The Garden of Lies

I told you already, it wasn’t my fault. They’re all making it out like I did something wrong, like I’m the one to blame for what happened. But the truth is, no one really knows the whole story. Not even me.

It all started when my mother called me last summer, her voice shaky like a leaf caught in the wind. "Tessa," she said, "you need to come home."

I hadn’t been back to that house in over ten years. Why would I? It held nothing but ghosts, and I don’t mean the kind you see in movies. No, the ghosts I’m talking about are memories—ones that gnaw at your mind until you start to question what was real and what wasn’t.

The house still looked the same when I arrived: peeling white paint, the sagging roof, the overgrown garden out back that I never wanted to go near as a kid. Mother always loved that garden, though. "It’s where the truth grows," she’d say with that distant, glassy look in her eyes.

I should’ve known something was off the moment I stepped inside. The air smelled… wrong. Not like dust or mold, but something worse. Something rotten. Mother greeted me at the door, her hands trembling. She looked older than I remembered, her skin paper-thin and yellowish. But she smiled at me like nothing was wrong.

“You came home just in time, dear,” she said. “I was worried you wouldn’t.”

I didn’t ask what she meant by that. Maybe I should have. But I didn’t.

It wasn’t long before I realized things in the house were even stranger than they’d been when I was a kid. At night, I’d hear voices from the garden. Low, muttering voices, like someone was talking just below a whisper. But when I looked out the window, the garden was still, empty, just as overgrown as ever.

“Did you hear them?” I asked my mother at breakfast the next morning.

She just smiled, stirring her tea with the little silver spoon she always used. “You always had such an imagination, Tessa. It’s what makes you special.”

Imagination. Right. But I knew better. The voices were real. They had to be. The next night, they were louder, clearer. They were calling my name now. “Tessa… come to the garden… come…”

I didn’t go, of course. Why would I? I’m not stupid. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the garden. What was out there? What was really out there?

I started sneaking out during the day to investigate, when Mother wasn’t around. But every time I tried to get close, I’d feel this heavy, suffocating pressure, like something was pushing me back. My head would spin, my vision would blur, and I’d have to stagger back inside, gasping for air.

One morning, I found Mother standing by the garden gate, her back to me. She was talking to someone—no, something. I crept closer, trying to hear what she was saying.

“They know, you know. They’ve always known. But I keep them quiet. I keep them buried, just like you said.”

She turned suddenly, her eyes locking onto mine, and I swear they gleamed for a second, like something was alive in them. “Tessa, dear, you shouldn’t eavesdrop. It’s not polite.”

I froze, unsure if I’d heard her right. “Who… who were you talking to?”

She laughed softly, shaking her head. “Oh, just the garden. You know how it is, always needing attention.”

Her answer didn’t sit right with me, but I let it go. For now.

It got worse from there. The voices at night grew louder, more insistent. I started seeing things, too—shadows moving just out of the corner of my eye, figures standing in the garden in the dead of night. But whenever I’d blink, they’d disappear.

Mother, though—she acted like nothing was wrong. She’d go about her days humming to herself, tending to that cursed garden, planting who knows what. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to know what was going on.

So one night, when the voices were almost deafening, I grabbed a flashlight and slipped outside. The air was thick, suffocating, like the garden itself was alive and breathing, watching me with unseen eyes. But I wasn’t afraid. I couldn’t be. I needed answers.

I crept through the overgrowth, the flashlight shaking in my hands. The voices were so loud now, they felt like they were inside my head, screaming at me. “Tessa! Tessa! You must listen!”

And then I saw it. Buried in the dirt, half-hidden by weeds, was a small, rotting wooden box. My heart raced as I knelt down, fingers trembling as I brushed the dirt away. The box creaked open, revealing what was inside.

Bones. Tiny, fragile bones, wrapped in old cloth. And then it hit me.

My brother. The one I’d forgotten, or maybe the one I’d been made to forget. I remember him now, the baby who cried all the time, the baby who stopped crying one day and never made a sound again. The one Mother said was taken away by relatives far away.

But that wasn’t true, was it? No, he never left. He was here the whole time. Buried in the garden.

I confronted Mother the next morning. I asked her what she’d done. I asked her how she could lie to me for all these years.

She didn’t deny it. She just smiled that same vacant smile, the one she always gave me when I was a child. “Some things are better left buried, Tessa. You understand that now, don’t you?”

I didn’t understand. I don’t understand anything anymore. My head is spinning, and I’m not sure what’s real. Did I really see those bones? Was my brother ever real at all?

The garden is quiet now. The voices stopped after that night. But sometimes I still hear them, faint whispers in the back of my mind, telling me to come closer, to dig deeper.

Mother says I’m imagining things again. But I’m not. I know what I saw. I know what she did.

I think.

It’s been weeks now, and I haven’t left the house. I can’t. Not until I know for sure. I’ve been digging in the garden every day, searching for more answers, more truth. But the more I dig, the less I find.

Mother watches me from the window sometimes, her smile never wavering. “You’re going to hurt yourself, Tessa,” she calls out. “Come inside. Let it go.”

But I can’t let it go. Not yet. Not until I know for sure what’s real.

I’m writing this down because I need someone to believe me. You have to believe me. Everything I’ve said is true—at least, I think it is.

But then again, sometimes I wonder if I’m the one who’s been lying all along. Maybe Mother was right. Maybe it’s all just my imagination, just like when I was a kid. Maybe the garden isn’t hiding anything after all.

Or maybe it’s hiding everything.

I don’t know what’s real anymore. But I need you to believe me. Please.

Please.

The garden is calling again. I have to go now. I’ll write more later, after I’ve found what I’m looking for.

If I ever do.