A Stranger in the Garden (4 page)

He used the blood to weave sleep around Gwen. She curled up on her side like a child in the womb, her knees tucked up under her, her petticoats peeking out from under her skirts. One untied bootlace trailed over the edge of the stone.

Corinna. Corinna. Corinna.
The Grue chanted Her name at last. There was power and pleading, revenge and despair in that voice. And love. Above all things, there was so much love and yearning that Charles fell to his knees with it.

Who would have guessed a creature of such immense evil could love another so fiercely?

Charles had never known such love in all his life, except…

This is not about you. I will rid myself of you in short order,
the Grue growled.

He called her name again. Nine times he called while Charles’s blood flowed.

He couldn’t be sure when the light began or whether it was a trick of the fog, but soon enough a woman stood before him. He could barely make out her face. She was like the moon and water and mirrors all at once. A billion stars concentrated into a single being.

“Great Goddess,” she whispered, looking down at Charles. He couldn’t look directly into her face. “You poor wretch!” she said to him.

Now,
the Grue said.
She will not be able to resist what you offer her. Now!

Charles lifted his still-bleeding hand. Her eyes fell on it and she sighed. Her longing matched the Grue’s.

“It has been long since Darwin buried me here. It’s been even longer since last I truly feasted,” she said.

Charles leaned forward, ready to plunge the shears into Gwen’s neck. The Grue was nearly insensible with joy. With this, he believed he would open the way to have his revenge on Corinna. His long quest was almost ended. He would have her again, down there in the dark, and she would be his slave.

Then her hand was around Charles’s wrist. Her touch seared like ice. “By whose magic do you summon me from my sleep?”

She reached down and pulled Charles’s chin upward so that she could see into his eyes. He tried not to meet her gaze. The Grue did not want him to.

She hauled Charles to his feet. They were almost face to face. Her scent was like the pure breath of stars.

“Who hides within your skin? There is a resonance, a memory . . .” She trailed off.

The Grue realized the game was up.

“Corinna.”

Her gaze practically burned through Charles’s eyes clear to the back of his skull. He cried out with the pain of it, but even that did not deter her.

“MacDougal,” she said in wonder and disgust.

She brought Charles’s face so close he feared she would bite him. But the Grue subsumed his fear and took his voice.

“Yes. I am here again.”

“You have broken free of all the bonds that held you. Despite our threats, despite your own vows, you have come here again.” She dropped Charles at her feet in utter revulsion. “You promised,” she said, looking down. Her eyes were midnight blue, like the inside of a sea cave.

“What did I promise you? Do you remember?”

“Aye,” she said. “You promised to go into exile or else be slain. You promised—”

“That is not what I promised and well you know it,” the Grue said through Charles’s lips. “You alone heard my last words before all of you sent me from this world.”

She clenched her jaw. “You promised me that you would return to have your revenge.”

“You did not believe me.”

She shook her head. “I did not think it possible. And then I too was cast forth for aligning with you, even though I had repented of it. I had more pressing issues to concern myself with.”

“You should have come with me as I begged,” the Grue said. “We could have started anew in the land of our birth.”

“You know I would never. You have sundered us from the Eternal Light with your darkness. Despite what you made me, I will not join you in it.”

“And yet, you used Darwin for your own purposes, much as I did this boy,” the Grue said.

“I was weak and foolish,” she said. “I have since learned my lesson.”

“Not well enough, I think,” the Grue said. He was thinking of the innumerable things he would do once he forced her to take him back. Charles shuddered, almost slipped his control, but the Grue got him firmly in hand again.

Do it,
he said to Charles.
She cannot resist me then.
Charles’s gaze fell on Gwen, asleep on the stone.

He lifted the shears up, aiming for the girl’s throat.

Corinna’s hand was on him again, and her freezing touch shocked him enough that Charles was out of the Grue’s reach for just a moment. He was completely under her control. If he had thought the Grue’s powers were vast, they were nothing compared to hers.

Her eyes were filled with sympathy. “He is a cruel master, is he not? He was ever so. You took on a burden far beyond any your kind should take.”

“He offered me power,” Charles said through stiff lips. “Enough power that I could rid myself of the magic forever, if only I could just get here.”

“Dealing with the devil is never a good idea,” she said. “You do not belong here. For better or for worse, you are grounded in the magic of Fairyland. Without it, you will wither and die, even as my people have. Earth magic is very different. It cannot sustain you, since you have been so long in Fairyland.”

Charles felt the Grue shrieking impotently inside him. He lunged, but she caught him just before the shining blades dove into Gwen’s throat. With Corinna’s touch, the memories came flooding—the whipsnap of magic breaking Catherine like a doll on the riverbank, the trickle of blood from her mouth, her dead eyes following him everywhere. And his mother’s voice scolding him again, “Charles, don’t bother the baby!”

“I killed her,” he whispered. “My sister died because of my magic.”

“Yes,” Corinna said. “And that is why you keep trying to flee it, and become ever more entangled.” He looked into her eyes, trying to understand.

The Grue was incoherent with rage. If he could have, he would have torn out through Charles’s skin and devoured Corinna. But he was cognizant enough to know that he was still far too weak to take her on directly. He had to wait for the moment when he could seize her down in the dark after her bloodfeast.

“Magic is in you, as I have said. You can no more flee it than you can the death of your sister. The Grue may have suppressed that memory and turned it to his own ends, but the knowledge of what you did is still raw inside you. You do not care what you do because you think there is nothing worse. And you are correct. Nothing you will ever do will erase it or surpass it. But that does not mean you cannot attempt to redeem what you have done.”

“How?” Charles whispered.

“Take this girl back to her grandfather. Beg him to take you with him to Malvern. I think you are strong enough for the water cure there. It is anathema to our people, and will rid you of the Grue. You can begin again. But you must get back to your world. You cannot long be separate from the magic of your birth. And whatever you do, you must not give in to the Grue’s cries for blood.”

“Why are you helping me?”

“Because, Charles Darwin Waddingly, you have much good to do. And a mortal lifespan is a short time in which to do it. Now go, before my hunger overcomes my good sense.”

She disappeared back down the stairs, and the earth folded closed behind her.

Gwen woke slowly. She sat up, yawning, and rubbed her eyes. “What happened?”

“You evidently took a nap while I was looking at beetles,” Charles said. He hid the shears back in his coat pocket.

She slid down off the stone and took his hand. “You’re bleeding! Did something bite you?”

“Yes,” he said. “That is exactly what happened.”

“Let’s get you back to Granpapa. He’ll know what to do!”

And she skipped merrily back into the mist, none the worse for wear.

The Grue was raging. Charles bit at his bloody finger, sucking at the blood to quiet him.

I can make you devour yourself alive,
the Grue said.

And then what would become of you?

His anger nearly blinded Charles. Before he knew it, he was chasing after Gwen. He snatched her up in his arms, the Grue’s teeth erupting in his mouth.

I will not lose this one chance!

Gwen screamed, kicking futilely at him. Fog beaded on her skin like the drops on the sundew’s leaves.

Take her. Her blood will flow free and open the gates again,
the Grue said.

Charles couldn’t think anymore. He opened his jaws wide. The points of his teeth pressed against her warm throat.

Thwack.
The pain across his shoulders was so startling and intense that he loosened his hold on the girl.

Thwack.

His head blossomed into a white flower of pain before he slumped to the ground.

When Charles woke, it was deep in the night and he was rattling around in a carriage, careening toward Saints knew where.

Darwin was sitting across from him, watching him, his face barely visible in the moonlight that occasionally sliced through the carriage windows.

Charles sat up slowly. His shoulders ached, and when he touched the back of his head, there was a great egg on it that made him wince.

“I am sorry for your head, but I did what had to be done to save my Gwen,” Darwin said. “Hopefully, there is still time for you.”

“Where are we going?” Charles asked.

“To Malvern. They cured me there. Possibly they can cure you.”

The Grue was awake and furious again. But he could do nothing.

“I have given the boy a tonic,” Darwin said, raising his voice as if he needed to shout for the Grue to hear him. “You will not be able to do much of anything until it wears off.”

Foam came out of Charles’s mouth instead of words, the exudate of the Grue’s rage. He twisted with such pain and frustration that Charles both feared he might die and wanted to die all at once.

Darwin tossed a handkerchief, and it landed in Charles’s lap. He dabbed at his lips with shaking hands.

The Grue turned in his guts, vicious in his hunger. “I will devour you before we arrive there,” the Grue whispered through Charles’s lips.

Darwin leaned forward, his visage like a death’s-head in the moonlight.

“Try it. I have been through this before, remember. I am well aware of what you can and cannot do at this moment.”

Charles gritted his teeth. The Grue wanted to vomit on Darwin out of spite.

EAT HIM.

Charles put his hands under his legs on the bench seat. He clenched his fists to feel the hard wood against his knuckles. Pain kept him from losing himself utterly.

“It is painful, I know. I have given you the tonic, but perhaps you would also prefer this?” Darwin took a little vial from a coat pocket.

Charles tried to grasp it without faltering. The carriage jouncing around in the darkness made it hard enough, but the Grue would not rest at his powerlessness. He threw every memory he could against Charles—the deliciousness of the Sphinx, the power that filled his body when he had eaten the Wyverns. All the souls of the men and women he’d eaten, that he had trapped in the bell jar. The power and purpose of blood.