Dying Garden

The boy walked past the ancestral home of wood and white paint. He had just reached the clearing where the foundation stood of the old southern relic. The trees had, until this point blocked the sun out, except for the occasional rays which broke through and shot perfect rods of yellow luminescence down to the pavement. It reminded him of the way the afternoon sun would beam into his family’s trailer through the holes scattered along the ceiling’s edge.

Along the side of this massive home, the windows continued to spiral around, their perfect symmetry only broken by a door covered in vines. The back had a protruding patio that extended to the second floor as if to brag of its ability to accommodate far more guests than would ever venture a visit to this residence.

Following the eroded pathway behind the plantation, the boy made his way into the garden. When the girl had told him to meet her in the garden, the boy was confused. After seeing the towering bushes that developed the perimeter of the area, his confusion was replaced by a giddy apprehension. This was not the garden his grandmother tended to outside her home in Beaufort. This was a garden of unparalleled size to anything that he had seen in his life. But, stepping into the garden killed any hopes of whimsy that the ferns had granted him only seconds ago.

The garden was dead. He could see where the tenders of the garden had divided the area into four quadrants, with a unique design of the pavement in each one. But weeds grew out of the crevices of the stone and covered the designs in a layer of unkempt vegetation. The quadrant closest to the entrance on the left was designed as a spiral that closed in on the garden bed at the center. The quadrant to its right had zig-zagged stripes that at one point were separated by dirt beds with (what one could only assume to have been) magnificent plants of uniform beauty. The quadrants to the back had long been abandoned in a way that left the boy unable to decipher the image that lay underneath the growth.

But to the very center of the garden was a raised flower bed encircled by a path that protruded into each quadrant. The flower bed was something of a podium that brought what it held to eye level for those that entered. It was a massive piece of stone, and chiseled into it were angels pointing to their respective entrances of the garden. Within the bed, itself, which was only about a foot long on each side, was at least ten marigolds stemming from the same plant. The boy was drawn to it.

Upon further examination, this marigold could not be a random wonder of this garden or an accidental and spontaneous display of life and vitality from the old and fading monument. The soil was a dark brown filled with white specks of fertilizer. The leaves of the plant had a different kind of green hue to them than the weeds which surrounded it and the boy. It was a darker fuller green. The coat of pollen which covered the garden had completely avoided this bed. The stone angels were free of sediment and dust which had accumulated on all the other structures within the garden. The layer of growth stopped at the encircling ground.

“How do ya like it?” A voice from behind him said, pulling him out of the trance he had found himself in. The boy turned around to see the girl only a few feet away. Her silent steps had made her presence secret, betrayed only by her voice.

“Well… erm… I-I-I’ve never seen anything quite like it.” He responded. In the same way that her voice betrayed her presence, his betrayed that he did not belong on this property, or even this side of the river. His accent had a harshness to it, unlike the girl's fine dixie drawl which signified a certain amount of history and class. He had neither of those things, and she had both. It was clear her family's ancestral home had poor upkeep and little inflow of capital. But here dynasty and wealth were not connected, and their status was, although slipping, very much intact. His face made clear to her he had suddenly realized all of this. His eyes dropped down to the floor, and his features lowered into a bashful place of rest.

“Well ya don’t have to act all… all… small or whatever. Look around, we ain’t exactly rolling around in honey either.” He looked back at the house and now noticed the chipped paint, broken shudders, and yellow rusty hue which characterized the house he had passed to reach the garden. He looked back at the marigolds and then to her green eyes which were staring intently, inviting him into her world.

“I… erm… am sorry, Mary. I didn’t mean to-” He began to reply as she cut his sentence off by its knees.

“I am sorry, Mary. Won’t you please accept my apology, Mary? Oh Mary, please forgive me, Mary!” She began mocking him. He went red in the face like a cherry. She saw this and stopped. “Oh Joel, don't be like that. I’m just a messing with you.” She smiled to reassure him.

“Well... erm... Mary, I guess I do have to admit I’m a little confused why you asked me to meet here. I thought maybe… erm… you liked the soda fountain. It has a lot more music and all that stuff I know girls like.” He began to feel more comfortable.

“Oh Joel, it wasn’t meant as an insult to your choice of venue. I just like a little more privacy.” Mary replied. The last four words echoed in Joel’s mind. A little more privacy. “You see, I have really enjoyed going with you, but I thought maybe it was time to change our meetin’ place. I really do like you though.” She audaciously plucked the biggest marigold from the center of the bed that they had now gathered around and put it in her hair. “How ya like it?”

Joel was a bit shocked by her brazen theft from the plant. There were more than enough, but it felt destructive and unnecessary. He looked back up at her from the empty space on the plant where the marigold had been a tenant. She was glowing. The sun beamed off of her black hair and her green eyes stared directly into his. The marigold now occupying her hair brought out every hidden beauty he, until this moment, could not see in her. He quickly realized thirty seconds had elapsed and she was now leaning in and waiting for an answer to her question. “It’s good. I mean… erm… it’s stunning.”

“Well is it good or stunning?” She asked back. Joel was a bit confused and caught off guard. He did not understand the question, or if he had misspoken somehow, in his compliment to her.

“Both?” He quickly answered, hoping that it was the correct answer.

“Joel Ellis, you really do have a way with words, don’t ya.” She laughed. Mocking him was a pastime she enjoyed. “I wanted to go on a walk. Would you be interested in joining me, or would you rather stay here and play with the weeds?” He once again could do nothing but stammer. Her questions were not meant to be answered, but he was sure of nothing with her. The walk was going to begin. She was going to lead him out of the garden and into the woods behind the estate. He felt a certain pull to the garden which, admittedly, he could not explain.

“Well maybe we could stay here, and you could show me how you take care of this planting bed.” He finally responded to her question, hoping that she might be willing to stay put for the remainder of this strange fourth date.

“Oh Joel, I can promise you this: Anything I show you here, in this garden, is nothing compared to what I can show you out there. This garden is a lost cause. I only put the marigolds there to remind me of what lies thirty or so paces beyond those ferns.” She pointed towards the back wall of bushes and the forest beyond. “So are you gonna join me out there, or stay here with a few pretty flowers? Two fewer when I leave.”

“You only plucked one, Mary.”

“Well Joel, I can assure you two of them are leaving this garden now.” She began to walk away with the flower in her hair towards the forest. “Don’t fall too far behind. I have a lot I want to show you in there.”

He looked down at the garden bed, up at her departing body, down to the bed, and then back at her. He began to follow her into the forest. She may have been difficult, but he was already on her hook. Down they went into the forest. Together. To see all the life that lay just beyond her dying garden.