Melody of a Secret Garden
Secret Window Fan Fiction
By Scarlett Burns

See chapter one for disclaimer and story information.


Chapter 2 – Nighttime Melodies

Mort stood there, admiring his garden.

'How long have I been standing here? One minute? One hour? Why is it so easy for me to lose track?'

Within his garden there was one single spot, a small section in the center of his swaying stalks of corn, which pulled his eyes toward it like a magnet.

'Why? Why does that spot always jump out at me?'

There seemed to be nothing special about the little spot his gaze was always so attracted to. It looked like any other section of his garden. Yet Mort knew the appearance was deceptive… still, he had no idea why he knew that. He sighed heavily, frustrated and tired.

'I need a cigarette.'

Starting towards bed Mort muttered a rather unconvincing, "I don't smoke," to himself, before heading off to retire for the night.

There is a theory that states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the universe is for and why it's here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

Mort stared at the swaying stalks of corn, as if in a trance, his feet chilled by the cool damp earth beneath them. The wind whispered through the stalks as Mort stood outside his lakeside cabin. He listened to the wind-swept melody as if it alone held all the secrets of the universe.

Mort Rainey closed his eyes and listened.

Just listened.

Not moving.

Not breathing.

Just listening.

The melody from the night caressing his garden seemed to speak to him now. Perhaps he had better listen. Slowly Mort started to walk towards his garden, reopening his eyes, seeing it as if for the first time.

'My garden… it is my garden now. Now and forever.'

His robe blew back gently in the breeze as his feet sank slightly in the damp earth. The tattered item of clothing was little protection against the night's breeze… but it really didn't matter to Morton Rainey.

As Mort listened to the tuneless melody the wind was able to produce with the help of his garden, he felt drawn towards it, and more importantly he felt that he needed to acknowledge that he had heard it. And so as he began to heed its voice, it did not seem unusual to him to answer it back. Stopping at the garden's edge, Mort once again closed his eyes and began to hum along with the garden's melody.

'Why not?'

Mort's tuneless humming followed the wind's lead, only barely audible above the nighttime sounds.

If someone were to see him now, outside his cabin at four in the morning, dressed in his robe, hair a rumpled mess, with closed eyes behind bookworm glasses, humming softly to a tuneless melody that undoubtedly only he could hear, they would have surely thought him mad.

'…and they would be right, pilgrim.'

Mort's humming only halted for a moment as the voice echoed in his mind, but he quickly forgot it. Stepping within the garden his hands gently ran across the leafy stalks, toying with them as he made his way deeper within the garden, his humming becoming so soft that it seemed to be instantly swept off his lips by the cool night breeze.

'Secrets in a secret garden, a secret garden seen from a secret window.'

"Secrets," Mort breathed, as the thoughts entered his mind. He whispered to his beloved garden then, not fearfully but inquisitively, like a small child who wanted to learn everything of the world. "What secrets are you hiding from me?"

'It's not hiding anything from you. You're hiding secrets from yourself.'

Mort started slightly at hearing His voice. "I wasn't talking to you."

'But you are now. Why do you think that is? Don't tell me that you've forgotten so soon.'

Mort turned around suddenly, attempting to escape from his own taunting voice. His glasses slid down a little on his nose from the sudden motion and he quickly moved to fix them.

"You're crazy. I don't need to listen to you."

'But you always seem to anyway. Better me than him.'

"Him who?" Mort asked, bewildered, as he stood surrounded by the tall cornstalks and the darkness of the night.

'You really have forgotten, haven't you?'

"This was all a trick! An elaborate ploy to lead me to this very spot, to taunt me," Mort said angrily to the darkness around him, suddenly nervous.He spun himself around again sharply; the enchantment he'd felt earlier at his garden quickly departed. But as he stopped he abruptly took a sharp step backwards in surprise, his back pressing up against one of his beloved stalks, and suddenly they didn't seem so wonderful, suddenly they seemed like his prison.

He was surrounded by these makeshift prison bars, unable to escape what he saw directly in front of him.

The mirror image of himself.