The Girl in the Garden

Chapter 22

Ben insisted on cleaning himself up before eating anything, despite Lolly's overbearing eagerness to feed him. As he trudged up the backstairs to his apartment, he saw Ms. Herrier wipe a tear from her eye.

"That boy has learned so much from me," she said, no doubt referring to his desire to be clean. "I swear just a few weeks ago, he would have actually sat down for a meal looking like that."

In the shower, Ben leaned his head against the wall. The events of the previous night kept running through his brain even though Rani told him that Sparrow and Wish were okay, and even though none of the others seemed upset—not even Sparrow's aunt—that didn't change the fact that he was carrying the memory of slitting his friend's throat.

He let himself cry some more, heaving great sobs, filling his desperate lungs with hot air and choking on his sadness. He thought about the girl and the demon she became. He thought about his mother, still lying unconscious on a stiff hospital bed. He thought about Jeffrey, the smell of his hair while they lied in bed together. He felt a sudden wave of regret for leaving Wexley House without saying goodbye, and it mingled with the grief he felt over Sparrow.

How could one boy's life be so dreadfully sad and terrible? It was a question he couldn't help but linger on while he cried every last tear he had. Unable to cry anymore, Ben turned off the shower and got dressed.

The kitchen table was heavy with piles of breakfast foods when Ben came back downstairs. Rani and Ms. Herrier were already sitting, but they both go to their feet when he entered.

"Are you alright?" Ms. Herrier asked, "you've been up there a long time."

"I'm fine," Ben lied, and he could see they knew it was a lie.

"Come sit with us." Rani pulled out a chair for him. "I want to tell you about your mother."

Ben sat in the chair that Rani offered, and Lolly rushed around him. She lifted a stack of pancakes and plopped them on his plate. Then she reached around him to drop a pile of bacon down as well.

"How about some eggs?" She asked, "I'll get the maple syrup, the good stuff. I keep it in my secret hiding place." She shuffled away, and Ben looked down at the food she'd presented him with. Normally he'd be overjoyed to have so much of her delicious cooking in front of him. This morning, all he could think about when he looked at his plate was the mass of mutated tentacles hiding in Lolly's lumpy body.

"You asked me if this was a school once," Rani said as she sat down across from Ben. "And it was. Wish opened it to teach humans magic, but he had a greater goal. He wanted to bridge the growing divide between the tribes of man and the fairy legions. It was operating for over two hundred years before your mother arrived."

"The bloodmother told me about her already," Ben said, "she was too gifted for Wish. He refused to teach her fire magic."

Rani cocked her head, and with an impatient tone, she said, "Are you going to trust the words of a blood demon who spent all night trying to kill everyone you love or are you going to let me tell the story?"

Ben chewed on his lip, nervously pondering what would be best. Part of him just wanted to call his social worker and get himself taken away from this horror show. Another part of him knew he'd never fit in anywhere else. He nodded to Rani, and she continued her story.

"Your mother did seem to have a natural gift for fire magic, like you, but only fire fairies from the Inferno can teach that kind of magic, and they're... notoriously violent. Your mother wanted to learn, and Wish wouldn't let her. Not because she was too powerful, but because it would be dangerous to invite a fire fairy here. He just told her no, created one of his foolish rules to try and stop her. I told the same thing then that I told him when he took you in—no matter how hard you try, nobody can deny someone's natural gifts. It can be downright dangerous, and of course, I was right.