She burst through the archway and made it four more steps into the room before she collapsed onto the stone floor. Sobs wrenched out of her, each one aching as it forced its way past the lump in her throat. She pulled her legs up under herself and wrapped her arms around her knees. She couldn’t run anymore. But the creatures didn’t seem to be chasing her.
Light came out of the garden’s open door. It wasn’t enough to fully illuminate the space, but it wasn’t darkness either. Clare lay there, curled into a tight ball. Her head throbbed. Her limbs all felt like they were made of stone. And the inside of her chest ached from where her thumping heart had bruised it.
Very slowly, she lifted her head. She’d been aware of the light around her, but it had taken a second for the relevance to sink in. The garden’s door was open. That wasn’t normal. It wasn’t right. Dorran was always careful to keep it shut tightly and preserve the warmth their precious plants needed.
Clare glanced towards the cellar archway. It remained empty. Then she looked towards the door leading back into the main parts of the house. It was shut, the way she’d left it when she’d come into the room.
“Dorran?” Her voice was a croak. Perfect, undisturbed silence was her only reply. Clare pushed herself to stand and staggered forwards.
There was no one inside the garden room, no one she could see at least. Clare squinted through the fog of stress as she reached the entrance and leaned on the open door for support.
She’d spent so much time in the space over the recent week that she could picture the scene by heart. Snow peas were stretching tendrils up their trellises. They were small, but enthusiastic. The tomato sprouts were still tiny. Their delicate, fuzzy green leaves reached towards the artificial lights above them, not seeming to notice or mind that it wasn’t the sun. The lettuce had three leaves apiece, and Dorran had said they would need only two more weeks before there would be enough to start picking.
Clare stepped through the doorway, and a moaning wail wrenched from her chest. Their beautiful garden—their love, their pride, their survival—was dead.
The plants had been dug out of the ground. Not eaten, but uprooted. What had been perfectly smooth beds the day before were now mounds and valleys of dark-brown soil. Bruised leaves poked out. Exposed roots withered in the lights’ heat. Not a single plant had been spared.
“No, no, no.” She clutched at the sides of her head as she shook it. “This can’t be real.”
It’s a delusion. It has to be. Please, let this be all in my mind.
She reached towards the closest plant, a small tomato. Its stem had broken when it had been dug up, and clumps of dirt still held to its delicate, hairlike roots. Its leaves had started to wilt. She touched the sap that had beaded at the bent section of the stem. She felt how limp the foliage was and how crisp the delicate roots were.
“No.” This was real. She couldn’t imagine such detail. She couldn’t imagine such nuanced sensations. The garden was gone, churned up, destroyed. “No!”
This can’t happen. They can’t die.
She lifted the tomato plant back upright and gently, carefully scooped soil around the damaged roots. When she let it go, the top flopped back over where its stem had broken. Clare moaned. But she didn’t stop. There might still be time to save some of them. Some of the plants hadn’t been shredded in the massacre. If I can just stop the roots from drying out…
She darted among the beds, trying to right the plants she could find and scooping soil back around them. Tears ran down her cheeks, and Clare didn’t try to stop them. She wasn’t being as delicate as she knew she should be. Her hands shook. Crumpled, torn leaves flecked the soil. There was too much to do. And the remaining plants were withering with every passing moment.
“What have you done?”
The familiar voice cut through her. She turned. Dorran stood in the garden’s open door. She didn’t know how long he’d been watching her, but he was sheet white. His dark eyes, normally so comforting, were wide as he stared at the carnage.
Clare took a step towards him. “We can… we can save them.”
He looked at her, but there was no affection in his face any longer. He sounded like he was in pain. “What have you done, Clare?”
She looked down at her hands. They were filthy with dirt. It clung under her fingernails like blood from a crime scene. She cowered back. “This wasn’t me. I didn’t do this.”
“You didn’t—” He pressed his hand over the lower half of his face and closed his eyes, seemingly trying to swallow words he knew he would regret. When he took the hand away, he was trembling. “This was important. You knew how important it was. We will starve without this.”
“I know! I know!” Fresh tears ran, and she was powerless to stop them. “I didn’t do this! There are people in the house. Monsters. They look human, but they—”
His fist slammed into the door.
Clare flinched as the sound of the jarred metal echoed around her.
Dorran spoke slowly, but there was a deep, burning ferocity in his words. “There is no one here.”
She couldn’t meet his eyes. She clenched her dirt-caked hands at her sides as she tried not to crumple to the ground. “I didn’t do this. They did it.”
“Were you so desperate to convince me of your delusions?” His eyes were colder than the ice outside. “You would damn us to make me believe your lies.”
“No! Dorran, I swear!”
He took a pace towards her, and she stepped back. Her eyes burned from the tears. She didn’t know what else she could say.
“I gave you everything.” He whispered, but each word hurt her more than if he’d screamed them. “Wasn’t that enough?”
“Please. I… I…”
He towered over her. She’d never felt the height difference as acutely as then. His lips shook, but his eyes were steady and unyielding. “Get out.”
She ducked and ran past him. He didn’t try to stop her. Clare’s legs gave out as she neared the door, and she clutched at the structure to stay upright. When she looked over her shoulder, Dorran wasn’t watching her. He was staring at the ruined gardens, his shoulders bowed.
She got her legs back under herself and kept running. The tears blinded her, but she didn’t slow down to see her way. She burst through the door into the long waiting room, then into the foyer. There, she collapsed onto the cold marble floor and wrapped her arms around her head.
Her chest ached as she strained to breathe. She wished she could die. Then, maybe, she wouldn’t be able to cause any more damage.
A little voice was whispering in the back of her head that maybe Dorran was right. Maybe she had destroyed the garden. Out of the two of them, he was the sane one. She trusted what he said, didn’t she?
Maybe she’d never gone into the wine cellar at all. Maybe the twisted, broken woman wasn’t the only delusion. Maybe the encounter had been all in her imagination while she had mindlessly clawed out their precious plants.
A wail choked in her throat and fell silent. She smacked a fist into the side of her head. The shock helped her think, at least a little. She lifted her eyes. The front door stood twenty paces away, bolted but easy to open.