No One Dies in the Garden of Syn by Michael Seidelman

Author:Michael Seidelman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
Publisher: Chewed Pencil Press
Published: 2016-04-26T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19: The House

“I hope you’re not scared,” Cole says, no longer whispering.

“I’m not.” I realize he thinks this place is new to me and decide not to tell him otherwise. “What’s going on? You told me it’s not safe to come in here.”

“Not alone, no. And certainly not too far. It’s just…” Cole stares at the ground, trying to find his words. “If you want to have a conversation away from prying ears, this is the best place.”

“But if there was someone listening you couldn’t see them anyway.”

Cole looks around, habitually worried that someone could be listening in the fog, although he can’t see through it any better than I can. “You never know who’s listening when you’re in the Garden,” he says.

“You’re talking about that woman in the house, aren’t you?” I remembered Rose telling me that she couldn’t hear or see anything in the fog.

“You want answers, I understand. I’ll tell you everything. In a minute.”

Cole takes my hand and leads me farther. Eventually, we come to a large stump. Cole certainly knows this place well. He lets go of my hand, motions for me to sit down, and sits next to me.

“Yes, to answer your question,” he says. “The person who sees and hears everything in the Garden is the woman in the house. No one knows how she does this.”

“Who is she? Is she bad?”

Cole opens his mouth, then shuts it. “You have lots of questions,” he says after a moment. “I’ll start at the beginning. Before that woman was living in the house.”

Before? My ears are perked up with anticipation. “Was she one of the original people who woke up here or is she an outsider like me?”

“The first memories I have,” Cole begins, raising a hand to silence my questions, “are from when I was about four, and waking up in the Garden with a few others. None of us could remember who we were. A man and a woman who woke up near me took me under their wing. Together, we explored the Garden.”

“No memories at all? You didn’t even know your name?”

“No one did. We gave each other names pretty quickly though—it’s hard to communicate with people when you have nothing to call them. The man and the woman named themselves Adam and Root. We named ourselves after things found in the Garden. Plants and stones…my name is short for coleus, which is a plant you’ll find in the Garden. Strangely, we knew the names of many things even though we couldn’t remember our own.”

“Coleuses are beautiful. We have them in our garden at home too. Why Adam?”

Cole smirks. “Root gave him that name. She didn’t know anything about herself, though she remembered portions of the Bible and named him after the first man.”

I nod, excited to hear more.

“So, Adam and Root and I, along with some of the others, explored the Garden. Before long, we found the big house. Gathered in front of it was another group. They weren’t all human.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.