The Flower Garden

"If I had a flower for every time I thought of you,

I could walk in my garden forever..."

~ Anonymous

Raven Manor was a dark and foreboding place to look at.  Perched on a craggy, rocky hill, dotted with the stony skeleton of ancient ruins, the grayish stones and shimmering glass of the tall, lean building showed little in the manner of signs of warmth.  Instead, it looked like a giant, stony mask, silky isinglass panes the silent, watchful eyes in the glazed face, staring down the hillside with disapproval, ever watchful for prey the dark house could steal warmth from.  Even the often rain-drenched gardens, despite the wealth of neatly trimmed grasses bordering cobbled walks, seemed devoid of life, the grass slightly grey-tinged and without a single bloom in the massive yards.

Raven Manor was not completely without life, though.  Inside the great, hulking build lay a single beating heart - the Master of the Manor, supposedly.  Always sharp-eyed, the lord was quick with a quip or a smile; at least, on the surface.  Down beneath, he struggled to see if he was any more alive than his stone and glass keep.  On the days when that bleak cold threatened to engulf him, he hid himself away, staring out at the world from the glass windows of his fortress, wondering how alive he truly was.  To try to escape the seeping chill, he kept on the move, hopping from city to city, forest to village, gallery to castle, trying to break the bonds sewn and represented by his dark home.  Each time, he would manage to reawaken that warmth he needed to keep him going… only to return to his icy roost and feel that pleasure slowly slip from his grasp.

Despite the seemingly alone, isolated existence of the Raven lord, the village around his manor was not as devoid as his domicile.  The faint, happy shrieks of girls having fun sometimes managed to ring off the ruins of the hillside, briefly invading the hulking behemoth, bright bubbles of laughter that glistened like liquid sunbeams in the murky stones, finally fading to tinkling shards of memory.  They both haunted and encouraged the lord, and for them he brought out his smiles and his charm, hiding the cold soul the manor left until he had to explore once more, to reignite the faint spark left inside him.

But not all of the distant village citizens were oblivious to the darkness of the creeping manor, or as blind to the mask the lord chose to draw.  More than one tried to see what lay beneath, and a few could feel the stark chill radiating from the seemingly bland stones.  They watched, and they waited, wondering what the manor would do to the man inside, worried that he seemed beyond their aid.

But one did not give up so easily.  She watched, and she felt his pain with a wisdom belied by her pretty face, watching the stone manor with a sick dread in her stomach, and the coming and going of the Raven lord.  As she watched, she knew that chilly stone place was slowly whittling away at the human being underneath, and the pain in her gut drove her to try to do something to fix it.  ‘Maybe… just maybe… if I can bring some light to that horrible place, it will be enough…’

So, one day, when the sun was bright and chased the chill of the stones to the darkest corners, protecting itself, and the master was off on one of his jaunts, she braved the rocky hillside.  Holding floaty layers of skirts from the jagged teeth of the ruins, like reaching fingers trying to hold her back from nearing the gargoyle on the hill, she crept upward, try to ignore the rapid beating of her heart.  In her hands, carefully gathered, she cradled cuttings of a tender rose, the velvety red petals a stark streak of warmth against the stone of the manor as she got closer.  Ignoring the feel that the bricks, themselves, were eying her, trying to hold the ice of fear straight against her heart, she rounded the back to enter the garden, finding a promising circular spot near the steps to plant the young bud, a streak of warmth in the gloom, seeming to bring some light.  She tunneled into the cool and loamy earth with her fingers, uncaring of the dirt in her set mission, making a spot for the roots, murmuring encouraging words as she planted the flower and soothed the disturbed earth back around the shoot.

Ignoring the prints she made on her shimmering skirts, she got back down to her feet to look at the little bud of the rose, smiling tenderly.  A single shaft of sunlight seemed to sink through the towering trees from outside the fence, highlighting the ruby bloom, making her smile softly.  One dirty finger stroked over the barely-parted petals as she gave it a caress, then turned to walk more slowly from the garden, feeling less afraid now.

Almost anxiously now, she watched the stone manor, watching for some sign of the brightness to come - and for the return of the Raven lord.  One day, as she watched him return from his jaunts, seeing him smile as he entered his domain, she felt her heart lift for his happiness, and smiled to herself that maybe, just maybe, she had managed to clear some of the cold from his life.

It was not to be.  Before her eyes, she watched the true lightness fade from his step, his smiles again becoming his surface mask as the life faded behind his eyes.  One day, when he was out and about in the village, roaming the sunnier lands around Raven Manor, she crept back up the hill, her heart thundering again, to peek over the rear gate.  Inside, her thundering heart seemed to shrivel in her chest.

The rose was gone.  The spot where she had planted the cutting still peeked from the newness of her tender transplant, but the flower had wilted to naught but the faintest of black sticks in the ground.  A soft gasp fell from her lips at the cold chill the garden seemed to give, as if something sinister was laughing at her attempts to let the sunlight through the gate, and she involuntarily stumbled back a step, as if struck.  She knew they had plenty of rain, and the spot should have had plenty of light… but the chill of the manor had still managed to kill the plant.

Feeling her heart beat in her ears, she turned and fled back down the hill, feeling like the chill of the manor was creeping over her shoulders, trying to kill the heart of her, as it had the flower she had dared to plant in it’s realm.  She ran all the way back to the safety of her own rooms, slamming the wooden door and leaning against it, her ragged breathing loud against the still of her sanctuary, only the crackling of the candles on her desk adding the odd break to the rasp.  Shaking hands clasped tremblingly over her heart, eyes wide and staring at the familiar red paper of her walls, the pristine white of her couch and coverlet, thoughts racing through her head too quickly to be cornered and examined, fear still chasing down her spine.

For the rest of the day, she hid inside her room, listening to the distant sounds of her sisters and friends, the odd, low rumble of a passing male, sometimes the false cheer of the Raven lord, making her shiver again, remembering the cold of that house.  Long into the star-studded night, she sat on the cushioned bench of her desk, staring at the twin flames of the candles on the peek, her mind racing.

Within days, he was away again, once more chilled and driven to find something to renew his warmth, to sustain his life.  A part of her wondered why the company he could find where he was could not do so, why the village could not sustain him, but a part of her realized his fear of chilling them, too - and so he left to wander, to save them from the pain of what he seemed to feel was his due fate.  Once she watched him leave, she went out into the meadows again, purposefully gathering what she needed into two heavy baskets.

Again, the lone girl trudged up the stony hill, rocks coming out to threaten thin ankles, seeming to try to trip her and keep her from the stone of the Manor, to roll her back down the hill to the safety of her home.  With a grim determination, she kept forging upward, determined even in the edge of remembered terror.  Again, she circled the stone building, pulling a shawl she had brought tighter to her shoulders, gripping the twin wicker handles tighter in her slim fingers as she used her hip to nudge open the gate, going to kneel near the stunted grass near the manor’s back steps again, frowning determinedly as she knelt and carefully removed the diseased-looking remnants of her rose from the ground, then turned to open the lids on the baskets, carefully emptying them to the flagstones by her knees.

Riot of colors poured out, a rainbow of blooms in carefully harvested stalks, the open “jaws” of snapdragons lining stalk after stalk.  Pink with yellow hearts, bright and vibrant red, cool white… she had collected every color of the sunny plant she could find, filling her baskets to the brim with the hardy blooms, their colorful petals looking to snarl at the frosty shadows of the Manor, driving the creeping shadows back to their proper corners.  Again, her fingers were her tools, warming the cool, dark, damp earth as she turned it, carefully arranging the flowers in wild arrays on either side of the wide stone steps.  With every stem she planted, she felt her heart lighten, until she caught herself humming under her breath and moving around the garden paths with a light step, placing the last few plants in small clusters wherever it suited her fancy, inviting the sunlight into the garden again.

She left with a light step, this time determined to keep a closer eye on her weapon of choice.  At least once a day, she would sneak away from the village fare, moving stealthily up the hill, no longer fearing the catch of the ruins, to peer over that garden gate.  The flowers seemed fine, blooming in color, and she heartened to see the first start of shoots, where they were already taking root and spreading.  Assured that all was well, she sank back into her routine, gradually letting the garden do it’s thing, waiting almost eagerly for the lord’s return.

When he came back, she was happy to see the lightness to his step, the gleam back in his eyes, and she joined in the general merriment that always came with his general return.  This time, the true man inside seemed to stick around longer, and she heartened to think her flowers may have helped to chase the gloom from his home, keeping him around.  Gradually, though, she again noted him starting to draw back, to spend less and less time interacting, and more just watching, and she rather wondered that he never mentioned the flowers in his garden, after the desolate, empty grey grasses.

Already knowing what she would find, she waited until the coast was clear to head back up the hill again, mind in a whirl.  Before she even neared the gates, she had prepared herself for what she may find, though she still winced at the shriveled stalks of her snapdragons, each more a brown stick lying in the grass, the colorful petals of the ferocious “jaws” long since disappeared in whatever cold wind the Manor managed to brew.  Her heart began to thud again, and her head to pound… and her hands formed trembling, white-knuckled fists as her blood thrummed through her body, no longer cold at all.

Instead, to her faint surprise, she was angry.  Angry at the cold Manor, and at that impassive mask the Raven lord used to hide.  Angry for every wilted flower she had so carefully planted, and for every sunbeam the cold stones managed to turn away.  This time, she did not flee from the towering building, but stomped resolutely away, sometimes hurting her heels on the rocky hillside, making her way through the village with such a dark cloud and foreboding look that even her sisters kept from her side, watching her passing with curiosity and wincing at the resounding slam of her door.

Again, the girl stayed up long into the night, thinking and plotting, the rasp of her pen loud as she jotted down notes, only to scratch them out again.  No matter what she could plant, the cold of the Manor could leach the life from it, and her nails drummed impatiently on the wooden desk.  What she needed, she knew, was such a labor of love that even that horrid Raven Manor would be afraid to touch it… and, if it tried, there was nothing it could manage to take.

An idea struck her at the same time dawn did, her eyes widening as she looked at the balls of discarded lists and ideas littering her room.  A slow smile slid across her pink lips, and she went to bed exhausted, but determined, a plan shaping in her head.

For many days, she spent long hours locked away, working, her windows tightly closed from prying eyes.  She gathered paper and candles with fervor, emerging long enough to keep her friends from worrying, her eyes always lingering quietly on the Raven lord when he joined the village throng, tracking his shift, the loss of his light.  Every time he got a little further inside his mask, she got a bit more determined, and stayed up that much later, working on her projects.

One more time, she made the trek up that stony hill, this time by the light of a single lamp in the dark of a moonless night, knowing the Raven lord was tucked away in his bed.  She let herself through the gate, determined to ignore the threatening stone of his walls, slippered feet sliding silently across the dew-slicked surface of his flagstone path.  She worked with hurried fervor, determined to have the morning sunlight sink well into his stones, the fire of her anger keeping even the cold of the Manor from her.  Her nails became brown and dirt encrusted, her cloak heavy with the moisture of the sodden grass, her knees stained from her toils… and still she worked onward.

Come dawn, the Raven lord awoke to an unfamiliar sensation - that of the light of the sun on his face, stretching against the soft, downy pillows and counterpane that he had long since given up hope of giving him a good night’s rest.  He could not remember the last time the sun had felt so warm in his room, for he never bothered to close the curtains: the Manor’s stone always seemed to eat the light.  Getting up, feeling still tired, he made his way to his lonely kitchen at the back of the ground floor, brewing his morning tea by rote, eyes staring bleakly at the stove, even as his brow furrowed, as something seemed different.  Lighter, almost.

His first steaming cup was carried to his lips as he wandered toward the light spilling in from the patio, and his large, open, grassy stretch of garden, drawn to the warmth he found there, and the way it seemed to chase his chills away.  What he saw, though, had his dark eyes blinking wide, staring through the sun-drenched glass, before swinging the door open and striding barefoot to the flagstone steps outside.

For once, the stone, despite the early hour, felt warmed to the touch, despite the cold that normally chased even through his boots.  Sun spilled through the dappled leaves of the trees outside his fence, lighting the riot of color that seemed to fill every inch of the grass of his garden, blooms and flowers of every type having sprung up overnight, waving on thin green stalks.  His heart beat in his chest as he moved down the steps, looking closer at the magical flowers, as nothing ever grew in his garden.

What he saw made his eyes widen in surprise, for the flowers were not just any flowers.  Birds of paradise, roses, mums, snapdragons, lily of the valley… all were ornately arranged in clusters and lines, rows that were artistically disarrayed.  Moreover, none of them were real, and he trailed one finger cautiously over a sun-drenched “petal,” lips parting in surprise.

Paper flowers.  Someone had spent hours filling his garden with paper flowers, so many that he could wander forever and never see them all.  Even more, they had coated them with something, to keep the wind and rain from ravaging them, and he leaned closer, surprised to catch a whiff of floral fragrance, carefully removing one wire “stem” from the ground and holding the white paper rose to his face, touching it gently.

Wax, with some kind of metallic component, making the petals and the little faux leaves glisten in the warm of the sun, the riot of color impossible to douse in the gloom of the Manor.  Even more, the wax had been scented… the rose really smelled like a rose!  As he carefully replaced the wire in the tilled soil, he caught whiffs of the other fragrances, rising up to the warmth of the sun, and he felt something in him warm, too.  The sunlight spilled through the garden, chasing the shadows from the stone, and he smiled at his colorful garden, strolling gently, laughing faintly when unexpected designs in the larger bed - a bird, or a heart, or just a bull’s-eye of colorful circles - dawned on his mind.

The sound of that laughter tumbled down the hill, bouncing off the ruins to meet the awakening burble of the village chatter, the two sounds mingling and rising to the sky, the sparkling shards of the mingled sound of smiles piercing the gloomy atmosphere of Raven Manor and tossing the shadows to the ground like broken webs.  The new sounds caught the ears of the early risers, and curious onlookers trudged up the hill, moving to stare in surprise into the sunny garden, the way the light seemed to bounce off the dark tiles of the roof in a way they had not before seen, moving to join the Raven lord in his own domain, marveling at his flowers.

Only one figure missed the gathering, as the whole village slowly heard and stumbled up the hill to look at the flower garden.  The lone girl was not there.  More than one of her sisters stopped by her room, knocking to invite her along, only to peek inside and see the bed carefully made, assuming she was already there.  None knew her bed had not yet seen her sleepy head.  In the wee hours of the dawn, as the filtering sunlight broke the trees and bounced with rainbow speckles off the leaves of her paper flowers, shattering the shadows of the Manor, she had slowly, tiredly trudged from the garden, shutting the gate softly behind her.  In her sleepy befuddlement, she had turned wrong, trudging down the wrong side of the hill, and become hopelessly lost, wrapped in her soiled cloak, in the trees down behind the manor, until she had sank to the loamy earth, curled her cloak over her head, and sank into an exhausted sleep, clasping her aching, dirty hands over her equally aching heart; for part of it would remain forever in the flower garden, inviting in the light to chase away the shadows…