A Stranger in the Garden Read Free

portrait of family contentment, a thing Charles had never known. He hated them for it.
    Gwen stopped in midphrase as he entered, and she tossed her head a little so that her dark locks slid to her back. She reminded Charles of someone, a distant memory he couldn’t seem to trace.
    The Grue kept the memory from him. Charles had learned that he did this when it suited his mood. On occasion, he’d kept even the memory of Charles’s own name from him, just to prove who was in control. But Charles had learned something else—sometimes the things the Grue tried to hide were important. If he could just hold on to them, if the little black box in his mind could somehow hold on to those thoughts, he hoped he’d be able to put together the pieces.
    And then, maybe someday he’d be free.
    He had to admit that when the Grue had made him the offer, he hadn’t seen how he had much choice. He still didn’t. He had just begun working undercover at the Museum for the Architects. At first that had been fine, but he’d been unsure that their desire to continue hiding magic was right. The day he’d been sent by Vespa’s father to the storage cellar for the Saints knew what, he’d been feeling his resentment of the Architects keenly. And then he’d found himself trapped by a magic darker and more powerful than any he’d ever encountered. The Grue had nearly torn him apart before he sensed the magic in Charles. And then, surely the most wicked plan ever forged by any Unnatural had been hatched in that moment when Charles had bargained for his life and the Grue had lent him his power.
    Now that plan had seemingly come to its fruition. But to what end?
    You will understand soon enough.
    “Hey, Mister Charles, do you like worms?” Gwen said to him, jarring him from his thoughts.
    Charles saw that there was a pot on the piano with no plant in it.
    “Earthworms,” Darwin said, following Charles’s gaze. “We are testing to see how they respond to vibrations.”
    Charles nodded.
    Gwen rose from the bench and peered down into the pot. She picked up a wriggling worm between thumb and forefinger. “I don’t think he likes it much, Granpapa,” she said, eyeing her victim. Charles was reminded of nothing so much as the Grue sizing up a human before he struck.
    “That’s a good observation, dear. Put the little fellow back,” Darwin said. He sounded tired and sad.
    It would be so easy, the Grue said.
    Charles tried hard to ignore him.
    Ignore me at your peril. Without me, you are nothing!
    Charles moved toward the piano. The worm wriggled on top of the dirt, seeking a way back to his subterranean dwelling.
    “What do you like about them?” Gwen asked. She had black eyes that snapped much like Lucy Virulen’s. She tilted her head, and her little snub nose turned up charmingly, so like someone Charles had once known.
    An image wavered before him, like a warped mirror. His mother snatching a tiny pert-nosed baby away from him, shouting, “Don’t bother the baby, Charles!”
    That is not important, the Grue said, dismissing the memory. Gain this little one’s trust. We will need her.
    “Gwen, don’t pester the man,” Darwin said.
    “It’s all right, sir,” Charles said. “I like them because they keep the world going. Without them we’d likely have nothing. Your grandfather said so once, I think,” he told Gwen.
    “So I did,” Darwin said. He stood and made his way over to Charles and Gwen, grunting with every step. “I didn’t think many people had read that, though.”
    “I did. I’ve read everything you’ve ever written, sir.” It wasn’t a lie. Charles had found and read all the Saint’s works in the Archives long ago. The Architects had put them off as dogma not worth reading, but Charles had understood them for the treasure they were. Reading them was partially what convinced him that the Grue’s tales were true. There had been another world where Science—real Science—had won the hearts of men. A world