Lily

13

Violet didn’t want to go to the garden at all after she nearly fainted, just shaking her head whenever I asked. I was a little worried about it, but then I thought she had just scared herself by pretending to see the hurt man. I didn’t like how she pulled away from me, though, and chose to spend her time alone in the raven room rather than with me and Dina in the kitchen. When I went to check on her, I would usually find her kneeling on the bed with her elbows propped up on the windowsill, staring out at the garden.

After a whole week had passed in that way, I finally asked, “Are you looking for the man you saw before?”

She gave me a quick glance over her shoulder. “I am looking at the man.”

I looked outside as well but of course couldn’t see anything.

“What is he doing?” I really wanted her to keep talking. Whatever it was she thought she saw, it hadn’t sounded very nice, and I didn’t want her to feel like she was alone with it.

“He is shouting something,” Violet said, “but he has no voice.”

“That’s too bad,” I offered.

“Yes, isn’t it just,” she muttered. “The old lady never tries to talk to me, but this one really wants to.”

“Why are you up here and not down there, then?” I pointed through the window to the overgrown lawn below.

“You would only come out,” she said. “You never leave me alone.”

Clearly, I was the problem, and not the dead man in the flower bed. “Are you angry with me?” I asked.

“Why does it matter?” She shrugged. “You just call me a liar all the time.”

“No, Violet. No!” I climbed onto the bed with her. “Whatever it is you think you see—”

“You’re doing it again!” Her eyes flashed with anger. “If you truly believed me, you wouldn’t say things like that! I never say that your colors aren’t real!”

“Oh, Violet…It’s just hard, you know, because I can’t see him myself.”

“Well, I can’t see colors, but I don’t pretend like they don’t exist!”

“Maybe it’s just my eyes—” I protested.

“Or maybe you’re just stupid.” She gave me a scorching look.

“I’m sorry, Violet.” I put a hand on her shoulder. “I really, truly am.”

“Then prove it,” said my sister.

“What? How?” My stomach started hurting. I just knew that whatever came next would be bad.

“Come out to the garden with me, tonight, after midnight.” She looked very serious when she said it; her dark eyes shone when she looked at me.

“Why can’t we go now?” There was nothing stopping us.

“No, it must be tonight, after Aunt Clara has gone to sleep.” She nodded as if to say that this was the only way.

“Sure,” I answered, despite the stomachache. “But why—?”

“Just say that you will come,” she begged. “Or do you want me to go out there on my own?”

“No, of course not.” It was a horrible idea. Maybe a bear would come out of the woods and eat her—or maybe she would feel sick again, like the last time we were out there. “Why, though, Violet? What are we going to do in the garden?”

“I don’t know yet.” She shrugged. “But I’ll figure it out.”

I worried all afternoon, just trying to think of ways to make Violet change her mind, but I couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t make her upset with me again. I absolutely didn’t want to be out in the garden at night, but I definitely couldn’t let her go by herself either. I even considered telling Aunt Clara about Violet’s plan, but something told me that would only make things worse. So, at a quarter past midnight, I was there, in the hallway outside Violet’s door, with a flashlight in my hand, hoping that she had forgotten the whole thing and fallen asleep.

Sadly, she had not. She came out just a few minutes later, wearing her usual favorite nightgown and a pair of knitted blue socks on her feet. The smile on her face when she saw me almost made everything all right.

Violet whipped out a flashlight of her own, then pressed a finger to her lips to warn me to be quiet before we started toward the stairs. I tiptoed after her through the dark hallway, our feet shuffling against the thick rug, until we arrived at the landing and started the descent to the ground floor. The stairs were thankfully sturdy, and kind enough not to make a sound.

I had thought that we would go straight for our coats, but Violet didn’t pause in the hall. She continued toward the kitchen instead. I quickly turned to follow her lead, almost crashing into the poor dead elk in the process. I couldn’t ask Violet why she was going to the kitchen since we were still trying to be quiet, but I felt relieved. I thought that maybe she had changed her mind at the last minute and just wanted something to eat instead.

At first, it looked as if I was right, since she did go to the refrigerator and open the heavy door. A cool yellow light spilled out on the floor, making the slim beams of our flashlights pointless. I didn’t know what she was looking for, so I just watched as my sister rummaged through the food. All the while I was listening to the house, searching the night’s quiet for signs that Aunt Clara had heard us and was on her way down. It didn’t seem that she had, though. She was a very heavy sleeper, and Dina had even let it slip that Aunt Clara sometimes took sleeping pills.

Finally, Violet seemed to have found what she was looking for and rose with several items clutched to her chest. I could see the Styrofoam tray of tomorrow’s beef, and a parcel wrapped in butcher paper that I knew was a piece of liver for one of Aunt Clara’s meat days. There was also a bottle of chilled cider and a lidded plastic bowl with the last of yesterday’s chicken; bones mostly, and other things that didn’t go in the stew. Dina used it to make broth for our soups.

I almost said something then, wanting Violet to at least return the liver, but then she nodded toward the door and started moving. She had abandoned her own flashlight on the kitchen table, so mine was the only source of light as we moved into the hall. I gingerly got our coats out of the closet, and we both slipped on our shoes before I opened the front door as quietly as I could, still carrying our coats.

The air outside was cool and crisp, smelling of dirt and fresh greenery. I still didn’t want to go, but as surprised as I was by Violet’s food theft, I was curious, too. I wanted to see what she did with it. Could it be for the apothecary? I also figured that since Aunt Clara got some money from our being there, the food belonged as much to us as to her.

I walked first as we entered the dark garden, since I had the light. I could hear Violet behind me, the crunching in the leaves as we moved away from the house and toward the pavilion. When I thought we were far enough away from the glinting windows of Crescent Hill that our voices couldn’t be heard, I finally asked in a whisper, “Violet, what are we doing out here? Where are you taking the food?”

“To the bottom of the garden,” she replied, and my stomach started aching again.

“To the man?” I couldn’t believe it. “Why?”

“I think he’s terribly hungry,” said Violet. “He needs meat and bones and something sweet if he’s going to break free.”

“Free?” I shuddered, from both fear and cold this time.

“From the flower bed,” said Violet.

“The man is stuck in the flower bed?”

“Uh-huh.”

If she hadn’t been so angry with me before, I would have stopped her—said something to chase her back into the house. Instead, I bit my tongue and swallowed my feelings until we finally reached the crescent of flower beds and Violet put down the stolen food.

“Here.” I handed her the blue coat and quickly pulled on my own as well.

Violet smiled while she put on her coat, but she didn’t say anything else. She put her hand in the left pocket and pulled out something long and white. It took me a moment to recognize one of the half-burned candles from the dining room table. She had a matchbook, too, and held it up to show me.

“I took it before,” she said with pride.

“We have the flashlight already,” I muttered, though I somehow already knew by then that whatever she needed the candle for, it had nothing to do with light.

She stuck the candle down in the wet ground, just in front of the flower bed at the center of the crescent, and struck a match. She failed, twice, before I decided to help her.

“Here, let me.” I took the matchbook from her and struck one redheaded match. The flame ignited with a hiss. “The man is hungry, huh?” I muttered while guiding the flame to the wick.

Once the candle flame was strong and steady, Violet started on the food. She unwrapped all of it and placed the meats around the candle. The beef and the liver glistened in the candlelight, and the chicken bones looked like polished sticks. Violet had pilfered a corkscrew, too, and used it to open the cider bottle. Then she very carefully poured it all out on the meat and the ground surrounding it. She left the empty bottle down in the grass.

“What now?” I whispered, though we were far from the house. “Is he eating?” I didn’t like the look of the “meal” one bit. It seemed to me that, as soon as the food had touched the ground, it had become filthy, somehow—in a way that had nothing to do with dirt.

Violet didn’t answer my question. Instead she started praying—or so I thought at first. “Dear man in the garden,” she started, “please take this meat and cider I have brought to you. Flesh for your flesh, bone for your bones, sugar for your spirit. Flesh for your flesh, bone for your bones, sugar for your spirit, flesh for your flesh, bone for your bones, sugar for your spirit…” She started repeating the same words over and over again. By her feet, the candle flickered wildly, although I couldn’t feel any draft in the air. She said the same words so many times that it became a rhythm—one that grew faster and wilder by the minute. “Flesh for your flesh, bone for your bones, sugar for your spirit, flesh for your flesh, bone for your bones, sugar for your spirit…”

I wanted to interrupt when she started swaying on her feet but somehow couldn’t bring myself to break the eerie rhythm. Instead, I took a step forward so I stood right behind her and held out my arms in case she fell. My heart was racing wildly, and the red tadpoles were back, squirming now, around the meal on the ground.

Finally—suddenly—the candle went out, and Violet stopped chanting. I had dropped my flashlight to the ground, and it lay there, shining its light into the tangled lawn. I grabbed it before checking on Violet.

I put a hand on her shoulder and she slowly turned around. The sight of her face made a pang go off in my chest; she looked so very tired. She smiled at me, though, in her usual way, so I thought that she was all right.

“What was all that for?” I asked her.

“I don’t know yet,” she replied. “I just know that it had to be done.”