Chapter Six

“Up and at 'em!”

“What?” I sat up groggily in bed, rubbing my eyes. I had gone to sleep early the previous day, exhausted by my encounter and by my thoughts. Now it was bright again and I was confused. Timothy did not help.

“Up! Up!” He bustled into the room, apparently having no concept or use of privacy, and threw off my blanket. I was wearing my SpongeBob pajamas.

“Stop!” I complained and pushed him weakly away. “What’s going on?”

“I have had a fantastic idea,” Timothy said, ignoring my protests and practically dragging me out of bed, “something to make up for yesterday.”

“I have to change,” I managed, but he just pushed me out into the hall.

“No need,” he said. “You look fabulous. There won’t be anyone to see you anyway. We are going to the garden.”

“Garden?” Now I was even more confused. “What garden?” Would there be cactus flowers and tumble weeds?

“Milton does not think you should be allowed there,” he continued, pulling me down the steps after him. “He is just being a contrarian. I say you deserve it after what you have been through. You have had to see magic go wrong. It is time you saw it go right.”

I was still lost. We came to the white door on the landing. There, we stopped.

“Timothy, what?”

“Open it,” he said, “this one time.”

I blinked, hesitating, but he gestured impatiently for me to get on with it. I gripped the handle rather too tightly and with fear tickling my belly, twisted it inch by inch.

I pulled, and the door opened silently on a bad memory. Tawny stone, voluminous shadows, and a ceiling that vaulted into darkness; it was the caverns I recalled from childhood. I had not seen them since--except in nightmares. My mouth opened as red lights shone out of the black, two small points growing brighter as they approached. The tickle of fear suddenly ruptured into the grip of terror. It was coming. The monster was coming from my dreams. I stood paralyzed, helpless.

Timothy slammed the door shut. “I apologize. I did not know what would be there. That was a demonstration of why you are not to open this door. You cannot control where it goes.”

I began to breathe again, my heart hammering alarmingly in my chest. “Do not do that to me again,” I said. “Was that all this was about? I haven’t touched it! You didn’t have to do that.”

He squeezed my arm, and warmth flowed through me. My heart calmed. “No, we were not here for that,” he said, “but better you see it when I am here than think to attempt it in the future.”

He reached for the knob, and I flinched.

“It’s all right,” he said. “Watch.”

The door opened slowly, silent as before, revealing a long, dim hallway carpeted in red.

“It’s all right,” he repeated and gently guided me through.

The passage was lit by nothing, but it was not too dark to see as the white door shut behind us. Under my bare feet was not carpet at all but moss, crimson and velvety, faintly slick.

“What’s this?” I asked, looking down, but received no answer.

At the end of the hallway were two great iron slabs with a connecting latch in the design of a nine-pointed star. The metal was a lusterless dark, colder than it had any right to be. Frost webbed the points of the design.

“Now,” said Timothy, “the reason we are here.” He touched his forefinger to the center of the latch, and the symbol glowed with heat, purging it of frost. For a moment, I thought I saw the image of an orange flower superimposed upon the star. I blinked, and it was gone.

With a groan the doors began to part, and Timothy took me with him in a backward step. The light was enough to blind me momentarily. I shut my eyes tightly, knowing it was all a trick and something awful lurked on the other side, waiting for the gate to part.

The groaning ceased, and Timothy prodded me in the ribs. I saw him first, laughing in the light, and then I saw…

Fierce gold, sweet cerise, and delicate crystalline blue; there were hazy gradients of purple, mauve undertones to crimson symphonies, and yellows so sharp they stung. There were colors that I can’t describe because I have seen them nowhere else. There is nothing like them on Earth, but above all there was green; verdant and vibrant, lush and leafy, flushed with surfeit life; vegetation laced so thick you could see it breathing. It was a garden, but a garden so unlike the usual conception that the word only applied as an allegory.

This was a wizard’s garden.

With the lightest of pressures, Timothy ushered me inside. A glass roof curved above into an impossibly high dome supported only by thin lines of dark metal like the gates. I could not see the end of the space because of the plants, but it would be measured in acres. It went without saying that this garden could not possibly have been hidden anywhere on the ranch.

“Your father knew.”

It was another beat before I realized he had spoken, and a second again before the words could order themselves for my understanding. I had been lost in the rainbow of unruly colors, this vast horizon of unknown beauty, but that curt statement brought the sky down with a crash.

I took a deep breath, intending to steady myself but was only thrown further off balance by an assault of unfamiliar scents. The discordant medley was almost pungent enough to overwhelm my reaction to his words, but not quite.

“What?!” I smelled cinnamon and mint and softer, darker fragrances. I smelled saffron and roses laced with lightning. “What did he know?” I was accusing, pretending I hadn’t guessed already, hoping it would change if only I didn’t admit it.

“He knew about both worlds. He knew about this.” Timothy’s hand swept out over the wonders of the garden, the flowers that had no name. Then he took my hand in his, guiding me along the path of red moss, darker here than in the hall.

“But he wasn’t… wasn’t like you.” My dad had been ordinary, for all of his pining. He had held a job and paid the bills. He certainly hadn’t had any golems to do the chores, though we could have used one.

“He comes from a line of wizards, just as Milton does. I never spoke with Acton about his reasons, and Milton does not speak for him, but he chose not to embrace the spark that was in him. Magic almost always follows the blood, though.”

One phrase parsed above the rest. “You knew my dad?”

Before I had come to the ranch, I had no idea of Timothy’s existence or of what my uncle was. But my dad had known and had kept this from me. Why?

“Barely.” We stopped by a small, shallow brook with a bottom of glittering pebbles. “He kept his distance from our life here, from everything that had to do with magic. It may be that he never wanted you to know what we are, what he could have been.”

What he could have been? The man who had raised me could not be a sorcerer, could never have been. Yet only weeks ago, I would have said there was no such thing at all. Magic had only lived in my books. No more.

Light danced strangely on the smoothly breezing water, as if living things darted beneath its clear surface. Timothy stepped on the water, and my mouth opened. The pebbles had risen to catch his foot like a little grey island of mica. Then he was pulling me after him. The stones felt silken on the skin of my feet, and I could feel the soft rush of the water tugging underneath.

There was no path on the other bank, only thick grass that was velvety between my toes. Around us was a field of dandelions that soon gave way to a little vale of birch and cedar and elm. Beyond that was a forest nearing the heart of the dome. A single black line rose up from the center of that green conflagration, a tree so high and old it nearly pierced the impossible glass ceiling to breach the sky above.

I glanced behind us at the menagerie of riotous colors and forms. In some way it felt like we were leaving the wizard’s garden, but I knew that to be false. What we were coming to was the truer and purer shape, though less splendid. The path that we had left behind was like a gay parade. There was a sense of movement and procession in it. I could have been lost in the beauty of following that ripe red path, but it would have led nowhere, circling the real garden.

Things were not as they seemed. I let go of Timothy’s hand. He gave me a surprised look but said nothing as we began walking toward the nearer vale.

“Why are you telling me this now? Why are you showing me this place, really?”

Timothy looked hurt. “I wanted you to see these things, what we have made here. I want to share it with you. As for the other,” he shrugged, “I thought you should know if you had not already guessed. Milton wants you to keep everything from you because you are not one of us, more part of the outside world. He is careful with his secrets, with ours, and that’s good, of course. But you are of the blood. We should not be keeping anything from you now that you are staying here.”

He looked so pained that I regretted questioning his intentions. He meant well, I could see that plainly. Now that it was in the open, it was obvious my father had to have known about magic and sorcery. If it had never occurred to me before, it was only because I had been so caught up in my other worries. Why hadn’t he told me? There could be a million reasons. He could have been waiting until I was older, or he might have had some reason to be ashamed or afraid of telling me. Adults all have ridiculous notions about shielding young people from the truth. He had distanced himself from Milton and from this world. What had happened to make him want to get away from them? The answer had to have something to do with why he kept all of this secret.

Timothy, too, was keeping things back.

We came into the copse, a serried ring of trees around a groomed center. A clump of giant sunflowers dominated the scene but smaller blooms were all around them. The plants stirred as we passed through, though there was no wind. The heady mélange of their many perfumes was enough to make me lightheaded. Oddly, I was reminded of Soma.

There was so much beauty in that simple, secluded place that I did not wish to leave. The unending tensions erected by my mind and the worries of the known and the unknown left in a flood, leaving me light and happy. I was glad Timothy had brought me here, glad for everything, good and bad.

The sunflowers nodded amiably as we passed them.

“You can feel it, can’t you?” he asked me.

“It’s good here. I feel that.”

“Power is good, and that is what you feel, the energy we have stored here.”

We came into a larger field of swaying grass that led to the forest, the true garden. Only a handful of flowers were scattered here—tall, white lilies, heavy-headed and all the more enchanting for their scarcity. He watched me pick my way through the grass, always a few steps ahead, waiting.

“A sorcerer feels it always, in all life, but here it is the strongest. Your eyes are not able to see the true beauty of this place, but you can feel a part of what we have done. It is years we have spent tending it.”

I stopped in my tracks, coldness coursing through me strong enough to wash away all the good auras of the place. A thought had floated out of the darkness, a new connection laced with anxiety; something I should have realized sooner.

“How old are you, Timothy?”

“Forty or fifty.” He spoke as if it was of no consequence. It was only yesterday that Bolton had told me he was Milton’s before the invention of cars. Milton had to be older still and if he was …

“Timothy, how old is my dad?”

The field stirred, and yet there was no breeze. Timothy looked as if he had been woken from a dream to find a stranger where he had expected a friend. There was a pause as he considered my question or, more likely, considered what answer he would choose to give me.

My voice wavered only slightly as I asked again, “How old is he?”

Timothy appeared to be in his early twenties; not a line of worry or wear was tucked in any corner of his face. Forty or fifty, he had said casually, as if it was of no importance, as if he was still very young. Maybe that was the way I would see it, too, if I was immortal. Did they live forever or just age slowly? My dad looked forty. He was only supposed to be forty-five, but he could be a thousand years old for all I knew. Never saying a word about what his brother was, what else had he kept from me?

“I cannot say exactly,” Timothy measured his words out in thimbles. “I know they were born, both of them, sometime in the early nineteenth century.”

Two hundred years? Two hundred years?!

I felt a blow far greater than when I had realized magic was real and the world totally different from what billions of people believed; that had been nothing at all. I’ve never pretended to understand how the universe works. I was curious, interested, but it was only one question out of many. I accepted by default, as most people do, whatever the Discovery Channel had to say about the immutable laws of physics, and whatever the History Channel had to say about witches and warlocks as well. If they happened to be wrong about folding space or the uses and conversion of energy, that wasn’t a personal revelation; it was just one more mysterious thing, like quasars or Catholicism. But I had seen the impossible—walking terra cotta men, doors that could take you anywhere, light and sound out of nothing--and it hadn’t phased me. I read fantasy novels and science fiction; that these things existed did not strain my imagination. A part of me had always wished magic were real--not a small part either--and if it weren’t for my dad, I would definitely be enjoying this more. All the surprises so far had not been personal. They had actually been kind of cool, like an adventure. But this was personal. My dad hadn’t just kept things from me, hadn’t just lied. He was not the person I had always believed he was. He was not that person at all.

“Abigail, I am sure he had a good reason. Your father loves you, and he is the same man he has always been, the same one you remember. How many children know the life histories of their parents beyond a vague outline? Next to none. The only difference now is that Acton's history happens to be a little longer than most.”

“A little longer?”

“I am sure that he meant tell you if he were able. Becoming sick changed everything.”

How would Timothy know my father’s plans or motivations? Though even through my shock, my anger, I saw his point. Who really knew the story of their parents’ lives? Not many kids I had met, that was sure. Maybe before the invention of color television, but not now. This wasn’t just details, though. This wasn’t normal. Two hundred years is a lot to never mention.

Then again, my inner voice told me that if he had not wanted me to know about magic, he couldn’t very well have told me how old he was. I would never have believed it for a second, anyway. A less familiar voice came behind this one, like the low hiss of steam; red-hot steel in a cold bath.

“ Sorcerers always lie.”

I looked back. Where had that come from? Had Timothy heard? The whispery hiss had almost seemed to come from outside myself and yet from within me at the same time.

The boy, the boy whose eyes held years I did not know, was watching me warily. He had heard nothing. I needed to be alone. I needed time to think. Everything was getting to be too much.

“I’ve had enough, enough for today. I want to go back.”

“Go back? I still have something for you to see.”

“Tomorrow, maybe.” My head ached. Where had that voice come from? “I want to be able to think this through. You tore me out of bed. I’m not ready to see whatever is left.”

Timothy smiled. “Only one more sight, I promise. If you like, you can close your eyes until we are there. I will carry you even, but we need to surprise Milton. There is something I want to ask him and you need to be with me when I do. If you have any questions,” he offered, “it would be the right moment to ask them, too. He can tell you anything you want to know about your father, I am sure. Otherwise, you will be brooding over what you don’t know instead of thinking about what you do . Isn’t that wiser than being upset because the world is different from what you thought.”

Maybe so, but I wasn’t going to give him that.

“It can wait. Take me back.” I didn’t want to be dragged into anything new. It sounded like he was working up a scheme that tied all three of us together. “I don’t want to see anymore.”

Ignoring my words, he turned and walked on. “Abigail, come see our garden’s heart.”

Anger colored my cheeks. I tried to choose between going back on my own or planting my feet where they were, just to show he couldn’t force me. I was no longer in the mood for gardens, or secrets, or being ignored.

Wild scents, subtle and richly textured, rose from the grasses at my feet. The lilies shook their heads at me, chastising. He had offered to tell me more, hadn’t he? Or at least to make Milton talk, which was about as easy as doing the same to a bear. Besides, Timothy had never been obligated to tell me anything. Sorcerers lived secret lives, and it was clear this garden was more than important to him. Bringing me here was a sign of trust.

The lilies nodded. All the sweet scents made me feel guilty and my brief burst of stubbornness and anger seem childish. Timothy was walking ahead but not too fast I saw. With an exasperated sigh and the quivering energy of the enchanted garden beckoning me, I trudged after him.

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