Beyond the Gates of Evermoore

“You’re not eating?” Eric asked, loading up a frilly white plate.

“No, not now.”

Some of the Evermoore’s other guests were there too, spilling out onto the back lawn with their own little plates of food. The banker seated across from them at dinner last night was smiling and talking loudly with the man who’d sat at the head of the table. Anabelle and Emily were seated in the shade.

A little further out in the grass, the Colonel was playing some sort of game with colorful balls and sticks. He was talking gruffly and laughing often. At first Melody was sure he was speaking to himself, but then she saw the slender young man from dinner playing with him.

“Is that croquet?” she asked Eric, squinting into the sunlight.

“Something like it, I think,” he replied.

She used to play croquet with her brothers. Back during her childhood summers, using her grandfather’s old set. The sticks they were holding now looked like mallets. The balls were striped the same way, in one direction.

Melody made her way out onto the back lawn, careful not to step into the game’s path. The Colonel and his opponent ignored her, and that was just fine. She was more interested in what lay behind the house, where the property gave way even further to a beautiful series of back gardens, stretching all the way out to a large, sweeping hedge. She could see marble pathways back there. Stone statues, set among beds of beautiful wildflowers.

“Do you think the egg might be—”

She turned back, but Eric wasn’t there. He was still up near the Sun Parlor, all the way back by the house.

“Eric!” she shouted, motioning him over.

He didn’t see her, or rather, he didn’t acknowledge. Melody sighed in frustration. For someone who wanted to be helpful, he sure as hell wasn’t.

Forget him, her inner voice told her. Do your own thing.

She continued on, choosing one of the wider paths. It wound its way past a waist-high, wrought iron gate. There were roses and daffodils. Hyacinth and lavender and gladiolus. She knew the names, the colors, the leaves and flowers… gardening had been one of the few things she and her grandmother had bonded on, that her brothers had not.

Up ahead the path split beneath a pair of stone arches. A small hedge maze stood just beyond them, immaculately groomed and well-cared for.

Melody continued on, her feet moving all on their own. It didn’t occur to her that she’d entered the maze until she was six or eight turns in. She stopped immediately.

It’s not big enough to get lost in, she assured herself. Just tall enough so that you can’t see over it…

Moving more slowly this time, she kept walking, kept turning. And all throughout, Melody kept breathing in the fragrant smell of flowers. It was a calming, soothing scent — almost intoxicating in its sweetness. At the very least it was…

Distracting.

She shook her head clear and looked up. Somehow she’d made it to the center of the maze. There was a statue there — the breathtaking likeness of a beautiful woman holding a tray with both hands. Birds fluttered playfully in the water of the tray; both real ones as well as a few sculpted out of stone.

Beneath the statue was a large pool of clear water. A standing fountain.

Thank God!

Melody shrugged out of her dress before even thinking it through. Stripped down to her underwear, she stepped into the pool and submerged herself up to her neck.

“Oh… Oh wow…”

It was only about three feet deep. But the water was so cool, so refreshing, it was almost like being reborn. Melody floated on her knees, feeling the dirt and grime of the last twenty-four hours just slough away, cleansing her inside and out. She dipped her head back. Submerged her hair. Washed herself with her hands, moving up and down her arms and legs, until she felt human again.

She had no idea how long she spent in the fountain. Maybe five minutes, maybe twenty. When she was finished she stood up, stepped back onto the flagstones surrounding the statue, and patted herself mostly dry with her bunched up dress.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Melody gasped, whirling around at the sound of the voice. Lucus was standing there, just on the far side of the hedge maze.

“Y—You scared the hell out of me!”

“Sorry,” he said, but didn’t budge.