The Gardener by S.A. Bodeen Page B

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