After more than an hour of being pulled
along by an internal song, I arrive.
The garden exists.
It’s even more lush and green than I remembered.
Only one unfortunate fact spoils the sight.
My
garden
is teeming
with Humans.
BROB
What Fury Feels Like
Tinies.
Human children are trampling my garden. The shock
of it sends me reeling into a blizzard-blasted rage.
I flash back to the memory of brutal Humans who first
defiled this place with Giant blood so many years ago.
All the peace I felt, the hope my garden gave me,
drains out through my toes, seeps into the soil
leaving a hungry, hollow fury behind.
Tiny tinny voices pollute my air. Slapping
feet crush my soft grass, grind it into mud.
Disgusting dirty mouths inhale my berries,
stripping the cloudberry bushes clean.
They’re spoiling it. Taking it. Killing it.
The one place my family can survive. The one place
we have left after Da’s downfall and the king’s decree.
Humans are taking this garden from me,
just as sure as they took my home.
Old King Cormoran may have demanded our
banishment, but it was those rebels who started it all.
Their greed. Their hate. Their fault.
This can’t be happening.
I had a plan. A way to save us.
They cannot have my garden.
My head shouts, MINE!
My heart howls, MINE!
“THIS PLACE IS MINE!!!” I roar.
Dozens of filthy faces swivel toward me. Terror-filled eyes
go wide. Dozens of puny Humans scream and scatter and
run
away.
“THAT’S RIGHT! YOU GO!”
LYRIANA
The Selfish Giant
Terror
freezes me
as children
flee.
The garden is chaos.
Zave fumbles
Major back into
his pocket and
clings to the tree trunk,
chin trembling
eyes wide.
He is still too pale.
The Summer Spirits
have not finished their work.
We cannot leave yet.
But the Giant
roars again
and charges
through the garden
in a rage.
He looks my age,
but he is as tall
as two of me
with the strength
of ten.
The ground trembles
with each step as he
crashes
bashes
into the garden.
He gnashes his teeth,
eyes wild.
We cannot leave yet.
I start to scramble
up the tree,
but Mama’s ocarina
falls
from the open pack
on my back
to the ground with a
hollow crack.
Horror crawls through my veins.
Snatch it up.
Stuff it back in my bag.
Do not look.
Cannot look.
I do not want to know.
I climb.
Join Zave on the
massive branch.
Will myself
to blend in.
Will the Giant
to miss us
in the frenzy of
fleeing children
on the other side
of the river.
But just as the Giant
turns toward our corner,
my foot slips
on the branch, and a
flurry of heart-shaped leaves
flutters
to
the
ground.
The Giant
watches them fall,
then looks up.
His glare sends
white-hot fear
piercing through me
like needle and thread.
It sews me tight
to the tree
when all reason says
we should
run!
The Giant charges over the bridge.
His muscles bulge
as he grabs
the trunk and
shakes.
A horrible
creaking and cracking
fills the air.
Will the trunk split?
We cling to our branch
as we are flung
from side to side.
He lets out a
deafening roar,
grabs the branch,
jerks it so violently
my fingers scrape raw
as I am torn loose.
Zave’s screams
fill my ears.
We hurtle
toward
the
ground.
BROB
Unraveling
Two pale-skinned tinies are flung
from the tree like stones in a slingshot.
The littler one screams, and strangely, the
sound sends satisfaction soaring through me.
They should be scared. They should be sorry.
They should have left my garden alone.
I lunge toward the boy, but the girl stumbles to her feet.
The huge pack on her back sends her off-balance,
but she uses its momentum. Flings herself between
me and the boy. The pure panic on her face freezes me.
Ma says Humans are dangerous, but
I’m the one who feels dangerous now.
Unglued. Unwound. Untethered.
The seams of my sanity are ripping a p a r t.
I’m unraveling. And anyone in my path will surely be taken
down
with
me.
BROB
Pest Control
Pain shoots through my head. A billion blizzards!
I whirl in time to see a rock the size of a Human fist fall
to the ground. I rub at the lump forming on my skull.
A dark-skinned boy (determination mixed with terror
in those deep brown eyes) picks up another rock.
“Go!” he yells.
The other two tinies dash over the bridge
and bound toward Winter. Toward freedom.
I don’t follow. Don’t want to hurt them.
(I wouldn’t have really hurt them, right?)
Just want them to leave.
I roar at the rock-thrower and take one menacing
step toward him. He darts out of my garden.
Finally, I’m alone.
LYRIANA
No Longer Welcome
Zave moves
before I do,
even though he
quakes with fear
and he is still weak.
He dashes into
Winter’s embrace.
“We cannot leave yet!”
I call, but I am
right behind him.
The pack on my back
weighs me down,
makes me stumble,
but I do not stop.
For once,
I am thankful
for cold’s harsh bite.
The Giant wants us out.
He will not follow us into
Winter’s jaws.
He will stay
safe and secure
in Summer
in the garden,
where we are no longer welcome.
LYRIANA
Follow in Their Footsteps
As we struggle
back into
winter gear
the midnight-
skinned boy
darts out
of the garden.
He threw a
rock at a Giant.
Put himself
in danger.
For us.
A war wages
between gratefulness
and fear.
What will
he want in return?
“This way!”
he yells.
He heads north
into a narrow ravine
beside the frozen
waterfall.
I hesitate.
Do we really
want to join
these strangers?
But the icy wind’s
teeth remind me
our tent is a pile
of shredded skins
and broken poles.
We need shelter.
The boy has
disappeared,
but footprints
litter the snow.
We follow—
a map carved
into the ground.
They lead us
into the narrow pass.
The rocky walls
loom over us,
feel like they are
creeping in
closer.
The footprints end
at a crack
in the cliff wall,
barely big enough
for me to
squeeze
through.
I take a deep breath,
prepare myself
for the claustrophobic cave
I expect to find inside.
Instead, we are met with
a yawning ice cavern
that stretches over us
like the waves of
a vast ocean
frozen in time.
BROB
A Little Convincing
As soon as the tinies are gone, my anger wilts like
a faded flower, deflates into something like defeat.
I’m here in my garden, and it’s everything I hoped it would be.
So why does the garden’s melody sit sourly in
my stomach instead of singing to my heartstrings?
The hum that thrums through me is dissonant,
with a distinct air of disappointment.
“Humans would’ve ruined this place,” I say out loud,
as if the words might be more convincing that way.
“You probably don’t know that the Hands of Humanity
practically demolished one of the gardens.
It was that same year I made you. You don’t understand
how they disgraced my da so bad we’re banished now.”
I run my hands along the velvety leaves of a
butterfly bush. “Trust me, it’s better this way.”
The garden doesn’t change its discordant, discontented
tune, but that’s okay. I’ll win it over eventually.
My garden and I are connected
or it wouldn’t have called me here.
I head out to fetch Ma and Da to explain everything
and bring them home to my garden.
LYRIANA
Company of Strangers
My awe at
the yawning cavern
melts as quickly
as ice in Summer sun.
Dozens of
desperate eyes
find us in
the swath of sunlight
that leaks
into the cave.
No one laughs or sings
or plays games now.
No one speaks at all.
Eerie silence echoes
like a mournful song.
So many
frightened faces
from so many places—
every skin color
hair color
eye color.
They must have come
from all corners of Gairda
to find Orphan’s Garden,
only to be chased away
by one angry, selfish Giant.
One wall of the cave
has shelves stacked
with sleep sacks
and dried rations.
They have obviously
stocked this place
for just in case.
But when just in case
is now,
the supplies seem
insufficient.
Not everyone has
winter gear.
I wonder how long
these children had been
in the garden.
And how long
they will last outside.
The midnight-skinned boy
melts out of the shadows,
his head held high,
his face fixed with
a look of determination.
Something tells me
he has not given up
on the garden yet.
Neither have I.
“I’m Paetyr,”
he says
and waits.
My tongue feels glued
to the roof of my mouth,
but Zave tells him our names.
“Find a spot for your gear,”
Paetyr says.
“If you have blankets
or warm clothes to share
they’d be appreciated.”
He nods toward a
timid, brown-skinned boy
shivering in nothing but
a flimsy shirt and
billowy trousers.
I reach into my pack,
pull out a wool tunic.
It will be impossibly
long on the boy,
but it will be warm.
I hand the shirt
to Paetyr.
I am not here
to make friends,
but I will not
make enemies either.
Maybe this will be
payment enough
for our stay.
“Tomorrow we’ll find a way
to get back into that garden,”
Paetyr says
before turning
and walking away.
LYRIANA
Thoughts of an Insomniac
I cannot sleep.
Mama’s ocarina
calls to me,
but I cannot bear
to look at it.
Do not want to see
the damage done
when it fell.
Thoughts of
lost gardens
and broken ocarinas
spin through my mind
like a song sung in
perpetual rounds.
It is impossible
to choose just one
failure
to focus on.
The garden was our
last chance.
What is left when
a last chance
is gone?
BROB
That Didn’t Last Long
One glance at the garden fixes a
greedy glint in Ma’s hazel eyes.
Gives me the nagging suspicion my plan
to save us and live a simple life is already
f a l l i n g
a a t
p r