Godless Savage Garden

’Not until we are totally lost do we find our true selves’

To my Fellow Traveler

11. March, 1855.

            She still saw the bewilderment on his face, she saw the blade of the knife as it was reflected in the retina of the man. His scream got stuck when Eileen stabbed him with the knife; the attack, given to it killing power by the deepest mad despair, silenced it forever. She saw that his stepfather’s mouth had opened for a final word. She has still felt the pain in her palm where she kept tight hold of the grasp.

            She ran. She had never have to run so hard in her entire life; for her desperate boldness would worth nothing compared to the blind rage of John and Alisdair. She was now without any weapons; she knew that she could not be more swift than her two step-brothers nor more masterly than the rifle-bullet. She had one and only one chance: if she could manage to be cleverer and more undaunted than them at the same time.

            She darted out of the yard into the blind darkness and she did not know where to run. Away from here! Away from here! – her mind kept repeating – They cannot kill you! You have promised Mother that you remain alive!

            She ran as swiftly as she could. She left the road as the crow flies and precipitated towards the hills into the bushes; she did not know where she runs, she did not have a moment to think about it; there was only one thing howling in her mind: escape! They want you dead!

            She has heard from behind her back – from far? From near? – the screams of the two men and she has heard – imagined to hear – their feet trampling. Her senses got confused. She felt the cold barrel of the rifle at her nape, her ears became loaded full of their hurried inspiration, her nose with their bad breath. If she had dared to, now she would have looked back; but the fear of death had killed every deeds and feelings out of her but the instinct to escape. It has doubled her power that came from her dread; perhaps she did not flee from her two step-brothers, perhaps it was not they who were following her in this mad run through the night but Death Himself. Her lungs were stretched to the breaking point; she did not hear anything from the usual noises of the night but one ceaseless ring in her ears. Her nostrils were distended like an animals’ that feels the bloodthirsty and ruthless hunter at its back. She knew something: she has only one place to hide in this uneven fight, if she did not want to wait for all her strength to leave her and her step-brothers to beat her to death like a flipping dog. Only one place to hide. The Tranquility Garden.

            She ran on, gathering all her strength. Here and there she stumbled over some rocks or stones – she knew too well that these are old and forgotten tombstones. Her fear of death shouted more and more loudly in her ears, and she felt them more and more closely behind her back; as her arms did not have enough power to pull her body up, she almost fell through the low wall of the cemetery. She fell on a gravestone, and a sudden pain reflected in her left leg. But the will was stronger: Inside! – it screamed in her ears – Inside into the depths of this place, into the black silence of the dead!

            Out of her sight, a bit left from where she began to crawl on the ground, a dark shadow, blacker than the utter darkness that covered the graves, moved for a second. Then it froze and melted back into the motionless darkness of the cemetery.

            The girl climbed through the gravestone, crawled in the grass to the back of it and hid herself behind it. She clutched her trembling hands on her heart, and held back her breath, but it became worse; she could hardly breathe from running, and suddenly a terrible suffocating feeling came over her. The ice-cold fear clenched its hand around her heart – if she utters the least sound in this bottomless, unmoving silence, they would surely find her. She has heard their approaching yells, and then the trampling feet; a sharp, creaking noise as they pushed in the huge gate of wrought iron. They are here. She lay low and hid her face in the grass. She heard the two men shouting curses at her and their stumbling among the gravestones. She huddled up and listened with dread-filled heart; she pressed her eyes shut not to cry; for suddenly, as she remained lying there, each of her wounds started aching again. The cut over her eyes was still bleeding. I have kept my promise, Father – she heard her own instinctive thoughts flowing out of her mind – I was true to my oath. I have defended Mother. I have defended even Her memory. You hear me, Father? You might be dead for fifteen years now, but I did not forgot what you have asked me for. Mother has gone to meet you, but I defended her memory. Nobody should call Mother what that bastard called Her.

            Her fists clenched instinctively. She was absolutely sure that her step-father will die of that wound – for she has unleashed nine years of sorrow, pain, anger and bitterness into that one movement of the knife.

            She hearkened. There was a flickering light in the far end of the cemetery – one of her step-brothers with the lamp. Shouts asking where the hell the other one is, and threats that she, Eileen would never get out of here alive. The girl did not move: she felt that the cold gravestone protectingly hides her, and the grass into which she hid her face, is nothing else than the embracing hands of the many – many dead buried here. Strange thoughts began to lurk around her. In the motionless, stern black night, which was full of blood and dread, she felt safe now. Safe in such safety that she had never experienced before. These down here are dead and without moving, and there is neither light nor life in their closed eyes...

Suddenly she felt that somebody watches her. Terrified, she looked around hurriedly, and her muscles, with the instincts of the wild animal, contracted as ready to fight and flee. But as her eyes followed her muscles in the perception, she saw that everything is silent and motionless around. Only the dead – she thought as she sat up, her back to the gravestone – the souls flying away from the mouldering bones. Fear began to fade from her inside. Only the dead did not want to harm her, only the silent, peaceful grave-dwellers understood and hid her into their deep embrace. The outside world was way too much of a threat than this place – she even felt calmness. These empty, death-pale faces, these withered bodies, rotting bones that lie around her do not wish her death; they are knowers of bigger and deeper truths, and their timeless wisdom has somehow touched her. She has lost herself in reveries many times before on what could it be like down there, in the darkness of the grave, after all life has ceased…

            The shadow moved again. It seemed to sweep over some gravestones, and then it darkened back into its surrounding.

            And what if – she thought – life does not end there? If they still have their senses, and they are closed into a narrow coffin, and still see, hear, feel the touch of their hands? Their feet grow numb from constantly being in one position, their fingers feel chilly in the cold earth, their ears are full of horror as they hear the running of thousands little feet and their eyes, which see nothing in the shorelessly deep darkness, begins to envision such apparitions that a sane mind could not even bear?

            The night-coloured shadow moved closer without a sound.

            In the next moment an unearthly scream tore the silence of the Tranquility Garden apart. Eileen’s heart painfully contracted with fear and she looked towards the sound. One of her step-brothers was shouting who was looking after her in the far end of the cemetery; the man fell over and dropped the lamp on the ground which went out the same moment… or was it covered by…

            The escaping instinct of the animal awoke irresistibly again in the girl. He stumbled, and now he does not have his lamp either – she thought – he will find it harder to follow me. Help me, sweet dead – she whispered, and suddenly darted away from behind the grave. She did not consider whether it would be better to remain there, in deathly silence, or to run. She felt that if she stays, it is only a matter of time for them to close up to her. And she did not have no doubt whatsoever what would they do to her.

            It was just a second that she looked back to see if her step-brother discovered her or not; however she did not notice that something is lying in her way. She stumbled into it and fell over; the scare moved her parts and she jumped to run on, but as she rose, she caught a sight of the thing’s upper end. It was a face. It was Alisdair, death-pale and stone-dead, lying in the grass.

            The utmost horror caused her to shrink back and fall on her knees. The scream got stuck in her throat. She did not see very well what could have happened to him, but his eyes, wide open and filled with ice-cold fear, grasped her gaze. It was so…

            Something moved in front of her, among the graves; a silently sweeping shadow began to approach the transfixed girl. She did not notice anything, until the last moment, when it gathered itself and rose to form a body, clad in dark clothes.

-Do not contemplate anymore on the nature of death – said it, and it had a crypt-deep voice of a man – here it is greeting you in his godless savage garden.

            He grabbed Eileen’s torn shirt and lifted her into the air.

Another shadow, which until this very moment stood back silently against the wall of the mortuary, moved and in a second sped at full speed towards the shadow and the girl.