The World to Come
by Eildon Rhymer
What if the Dark had won at the end of Silver on the Tree? The world is sliding into darkness, and only tattered remnants of the Light remain. Will, Bran and the Drews grow to adulthood, and each to their own destiny in this World to Come.
Part two: chapter nine
The garden of liesJane lied to her mother all the time. Sometimes, she felt that she uttered not a single word of truth from first thing in the morning, to last thing at night.
She lied about herself, and she lied about others. "Of course I haven't been crying," she would say. "Yes, I'm sure Simon's fine. I know he's not been in touch for a while, but he's not doing anything dangerous." She lied about hope. "This will all pass one day, mother, I'm sure of it." She lied about disappointment, smiling with blank eyes when talk turned to education, and lost opportunities. She lied about the future, and she lied about the past.
This world has made a liar of me, she thought, brushing her hair with slow and listless strokes. It's poison at the core, and I have caught that poison, and now I am affected, too.
Her mother fretted on the couch, and knew nothing about what really lay inside her daughter's heart. The lies wove together, and became a solid framework. Soon they would be more real than any truth.
Soon Jane would believe them herself. Sometimes she almost did.
There was one thing that started with a lie, but ended with truth. "I'm going out to the shops," Jane told her mother. "Not the corner shop, but right into town. I'll be all morning, if not longer."
That was the lie. She uttered it about once a month, and had done so for over a year. It won her hours just to spend by herself, out of the house. She wandered beneath trees, and trailed her fingers through the waters of a stream. Sometimes she just sat, and emptied her mind, so it was full of nothing at all. Sometimes she ran, but mostly she strolled.
It was time for herself. It was a tiny little glimmer of truth. It did not undo a thing, and it did not change anything about her life, but it was like a drop of shining water, or a single gleam of sunlight.
She did not think she could survive without it.
Three months before, she had found a small garden, locked behind walls. She had peered through the gates, and seen beds of flowers, as glorious as gardens had ever been in her youth. She wanted to enter it, but knew she could not. Life was one long story of things being denied and snatched away. Those who wanted things too badly tended to end up dead. You had to content yourself with nothing, because at least then you lived.
Still, she had returned. Two months ago, she had wandered back past its walls, and again a month after that. She had watched the flowers turn from spring to high summer. Today, she would see them beginning to fade into autumn.
Today, the gate was open.
Jane paused on the threshold. I shouldn't, she thought. This garden was the property of someone else. It was beautiful and locked, and that meant that it belonged to someone in power. The door was only open by accident. She was not allowed in.
Coward. She imagined Simon standing behind her, berating her. The door is open! Take this chance. His eyes blazed with all the stupid bravery of the cause he had naively embraced. The people were like sheep, he told her, and complicit in their own oppression. She was a symbol of everything that was wrong with the populace. To see a door, wide open, and yet walk on by… To see a place of beauty, and turn away, murmuring that it was not for you…
The wrought iron gate swung gently in the breeze. Through the entrance, she could see a fountain cascading from a stone dolphin, its droplets falling like sweet rain. I'll show him, she thought. I'll show him that I'm not a sheep.
Her feet edged forward, one step, and two.
She thought of her mother, waiting anxiously on the couch at home, depending on her utterly. The gate was open, yes, but she knew it was only by accident. If she went in, and they caught her in there, they could punish her severely. The open gate would be no defence.
She shook her head, surprised to find that there were tears in her eyes. She had given up so many things in her life. This was nothing, just few stolen moments in a garden. She could not risk everything just for that.
As she walked away, she could not help thinking that she had failed some sort of test. Her morning alone now lacked its lustre. Simon would have gone in, she thought. Simon would have called it a symbolic gesture against the government. Sheep bowed their heads on walked on by an open door, but the truly brave ventured in, and took the forbidden fruits within.
"Then Simon is an idiot," she muttered to herself. It was stupid to risk everything for something so trivial. Simon might have dashed in, but she was sure that the leaders of the Resistance would have walked on by. If you fought the meaningless battles, then you left nothing for the battles that really mattered.
"You didn't go in," a voice said quietly from behind her.
Jane whirled round, heart pounding, excepting to see soliders in black, with guns trained on her face. Instead, she saw a man in a pale suit. He was older than her by at least ten years, with brown hair, and a smile that was almost tentative. His clothes were clearly expensive. That alone was enough to show that he had the favour of the government.
"I'm sorry," she stammered. "I knew it was forbidden. I didn't… I was only tempted for a second." Her fear felt sharp and real. For years, she had muted such things, until whole weeks went by without her feeling anything that was not grey.
"Don't be afraid." He raised his hand, spreading it to show his empty palm. "I left it open for you."
"I don't understand." She wanted to back away, but was scared he would see it as an admission of guilt. "You don't know me."
"I saw you looking in a few months ago," he said. "I was inside. Then I saw you again on the camera. I could tell that you loved it."
She looked down at the ground. "So you tried to trap me. But I didn't do anything. I never would."
"No," he said, "and that's why I let you in. You will come in, won't you?"
She stood very still, barely even breathing, not sure what he was asking of her. Meanings lurked beneath his words. If this was a test, she did not know how to win it. If this was not a test, then she did not know what it was at all.
He must have seen the hesitation in her eyes. "I am a powerful man, Jane. It is not advisable to refuse my gifts."
He said it quite calmly, as if he was commenting on the weather, not issuing threats. She was chilled by that alone. She did not immediately notice that he had used her name. When she did, she could have fallen to the ground in horror. "You know…"
"I can know anything, Jane," he said gently, and he reached towards her, but refrained from touching her. If he had been anyone else, she would almost have thought that he was shy.
"Why me?" she whispered, her hands rising to her face. "I haven't done anything. I'm not…"
"You're beautiful, Jane," he told her. No-one had ever told her that before. She knew it was a lie, designed to entrap her, but something cold and grey inside her raised its head, as it touched by a distant sun. "I saw that right away, when I saw you looking at my flowers, but trapped outside, in shadow. I appreciate beautiful things, Jane. That's why I have my garden. Come, Jane. Let me show it to you."
She shook her head, but it was slowly done. "I can't. I need to get back. My mother…"
"I am not accustomed to being refused, Jane." His voice turned cold. His outstretched hand clenched slowly into a claw. She was about to turn and flee, when he laughed. "Now, Jane, look what you almost made me do. I don't intend to hurt you. I just want you to come into my garden. Come whenever you like. I won't even be there myself, if that's what you want."
She thought of hours alone in that beauty, locked away from the rest of the world, protected from everyone by strong gates. Her mother, Simon, noise, and rushing… News on the television, and sobs suppressed in supermarket queues. Instead of that, she would have leaves and flowers. There was something about leaves…
She hardened her heart to it. "I want to," she admitted, "but I have never been able to do what I want. It's not you. It's me. Find someone else, someone who can give. I lost all ability to feel things years ago. You say I'm pretty, but I'm not inside. I'm dead inside. I'd kill the flowers. It's not right, a place like that, for me. I can't…"
She walked away, and he did not stop her. She waited until she was almost home before she let the tears fall, and for the first time in years, she was not able to stop them.
End of part two: chapter nine