The Garden

by Bay Sandefur

The beaded sweat of his mother’s forehead transferred onto Aiden’s thumb as he touched her—doing so as he had never done when she wasn’t sick. Now, she was asleep and her chest rose and fell in heavy and rapid motions. He felt a motion of sickness rise in his stomach as he looked at her this way.

Her hand reached out to grab his wrist. It was cold, clammy, and weak, yet he could tell she was giving all of her strength. He pulled his hand away from her face and began to stand.

“You’re here for the rest of the day?” she spoke with a rasp.

“No,” he said with his back towards her, grabbing his cloak from the hook on the wall in front of the door.

“Aiden, are you alright?”

The sound of scratching wind entered the room as he opened the door to leave and immediately shut it behind himself.

He brushed his hand against the dusty surface of the bar top, hoping that he might feel the sting of a shard of wood piercing a fingertip. It had been a week since he learned about his mother’s illness. Now, while watching his fingers mimic the divots of the wood beneath them, he could picture the purple tips of her fingers against the bed sheet, the matted grease-nest of her hair against the pillow, and her eyes like two wilting roses.

“You’re taking a second shift again?” Vic voiced from behind the bar, standing next to Aiden and breaking him out of his trance.

Aiden stayed silent and got back to wiping the countertop clean of dust with a tattered rag he kept in his coat pocket. The dust itself was invasive. When it first hit the Lottid south, people would try to keep up with it—cleaning any grey layer they came across. But the dust kept coming, and each storm grew stronger. Soon, all people could do was adapt to it, like a new limb, except this limb’s muscles wouldn’t move. Its purpose was to weigh you down and fill your lungs—to reach its dense claws into every opening of your body and clog you up.

“Why are you working so much?” Vic asked.

To Aiden, his tone made the question sound intrusive—overbearing. He shrugged. “Bored, I guess.”

Vic laughed, “You’re right, that was a stupid question. It’s just. If, maybe, you tell me what’s going on I can help.”

“Well, there’s nothing to be helped.”

“Yeah, it looks like it,” Vic said as he turned away from Aiden.

“I won’t be here tomorrow.”

Vic turned back around and sighed. “Okay, then. Thanks for the heads up. When will you be back?”

“I’m not sure. I have to get something. It’s for my mom.”

“Aiden, you know I can’t just let you–”

“I’ll find another job, then.” Aiden interrupted. He looked up at Vic for the first time in this conversation, and held eye contact. “I’m going. You can tell me what that means for me, but I’m going.”

Vic’s elbow was resting against the bar top. The golden hue from the evening sun shined through the dust-filled windows and lit the side of his face. He had taken down the fabric from his nose which left the strict line splitting the dust-layered half of his face from the protected bottom of it.

“Okay,” Vic said. “We’ll talk about it when you get back. Whenever that is.” He patted his hand against the bar top in a motion of resolution, and walked away.

Aiden’s mom needed Bhelock. It was the only medicine that could cure her, and it wasn’t available at any market in Lottid. The dust took the place of plants in the south. More importantly, he, nor anyone else in the south for that matter, had ever seen it. Aiden had no idea what it looked or felt like. Its existence had become a myth, and its proof lies in the Arcaten temples, where The Garden is said to be.

*

The storms were more intense at night. Aiden could hear the wind moaning outside his mother’s boarded windows, and the dust scratching the house’s surface. Though he couldn’t see anything while sitting next to her bed, El’s breathing seemed to mimic the sound outside. He reached out to find her hand, knowing that this would not be the last time he held it while there was life still racing through.

Aiden stepped out into the storm, using his canes to wade his way through the dunes of dust. The passage to The Garden was located in the Arcaten temples, south of Aiden’s home, and near what was once the Arcaten River. With the dust continuing to build, night by night, the temples’ entrances could only be marked by shadow rectangles in the side of one massive mound. Before the dust, and before the river dried, the temples were built to blend into the verdant hills of Arcaten. Each temple’s entrance was positioned on the outer edges of this circular formation. Aiden had only visited once before with his mother, but he had never been inside.

Now, as dawn approached, Aiden arrived at the entrance of the northern temple. The dark entrance beckoned him, guiding him down the stone hallway and into the center temple. Here, the light of the rising sun reverberated through the mound, reflecting off the stone and illuminating a light blue pool of water that lay at the heart of the place.

Aiden walked slowly to the water. He noticed now, though he didn’t at first, how clean it was. No dust or algae. No water source either. A pool of aquamarine resting, untouched, in the center of the temple. He kneeled to the ground beside the pool’s edge and touched his finger to the water—a test of reality.

A ripple met his finger and he looked up to find its source. For a split second he saw a dark shadow move in the foggy water—disappearing before he could get a glimpse of what it was. Aiden moved to the other side of the pool. Standing and looking down at it, the shadow came back to the surface and started moving around in a circle. It was in the shape of a large fish. A catfish with beady eyes and heavy whiskers flowing in the motion that the fish was swimming in. It kept circling, almost as if each circle were moving faster. Aiden’s vision began closing in around the fish’s growing image. Soon, it was all he could see. And what he wanted to do was touch it, to feel its slimy scales glide against his fingers.

He felt something close in around his hand. Looking down, there were two glittering eyes staring directly into his, and a wide mouth that bit down on his wrist and then let go. Aiden brought his hand up to examine it, but it was just the blurry image of his palm and fingers and red streams snaking down his forearm. He felt his body jerk forward and then everything went black.

When he woke he was underwater, but it was no longer the same glacier blue from before. This water would have been completely black if not for the waves of silver light that came from above. Aiden swam toward the light and broke the surface. His head whipped around until he spotted something he could grab onto—anything that wasn’t water.

The sound of a wet hand slapping against stone was one of the first things he could fully hear. Pulling his body up onto the ledge, he noticed the deep green color that peeked out from the cracks in the dark gray stone. Only the space around where his hand touched it glowed. Aiden pulled away out of instinct. Just as he did so, piece by piece, the glowing plant broke apart and floated upwards. Aiden followed their dance and that’s when he caught the image of the scene before him. No longer was he surrounded by stone, but plants. Some, a deep forest green but some were glowing  red and blue. Pulsing colors; pulsing as though they had heartbeats.

Aiden lifted himself off the ground. Holding his breath, he slowly panned his eyes across the place before him. The only light that existed came from the plants, and that was enough to illuminate the entire setting. A garden. He thought to himself.

He moved forward, watching the light from the plants beneath his feet glow with each footstep. Until one shot a line of light that illuminated the entire walkway. One after another, the glowing pieces began moving upwards.

“Shoes off,” a voice demanded from a distance.

He looked around but couldn’t see where it had come from.

“Shoes off,” the garden spoke again. This time, closer.

“What—I,” he responded.

“You’re disturbing them.”

The voice came from directly behind Aiden. Turning around he saw a woman towering over him. “Who—”

“Are they? The insects,” she said, pointing upwards at the dancing lights. “They don’t like shoes. Take them off.” Brushing past him, she started down the path. At the bottom of her gray cloak poked out two bare feet.

“No. I mean—”

“No?” She turned around. “You mean to tell me they do like shoes? Take them off.” Giving her final order, she flipped back toward the path in front of her and began walking.

He wasn’t going to take them off. He needed them and wasn’t going to be here for long. Walking in the direction that she went, he noticed that with each step the moss around his feet would glow. Behind him now formed a cloud of glowing and floating beads. Aiden ran but realized that he could not see her anymore. “Hello? I need help.”

“Help?” Her voice came from the side of him, and out of a patch of tall flowers her body shot up into a standing position. She held a basket in her hand that Aiden was sure she wasn’t carrying before. “What makes you think I can help you?”

“Not you. The Gardener.”

Her brows furrowed. She looked down at the shoes on his feet and back up at him. “Huh.”

“Do you know where I can find him? I mean this is The Garden isn’t it?”

She walked forward and back onto the path, closing in on Aiden. “Huh.”

“Can you not hear what I’m saying?”

After another moment’s pause, and an even longer moment of a confused look on her face, she finally responded, “This is The Garden. And The Gardener is here.”

“Take me to him.”

“No need.”

“What do you mean? Where is he?”

“As I told you, The Gardener is right here.”

Aiden looked around him for a second before he realized what the woman meant. “Oh. But you’re—”

“My apologies. Was I supposed to look different? Perhaps something like this.” In nearly an instant, a long gray beard appeared from her face, stretching all the way down to the floor, draping over her bare feet. “Is that male-gardener enough? Maybe a lower voice.” As she spoke that last sentence, her voice deepened and grew slightly coarse. She now looked and sounded like an old man.

Aiden didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything at all. Instead, he began analyzing every aspect of the person in front of him—if they even are a person—so as to find any trace of the woman that was once there. He couldn’t find one.

The woman, who was not a woman anymore, began walking away, picking up the bottom of his beard so it didn’t drag against the floor. Aiden followed him as he made his way toward the gazebo.

“Wait,” Aiden said. “Just give me the medicine.” But the man did not stop. The man just kept walking, tapping the tip of rolled up leaves and watching each one fan out and glow blue in reaction. Aiden tapped a bud himself but all it did was shudder and move in a way that he could only relate to a huff. He looked up to see the old man sitting in the gazebo in the center of the garden, his head hunched over.

“Bhelock. I need it for medicine. How much is it?” Aiden asked as he walked up the steps of the gazebo.

“How much?” the man said. The basket in his lap held bright green berries that he was picking the red leaves from one by one and placing them in another basket. “The plants are not commodities.”

“Do you just give them away then?”

“Give them away,” he mimicked. “Not to you.”

“What?”

The old man looked at him and said nothing. Instead he itched his beard and lightly yanked on it. The beard vanished, as well as all other aspects of him. The appearance of the woman from before came into fruition.

“Why won’t you give it to me? I don’t think you understand; my mother is sick. Give me the medicine.”

“I know your mother is sick. I know you have a younger sister who left you and your mother and headed north. I know you haven’t heard from her since. I know your last name is Bethair and your mother won’t tell you where it comes from. I know that your father died in an accident at his job that you think you caused. Yet you resent your mother and sister for it—you pass the blame onto them because you can’t bear to resent yourself. I know you, Aiden. Who you are. What you think you deserve—what’s rightfully yours. Not you. Not now.”

“So you won’t give it to me then?” 

She rose abruptly, put down the basket, and walked down the stairs and back onto the path. Aiden stood in the gazebo and watched her until he could no longer see her. His jaw clenched, but it was not from anger. This clenching came with a weight pressing down on his chest. The same feeling he would get while looking at his mother suffering in her bed.

What now? He thought to himself. Then he thought about what the woman said to him. ‘What you think you deserve.’

Did wanting his mother to live mean he was selfish? Surely not. Surely, the woman got the wrong impression of him. Surely.

If he couldn’t get Bhelock here, he’d go to the council; go to Ordinem and ask for their help. And if they said no, he would force them. He thought of all the things he could do—to the council, The Garden and The Gardener with it, to his sister, and to himself. He’d raise every plant and insect and fish from their homes in search of the medicine. But he didn’t. What good would it do? She’d still be sick.

At the start of the path, Aiden saw a faint glowing light in the moss. He bent down and placed his hand near it. The light flickered and moved onto his fingers. It was then that he saw it for what it was. A red beetle with a glowing body and one wing bent upward. He looked down at the patch of moss where he had found it and saw the footprint of the boots that were still on his feet.

Its wings kept moving up and down slowly, as if just learning how to do so. But it never rose. Aiden looked to the other dancing lights and back to the one flickering in his hand. He lowered it back into the moss, but in a section he hadn’t yet stepped on. Sitting on the stairs of the gazebo, he unlaced his shoes and slid them off his feet. Now being able to feel the cool repose of the moss and stone when he pressed his foot down, and saw that the moss no longer glowed in reaction to the pressure.

The two baskets were behind him, one still full of berries not yet separated from their leaves. Aiden sat in the same place The Gardener had been. Taking each fragile berry and plucking off the scarlet leaves. He noticed now that the bite on his wrist was beginning to heat up. Examining it, he saw the skin around each notch from the fish’s teeth was swollen.

Noticing how the insects no longer glowed in reaction to his footsteps, he still made an effort to put most of his weight on the stone instead—tip-toeing from square to square until he found her.

She was kneeling by the edge of the pond. Her hands working in the water. Aiden could see tiny white fish swirling around as she pulled her hand out of the water. In her palm was one of the fish, not quite as fast as the others and slightly smaller too. The Gardener touched her finger to the fish’s body and then it stopped moving entirely. He placed the basket down by her and kneeled.

“You’ve decided to take your shoes off,” she said.

“Was it dying?”

“Already. Yes.”

“Why didn’t you save it? You have the power to.”

“Balance,” she said. “You don’t meddle with them.”

“Then what are you here for? This is your garden. You meddle in some way or another. You have to.”

She paused and looked ahead of her to the pond. “Support, I suppose. We both need each other. So I give, and they give, and the cycle continues.”

Aiden had no answer. His eyelids tightened.

“I am The Gardener, yes, but this is not my garden. I do not own them. I live with them and they live with me.” She placed her palm back in the water, gently releasing the fish’s body back to where it came from. “What did you separate the berries for?”

“I don’t know. I saw it needed to be done. Nothing, I don’t think.” He saw a slightly bigger fish swim to the surface and open its mouth to swallow the dead white body. “I felt bad.”

“Yes, I guess you would have.” She placed her hand back into the water, and between her fingers sprouted two spiral plants. Closing her fingers together, she pulled up to pluck them and place them on the water above the fish. One by one, the tiny white bodies clung to the plants, feasting on their nutrients.

“How did you know. Before. How did you know all of that?” Aiden asked.

“I knew as soon as you touched the water in the temple,” she replied.

“How?”

“I do not know everything.” Her gaze lifted and scanned The Garden. “Out of everything here, you may be the one thing I understand the most.”

Aiden didn’t know what to say. He had nothing to say in return, so he scanned The Garden just as she did. He studied its heartbeat—every single living thing coming together in unison. Creating one life-line. One garden.

“Can you help her?” Aiden asked.

She sighed and stood up. “I need the leaves.”

“Please.” 

“Not you. Not now.” She picked up the basket and turned toward the center of the garden. Just then, a rustle from the cluster of plants beside the pond caused both Aiden and The Gardener to look toward it. A large flower came peeking out and reached toward his wrist, wrapping each petal around the bite. Aiden could feel its cold slime and with it immediate relief. The flower backed into the plants again and Aiden saw the red irritation around each wound fade away.

The woman sighed, her face sinking with vexed eyes. “The Garden and I—we disagree sometimes. Come. Get your shoes, you’re leaving.”

Aiden followed her to the center of the garden where he grabbed his shoes, and The Gardener grabbed the basket of leaves. She placed each scarlet piece into a mortar. From behind her, a tall flower bent down; its yellow bloom was shaped like a dragon’s snout, and its mouth produced a translucent gel that dripped into the bowl. “Thank you,” she said and began working the ingredients with her pestle. When she was done, she handed the paste to Aiden, avoiding direct eye contact.

“This isn’t Bhelock,” he said.

“It is what The Garden has provided. Which means it is what you need. No more questions, they’re annoying. Take it or leave with nothing.”

Aiden took it. “Thank you,” he said. But the Gardener wasn’t the only being he directed it to.

BIO

Bay Sandefur is an undergraduate student at Rocky Mountain College. If she isn’t writing, she’s reading, and if she isn’t doing that, she’s avoiding an existential crisis by walking barefoot in her mother’s garden.