Nightfall Gardens by Allen Houston Page A

forgot an important rule: Never trust the Gardens. He lay down for a nap without noticing the Bleeding Heart roots that were hidden nearby. When he awakened, the roots were peeling his skin like a blade peels a potato. We heard his screams all the way from the house. By the time they freed him, he was nothing but a bloody lump of muscle. He never again forgot where he was after that. I hope you’ll be more careful.”
    The house creaked and groaned. Light rain pattered against the window. Lily’s jaw dropped with surprise as the room doubled in length before her eyes. ‘That can’t be possible,’ she thought. But did anything in the last few days make sense?
    “I’m sure you have many questions,” Deiva said. “I’ve been outside of the Gardens in your world. I know how different it is. It’s our burden to be Blackwoods, though, and that means never being at ease.”
    “Why?” Lily asked. ‘My poor mad grandmother may have settled herself long ago to this fate, but the great stages in Paris are calling to me and I won’t be satisfied until I’m upon them.’
    The old woman gave one last longing look out the window and trundled to a shelf where she removed an ancient leather book. Deiva’s black dress dragged the floor. The train was covered in filth.
    “It’s in here, all of it,” she said. “The story of how our family became the most damned in the history of the human race. How we ended up caretakers of Nightfall Gardens and why when the last female Blackwood dies, the Gardens will open and everything foul, noxious, and evil will spill out and signal the last days.”
    Deiva thumbed through the book as she talked. The parchment-like pages were so brittle that they looked as though they might crumble and blow away. The letters were written in an archaic script Lily had never seen before.
    “The fall of our family makes for rich reading if you understand old speak,” their grandmother said.
    “Tell us, then,” Lily said. The long journey, the nightmare of Nightfall Gardens, all of it was wearing on her.
    “Patience my dear. You’ll learn that trait here. Time is all one has in this place,” Deiva said. “Would you like to know about the first Blackwood then?”
    “I’ve already told you I would,” Lily snapped.
    Their grandmother laughed again. “Indeed, you did. Take a seat then,” Deiva turned to their uncle. “For the gods’ sake, Jonquil, sit down. You’re making me nervous.”
    Jonquil rubbed his hands anxiously on his cloak. ‘He’s out of his element,’ Lily thought. ‘But why should that be? This is his home.’
    Lily and Silas sat next to their grandmother at the window. The rain tapped softly against glass. The smell of sickness radiating from her was overwhelming. Deiva reached under her veil and scratched her face. Lily heard something burst and leaned away from her.
    “Ahh, itches like the dickens. Now where was I? Oh yes, the first Blackwood. I suppose she wasn’t so different from the generations that came after. Little did she know one moment of curiosity would doom us all — but those are the rules the old gods play by.”
    Thunder and lightning crashed outside the window where the heavy fog met the gardens and jarred the candles on the table. Mad shadows danced upon the walls.
    “These were the first days when strange beasts rode upon the waves and people were fearful to go out at night for what lurked in the forest. Old gods walked in human disguise. Dragons ruled the air and the dark was controlled by the undead. It was a time of sadness and fear. Evil blanketed the land and no place was safe. The first humans were hunted and killed almost to extinction.”
    Lily felt gooseflesh prickle on her skin. Nightfall Gardens was oddly quiet. Jonquil shifted in his chair as though he couldn’t find a comfortable spot.
    “But as there was bad, there was good,” Deiva continued. “And one of the old gods, Prometheus, took pity on humankind. He forged a box from the very