench’s hapless sidekick? Go ahead, Edwin, tell me. Don’t worry about surprising me. Naïveté has never been my virtue.”

Hardin’s gaze shifted from Petra to Opal.

“Don’t tempt me by being coy.” Petra took a step closer to Opal and Hardin.

“Ignore her,” Opal snapped. “Firing that gun would throw her halfway across this cemetery.”

Etta didn’t register what was happening until Petra’s upper body jolted backward. At the same moment, the blast roared, and Etta hands reflexively flailed up to her ears. She snapped her gaze to Hardin. Both he and Opal stood blinking, staring at the undergrowth between them. Petra clicked the rifle’s bolt action into place.

“Tell me, Edwin, what brings us here?” Petra asked. “Did Loretta inquire about how a huckster book salesman who’s never published as much as a short story became director of a prestigious writing academy? Or maybe I should ask Opal.” Petra turned her glare and the gun on Opal. “Did she suggest that a woman who cons an old man out of his estate, or has an affair with a student half her age, might be morally bankrupt? We all might be wanting for a bit of drama out here, but can’t we solve our differences like adults? Forgive each other over some nips of Vince’s Balvenie 191?”