The Gardener (7 page)

“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 sorrow. 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.”

“Okay.” Still holding her hand, I slipped down onto the floor and laid my head on the bed, just looking at her profile. Her grip was still strong. I’d never held a girl’s hand before.

Part of me was jumping up and down happy that somehow I could make this strange lovely girl feel protected. But I didn’t know if I was her protector or her kidnapper. Was her story about the place before the Haven true? Did anyone else know? Part of me wanted to call my mom, make her tell me everything she knew about the girl.

But another part didn’t want to know any more. As long as I was a little ignorant of reality, I could enjoy the present moment. As soon as reality infringed on that, even one fact about who she was or who might be looking for her or how much trouble I was in, my little fantasy moment would shatter. Maybe there was a connection between this girl and TroDyn, or maybe Jack and I were being paranoid. In the morning, we’d take her back and that would be it.

Her hand pulled on mine. “You can sleep up here.”

I didn’t argue.

Sliding up on the bed, I kept one foot on the floor. But then she slid over and patted the space beside her. Still under the covers, she rolled away from me but pulled my hand with her, so that I ended up curled against her back, the bulky covers between us, one of my arms around her and the other arm under my head. Leaning forward just slightly, my face was in her hair and I inhaled. I asked, “Did you remember your name?”

She didn’t answer at first. Then I felt her shake her head no. “Does it matter?”

“No,” I lied.

Soon her breathing slowed and steadied itself. My eyes shut, but there was no way I would be able to sleep, lying so close to her. Still, I wouldn’t want to miss a moment of it. I wished I knew her name.

When Jack woke me up, I was facing away from her, my head on the edge of the bed, my face in drool.

He raised one thumb and both eyebrows.

I flipped him off.

Quickly, I sat up and wiped my face on my sleeve. The girl was still asleep.

In the kitchen, there was a fresh pot of coffee. I poured myself a cup and joined Jack at the table.

He had a huge grin on his face. “Dude!”

“Shut up, Jack. She just wanted me to sleep with her.” I scrunched my eyes shut as I realized how that sounded.

He whistled.

“No, just sleep. Believe me.” I squinted at the clock on the stove, but the digital numbers blurred. “What time is it?”

Jack yawned. “About nine.”

I stirred in some powdered creamer and asked, “Why
did
you interrupt my perfect moment, anyway?”

“I was lonely.” Jack grinned. “No, I’m gonna run to the gas station for some juice and donuts. Then we probably should get her back.” He played catch with his keys on his way to the door.

“Get some real cream, too,” I called after him. Taking my coffee with white creamer clumps into the living room, I stretched out on the couch and grabbed the remote. The satellite showed about a billion channels, but it seemed like the only things on at that hour were cartoons, infomercials, or news programs.

I was surfing past some woman being interviewed when an item in the bullet list on the screen caught my eye.

Former TroDyn Scientist

I turned up the sound. Her name was Dr. Kelly Emerson. I learned she’d been a researcher at TroDyn for several years before starting her own environmental consulting firm. She’d ended up on several presidential committees concerning global warming and was talking about a book she’d written involving the future of food, and the potential adaptation of species to global warming. Survival of the fittest.

I was disappointed to see the interviewer asked her nothing about TroDyn until the very end. She seemed a little annoyed that the subject got brought up, but her pat reply was no surprise.

“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.”

After that, TroDyn wasn’t mentioned again.

I clicked the television off just as Jack returned with small containers of cream and blue packets of sweetener and a plastic tub of powdered-sugar donuts. Jack bit into a donut. His mouth full, he said, “We have a little problem.”

Reaching over him, I plucked a donut from the tub and bit into it. “What?”

“When I went into the gas station, there was some guy in a suit asking Lucille questions about a red truck.” Lucille was an older lady who not only owned the gas station but kept an eye on the cabin for Jack’s parents.

“Yours?” I shoved the rest of the donut in my mouth and chewed.

“Well, I hid behind the chips before he saw me, but then when he went outside, he stood by the truck for a while, talking on his cell phone.”

“What did he do when you went back out?”

He shook his head as he took another bite of donut. “I didn’t. Lucille sent me out the back and had her husband give me a lift. I left the truck there.”

“Maybe he was some angry husband looking for his wife and she has a red truck? Besides, if someone was looking for us, how would they know we were here?”

Jack shrugged. “It was dark when we got into town. Even Lucille was surprised to see me, and she’s the town gossip. If she doesn’t know something, no one does.”

“Do you think someone from Melby Falls knows we have her?” I tapped my fist against my lips. “How?”

His forehead wrinkled. “There are security cameras in the parking lot at Haven of Peace.”

I almost spit out my coffee. “Then they probably have it on tape.”

“About that,” said Jack. “You know, the THEY part? I have a feeling we’re not talking about my supervisor, Suzy, in the geezer ward.”

“No.” I shook my head. “Doubtful. But do you want to wait around to find out? I mean, isn’t this considered kidnapping?”

Jack tilted his head. “Mace, did you carry her out of the building, kicking and screaming?”

It was almost the opposite, actually. “Definitely not.”

Jack scratched his chin. “We’ll take her back, no harm done. It’s not like someone is going to knock on the door in the next five minutes.” But his eyes flicked to the door as if that was exactly what he expected to happen, which made me nervous.

So I rationalized out loud, my words coming a little faster than usual. “Okay, so what do we know? Facts, all of them.” I started at the beginning. “She was in the nursing home and somehow the words in the DVD woke her up. And she was confused. Scared maybe. Definitely scared when she started ranting about the gardener.”