Nightfall in the Garden of Deep Time by Tracy Higley

Author:Tracy Higley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stonewater Books

TWENTY-FIVE

There must always be two kinds of art: escape-art, for man needs escape as he needs food and deep sleep, and parable-art, that art which shall teach man to unlearn hatred and learn love.

~ W.H. Auden

Agatha whirls on my refusal to move, glaring. “I’m taking you to someone who will explain why shortcuts are unacceptable.”

I’ve committed some sort of Garden heresy, then.

I grab my shoes from Sam, slide them on, and regain my balance.

Her hands are on her hips. “You need to come with me.”

I could make a run for it, probably, but I’m too curious.

Or perhaps too invested in seeing where all this takes me. Seeing if I can still, somehow, get information about my real identity or how to save the shop. And I’m feeling a little more confident after my run at the cottage.

Following Agatha, I glance at Sam.

He nods, as if assuring me that he’s got my back.

We draw close enough to the Garden to hear the music, a light classical tune on the piano, more like background music in a hotel lobby than a performance. The grassy expanse of lawn is still crowded with party guests in their ever-continuing conversations and laughter. They don’t seem to have missed me.

We reach the end of the path and Agatha veers sharply right, with a glance in my direction, to make sure I’m still following.

We skirt the central Garden area, the shadowy edges leading to unseen depths on our right. Move past a flaming torch embedded at the border between grass and wildness, its oily black smoke coiling upward, and then another torch, farther on.

Ahead, a small structure—smaller than the cottage—takes shape in the twilight haze. Boxy and wooden, it looks like a potting shed at the edge of a country estate.

A tiny window reveals a single illuminated bulb hanging inside.

Agatha barrels toward it, opens the door without hesitation, then sweeps her arm in my direction, inviting me to enter.

“I’m right behind you,” Sam says in my ear.

We step into the building, which is crowded with shelves of trowels and shears, hand rakes and a tumbled assortment of terracotta pots in various states of wear. Larger shovels, hoes, and rakes lean in the corner, mud-caked and well-used. And in the center, an older man bends over a worktable, using his fingertips to tamp soil around the roots of a small potted aloe vera plant.

Agatha brings up the rear and shuts the door behind us.

Silence holds for a moment, and then the man looks up.

His eyes are kinder than I expect, given the circumstances. He is unremarkable in one way—medium build, average height, hair going white. But there is something almost too general about him. I can’t guess at his ethnicity, even. As though he is everything and nothing at once.

I breathe a little, readying some kind of response, or perhaps excuse.

“She tried to go through the cottage.” Agatha states my infraction in a weary tone, as though I am a frustrating and recalcitrant child.

He nods once. His eyes flick to Sam but without acknowledgment.

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