The Wicked Garden Read online

  Gretchel snapped back to the present. “Just bits and pieces, Grand Mama. I know that the cottage has been in our family for a long time, and that you were born and raised there. I know it was built for your mama, Miss Mary Catherine Miller. I know a neighbor willed Snyder Farms to you. Of course, I've heard plenty of stories about the ghosts in the Wicked Garden, and you know I've seen them.” And don’t you dare bring up the ones I put there Grand Mama, Gretchel thought.

  “You don't know a goddamn thing about those ghosts," Miss Poni rasped, a sneer contorting her face. Gretchel was used to her grandmother’s cantankerousness, but this took her aback.

  “I would welcome the chance to be educated, Grand Mama,” Gretchel replied with all the poise she could muster. “But you don’t know what I know. You have no idea.”

  The ancient woman wasn’t fazed by her granddaughter’s sass, only surprised; she just shook her head. “Yes, well, it would be good to get the truth out. There are stories we need to tell. Yours is one of them, Baby Girl. It’s time. I can feel the north wind blowing changes our way.”

  It’ll be a cold day in hell before I tell my story, Gretchel thought. And then she thought about Holly’s vision. She knew she should hear what Miss Poni had to say before it was too late, but she wasn’t ready to think about life without her Grand Mama. She pushed the thought of the woman’s passing to the back of her mind.

  “I think it’s time for your stories on TV, isn’t it?”

  “Gretchel, I want you to do something for me.”

  “What do you need, Grand Mama. Do you want another blanket?”

  “No, no, no. I want you to go down to the cottage after your mama gets back and fetch me the painting of the poppies. I need something pretty to look at.”

  Gretchel couldn’t stop the tears from reaching her eyes. “Can Mama do that for you? I’m kind of on a tight schedule.”

  “In a rush to get back to your prison cell, are you now? Does the warden know you’ve come to fraternize with the Witches of Snyder Farms? Should I expect torches and pitchforks within the hour? Do I need to load the shotgun so I can take care of that abusive son of a bitch once and for all?”

  “Enough!” Gretchel yelled.

  Miss Poni eyed the girl with interest. She hadn’t fought back in many years. The old woman noticed what was missing from her granddaughter’s neck, and nodded to herself. “I’d really like to see that painting, Baby Girl. I need to see it. Something’s stirring in this cold winter wind, and I want those pretty poppies to keep the shadows at bay.”

  “Okay. I’ll get you the painting. Just please watch your stories, Grand Mama,” Gretchel replied. She walked into the kitchen, and burst into tears.

  ∞

  “Can you come back for dinner tonight—bring the kids, maybe? I know it’s your anniversary, but it’s not as though you care,” her mother asked as she put groceries away.

  Gretchel let the jab roll. “We’re going out with the Browns.” Gretchel felt her mother’s loneliness in the pit of her stomach. “Mama, why don’t you have Thomas over for dinner? I haven’t heard you talk about him for a while now.”

  “I’m just fine with the way things are. Now you run along, and make sure you tell Troy how much I despise him.”

  “I can’t leave just yet. Grand Mama wants me to run down to the cottage to get the poppy painting.”

  Ella stopped unpacking her bags, and turned to her daughter. She began to cry. “The poppies. She’s going to leave us soon,” she muttered. “I can get the painting, Baby Girl, you don’t need to trouble yourself.”

  “It’s not a big deal, Mama. I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she said.

  “It’s a blue moon. Do be careful.”

  Gretchel drove toward the cottage. It was less than a mile away. As soon as it came into view, she felt a bittersweet ache spread across her chest. The cottage at Snyder Farms was her real home. She had lived there twice in her life: once as a teenager and once as a young married mother. Both times she was barely getting by, financially and mentally. The house was technically hers, but only on the condition that Troy never set foot on the property again. Miss Poni had made it clear that she would cut Gretchel out of her will if she had good reason to believe that Troy had been there.

  Troy had pushed the matriarch too far. When he sent Marcus to jail, Miss Poni had been angry. When she saw the bruises on Gretchel’s body that had provoked Marcus to violence, she had been outraged. Her initial response had been to terrorize Troy with the old family shotgun and promise to bury him in the Wicked Garden. The threat of disinheritance had been a welcome de-escalation.

  Gretchel shook the horrid memory from her head, only to be struck with yet another. As she pulled into the gravel driveway, her eyes were pulled toward a burnt-out pickup truck sitting phantomlike in the snow, surrounded by dead vegetation. The Wicked Garden had claimed the vehicle many years before. Gretchel touched her waist, and had to fight to catch her breath.

  She pulled her attention away from the desolation and toward the cottage. Kinder memories fell softly in her mind. The cottage was a breathtaking piece of architecture in the middle of nowhere—even in the dead of winter. With its crooked chimney, sloping roof, and arched doorway, the cottage looked like something right out of a fairy tale. For the first time in her life, Gretchel wondered if maybe this fairy tale didn’t have a happy ending. A shiver ran through her as she put the key into the lock.

  She flipped on the lights. No one had lived there since she and Troy had moved out. She didn’t like to remember that time.

  The interior was beautiful, exactly the home Gretchel had always dreamed of. Miss Poni had had it completely renovated three years before. For a little while, Gretchel assumed that her grand mama was softening in her old age, willing to lift her ban on Troy. But she soon learned that Miss Poni was just trying to lure her granddaughter away from her husband.

  It was cold inside the cottage. She pulled her coat tight, and looked toward the pictures on the mantelpiece. On one side she saw her great great grand mama and her great grand mama. On the other side were Miss Poni and Ella. She wondered when her picture would be added to the display. Was she even worthy of being added? She had shamed the family. They tried to deny it, acting like nothing had happened for the sake of her sanity.

  In the middle of the pictures sat an old bottle of Scotch. Whiskey had been a mainstay in the house, but this bottle had been untouched for decades. Without thinking, Gretchel reached for the amethyst that was no longer there. She would have to find strength from within, her first real test.

  She took a deep breath and moved her gaze from the bottle to the antique Remington shotgun that hung above the photos. It was said to have belonged to her great-grandmother, and there were stories aplenty of the times it had been fired.

  Above the shotgun was a huge mounted buck that Gretchel had prayed to as a teenager. It was her Horned God. She had shot the buck herself, bow hunting, when she was only twelve. There was a time when the beast had offered her guidance, when she was still able to hear the knowing inner voice, before she felt nothing.

  She glanced at the bookcases built around the fireplace. The shelves held many of Miss Poni’s books—some of them impossibly old—as well as volumes on art, gardening, magic, herbs, and mythology. There were a few novels—classics, mostly—and collections of poetry, too.

  And then there were her own books—the books Troy had forced her to leave behind. She walked closer and let her eyes linger on her favorite authors: Jack Kerouac, Tom Robbins, Carlos Castaneda, Kurt Vonnegut, Lewis Carroll, and, of course, her very favorite: Graham Duncan.

  Duncan had come out with seven new books since she’d married Troy. Seven books that she hadn’t read. There was a time when his books were her only friends in the world, when she had been sure she had a telepathic connection with the author while reading his words.

  The precious first-edition signed copy of Hermes In Heat, given to her as a gift, was missing from the books
helf. It had been missing since Ame was a baby. Troy had probably burnt it in the cottage fireplace, along with The Spiral Dance, her Bhagavad Gita, and the Tao Te Ching.

  Gretchel was brushing her fingers against the spines of her books when she heard a snapping sound. Her eyes turned back to the photos on the mantelpiece, to her ancestors, but they were all still. It was the house settling. She was just being jumpy. She touched each silver frame, one by one.

  “I gave the amethyst away. I had to. So what am I supposed to do now?” she asked, and then the tears began again. She dropped into the overstuffed storybook chair, where Miss Poni had read to her as a child, and wept.

  When she had calmed a bit, she turned to look at the painting her grandmother had sent her for. Its field of orange flowers was vibrant against the pale green of the wall. Gretchel hated this painting. She cursed the thing, and the voice that commanded her to paint it.

  She heard another creaking sound, this time from the direction of the master bedroom. Alarmed, she got up and crept into the room, but there was nothing there—nothing but the painting of a phoenix hanging above the bed. This was more of her work. Gretchel felt a tightness in her throat as tears gathered in her eyes. She walked to the dresser and let her fingers circle the rim of an ancient silver loving cup. She remembered the last lips to touch it, and she began sobbing again.

  Gretchel sank onto the bed, curled into a fetal position, and surrendered to the pain. It seemed like today she was making up for more than a decade without tears. It was exhausting. She needed to sleep. She just needed to rest for a while. She closed her eyes, and cried herself into slumber.

  Wake, ye weak bloody bampot, a voice shouted.

  She be a bit of a crabbit, an er heid’s mince, said another.

  Aye, but she’s got to wake up before the pain in the bahooky arrives!

  Gretchel opened her eyes inside a dream. It was dark, but she could see stars in the sky above and a huge full moon glowing bright. Her movements felt strangely fluid. It took her a moment to realize that she was immersed in water. It was warm and comforting. She felt a strong, healing presence surrounding her. She moved her hands and let the water wash over her naked shoulders. Then she saw them.

  Several women were circling her, all of them redheads. She was in the middle of a grove, soaking in a huge cauldron. She could see the flames of a bonfire glowing madly nearby. There were sparkles of fairy wings flickering about in the moonlight.

  It’s a braw bricht moonlit nicht, and for Hogmanay no less.

  “I don’t understand,” Gretchel said.

  I tol ye, her heid’s mince. She asks for help, and doesn’t listen.

  Keep the heid, an older woman said, then she addressed Gretchel. She says it’s a good, bright moonlit night for New Year’s Eve. Blue moon it is. There’s magic in the air. New beginnings. Wind blow’n in yer favor, lass. Been blowing that way since the Solstice.

  Aye! the women agreed in unison.

  Gretchel was slightly unnerved by her lack of nervousness, and watched apprehensively as the ghostly figures seemed to float around her. They kept an eye on her, too, as she simmered in the huge pot. But their gazes weren’t frightening. In fact, they were as warm and gentle as the element in which she soaked.

  Her tensed muscles relaxed as she allowed herself to be held by the water, watched over by kindly eyes. As the tribe of red-haired women circled her, Gretchel felt tiny bits of herself merging back into place, like pieces of a puzzle connecting, or the skin closing over a scar. Yes, that’s it, she thought. The more they danced, the more whole she felt. They were healing her. She knew, without knowing, that this was a ritual as old as time, and she allowed herself to surrender to it. For the first time in almost twenty years, her heart was open.

  But the moment didn’t last.

  Ah, piss. The bloody devil’s bride’s a comin’, one of the women called.

  Startled, Gretchel was jolted out of restorative bliss and back into panic mode. The women were panicked, too, running from the clearing and disappearing into the mist that surrounded it. Turning her head this way and that, trying to identify the source of their terror, Gretchel saw her greatest fear approaching. She hadn’t seen this apparition in seventeen years, but now she was back: the Woman in Wool.

  Slowly and steadily, the entity walked toward the cauldron in the grove. Her bland blue wool dress was filthy and tattered. Her bare feet were covered in dirt and blood. Her hands were claws, ravaged by time and hard work. Her hair was a tangled red nest. But her face…. Gretchel might have thought she was the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen if that beauty wasn’t marred by the purest evil.

  Gretchel splashed at the water, frantic. She looked again for the women who had been with her moments ago, but she knew that they were gone. She looked for the flutter of fairy wings and saw none. She was alone, naked and defenseless, with her worst nightmare. She finally managed to pull herself out of the cauldron and set off running across the grove and into the forest. Gretchel was a fast runner, but that didn’t matter in a dream. She turned back, and saw that the Woman in Wool was catching up with her without ever hastening her terrifyingly deliberate pace.

  “Leave me alone,” Gretchel shouted. She felt like she was running in place. She couldn’t make her legs move fast enough.

  Suddenly a wolf howled and the Woman in Wool dropped to the ground. Gretchel felt a slight tinge of relief, until she felt the first flames licking against her legs, her belly, her breasts. She was burning. There was fire all around her. She heard the ambulance cry and jerked awake.

  After a moment of confusion, Gretchel realized where she had awakened. Being trapped in the nightmare would have been preferable.

  For the first time since the accident, she felt the full impact of what had happened. There was nothing—no medication, no alcohol, no madness, and no charmed amethyst—to protect her from the pain. It felt like a vacuum had sucked her heart right out of her chest, and then blew it back in with unimaginable force.

  She couldn’t breathe. She pounded on the dashboard, frenzied, until finally she took in a stinging breath of bitter cold air. She wrapped her hands around her waist as tightly as she could. Her abdomen cramped with remembered loss. Her arm ached from a long-healed break, and the ghostly pain from her side nearly sent her into a psychotic episode.

  Looking around the old pickup truck’s charred interior, she remembered everything. Everything. She closed her eyes and let the memories wash through her fully and completely.

  And then the truck vibrated as she let out a banshee wail that could have awakened the dead—and maybe had.

  She kicked at the door. It wouldn’t budge.

  “Help me!” she screamed.

  She tried pulling up the lock on the passenger side. She couldn’t grip it, and her bare hands were seared from the cold.

  “Gretchel!” She heard in the distance.

  She finally realized what she had to do. She began climbing out the window.

  “Gretchel!” She heard again.

  She hesitated, and looked back in the cab, just as she had done twenty-five years before, but this time there was no one there to reach out to. Then she pushed herself out of the truck window almost the exact same way she had done before to save her own life.

  “What in the hell are you doing?” bellowed her mother.

  Gretchel looked around as she stumbled away from the truck, shaking wildly.

  “How did I get here?” she cried. She pulled herself up and looked around again, noticing that the sky was dark. She smelled smoke—burnt flesh. She felt her waist again.

  She heard shuffling behind her, in the Wicked Garden. She turned around to see her daughter’s black horse staring her down from the fenced pasture. The horse never came this close to the Wicked Garden. Epona neighed and bucked as if she’d been spooked.

  “Gretchel, it’s almost 5:30. Mama reminded me you were coming here. Have you been in the Wicked Garden this whole time?” her mother asked as she
helped her up from the ground.

  “I have to leave. We’re going out for dinner. Look at me. I’m a mess.”

  “What were you doing in the truck?” Ella cried.

  “Mama, I have to go!”

  Backing out of the drive, Gretchel saw the shotgun laying in the backseat of her car. She gasped at the sight. She had no idea how it got there, and she didn’t have time to take it back to the cottage. She sped down the country road hoping she could get a shower before Troy got home. Then the voices started. She hadn’t heard them while she was awake since... since...

  Noo, jist haud on!

  She’s aff er heid.

  Yer bum’s oot the windae, Mama, let er go about it then.

  Will ye look at the bloody huge chebs on the chootker!

  Aye. Huge fer a Skinny Malinky longlegs.

  On and on they went, uninvited guests that wouldn’t go away and wouldn’t shut up.

  Gretchel was pulling into her own driveway before she remembered that she hadn’t taken her grandmother the painting she’d been sent to fetch. But, then, she suspected that Miss Poni had another motive entirely in sending her to the cottage.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Irvine, 2010s

  It was nearly six o’ clock when Gretchel got home. She put her car in the garage and thanked all the gods and goddesses she could think of for the service door. The last thing she needed was for the neighbors, particularly Michelle, to see her carrying a shotgun into the house. Once she was inside, though, she had no idea what to do with the thing. Nowhere felt safe from Troy, and she certainly didn’t want her kids to find it. Then it occurred to her that Ame had been staying with Holly and had no plans to come home anytime soon. Gretchel slid the shotgun under her daughter’s bed, trusting that she’d have a chance to take it back to the cottage before Ame’s winter break was over.

  After cleaning herself up a bit, Gretchel retreated to her walk-in closet—sacred space and occasional prison—and collapsed to the floor. The voices had faded, only to be replaced with anxiety and fear. She had to keep it together. Troy had already picked out the clothes he wanted her to wear. She was surprised that he hadn’t chosen shoes, too. She fingered a gray wedge and tried not to think about her afternoon at the farm. She had to focus on surviving the evening ahead. One calamity at a time, she reasoned.