Nightfall Gardens Read Free

Experience stamped her features where his sister’s face was unmarred by anything other than egotism. The men were drab by comparison. His father was tall and too thin, with the same uncontrollable churn of black hair as his son. Round spectacles pinched his nose. ‘At least he looks normal,’ Silas thought. His blue and brown eyes marked him for bullies as sure as any sign he could carry.
    He watched his mother with a growing sense of helplessness and climbed back into the prop room. A paper dragon, yellow with red scales, hung the length of the ceiling and stared down at him. Backdrops, costumes, fake weapons, furniture, and an old cannon filled the rest of the room.
    Silas picked up his quill, inkpot, and parchment from where he left them. It was the beginning of a play he was writing to surprise his family. Perhaps it would be the blockbuster that would finally lift them out of poverty.
    He was thinking on this when he stepped from the room and into the path of his sister and a strange man wearing a wolf’s-head cloak. The man was gripping her by the arm.
    “Lily?” Silas asked. His sister was paler than usual. There was fear behind her soft blue eyes.
    “Si — Silas. Thank goodness,” she said.
    “Who is this man?” he asked, ignoring the icy glare from her companion.
    “This man is your Uncle Jonquil,” the man said. “And my business isn’t with you, boy. I need to see my brother.”
    “Uncle? Father doesn’t have any brothers,” Silas said.
    Jonquil grunted a laugh. “Told you that, did he? Can’t say I blame him. Thought he was well good and clear of me.”
    Silas saw the blotch of red on his sister where the man was squeezing her arm.
    “Is he hurting you?” he asked Lily.
    “I’ll hurt you if you don’t get out of my way, boy,” Jonquil said. “Didn’t anyone teach you to respect time?”
    He pushed past Silas towards Thomas’s office. “Thomas, Moira, dear old Jonquil has come home at last,” his uncle bellowed. He dragged Lily along like she was made of feathers.
    “Let — go — of — me,” Lily demanded, trying to yank her arm away.
    “Feisty. Your grandmother will like that,” Jonquil said. He reached the office door and kicked it, splintering the jamb as he entered to the shocked expression on their father’s face. “Never thought you’d see me again, did you?” Jonquil said. His smile was as sharp as a fresh razor.
    “Jonquil!” Thomas grabbed for a derringer on his cluttered desk. He pointed the pearl handled pistol at the giant.
    “Put that pea shooter away before you irritate me. I came to talk,” Jonquil said. He released Lily, who stepped away, rubbing her bruised arm. Silas watched from the doorway.
    “You found us,” Thomas said. He lowered the gun but kept it cocked.
    “A merry chase you led as well. As soon as I’d get wind, you were on to the next town.”
    “But why? You gave your word you wouldn’t follow us,” Thomas said.
    “That’s a promise I’d just as soon have kept,” Jonquil said. The light reflected off the glass wolf eyes on his cloak. “Dark times are on us though. There was no choice.”
    Silas and Lily exchanged a look across the room. ‘He’s mad,’ Silas thought.
    At that moment, Moira burst into the room. Her eyes were swollen from crying but otherwise she was more beautiful than ever. “Thomas, what’s making that racket?” She froze when she saw Jonquil on the other side of the room.
    The giant pushed the wolf hood back from his head. His white hair glowed. The ragged scar on his cheek pulsated with life.
    “Jonquil, you’ve —,” Moira stumbled for words.
    “Gotten old, I know,” he said. “The minutes move quickly in the dusk.”
    ‘What does that mean?’ Silas thought. Why had their father never told him about his brother? Thomas and Moira were orphans at a workhouse for the poor. They escaped and were taken in by kindly Professor Prendergast and his Amazing Traveling Theater Spectacle. That was where they