My Garden

I sat, as always, in my favorite seat between the frozen fountain and the dead rosebush and looked around at the garden, not minding the piercing cold. When you've been cold long enough, you see, you become too numb to notice anymore.

The high stone walls of the garden formed a bleak gray octagon, broken only by the single gate of wrought iron, whose bars were entwined with brittle dead vines, like clawed hands desperately trying to open a prison door. Those walls, my stone bench, and the lifeless fountain behind me were the only man-made objects to be seen. The snow concealed all the pretty brick paths and the stepping stones crossing the little stream. Even the stream was buried under the drifting snow.

Snow...it was everywhere. Humped in white, sugary dunes around the walls, nearly burying the rose and other dead bushes planted around the border. It covered the stark, bare branches of the little dogwood trees, the big old weeping willow, looking naked without its fronds, and even the mimosas and Japanese red maples that I had loved so when they were alive. Only under the willow was there any patch of ground uncovered by snow, and it was a meager little expanse of dried moss. That moss which had been so verdant, so soft and comfortable to sit on with a book...I could also see the frozen surface of my little stream peeking out from the snowdrifts under the willow's branches. Little humps of snow were all that remained of my stands of ornamental grass and the smaller bushes. Even the stunted evergreens were dead, and almost obliterated by the omnipresent snow. Snow even now drifted down from the cold gray clouds above.

I remember the first time snow fell on my garden. It was when I had staggered in, wounded and all but dead on my feet, and flung myself down onto my bench. That had been the last time the iron bars of my garden had been open. Once, I'd kept them open all the time, to welcome visitors and provide a quiet place for my closest friends to meet. That day, I'd slammed the gate and shoved the bolts shut. No more visitors, not for a long time; I needed to rest and recover from my injuries. Somehow a long time turned into forever, and I had become a part of the garden, just sitting on my stone bench, too tired and hurt to get up and tend to my plants. They all died, one by one, when the cold came, and the merciful snow covered them so I wouldn't have to look at their dead forms anymore. The pleasant giggle of the stream and the fountain had fallen silent, leaving me entirely alone. My wounds had healed, mostly, but somehow I was never ready to go back outside where I had gotten them in the first place. I just sat on my bench in my dead, closed off garden, and grew colder and colder.

My friends came to see me for a while. I couldn't get up to let them in, but they stood at the gate and talked to me. By and by, though, my bleak, uninterested attitude and the need to shout through the bars must have worn them down. They came more and more rarely, until finally they stopped altogether, and no one came to see me anymore. Almost no one.

Hearing the crunch of footsteps in the snow, I looked up. She was back. Standing on the other side of the gate, head cocked to one side, looking at me with that slightly quizzical expression, exactly as she always did.

"Hi."

I mumbled something in reply, not really interested. She was pleasant enough to have around--the only pleasant thing in my little world, really--but it was growing harder and harder for me to react to anything. I think she sensed that, because she did something then that she'd never done before: grabbed the bars with both hands.

The gate rattled as she gave it an experimental tug.

"Hey," I protested, rousing slightly. "Don't do that."

"Oh, don't be silly," she said crossly, "I'm not going to break anything."

I realized with a start that green was beginning to run along the dead vines, blossoming outward from where her hands touched them. It continued to spread as I watched in fascination and she tugged on the gate. The vines were completely green and beginning to put out fresh leaves when she finally got it open.

"Don't come--" Too late. Pulling the gate wide, she stepped inside, looking around at the frozen, dead garden. Vines began to crawl up the stone walls to either side of the gate.

She began to walk carefully toward me, keeping to the shallowest part of the snow. I noticed that her footprints were either green or pale red, depending on whether she stepped on the buried path or the grass, which surely ought to be dead under all that snow. She pushed a mimosa branch out of her way in passing, and where the snow fell off, instead of dead wood there were fernlike fronds. I didn't have time to wonder about this long, for in almost no time she was standing right in front of me.

She folded her arms and gave me a no-nonsense look.

"I think it's time for you to come out of here."

"I don't want to."

"Oh? I think you do."

"How," I demanded with a little more energy, "would you know what I want to do?"

"Look at that," she said, stepping to one side and waving a hand behind her. The snow had been melting away from her footprints, and now a clear path wound from the gate to my bench, meandering over the lush, emerald grass and brick path. Little irises and crocuses were starting to sprout from the clear areas, along with a few scattered tigerlilies. The mimosa she'd touched was completely green, its ferny branches beginning to produce fuzzy pink blossoms.

I turned to look at her, and found she'd been resting her hand lightly on my rosebush. It, too, was green, and beginning to form tiny buds.

"Blue," she said in a pleased tone. "Blue roses are my favorite."

"Maybe that's why I like to sit here," I said halfheartedly. She smiled and, before I could protest, reached out and took my hand.

There was a loud crack as the ice covering the fountain broke and water began splashing up and running across the cracked surface. It started a chain reaction; the ice covering the stream began to crack in segments, parts of it sinking beneath the bubbly survace, weighted down by snow.

"What are you doing?" I demanded in alarm. "Stop it! I like the snow. I don't hurt when it's cold..."

She shook her head in exasperation. "It doesn't heal you, you fool. It just makes you numb." She pulled me toward her. I realized it had stopped snowing.

Trying vainly to pull away, I glanced frantically around the garden. The vines had covered most of the walls now, and red and white blossoms were appearing all over the rosebushes which had been brown and brittle a minute before. Flowers of every description poked stubbornly through the snow; the snow itself was receding, leaving wide patches of green. Then my vision was blocked as she pulled me close and wrapped her arms around me.

I quit struggling. She felt warm, and soft, and strong; for a moment, the sudden warmth flooding through me made my old hurts ache, but only for a moment. I don't know how long I stayed like that, my head buried against her, but after a time I became aware that birds were singing, and the barely-remembered sensation of sunshine was gently baking my back and the top of my head. I pulled away, and this time she let me.

There was no more snow. Green was everywhere; climbing the walls, all over the trees, covering the earth. Tall stands of grass swayed gently in the warm breeze, and a faint rustle came from the stirred fronds of the mimosas and the big old willow. Splashes of color warmed the garden on every side. Pink dogwood and mimosa blossoms, red and white roses, orange lilies, purple violets, the deep crimson of Japanese maples and burning bushes, and too many other shades to name. The willow was surrounded by its bed of verdant moss, its drooping branches trailing in the gurgling stream. Birds were sitting in tree branches everywhere, and as I watched, one lit on the rim of the fountain and began to bathe his feathers.

I looked up into her smiling face. Without a word, she pulled on my hand, and with her help, I stood. Immediately I let out a gasp and almost fell.

"Well, of course you're stiff, silly, you've been sitting there so--"

"No, it's not that..." I pointed to my leg. Blood stained my clothes where an old wound had broken open. Her smile vanished.

"Oh, I see. We'll have to go fix that. Come with me." Supporting me with an arm around my shoulders, she led me to the gate, keeping her pace slow to accomodate my limping.

"Where are we going?" I paused to glance about my lush, bright, sun-warmed garden, before looking back into her eyes. She smiled brilliantly.

"I want to show you my garden."