about him. He fooled us both, for a time. I do not blame you for being deceived by him. I was deceived as well.”
The flames leap, and the shadows do their mocking dance. My father’s words toll like a bell.
“Weed is dead. He hanged himself, in a remote part of the woods of Hulne Park. I found the body myself. The fool!”
Father approaches me and places a hand on my shoulder. I allow myself to soften, to weep. It is not difficult. I shed tears at will these days.
“I thought it would be too cruel to tell you the truth. But it is crueller still to let you go on longing for something that can never be.” He steps back and spreads his arms, as if waiting for me to step into his embrace. “I hope you can forgive me, Jessamine. Oh, the curse of being a parent! The sins we commit to ease our children’s suffering!”
I rise from the chair. Father takes a step toward me. I wheel from his open arms and race outside, into the storm.
“Jessamine –” His voice follows me to the door, but the moment I am outside the shrieking wind drowns out every sound but the pounding of my own heart. Let Father run after me if he dares. I am one with the storm now, wild and furious, a howl of rage.
“Weed!” I hurl my desperate cry to the starless sky. Up the twisting path I climb. The ground is muck beneath my feet. Am I truly mad, then? I must be, to think the poison garden is the only place left for me to turn.
But how else will I finally discover what is real? How else will I know what is true, and what is a lie?
And when the worst has already happened, what is left to fear?
Unless the worst is yet to come. The thought stops me short. I pause for breath. Eyes closed, I feel the earth spin drunkenly beneath my feet, slipped off its axis like a wheel on a broken axle.
Foolish Jessamine… did you really think I was only a dream?
Thunder cracks, loud as a gunshot. I press my hand to my chest. My heart flutters like a trapped bird within the cage of my bones. My hair hangs sodden, like seaweed trailing from the ropes of a sailing ship. My dress is as wet as if I had risen up from the German Ocean and walked ashore.
“Help me,” I cry with all the ragged breath I have left. “If you are here, show yourself, I beg you. For I do not know what to believe anymore.”
I will show you.
Once more, lightning slashes crookedly across the sky, briefly revealing the path before the world plunges into darkness again. The wind howls and blows, not east to west, but in strange circles that seem as if they would pluck the trees straight up from the ground and hurl them down again like broken toys.
The black gate of the poison garden looms before me. I hurl myself at the unyielding bars. The lock taunts me, an iron apple dangling from a lifeless tree. Exhausted, I collapse to the ground.
I assure you, I am no dream, lovely. I have powers you cannot imagine. I can help you find what you seek. All you need do is ask.
Help me, my heart begs, yet I dare not speak the name of the one to whom I plead. The horrors of my nightmares come back to me ten times over: the torment. The lunatic asylum. My father’s wickedness and murderous lies.
Nothing about this world is what I thought it was. I am lost, and have only one refuge.
“Oleander!” I cry, but the wind swallows all sound. I lift myself from the mud and seize the bars of the gate in my two hands. The wet metal is cold and rough against my cheek. “Please! I need you. I need you to show me the truth… as you did once before…”
The sound of the storm changes. To each side of me rain pours, lightning cracks, wind howls. Somehow I am shielded.
I throw my head back and search the sky. Directly above me the night takes form. It is darkness upon darkness, like ink spilled upon black velvet.
The inky stain is in the shape of outspread wings.
I have waited for you to come back to me, the Prince of Poisons croons. And now you are here.
“Tell me, please,” I gasp. The shadow wings beat once, twice. “Is Weed dead or alive?”
Your beloved Crabgrass is rather unkempt at the moment. In a foul temper, and in urgent need of a bath. But yes; he is alive.
The relief I feel is mixed with the sure, sickening knowledge that my father is no more than a murderous villain.
“I must find him – does my father know where he is?”
If your father knew where to find Weed, he would have had him killed by now. He cannot harness Weed’s gifts for his own purposes, and he will not have him be a potential rival.
“He is a monster! Oleander, can you help me find Weed?”
I can if I choose to. But first you must prove yourself worthy.
“Tell me what to do.”
I want you to avenge your mother’s death. Bring justice to her killer. Then you will have earned my aid.
My heart clenches. “My mother was murdered? By whom?”
Who do you think, lovely?
His laughter falls like a rain of ice. There is no end to the wickedness of humans, is there? It surprises even me, sometimes. When your task is done, then I will help you find what you seek. And you will help me in exchange, when the time comes. For you and I need each other, as you will someday learn…
“What do you mean?” I cry, but the shadow being ascends to the vault of the night, and is gone.
The rain pours down with doubled fury. I slip and stumble along the muddy path, back to the cottage, too shocked to even weep.
My whole life has been based on lies. And the only being that can help me find Weed is an incarnation of evil itself.
Have I made a terrible mistake in rousing the dark prince? It does not matter, for I must find Weed again, whatever the price.
And, this, too I swear: No corrupt magistrate, no dim-witted committee of farmers, will stand in judgment of my mother’s killer.
No. I will deal with him – with Father – myself.
The door to the cottage opens with a push. The fire sputters as the water from my clothes streams across the stone floor and sizzles into the hearth.
“Father?” He is not here. Is he out searching for me in the storm? Has he been crushed by a tree or trapped on the far side of a flooding stream?
I hope not. For I would hate to miss the chance to take my own vengeance.
And yet, there is some small doubt within me. My father is wicked, I know. A liar and a murderer. But I always believed he loved my mother. There was a warmth in his voice, a softness in his eyes, that only ever appeared when he spoke of her.
Surely it would not be wrong to want proof, I think.
I walk
