A Garden of Stone

Prologue

There was a game that the children of Morne played, late into the night. It was a game of fear, a game of growth, a game of three. They crept through a quiet forest, toeing a winding path. They emerged from a treeline, to peer upon Heirholm Estate. They said it loomed. It did not tower, it did not rest. It loomed. There was no other word for it, and they were adamant about that.

Merripen rose. Her two friends were crouched, feet brushing through tall grass, creeping closer to a fence. The lower section was brick, rising to dark iron protruding out to finial points. Beyond the warped gate, Merripen peered past obstacles blocking the entrance. A cobblestone courtyard with leafless hedges and a central fountain. Dried and dusty. The Goddess Bellamine, her bust emerged from stone. Time had worn her face, flattened the visage and now a vacant stare beheld pallid walls. The vines snaked through abrasions and wrapped the mullion, strangling chipped wood.

Her friends crept closer and Merri stayed behind. Unsteady.

Larkin and Lorne looked back at her and the two boys whispered to one another conspiratorially. Wide grins stretched across their faces. She hated that. Each of them were ugly enough to haunt the pale moonlight. Larkin was far larger than Lorne, and he had already grown a few hairs above his lip. Lorne had not, and for some reason this meant that Larkin was the leader. Merripen found boys to be a strange kind of stupid. Why did it not matter that Lorne was a good head taller than Larkin? Perhaps it was his wiry frame and long slender limbs that made him follow Larkin’s every barking order. Their heads poked above the wall, visible against the moonlight. Anyone could see them there, but of course, there was no one watching. Heirholm had been abandoned for years. Still, Merripen could not shake the feeling that she was being watched. She decided that she hated that too.

“Falling behind Merri,” Lorne said.

“We’ll leave ya ‘ere so the wolves get yer.” Larkin sneered at her.

In the distance, metal grated loudly into the night. It screeched. The boys shrank and she pushed herself forward, crouching low. Pushing between them, she joined in peeking over the bricks. Three sets of hands gripped the iron bars with white knuckles. The wind picked up. Merri swore she could see movement against the walls, tree shadows swaying. Nothing more, she was sure.

“Looks like I’ll be the one to win tonight,” she whispered.

They eyed her, she could see that Lorne had gone pale.

Larkin’s face scrunched, grappling against the voice that told him to run. “I don’ like et,” he mumbled.

Merri rolled her eyes. For the past seven nights, she had been the one to stay behind the fence and watch them creep closer to the estate. She had been scared. The game they played was also stupid and boyish. Lorne had won four times, Larkin three, and Merri none. She looked at the bars and brick beneath her. This was as far as she had gotten. She had to push further, be braver.

Tonight, she was going to cross the fence.
Tonight, she was going to make it to the entrance.
Tonight, she was going to finally win.

Her heart was pounding inside her chest. Her jaw, rigid. She heard the air whistle in her nose while sharp breaths pushed through her teeth. The truth of it, was that she wanted to be stupid too. Stupid and brave. When they had made fun of her, calling her a coward and a run-away, she’d laughed out of embarrassment. But on the seventh night, they had not said a single word, which had been so much worse. She didn’t need to hear them say anything, she knew what they would say, for the words were already inside her own mind. Stay at home Merri, we’ll go alone. It’s no place for a girl.

Metal scraped once more, a long whining drawl across an empty courtyard.

“I don’ like et,” Larkin repeated. “Let’s head back.”

Merripen stood. She lifted her leg onto the brick, feeling the scratching stone against her foot. Along the wall of warped bars there was a snapped section. A gap wide enough to squeeze through. She pulled herself into it.

“Don’t!” Larkin said.

“Yeah, let’s just leave,” Lorne offered.

Between the bars she looked back down at them, pausing a moment—halfway through the fence. Her pupils were dilated. She bared chattering teeth. It was the kind of smile that might keep other smiles locked in a basement.

“Now look who the cowards are…” she whispered.

She fell from the fence to the rough pebbled stone with a crunch. All at once, something was not right. The courtyard seemed so much larger on the inside. A great expanse that stretched to the forgotten home. She felt it as well. As she stared up at all those windows trying to keep her eyes on each and every one, there was something moving in there, wasn’t there? Watching her. Waiting. The cold trickled across her shoulders and crept down her back, like a twisted fingernail running along her spine. A shiver made her crouch. She turned back to quickly glance at the boys, who remained behind the fence, eyes locked forward.

“Aren’t you coming?”

Only the Thirteen knew how she had kept her voice from shaking. The boys stared at her with wide eyes, then looked to each other. Gradually, each of them squeezed through the gap, landing beside her. They weren’t about to let a girl make them look like cowards. Merri looked around. She searched a nearby cluster of weeds. Her hand reached into the prickling thistle and overgrown stems and pulled out an iron bar. It was hefty, dark gray, same as the fence.

The iron bar had a special role. It was used to draw lines for their game. There were eight of them. All along the ground, across dust and pebbles, markers that led closer and closer to the estate. It was simple: whoever made the closest line to Heirholm, won.

“It’s not so easy approaching the estate,” she thought.

The words were Lorne’s—spoken on their very first night. He had talked about a feeling of dread. A dread that grew with every step. A dread that was not his own, creeping up his back. That was where the game had originated, with that feeling. It was why the estate loomed and why they all kept coming back—Heirholm was something different. It made the boys feel alive, was all they talked about, like even when they were away it was calling to them.

Merri mustered every fiber of courage she had, and took her first step forward. She waited for the feeling to happen. Would it be a sharp pain, or something that made her jump? However, when nothing happened, she whisper-shouted: “It’s not working!”

“You have to get closer, you’ll feel it then.”

“Bullshit.”

“Look, if yer don’ trust us… yer could always ‘ead back. Yer good at that.”

She punched Larkin in the arm. He yelped. His hands dashed to cover his mouth. The sound echoed, they all stared, watching. But of course, nothing was there. Larkin groaned and rubbed his arm as Merri walked forward. She took a second step, then a third, then—

Looming.

That was right. They were right. The pale walls were tall. It was as if the estate pulled at her, deeper into places beyond darkness. She was sure now that something was watching and waiting and listening, and Merri paused when time felt strange, and her legs started to ache, and how long had she been walking? It was encapsulating the sky, the moon hiding behind black clouds. Something was wrong inside her chest. She found her eyes drifting to somewhere inside the estate, pulled on strings that made her heart feel displaced. It wasn’t beating how it should. Defying her. Thumping to a sound that emanated from behind those walls. What was controlling her heart? She heard a tone, something bright back towards town. Merri wanted to follow it, away from this wretched place. It pushed against the thrumming wave. It took Merri a while to notice that she was walking away from the Estate, like following a light in darkness.

She stopped. What is happening to me? She had seen this exact occurence when Larkin and Lorne had played. The way they began to wander. Always away from the Estate, while trying to get to it. She looked back. They were staring at their feet, strained concentration pushing them forward step by step. She looked down. Only the third line?!

How could that be possible? She felt like she had been walking for hours. Ahead of her, five lines remained. How had Lorne made it that far, she felt a newfound respect for him. He was mostly shy, timid, but she had always felt he had a strong will. Resilient. She liked that about him, she wanted to be the same way.

Merri grit her teeth. Tonight was her night. One foot crunched in front of the other and she made her way to the next line. Gradually pulling herself closer and closer until, at the sixth line, metal shrieked.
The estate did not look any different, but her eyes found the statue of Bellamine, the Ideal of beauty. The goddesses face looked to be screaming, in silent agony. The stone she was made of looked cracked and worn.

Something moved. She had seen it in the window. No… there couldn’t be anything there. It was the shadow of a tree.

“Merri!” Lorne whispered loudly, his voice squeaking.

She could not look back, she had to keep moving forward.

“Lorne, get beck ‘ere!” said Larkin.

Her foot slid across the stones, across the dust. Something was wrong with Heirholm. Something beyond the fallen remnants, beyond the strange watchtower and the glass dome beneath it. It was something wrong, right in front of her. Some detail that was inconsistent. If only she could figure it out.

“Merri please…”

She thought it might be the porch steps. Yet they remained as she had remembered them. It was not the windows, nor the vines. And it was not the tiled roof nor gargoyle mounts. Forward.

“…Merri.”

She considered the doorway, each door missing, leaving an open entrance. It was none of these things, but it had to be something. Something obvious. Something she should have noticed by now.

“The lines,” she whispered—her eyes widening.

She gasped and glanced down. Her eyes tracked each line. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. That was it. She scratched the iron rod through the dust, then crouched down. She blew on the line and it disappeared. She let out a high pitched laugh. How strange. The wind howled and she watched the dust particles brushing across the ground. Then she looked at the other lines.

They weren’t moving.

“It’s some kind of magic,” she whispered in wonder, “Larkin, Lorne, you have to…”

Where were they? She looked up to see them standing by the fence. Why had they run back? They appeared frozen, staring at something behind her. And another realisation dawned on her. Seven nights. Larkin had won four times. Lorne had won three. So why were there eight lines?

Merripen stared at the line closest to Heirholm. It was rough, carved by something sharper than an iron rod. Metal scraped. She span.

Emerging from the shadow of a doorless frame—humanoid, tall—a great iron chain pulled taut around its neck, connected to something deeper inside the estate. Her upper eyelids pulled back as, slowly, it raised a hand. Entering the moonlight, the hand was slick and dark and muscled, deep violet veins leading to gnarled fingers. Its nails elongated and sharp. The hand closed until one finger pointed toward her. A tendril burst from the estate and wrapped around her.

And her body lurched.

She lifted from the ground. Merri kicked against nothing as she slammed into the stones and dust—dragged closer. The creature opened its hand, just inside the estate. Reaching for her. She screamed. High-pitched lungs filled the night sky. Its eyes were white. Tiny motes. She slammed the rod into the stone, but it was not enough. It flung from her hands. The creature placed its other hand, digging into the wooden frame. Looming. Its hand snatched her leg and she heard a crunch. Then searing pain. Her head lulled backwards, bouncing up the steps. In the distance, the shape of a boy slipped out through the metal bars. They were running. It yanked her deeper into the estate. Into the dark. Her screams echoed throughout, reverberating against pale walls. The chain scraped, metal shrieking against stone.

“Plea—”

Her cry was cut short as it pulled her across the room, then across dirt and muck, through a courtyard. Its hulking form glistened in the moonlight. It dragged her further and further in. The stars whirred above. She plunged into darkness. A corridor. Merri could no longer make noise, she could barely remain conscious. Her hands reached and flailed weakly. She tried to hold something, anything. The smell of blood. The smell of stone. The smell of… plants? Flowers. Soil and moss. Her eyes blurred as she looked up. A glass dome. A garden. The creature let go of her leg. It crunched gravel, stepping away, disappearing into shadows.

“Hello? Hello, is anyone there?”

The voice sounded like a girl. A melodic tone, faint. Merri turned her head slowly. It felt groggy. The world was spinning, everything blurring. And only the girls voice seemed to hold her, echoing out into the garden. Where was it coming from? Separate thoughts difficult to grasp. Someone else. Danger. She was in danger. Merri squinted looking around. She saw something in the centre of the garden. It came into her focus. Circular. Stone.

It was a well.

“Hello, can you hear me?” The voice echoed again.

Merri could not push herself to her feet, she glanced around for the monster, but it was nowhere to be seen. She dragged herself across the gravel, wincing with each movement. She opened her mouth but only a rasped wheeze escaped. She eventually gripped the stone wall and pulled herself up. As she did, an overwhelming pulse emanated from it. A wave of energy that made her sick. It thrummed, and her heart followed. The world swayed as it hung her over the lip. She could not help but look down into it. Into the darkness of the well. Inside was a girl with white hair and a pale complexion. She looked younger than Merri.

“Oh good!” The girl said. She stared up, waist deep in dark water. Moonlight illuminated her. Her eyes looked black in the light, and her face pulled to a mask of worry. “You’re hurt, aren’t you? And you’re scared and alone.”

Merri stared.

“Don’t worry—I can help you,” the girl paused, then she offered a wide smile. “Would you like me to help you?”

Merri felt a tear drop from her cheek. Perhaps the boys had been right, perhaps this was no place for a girl. She did feel scared. She did feel alone. They had left her here. They had never believed in her, and that was all she had needed… someone to believe. Her tear dripped into the water.

“Please help me.”

She was sucked into the well.