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Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Boston, MA
Gender: Male
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In a Secret Garden - Chapter 1
I've finished chapter 1 for the third or fourth time now. (I've lost track.) And now you know why I'm up at 3 A.M. I don't think anyone here has seen any previous revisions of this, not that you'd have been able to recognize it if you had.
In particular, I need to know how well I've handled the setting.
There are some plot elements that are going to jar you a little, but does everything seem plausible? At any point, does anything seem so fantastic that you just don't believe it anymore?
Also, by the end of the first chapter, how well do you identify with Marie? Do you care about her?
Thanks so much for your comments.
-TimK
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IN A SECRET GARDEN
by J. Timothy King
CHAPTER 1
The Old House
And so Marie shivered as she felt the summer evening sun fiery at her back. She and Peter two made their way up the front walkway, for Marie a walk of a thousand steps. The old house loomed in front of her, a threat and opportunity.
It was just an old house, but not just. Because the shades didn’t cover the windows. For as long as Marie could remember, every house was the same, shrouded, dark. The blinds let only meager sun rays peek around their edges, and those would be blocked out too if possible. Grey walls inside always reflected the dingy hues of an incandescent bulb. Marie had never seen the sun shine through. When she was a girl, she would wonder why houses even had windows. What was the purpose?
Once, when she was 5, she pulled back the curtain on a moonless night. She only wanted to catch a glimpse of the city’s new passenger shuttle on its way into space. She got a scolding worthy of a felony. She was told never to look out the window. She was reminded always to keep her school books inside her carry-on and never to talk to strangers. She felt the burdensome sadness of a child who’s been naughty yet understands neither how nor why.
When she was 6, Marie got her first real lesson. A man in a dark suit peered in through the front doorway. He talked to her father, then her father called for her. The man asked Marie some questions about a girl at school. Did they play together much? No, they did not.
“Have you ever seen Mr. or Mrs. McGuire? Her parents?”
“No.”
Father was wearing his poker face.
The man said thank you and left.
The McGuire girl disappeared. Word was she moved to a different town and was in foster care.
After the man went, Marie’s father took her up in his lap and held her head against his chest. It was the only time she remembered him trembling or crying. And Marie remembered in his eyes the same feeling she had felt before, that she had only wanted to see the sky, that she didn’t like being scared, that life was unfair.
Even then she had heard there was a time before the cameras, a time when people were not afraid of each other, not afraid to open their windows. She began to dream. She imagined seeing the outside air in the trees, smelling hot sun rays in the morning, tasting of the milky-way at night. And she promised herself the impossible, that someday she would live in a place she could see the world outside, have it light the room with day, and not be afraid. She knew such a place was possible.
It was a childhood fantasy, a childish fantasy. Now she was grown. She knew how to be careful. And careful was not traipsing through a strange neighborhood. They were not supposed to be here, and they didn’t know whom to trust and whom to avoid. It was not safe, like at home. Her next door neighbors were on the level, discreet. The tenants across the hall were harmless hermits.
Even Mrs. Crane posed no real threat. Mrs. Crane was a busybody and a zealot. She’d turn in her own son, even if he hadn’t done anything wrong. He probably had, of course. Everybody did. Not anything serious, mind you, but improper. Everyone had their little secrets, some bigger than others. But Marie knew enough to avoid Mrs. Crane, even if the rumors weren’t true. People said she caused her own husband’s disappearance. But you know how rumors start. All anyone knew for sure was that he left her. She may have had something to do with it, but involving the authorities? No. He probably just got fed up and made for the door.
That wouldn’t happen to Marie. She felt a smile sneak onto her face. She squeezed Peter’s hand.
She had been cuddled in his arms on that romantic evening when Peter slipped her the diamond. Marie already knew her reply. Peter had, she was sure, pored over every possible response she might give, and every rejoinder he could give to each, every possible outcome of each set of combinations. She didn’t know how he kept track of it all. In her mind it was all a waste, a sweet innocent waste, as there was only one answer she wanted to give. Yes, it was an old-fashioned idea. But she felt old-fashioned, like Peter.
That was weeks ago. Today, her fiancé walked her by the house. Marie had wanted not to do it, but Peter assured her it was safe, as long as they were home by curfew. Secretly, Marie wondered if he was just telling her what she wanted to hear. Peter really wanted to show Marie this house. He wanted her, as he said, “to fall in love with it, too,” and for that she needed a good look. This was the house in which Peter had grown up as a boy. It was the only house in all suburbia in which he wanted to start a family. He would buy it; he didn’t even care whether it was for sale. And Peter always got what he wanted.
As they strode past, Peter stared ahead, talking more to himself than to her of the spacious rooms, the delicate stenciling around the master bed, the carved wooden railing along the creaky staircase, the painted-over kitchen cabinets, the now useless old-fashioned water pump off the back porch, conducting a virtual tour through the eyes of boyhood memories.
Marie thought the whole thing was sweet and sentimental. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something more than Peter was letting on. He was too excited, too obsessive, even for Peter.
She looked it up and down. Sunshine lit a dormer on the cross-gabled attic, from which two stories of green siding poured over an overhang and onto the iron-railed porch. Lead-glass decorated the front door, next to which hung a dazzling picture window. Something felt strange. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it-- Then she noticed the window. The curtains were drawn open, transparent to the daylight. She could see a livingroom. And there were people inside. What was this all about? She didn’t mean to gawk, but she lost track of herself.
An elderly woman looked up, noticed the two on the street. And then the woman did something Marie would never forget. She waved, not to shoo, but the kind of wave that says, “Hello! So good to see you!” Yes, she smiled and waved at Marie, a stranger, a passerby who was at that moment intruding uninvited into her livingroom.
An intimidating pair they were, too, marching like soldiers, Peter six feet tall and Marie not much less, with her goth-like pale face and black hair, eyebrows that looked like they’d been drawn on with magic marker, sky-blue eyes painted by brush, a jaw sharpened by stone, a nose honed by steel. Peter had softer features, lighter hair, darker eyes, but he was tall and fit and all business. He looked like he could’ve been with the police or military. He had an air that made you want to do whatever he told you. Meeting him was an experience you probably would think impossible unless it happened to you.
The woman jabbed to life another in the room, a man. He too looked out, and a grin immediately stretched across his face. He began to move toward the front door.
Curiosity was one thing, but Marie was not one to engage crazy people. Marie suddenly caught hold of herself, turned face-forward, and began to quicken the pace.
Then came a sing-song, “Hello there!”
Peter turned to see.
“I think he’s a little off his rocker,” Marie blurted.
“Maybe not,” Peter said with a wry look. And with this retort, he returned the man’s greeting and started up the long walkway, only glancing back to ask, “You coming or what?”
Marie ran at the back of his head. “Hey!” she whispered at him. “What was that about? You can’t just leave me here.”
“Then come along.”
“I don’t think so!” She grabbed his sleeve with a big, bunched-up fist. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but we are not going up there!”
He stared for a second, tenderly, at his bride to be. “I know it’s odd, Love. But don’t worry. They’re just a little eccentric, an eccentric old couple, not dangerous.”
“You can’t know that.”
Peter spoke in bursts. “Actually, in this case--”
“Do you know these people?” she asked.
“Love, I know this is weird. I’d feel the same way if I were in your place. But trust me; I know what I’m doing.
“Besides,” he added, “maybe you can get a look at it inside.”
She held Peter’s hand, which accompanied her finally to where she was now, ascending the porch steps.
Peter smiled warmly, offered his hand, and exchanged introductions with Brian Stanley.
“Happy to meet you, Brian. I love your house!”
The man was Santa Claus without the beard, and at the sudden complement, his eyes widened, as did the gentle smile on his round face.
“Well, thank you. There aren’t too many left like it.”
“And the porch is in great shape. Is this the original?”
Brian Stanley was a do-it-yourselfer’s handyman. The two spent the next hour-fifteen discussing porch rot, roof flashing, basement seepage, termites and rats, plumbing, electricity, and heating oil. Basically, everything anyone could want to know about an old house, and this old house in particular. Brian did most of the talking.
Marie stared at the reflection in the window. She wondered if this blue sky broken by trees is what she would see from the other side.
Liz Stanley, placing her hand on her husband’s shoulder, chided him with a grin, “Dear, we oughtn’t force guests to stand out on the porch.”
Now inside, Marie’s gaze froze to the window. It’s one thing to dream, she thought, quite another for the dream to come true. She lost herself in the reality that a simple pane of glass could at once be so awe-inspiring and so terrible. The picture was of the same landscape, the same sky, the same trees, the same street, the same houses. Yet Marie had never seen it before. Its strangeness stiffened her body such that she could neither move nor think.
“I remember when I was your age, we’d open up the house every morning,” Liz interrupted in a light voice crusted over with wisdom. Her blue eyes, now sad, were pining over Marie’s new landscape. With her permed, auburn-colored hair, for a moment Liz seemed an older version of Marie’s own mother. Marie missed her Mama.
“It’s a wonderful view,” Marie said.
Liz nodded quietly. “I wish it could last.”
Then Liz Stanley solemnly drew the drapes over the scene and invited Marie to chat while she made tea.
For the first time, Marie noticed her surroundings. It was as rustic as Peter had described it. Liz slid the double-size livingroom door partially shut and led Marie down the main hallway, whose oaken floorboards clomped under their feet. Marie almost didn’t notice the linoleum in the kitchen and wall-to-wall carpeting almost everywhere else.
“I’m sorry I startled you before,” Liz said, emerging from the pantry with a kettle full of water. She placed the kettle on the stove and turned the burner to high. “It’s just that in this old house, it’s so easy to live in the past. Sometimes I forget it’s not the 20’th century anymore.” She let out a self-deprecating giggle, again reminiscent of Mama.
“Aren’t you afraid to keep the window open like that?”
“A little, but today was special.”
“How?”
Liz thought a moment. “When Brian and I first got married, we didn’t have to deal with society like you young people do. It was a different time, generations ago. It’s probably hard for someone so young to imagine what it was like 50 years ago. That’s probably twice as long as you’ve been alive.”
Marie nodded. “That’s about right.”
Liz began unpacking from the cupboard a darling set of china cups and saucers, painted with red flowers and green leaves, followed by a matching sugar bowl and creamer. All of them went on a black and gold tray.
“Back then, there weren’t any video cameras. People were more civil. They weren’t so afraid of the next big war. Don’t misunderstand me; we still feared war, but it didn’t run our lives. You could pass by a stranger on the street and say hello, and he’d say hello right back.
“You know, despite all of the anarchy of the day, society didn’t fall apart. Or perhaps because of it.”
She took out a tin of tea leaves and spooned them into a black cast-iron teapot. Marie wondered if it was still cold.
“Sometimes I even wish we could go back. It was a simpler time, without so many pressures. But progress marches on, I guess.”
Suddenly, she looked up. “I’m sorry. I’m babbling. I probably shouldn’t even be talking like this to you. But I think I can trust you. I can’t say why. I just do.”
She poured in boiling water.
“Anyway, today we had a feeling something special was going to happen, and we had a feeling it was safe, so we opened the window. And we met you two.”
There was another pause before Marie spoke. “How did you know I like tea?”
Liz smiled. “Just a lucky guess.”
They moved into the livingroom, where Brian and Peter had been talking. Liz set the tray down and poured.
After each person was holding a cup and its contents just so, Peter looked at Brian. “You and Liz live in this big house all by yourselves.”
“Yes.”
“And you handle all the upkeep?”
Brian nodded.
“Isn’t that a lot of work?”
“Sometimes.”
“This seems like too big a place for just you two.”
“It probably is.”
“Have you ever thought of selling it?”
No answer.
“You know, I could get you a deal. A better size home, and you’d take away a tidy profit.”
Brian smiled and shook his head. “Life is more than money,” he said, quietly.
Marie knew what Peter’s next question was going to be. What part of life? But he never asked it. Instead he merely nodded, slowly, as if dazed.
Marie jumped in. “What part of life is more important than living comfortable and happy?”
Brian’s eyes shifted between Marie and Peter. His face was sad and contemplative. Liz said nothing.
They were quiet for a long time, an awkward silence that made Marie feel as though she had committed a faux pas.
Finally, Peter broke the silence. “You’re probably wondering why I have such an interest in your house.”
Brian’s face was perfectly still.
“When I was a kid I lived in this house. I grew up here. Believe it or not, it’s changed very little since then.
“And I understand why you like it.” He lowered his voice. “I know why. I wish I could offer something equal.”
“There is nothing equal,” Brian replied in a monotone voice.
Another pause.
Peter stood. “It was awfully nice meeting you, Brian. Thank you for the excellent tea, Liz. And it was good to see the old place. I really appreciate it. Can Marie and I return the favor someday?”
Brian did not move. Instead, he said, “I can make you a counter-offer.”
Peter sat back down, stared at his host with the same intensity with which the host was staring at him.
“I’ll give you the house, as long as Liz and I can live out our lives here first. I’ve already talked this over with Liz.”
Marie couldn’t imagine when they could’ve talked, but Liz didn’t object.
Peter said, “That’s very generous of you. But you could have 30 or 40 years left. I’d be an old man.”
“No.” Brian shook his head. “We don’t have that much time.”
Peter accepted the news without question and looked saddened by it. Marie wanted to ask, but she had already been bitten once and was feeling uncharacteristically shy.
They took their leave of the Stanleys and hurried back to the car, for it was beginning to get dark out.
Once safely seated beside Peter, Marie asked, “What was that all about? Do you know?”
His deep brown eyes stared into hers, he struggled with words that wouldn’t come, then whispered, “Please, Marie, trust me.”
They had papers drawn up. At the signing, Peter shook Brian’s hand heartily, then Liz’s. Then he took Brian’s hand again and with the other hand patted him on the back, and the two men, still relative strangers, hugged.
“If there’s anything I can do,” Peter began to say.
“You just did it.”
A week later, Brian and Elizabeth Stanley died together in a car crash.
(end of chapter 1)
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