RoseBlood(8)
Our limo cruises around to the other side of the academy. Pebbles grind beneath the tires on our coast into a gravel parking area across from the garden. Mom starts digging in her purse, mumbling about lipstick. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch someone half covered by a rosebush that hangs over an iron spike. I angle myself to see him better, nose pressed against the chilled glass.
His tall body turns and watches us, broad shoulders tensed. He grips a cluster of deep red roses—so velvety they’re almost black on the edges—and holds a pair of pruning shears in his other hand. The tails of his cape swirl on the wind, stabbing at the fog around his muddy boots. The vintage clothing seems out of place in our century, yet right at home in this setting.
He appears close to my age. The left half of his face stands out beneath the hood: one side of plump lips, one squared angle of a chin. Two coppery-colored eyes look back at me—bright and metallic. The sight makes me do a double take. As far as he is from the car, I shouldn’t be able to make out the color, yet they glimmer in the shadow of his cape, like pennies catching a flashlight’s glare in a deep well.
I’ve seen those eyes before—countless times—since the age of seven. But I can’t even consider why I recognize them. I can’t think beyond what they’re broadcasting, loud and clear: He’s warning us not to approach him—a part of the sprawling wilderness, neglected yet beautiful and thriving in his solitude.
Transfixed, I don’t stop staring until Mom opens the glass panel to speak to the driver. A hot blush creeps up my neck and I glance at my worn Timberland boots, all too aware of the patchwork embroidered vest beneath my jacket and the faded and ripped boot-cut jeans hugging my legs. For the first time since I started sewing and designing, I’m uncomfortable in my bohemian style, even if it is a tribute to Dad’s heritage. Here at this castle, faced with the stranger’s somber formality, I feel too casual . . . wayward and misplaced.
I’m almost aching to put on that outdated school uniform.
When the limo stops, I brave a glance again, in search of the caped figure and those shimmery eyes. The gardening shears lie abandoned on the ground, and the cluster of red roses he held are now withered, leaving behind a whirl of petals—coal black and crinkled—aflutter on the wind.
An icy sense of foreboding prickles the nerves between my shoulder blades. The gardener’s gone without a trace, as if he were never there at all.
3
GHOST WALKER
“The ghosts . . . try to remember the sunlight. Light has died out of their skies.”
Robinson Jeffers, “Apology for Bad Dreams”
He flung off his cape’s hood as he glided underground, breathing in the scent of mildew and solitude. Dripping water echoed in the hollowed-out tunnel. The shadows embraced him—a welcoming comfort.
He’d walked as a ghost in the gloomy bowels of this opera house for so long, darkness had become his brother; which was fitting, since his father was the night, and sunlight their forgotten friend.
Jaw tightening, he secured the oars in their rowlocks and stretched his arms to reveal the skin between the cuffs of his sleeves and his leather gloves. The hot rush of vitality still pulsed red light through the veins in his wrists. He’d spent all afternoon in the graveyard. Being somewhere so devoid of life had drained him and prompted an unplanned visit to the garden.
He should never have risked roaming in such close proximity to the parking lot. Curse his weakness for the hybrid roses; there was no resisting their scent, their flavor, their ripeness.
Shrugging off his annoyance, he began to row once more, water slapping the sides of the cave. He hadn’t expected anyone to be on the grounds this early. Not with what was taking place inside the academy. All the students and instructors were preoccupied. The garden should’ve been safe and isolated.
But there she was—appearing out of nowhere—several hours sooner than he’d expected. Damn his carelessness. Thankfully, he’d had the sense to wear his hooded cape; otherwise, she would’ve seen him unmasked.
Still, all wasn’t lost. If he’d learned anything watching the years play out on a stage, it was improvisation. He used the unplanned sighting to his advantage, vanishing and leaving nothing but dead roses in his wake. Though he’d hated siphoning away their life essence, it was a necessary sacrifice. A calling card for her eyes only.
No doubt she was puzzling over the event this very minute.
The boat scraped to a halt on a muddy embankment. He stepped out, alerted by movement in the darkness. His cape swept his ankles as he pivoted sharply at the familiar musical sound—similar to a trumpet yet softer and lower pitched.
He cast one of his gloves into the boat’s hull and flourished his bared hand, beckoning the life-force of a thousand larval fireflies along the cave’s roof. In reaction, spindly strings coated with orbs lit up and illuminated the surroundings with a tender greenish haze—like strands of glowing pearls strung high overhead. This particular genus wasn’t indigenous to this place but had been brought from a foreign land and kept alive over a century through an exchange of energy.
Reflections of rippling water flashed across the smooth stone walls and the curved pilasters supporting the opera house above him. A red swan waddled from the shadows, trumpeting another greeting. She lifted her long, slender neck and clacked her bill, wings spreading as she fluffed herself out, magnificent and fiery-rich—the same depth of the blossoms he’d murdered earlier.