The Night Garden (7 page)

But Olivia herself had no idea that at four years old she’d already caused such a sandal. Her peas grew up their teepee so quickly that a person starting on a glass of fresh lemonade might see them climb a good inch by the time the last drop was gone. Her sunflowers shot up two stories high. For a time, Olivia had assumed that her experience with plants was typical. But as she became aware that the exclamations of garden visitors were not simply the obligatory phrases of adults giving praise, she came to understand that plants behaved differently in her care.

Of course, there were logical explanations—everybody knew Pennywort soil was the best in the valley, that it had been the best ever since the Concert had come to town. But Olivia had seen that when she gave any plant her attention, it flourished abnormally whether it was a tiny seedling or a half-dead peace lily brought from a neighbor as a gift. Her talents had limits; she could not single-handedly defeat drought, and there wasn’t much she could do about floods or early frosts. But in general, the Pennywort fields fared better than others in the same area. And her secret garden—that was the most prolific garden of all.

On summer nights after sunset, she could sometimes be seen heading alone into the garden maze, where it was presumed she locked herself behind the gray stone walls for hours at a time. Some people said that once inside she transformed herself into an ugly old black bear—so that when garbage cans were raided and bird feeders were pulled down, old-timers were only half joking when they said it was Olivia Pennywort having her way. Others hypothesized that when she touched the enchanted soil
of her garden she turned into a giant calla lily, and so she needed the earth of her garden the way Dracula needed to sleep on native soil. Still others said the Pennyworts weren’t doing anything magical or supernatural behind their garden walls—except for growing a highly potent form of wormwood, which the reclusive old dingbat Arthur Pennywort had used to make such a powerful form of absinthe that his brain had turned a toxic, fairy green.

Wormwood and calla lilies aside, what Olivia grew in her garden had the distinction of being just as outrageous, if not
more
outrageous, than what people believed she grew. Her plants were the kind that unfailingly jarred mothers to tug their children’s hands and warn them to
stay back, don’t touch,
and
get away.
Some species were so rude that even the marauding, yellow-eyed goats of Green Valley—goats known to eat everything from newspaper to electrical cords—tended to avoid them. They were poison ivies and nightshades, stinging nettles and poison hemlocks, laurels and sumacs and doll’s eyes. And on certain summer nights, Olivia slept the deep sleep of a child among them, the most dangerous, toxic, and itch-inducing plants of the rudest kind.

She took a heavy key from around her neck, opened the door to her garden, and slipped inside. The sun had set, but there was still some light in the sky, and her plants seemed to rustle in greeting. Olivia felt a change come over her, as it always did when she returned to her garden—a cellular ignition that made her feel both relaxed and energized. Green poison ivy crawled up the stone walls, writhing and twisting strand over strand. Climbing nightshade clung to a moon-shadowed trellis in dozens of brilliant purple droplets. In the soft dusk, her handful of red and orange poppies were as bright as if the sun were shining on their flared petals.

But for as dangerous as the poison garden was to the outside world, Olivia herself was far more dangerous than any one of her deadly plants. Unlike them,
she
had human desires.

She ran her hands along the top of her rhododendron. She could not—not for one moment—allow herself to think she could spend any more time with Sam. Nor could she let herself think that he would want to spend time with her, if he knew what she was. She needed daily exposure to her garden’s miasma of various alkaloids in the same way that a normal person needed vitamin D from the sun. She was a freak, a monster—and if she ever forgot it, her garden called to her, claimed her, roped her back in.
Mine,
it seemed to whisper. And most of the time, Olivia whispered back:
Yes, I am.

Tonight, however, she longed to see her garden set on fire, or plunged into a sinkhole, or hit with an asteroid. Tonight, she wanted something other than what she had.

It was Sam’s fault, of course. The questioning. The wondering and wanting. She’d known him again immediately, even before he’d turned around. He was taller than she might have expected him to be. He had a kind of poetic and not unattractive slouch, thin for his frame. His jaw was of average prominence above his big Adam’s apple, his eyebrows were not too thick, and his nose was straight and good-sized. His hair, so black it was almost blue, was buzzed close to his head, and it made his robin’s-egg eyes stand out in a way that made her think he’d seen things in life that he wished he hadn’t. The Sam she’d remembered was frenetic with all the energy of a young boy; the new Sam moved slowly now, as if underwater or carrying some invisible new weight within his bones.

She’d met Sam when she was six and he was eight; he and his parents had moved from a house over in Briscoe to Green Valley. One afternoon Sam had shouted to her from across the road, his toes daring the edge of the pavement: “Hey! Hey you!
Can I come over?” He’d been wearing a shirt with a toadstool on it,
Amanita muscaria,
he told her proudly. And she knew they would be friends.

When they were very young, they’d played the way so many Green Valley children played—wildly, without supervision, their imaginations leading them to build kingdoms and exotic lands in the Catskill hillsides. She’d felt perfectly in sync with him: She was fascinated with the world of plants, and his personal fascination was with fungi. Where they were different, they complemented each other. The hard work of farm life meant that Olivia prized efficiency above perfection, practicality above precision. Sam, on the other hand, would get frustrated and even a little obsessive if the kite they were building together did not meet his exact specifications. Olivia knew when to leave him alone to work out his desire for absolute accuracy and when to give him a nudge toward a more practical approach, saying,
The only thing that matters is that it gets up in the air.

Growing up, he was part of her family, as fundamental to her life as the fields and trees of the farm. She expected it would be that way forever between them, easy and effortless as breathing air. But then one autumn day when she was fifteen, Sam had wrapped his arms around her waist and picked her up—he was thrilled that they’d just found a dainty white destroying-angel mushroom growing in Chickadee Woods—and the world went spinning in many ways. He twirled her around, she held on to his neck, the trees blurred, the wind gave one great, sweeping gust that kicked up the leaves beneath them, and in that moment, everything changed. He put her down and blushed hotly red. He excused himself abruptly and went home. At night in her bedroom in the farmhouse, she revisited the strangeness of his chest, so firm and flat compared to hers. They were not the same. Not at all.

Two years ago, she’d made the Mushroom Garden in the maze for him. They’d always talked about creating a garden of all mushrooms, but fungi had never been Olivia’s specialty. Mushrooms lived in a different scientific kingdom than green and leafy plants, and she had a more difficult time connecting with them. She also suspected that she was not immune to their poisons due to a lack of exposure—though she had not tested the theory. In spite of her arm’s-length relationship with fungi, Olivia told herself two years ago that she would make the Mushroom Garden for Sam not because she was still thinking of him, but because she had completely let him go. She did not expect to ever see him again.

But then, there he was. Today. In her maze.

She picked a pretty baneberry and popped it into her mouth, not worrying about how its toxins could stop a person’s heart. Her mind was spinning—and for once not even the garden could make it slow down. There was no point in asking questions: Would Sam come see her again? And—what would she do if he did? For his sake, could she act more indifferent toward him than she felt?

She heard a noise near the door of her poison garden and she turned her head. But she didn’t panic. Maybe some animal was in the maze with her. A squirrel? A goat?

The knob began to turn.

Definitely not a goat.

She lunged without thinking; the door was opening slowly, but Olivia managed to slam it closed. She held tight to the handle so it couldn’t turn. A woman on the other side exclaimed, “Oh!”

Olivia held the handle. “Who’s there?”

“Olivia?”

“Who are you?”

“It’s me. Mei.”

Olivia felt the moment Mei stepped away from the door because the handle went loose in her fingers. Her heart was beating madly, her breath was fast. “What are you looking for, Mei?”

There was a beat of silence. “Oh. Oh my gosh. I’m sorry. Is
this
the garden I’m not supposed to go in?”

“Yes,” Olivia said tightly. A line of sweat had broken out on her brow.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize.”

“It’s okay,” Olivia said, but she didn’t take her hand off the knob. She supposed it wasn’t impossible that Mei would absentmindedly open the door of her walled garden, in spite of all the warning signs. She wouldn’t be the first woman to wander the maze without really paying attention.

When Mei spoke, her voice was soft. “Actually … I’m kind of glad you’re here. I’m glad I found you.”

“What do you need?”

Even from behind a stone wall and solid wood door, Olivia could hear Mei sigh. “It’s just that … Well—I’ve been walking the maze, like you said. Walking and walking and walking. But nothing’s
happening.
I’m wondering what I’m doing wrong.”

“You mean, you’ve been walking in the maze all day? You haven’t stopped since you got here?”

“Isn’t that what you told me to do?”

“Oh Mei. I’m sorry. Just—just hold on.” Olivia turned the handle. Normally she might not risk opening the door to the poison garden with another person around. But Mei sounded so forlorn. Olivia eased the garden door open only enough to let herself through, so that not an inch of her plants could be accidentally seen. Mei was sitting on a bench made of fallen and twisted branches. Olivia sat beside her. “I’m sorry the maze didn’t give you an answer today. Sometimes it just isn’t possible to rush these things.”

Mei said nothing for a while. “Did you get your answer?”

“My answer?”

“Isn’t that what you were doing in there?”

Olivia glanced at the walls behind them. “Oh. No. I was just … relaxing.”

“Is that your private garden?”

Olivia nodded.

“Why can’t anyone go in?”

“Sometimes a person just needs her own space. To get away.”

Mei frowned. “I can understand that.”

“Do you need to get away?”

Mei glanced at her. Her eyes were dark and shiny. Her features were small, her skin a creamy olive, her lips a natural plum. All the toughness and bravado she’d shown earlier in the day when she’d been locked in the peacock pen was gone now, making her appear small and fragile and much younger than her age.

“It’s okay,” Olivia said. “You don’t have to tell me unless you want to. I’m here to listen, whenever you need. But the maze … you’ve just got to give it time.”

“How much time?”

“I can’t say. But you’re welcome to stay here as long as you want to, Mei. For however long it takes until you’re ready to decide what you want to do.”

Mei looked at her feet. “Thanks.”

Olivia could feel the garden at her back, calling to her. She did her best to ignore it. “Why don’t you go into the barn for the night? Don’t worry—the others are very nice. A little rough around the edges sometimes, but they’ll set you up with something to eat and a place to sleep. And they won’t ask any questions.”

Mei stood. She was looking at Olivia now, speculation in her eye. “You actually seem pretty nice.”

“Is that not what you expected?”

“I don’t know. I guess—I guess I didn’t expect you to actually seem nice.”

Olivia couldn’t hide a small frown. She knew people talked about her. A lot. But she didn’t think her character had ever been in question.

Mei rubbed her eyes. “You know what? I’m sorry. I think you’re right. I need to stop walking. I need to get off my feet.”

“Can you find your way out to the barn?”

“Well, I guess if I could find my way into this mess, I can find my way out of it, too.”

Olivia smiled. “I don’t think you’ll end up waiting for your answer for too long.”

“Thanks,” Mei said.

When the girl was gone, Olivia let herself back into the poison garden. She had a sense, sometimes, that it had its own awareness of her, an expectation, so that when she opened the door and closed it behind her, the garden seemed to sigh,
Ah! There you are!

She picked the leaf of a stinging nettle and felt its furry skin against her skin. Normally she could keep her desire for a different kind of life at bay; but the world was conspiring against her tonight. There was Sam, with his hesitant smile and all of his unbearable, unanswerable questions. There was Mei, her difficulty as obvious as her belly, her solution, not. There were all the people of Green Valley, everyone she had to keep away.

In ancient stories, Daphne was turned into a laurel tree to escape Apollo, and Olivia wished sometimes that the gods would do the same thing to her, turn her into a quiet stand of nightshade, or a stalk of meadow deathcamas, or even a toxic pink laurel—and let her live out her days as plants did, simply
being
without questioning, without the unceasing self-flagellation that comes with the human condition, the
why me?
and
why this?
and
what now?

But, human she was, and so she couldn’t shake her human loneliness, or the feeling of her heart being squeezed inside her chest for some reason she didn’t want to think about. She took in a deep breath of wet air. The valley was silent; even the night creatures were still. Pink bundles of oleander, gorgeous and bitterly toxic, clustered softly. She was safe here: She had to remind herself of that. No one could see her; no one could touch her; she didn’t need a thing but what she had. She checked to be sure that the door was locked. Then she slid out of her clothes, lowered herself into the bower of her belladonna, and dozed contentedly among her poisonous plants.