The Estate

1. 

Julie Wade looked out the window at the rows of towering oak trees, all dripping with moss, with the kind of utter loathing that only a city girl could muster. Ever since her mother drove across the Mason-Dixon line, she could feel a deep well of disgust filling her belly, rising slowly to her collarbones, in danger of shooting up her throat and spilling over her tongue. Julie managed to keep her tidal wave of emotions from flowing out, but only barely. It had not been her choice to leave the comfortable confines of Chicago to spend a summer in the backwoods of central Florida. It had not been her idea to leave all of her friends behind during that crucial year between middle and high school. No, the fault can be blamed squarely upon her mother and her insane desire to go to Alaska in search of higher wages.

"Seeing as you haven't spoken a word since we crossed the state line, I'm going to assume you're hating everything you see. Am I correct?" Her mother asked, her eyes squinting behind the aviator sunglasses that protected them from the brightness of the sun.

Julie turned from the window and stared at her mother. Sarah Wade was still holding on to the last year of her thirties, her body in amazing shape, and her brunette hair cut short on her small head. She was wearing a tank top that hung loose on her skinny frame. Julie, whose own body was neither skinny nor fat, marveled that her mother's one hundred and seventeen-pound frame was going to work on the Alaskan pipeline.

"I don't hate it," Julie replied. "I just hate the whole situation. I mean, I'm going to miss everything! Kelly already said her party..,"

".., was going to be the best one ever, I know," her mother interrupted. "But if you want to be able to live in that city and go to that school and remain friends with Kelly, then you need me to go up to Alaska and make all the money I possibly can this summer."

"Why now? Why this year? That's what I don't understand," Julie said, turning her head back to the window. The oaks had long passed and were replaced with rolling cow pastures ringed in with barbed wire fences.

"Because it's been a rough year, honey. Momma didn't get the same kind of work she had before. This pipeline job is a savior, baby. I need you to see that."

They drove on down the highway, making their way deep into the heart of Florida. Julie watched as signs for towns with old Seminole names like Tallahassee passed by, followed by signs for counties named for forgotten Confederates like Baker and Bradford. It seemed to validate the backwoods image of Florida that Julie had been conjuring ever since she heard about her summer trip. It also didn't hurt that every other vehicle that passed them on the interstate was a large pick-up, some of which flew the rebel flag openly from their truck beds.

"I can't believe you're from here," Julie said after watching a particularly fascinating redneck truck pass them. "These people are so proudly backward."

"Not all of Florida is like this. Trust me. Grandma's gonna take you to Cocoa Beach soon, and you'll see just how different Florida can be. God, I miss Cocoa."

"Does Grandma live in the backwoods part?"

"Grandma lives on a lot of land."

"So, there's no city?"

"There's always a city, honey. You just have to drive about thirty miles to get there, but Lakeland is a fairly big city nowadays."

"Does she live in the middle of boonies or not?" Julie asked, her eyes and face enraged. Sarah had purposefully left out some of the details of her grandmother's estate in Webster. It was true, she did live on a large piece of land. It was also true that she found it to be an enchanted wonderland, or at least it had been when she was Julie's age. What she had neglected to tell her daughter was that it was located in Webster, a small community located in the middle of the Green Swamp with a population of a little over six hundred. Had Julie known that bit of information before getting in her mother's car, she would have gone through hell and back to find a way to stay in Chicago.

"It's a pretty small town, I'm not going to lie," Sarah said, her grip getting noticeably tighter upon the steering wheel.

"How small?" Julie asked, her eyes trimming to slits.

"It's small, honey. I don't know how small because I haven't been here in years."

"I fucking knew it!" Julie cried out before sliding deep into her seat and whining.

"Don't say fuck, especially around your grandmother. She'll pop you for that."

"Are there even going to be kids my age in this place?" Julie asked, her eyes beginning to well up with tears.

"Of course, there will," her mother replied, placing her hand upon Julie's leg, "There are kids your age in every town. I mean, they've got a high school, so I can only imagine they have high schoolers."

Sarah laughed but Julie only scowled and turned back to the window. She looked up and saw a giant osprey spreading its wings from its nest atop a telephone pole. For a brief moment, the majestic raptor blocked the sun with its great wingspan.

"What was that?" Julie asked, turning her head to watch the nest disappear behind them.

"Probably an eagle or an osprey. They both like to make their nests up on telephone poles. Drives the state crazy because they're both endangered but they both tend to damage the power lines with their friggin nests. Floridians are proud of their birds, but they secretly hate them for all the damage they cause. You'll see. We used to get great big owls at Mom's place. When I was a kid they were the same size as me! It was crazy! And they had eyes that glowed in the night. Real spooky stuff to a six-year-old, but now I look back on it fondly. I know you will too, trust me, baby. Mom's estate is a real wonderland. God, especially if she's kept up with the garden."

"The garden?" Julie asked. This was the first mention of a garden.

"Yeah, Mom used to be an award-winning gardener. She used to have that damn garden photographed all the time. It was in all the magazines. Always the same picture of her with her damn gnomes, surrounded by as many colorful flowers as she could muster."

"How come you never told me about that?"

"I don't know, I guess I forgot until now. Being back down here has me remembering stuff I must have just lost in the vacuum that is my memory."

"I don't even remember what grandma looks like," Julie said.

"You were six the last time you saw her. I wouldn't expect you to remember that much."

"And she actually wants to have me stay with her this summer?" Julie asked, her mind whirling with new information.

"She insisted. She's been dying for a chance to really get to know her granddaughter. What a better opportunity than now?" Sarah replied. 

Julie sat back and thought about it for a moment. Her grandmother had never been a part of her life. She was a distant relative who lived a quiet and, to Julie, mysterious life down in Florida. Sarah had left Florida with Julie's father after high school. Julie knew that her grandmother had not been in favor of the move, but much like the father who died before she was born, the rest of the story was a mystery. 

Sarah did not like to talk about that part of the past. There was too much mystery of her own, too much buried deep down in the vain hope that it would not be disturbed. She had spent many years ignoring her family, trying to start fresh with her daughter in the big city. The tensions did not last, however, but the distance she placed between herself and her mother made it even more difficult for her young daughter to develop a relationship with her grandmother.

"What if we don't get along? She doesn't even really know me."

"She's your grandmother," Sarah insisted with a smile. "How could you possibly not get along?"

"Easily. How long has it been since she's spent time with kids?"

"I don't know, Julie. Does that really matter?"

"Of course, it matters! I'm already resigned to two months of soul-crushing boredom. I don't want to be uncomfortable too."

Sarah thought about how uncomfortable her own grandmother made her. She had barely known her own grandmother, and what she did know, she did not like. Her grandmother had been a nasty woman who never had a kind thing to say about her only granddaughter. Perhaps, she thought, it was that which pushed her away from Florida and kept Julie from truly knowing her grandmother. No, she rationalized, that was not the reason. Her own grandmother had been much older than her mother was now. Sarah's mother was only sixty-four, hardly frail or senile. For all she knew, her mother still had suitors dropping by for tea and games of cards on the patio.

"Julie," she said, this time a little firmer and more parental. "You'll only be as miserable as you make yourself. That ball is completely in your court. If miserable is what you are after, then I'd say you've got a running start."

"I don't try to be miserable," Julie huffed. "It just happens."

"Sure it does," her mother replied.

Sarah merged to the far right lane and then took the exit for Lake Panasoffkee. She took the first left and crossed over the interstate towards the small town of Coleman. Julie marveled at landscapes that looked like they could double as horror film sets. There were old houses built up one pylons, with boarded windows, sagging roofs and junk cars rotting in the yards. The scant businesses that dotted the street were old and rundown. There was a large correctional facility that Julie believed housed the vast majority of Coleman's population, for she could not see signs of habitation, other than the few cars parked outside of the Sunoco and the Subway inside. She was about to unleash a torrent of abuse against the area when her mother turned onto Highway 471 and began driving straight into the swamp.

"Where are we going?" Julie asked, confused.

"We're almost there. Grandma's house is about ten miles up this road," Sarah replied with a smile.

"Grandma lives in a swamp?"

"This whole area is a swamp. Hell, the entire state is a swamp."

"But this is like a real swamp, with like snakes and alligators and stuff, right?"

"Honey, there are snakes and alligators in every town in Florida. They're everywhere. You'll learn to live with them. They won't bite you if you just leave them alone."

Julie gulped but didn't reply. She had not thought about the prospect of snakes and alligators being so near to where she was staying. She certainly had not believed her grandmother to be living inside a swamp. That was where backwood inbreds played banjos in the trees, not where hip grandmothers had their magical estates. 

On either side of the highway stood dense foliage. Julie couldn't believe that anyone lived out there. How could they? There were no malls here; no big box stores, fast food restaurants, movie theaters, or even a park with soccer goals and a baseball diamond. Instead, all she could see was green. Julie felt her throat tightening, sensing the humidity that was already covering their car in its warm and sticky embrace. The moisture in the air created a haze on the highway as if the front windshield were smeared with Vaseline.

Sensing her daughter's discomfort, Sarah reached over and dropped the car's air conditioner down a couple of degrees. Even though they had been comfortable with seventy-four for the vast majority of their trip, the swampy air made it tough for the air conditioner to keep up.

"Please tell me grandma has AC," Julie said, pulling the collar of her shirt away from her neck.

"She has AC," Sarah reassured her. "Everyone has AC. You couldn't live down here without it. The air is like soup in the middle of the day."

"That's good the know," Julie replied sarcastically.

They came up to a four-way stop with a blinking red stop light above. Across from them was a rundown Sunoco and what looked like a bar called The Icehouse. Sarah paused for a moment, looking across the intersection at the shabby little bar on the corner.

"Are you gonna go or what?" Julie said finally.

"Sorry, lost in thought," Sarah replied before continuing forward.

As they passed by The Icehouse, Sarah looked across the car and watched it pass by. Then she let out a sigh and returned her gaze to the road ahead. Julie could sense that her mother was reliving memories, but could not tell whether they were happy or sad. Her mother was good at hiding her true emotions from her daughter. She was terrified of Julie seeing her vulnerability. It was the only thing that separated mother and daughter.

"Well, here's your civilization," Sarah said, pointing to the crop of buildings ahead.

Slowly they began to see houses on either side of the highway. They were the typical old Florida homes, built up on pylons, with shaded front porches, more rectangular than square. Julie assumed they were from the turn of the century, or at least the teens and twenties. The houses gave way to a small downtown area with a local diner, grocery, gas station, and a few independent businesses, mostly farm supplies and arts and crafts. There was a combination middle and high school and an extremely large flea market, completely empty as they passed.

"People come from all over on Sundays to go to that flea market," Sarah said, pointing to the empty wooden stalls that covered the market grounds. "They'll drive hours just to go there."

"Why?" Julie asked, genuinely bemused that city people would actually brave the swamps for a flea market.

"You'll see on Sunday. I'm sure Grandma will take you. She used to go every weekend. You never know what you're gonna find there."

"A flea market? It's just a bunch of junk that old people haggle over for fun."

"And what's so wrong with that?"

"I dunno," Julie replied. "To each their own, I guess."

After the flea market, the swamp began to creep back up near the highway. There were several larger lots with long manicured lawns, like seas of grass surrounding modest little houses. None of them were what Julie would have called an estate.

"I think this is it," Sarah said, turning the car onto an unmarked dirt road.

Julie felt the car jolt and jostle as her mother navigated the well-pocked dirt road. There was thick foliage on either side of the road; so thick that Julie could not see passed the first rows of trees. It looked dark beyond them. Pitch black.

"This can't be right," Julie said, gripping the handle near the top of her door tightly.

"Oh, it most certainly is," Sarah said with a smile. "Look!"

She pointed forward excitedly. Julie turned and watched as the path opened up into a large clearing. It was rectangular, with towering oak trees coming right up to the edge of the grass. The front yard was freshly cut and decorated with marble fountains and stone cherubs. Interspersed within all of that were giant palmettos and stunted palm trees. Sitting in the middle of the great clearing was the house itself. It was a two-story plantation-style house painted pearl white, with a wrap-around porch populated by chairs of all types and an equal amount of fans.

"It's just like I remembered it," Sarah said as she pulled the car up to the front of the house, her voice filled with a sense of wonder Julie had rarely heard before. 

Sarah parked the car but didn't immediately open the door. Instead, she sat with her head pointed to her lap, eyes closed, breathing deeply and exhaling slowly. Julie had seen this before. This was her mother's way of dealing with anxiety. She didn't believe it actually worked, but she allowed her mother the space to think that she was calming herself down. After ten deep breaths, Sarah looked over at her daughter and smiled.

"You ready?"

Julie didn't answer. She just opened the car door and got out, her face sullen, her mood on edge. Sarah followed suit and began the procession to the front door. As Julie followed, she listened to the myriad of sounds emanating from the woods around her. It was unlike anything she had ever heard. Her imagination quickly associated them with the worst types of insects and reptiles she could conjure. She quickly made a mental note: stay out of those woods.

When they reached the front door, Sarah took another deep breath with her eyes closed. Julie could feel how nervous her mother was. She exhaled and then grabbed the brass knocker, whose form resembled a weather-beaten lion's head, and wrapped upon it three times. Julie listened closely as the sound of footsteps came closer and closer until suddenly the door was open and she was face to face with her grandmother

2.

The first thing that shocked Julie was just how young the woman looked. For one thing, her hair was jet black, save for a long streak of white painted down the left side. Julie expected to see a piled-up mound of white like most of the other older women she'd seen south of Gainesville. Another thing was the clothes she was wearing. In her mental image, which she'd been conjuring since leaving Chicago, Julie had always pictured her Grandmother in a mu-mu. She did not know why that was how she chose to picture the woman, but it was the first of the "facts" she had created about her. She could never have dreamed that the woman in question would actually be wearing yoga clothes with a white men's collared shirt over top.

"Oh my God. You're here and you're early," Julie's Grandmother said, reaching down to hug them both vigorously. "I had no idea you'd be here so soon! Mario is still here."

"Who's Mario?" Sarah asked.

"My yoga instructor. He comes down from Ocala once a week and teaches a few of us girls in town. Come in, come in! It's hotter than the dickens out there!"

Sarah and Julie obliged and followed her into the house. The foyer was dark, but Julie could see it was not a room often occupied. It had the stench of rot to it, as if she had forsaken its very existence, save for the few times she had to answer the door. There were dusty bookshelves lining both sides of the room, each overflowing with books whose spines were illegible in the darkness. There were couches too, but they were covered in white sheets, which were in turn covered in cobwebs that connected them to the lamps that stood like sentinels behind.

"You've gotten skinny," Sarah's mother said without turning back to look at her daughter, "and your hair is too short."

"I like it this way," Sarah replied, self-consciously running her fingers through what was left of her once-abundant mane.

Sarah's mother led them to a sitting room near the back of the house. It was much brighter than the foyer, thanks to the large windows that allowed the brilliant Florida sunshine to fill the room. Julie could see Mario rolling up his yoga mat in the center of the room. He was not wearing a shirt and his upper torso was covered in sweat, an image both Sarah and Julie remarked upon in their inner monologues. Mario saw Julie and immediately became embarrassed. She could tell and wondered why he would feel embarrassed to be teaching her grandmother yoga.

"I'll get out of your hair," Mario said once he had packed up all of his things.

"Thank you, Mario. Same time next week?"

"You got it, Mrs. B."

Mario slowly receded into the darkness of the house, leaving just the three women alone in the vast sitting room. Mrs. B, as she liked to be called by those who did not truly know her, motioned for Sarah and Julie to relax and take a load off.

"Come on, sit, sit sit."

"Mom, I've really got to get a move on. My flight is at eight and I can't miss it."

"It's three in the afternoon, where are you flying from? Gainesville?" Sarah's mother asked with slight indignation.

"No, Tampa. You know how bad it can be to get there."

"Not bad enough for you to skimp out on having a glass of iced tea with your mother. Now, sit down for a minute."

Sarah felt all the resistance she had built up in the car ride crumble away, only to be replaced with anger and submission. It was her mother's secret hold. No matter how many years and hundreds of miles she put between her, the power never softened. So, she did as her mother told her and took a seat next to her daughter on the large sectional couch that wrapped around the room.

"I'll be right back," Sarah's mother said before disappearing into the kitchen.

Julie felt the tension in her mother's body. She could feel the same kind of mother-daughter mind games that she herself had been making her way through pulsating through Sarah's frontal lobe. Julie could see the eye twitches, the slight snarl of the lip, and the tension of her fingers. It was clearly visible and it made Julie feel more at ease with the strange woman whose house she was about to occupy.

For a long moment, Sarah forgot that Julie was even there. She was lost in a sea of old antagonisms, mining grudges she had not touched in years with rapidity. Her lapse of consciousness may only have lasted fifteen or twenty seconds, but it was long enough to ferret out all the important grudges she had stored up since she was a teenager and let them fuel her rage and despair one more time. Then she lapsed out of it and recovered her physical body, but the anger had been stoked and she knew it would not die down.

Her mother reappeared with a large pitcher and three glasses on a large silver pan. She placed the pan on the circular table that sat in the middle of the wrap-around couch, then slowly poured iced tea into each glass and handed them to her daughter and granddaughter.

"You know how long this tea recipe has been in my family?" Mrs. B asked her granddaughter, who was taking the first many delightful sips.

"No. How long?" Julie replied after wiping the residue off of the top of her lip.

"My grandmother! That's over a century. And it's still the best tea you'll ever drink and I know quite a few people, your mother included, who would fight you if you said differently."

Sarah looked over at her daughter and smiled, even though she had not drunk a single sip of the tea her mother had given her.

"It truly is the best around," Sarah said, her voice sounding almost like a robotic parody of her mothers.

"When your mother called and told me she was planning on going to Alaska to work this summer, I almost dropped a whole pitcher onto the floor, the shock was so much. I still can't understand why you want to do this. Why?"

"Because I will make more money in the next two months than I would this entire year at my old job in Chicago. I can do this every summer and make enough to survive on for the next year, plus I can pick up the occasional gig."

"You still doing that?" Her mother asked, her eyes narrowed.

"If the money is right, sure! It's about the easiest money you can make."

"I don't like it. Never have. But you do what you want, you're a grown woman."

"Anyway," Sarah said, doing everything to move the topic of conversation away from her semi-dormant modeling career, "by working the pipeline, I won't have to rely so much on them. I can be picky about who I work with, or if I want to work at all."

Julie was not privy to the details of her mother's modeling career. Sarah made sure to keep it as hidden from her daughter as possible. It wasn't that she was ashamed of her body or showing it off in front of the camera; it was the idea of her daughter losing respect for her because she couldn't understand the circumstances. Sarah believed in the art behind the photo. She never thought about what the consumer may do with it once the artist unleashed it upon the world. Yet, she was keenly aware that other people, like her daughter, may feel differently about a photo of her with a white shirt on with no pants, shot from behind, with the legs spread enough that you can see the outline of her vagina. Sarah never thought of it as porn, but she thought that maybe Julie would.

"What will you actually be doing? I mean, isn't that going to be quite laborious?"

"I don't know, mother. I've never done it before. But plenty of women have."

"Well, I guess they wouldn't have hired you if they didn't feel you were up to the task," Sarah's mother said, her entire being looking down her nose at her daughter.

Sarah allowed the slight to pass over her, knowing it could only go downhill from there.

3.

Sarah stayed at the estate for another hour before she left for the airport in Tampa. She had wanted to leave the moment she stepped into the old house. It hadn't been the cascade of bad memories that did it for her, but the inescapable feeling of nostalgia that she refused to acknowledge. She wanted to deny herself the love she once had for the old house. That was the only way she could continue to be apart from it, ties still severed.

Once her mother was gone, Julie felt a keen sense of dread forming in her stomach. She was now fully committed to a summer with grandma in the swamps of central Florida. There was nothing that could change that fact. She would just have to learn to get by. Her grandmother, on the other hand, seemed to perk up even more once Sarah was gone. She feigned disappointment at her daughter's departure, but Julie knew it lacked sincerity. It was just one of the many acts that parents put on for their children when they don't want them to know they're tired of their presence.

With Sarah gone, Julie's grandmother showed her to the assortment of empty rooms on the second story of the house.

"There used to be lots of activity in this old house," Julie's grandmother said as she led her down the long hallway. "But these days it's just lonely old me."

"Mom doesn't really talk about it," Julie replied.

"That's to be expected. She's done everything in her power to wipe away this place from her, and in turn, your memories. I must admit I was more than a little surprised when she asked if you could stay here. I didn't think she'd want me indoctrinating you with all my Southern charm!"

Julie's grandmother laughed and then stopped in front of one of the closed doors in the hallway. She opened it and motioned for Julie to enter. The room was small; furnished with a bed, chest of drawers, and an armoire, all of which looked much older than her grandmother. The walls were all painted baby blue with off-white trim. It looked freshly painted, as if in anticipation of occupancy. 

"I hope this will do for the summer. It's the only room I have furnished as a guest room. I was going to move a television in here, but I need you to help me get it in there. I figure all teenage girls need a TV, don't they?"

"Yeah," Julie replied, dropping her bags onto the immaculately made bed. "But I tend to read more than watch television."

"Well, there's plenty of space to do that around here too."

Julie smiled in return and began to unpack her bag. Despite being much smaller than her room in Chicago, it was cozy and inviting. Most of her grandmother's house was cold and mysterious, but this room made her feel a little more at home.

"I'm gonna let you get settled. I've got a ton of work to do in the garden today. If you need anything, just holler."

"Where's the garden?" Julie asked, remembering the story her mother had told her earlier in the day.

"Would you like to see it?" Her grandmother replied.

"Sure," Julie said with a smile.

"Follow me."

Julie did as her grandmother told her and followed down the hallway and stairwell, back through the foyer, and into the kitchen. Julie was amazed at the sheer size of the room, the immensity of the stove, and the sheer amount of cookware that hung from a rack above. Her mother's kitchen was cramped and uninviting. This was the polar opposite. It invited you into its warmth, drawing you to the bar where stools with cushioned tops beckoned. This was a place where one could hold court and entertain, another thing Julie's mother never did.

After the kitchen, they slipped through a short hallway that led them into a large rectangular Florida room tacked on to the back of the house. Julie was almost blinded by the onslaught of sun that poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the room. Unlike the windows in the house, these were left undraped, allowing the sunlight the burst through. It was furnished with two wicker chairs and a small wicker couch that surrounded a marble coffee table. Perhaps the most notable difference was the temperature. The windows not only allowed more sunlight in, but they also allowed significantly more heat than the house. Julie felt her skin begin to moisten just thinking about it.

"The air conditioning doesn't do so well in this room," her grandmother said as if sensing Julie's discomfort. "But it's still my favorite room in the house. It can get a little oppressive in that house, you know?"

Julie had only been there for little more than an hour, but she knew exactly what her grandmother was talking about. She had read enough haunted house stories to know what one was supposed to feel like, and her grandmother's estate definitely checked all the boxes.

"Why does it feel that way?" Julie asked, hoping her grandmother would elaborate.

"I don't know," she replied vaguely. "Not enough windows?"

Julie shrugged her shoulders.

"Anyway, come, come. We're almost there."

Julie's grandmother opened the back door of the house and led her into a walled courtyard with a small gate in the middle. Two towering palms jutted from either side, shading an area where a metal table and chairs sat molding in the humid air.

"Through the gate," her grandmother said.

Julie opened it up and stepped down onto a mulched path lined on either side by towering ferns. As she walked forward, the path opened up into a wide clearing, in the center of which was a rectangular pond. Surrounding the clearing were great arches made from bushes. They looked like green aqueducts circling around the pond. Below the arches were elegantly designed hedges that ran around the rim of the clearing. Julie stepped forward and looked down into the pond. She was not surprised to find it teaming with life. There were giant, multi-colored coyfish swimming beneath water lilies occupied by salamanders and frogs. She dropped to her knees and stuck one of her hands into the pond, hoping to catch the side of one of the fish.

"I wouldn't do that," her grandmother said, coming up behind. "They've been known to nip at stray fingers."

Julie quickly brought her hand out of the water and shook it dry. As she did, the frog on the lily pad jumped to the pond's edge and then into the hedge beyond.

"This is pretty impressive, Grandma," Julie said, wiping her still-wet hand on the back of her pants.

"This is just the entrance," she replied, waving for Julie to follow her deeper in.

Julie got to her feet and followed her grandmother down the next mulched path. The hedges and arched bushes followed them on both sides, each looking as though they had been freshly trimmed that morning. For all Julie knew, they had, though it would seem hard for one woman, no matter what her age, to trim all of those hedges in one morning, let alone one day.

After a little while, the path opened up to another clearing, this one much larger than the first. At the center stood a large four-tiered fountain serenely dribbling water from the top. Surrounding it in concentric circles was the largest collection of tropical flowers that Julie had ever seen. They were all potted in different planters, some elevated, others on the ground. There were so many different types, a veritable rainbow of color. Among the recognizable types to her were buttercups and periwinkles, daisies, and petunias, among countless unknown varieties. They all seemed to be blooming at once, clouding one's view with their delicate pedals.

Julie stopped dead in her tracks and stared, mouth agape, at the beautifully designed scene in front of her. Her grandmother stopped beside her and admired her work. The sheer amount of work it must have taken her to create such a scene took Julie's breath away.

"I can't believe you did all this," Julie said. "It's beautiful."

"It's been my life for a very long time now. When you've been alone as long as I have, you need something to keep you sane. This is that thing for me."

"How long did it take you to do all this?"

"Longer than I care to remember," she replied, not a trace of irony in her tone.

It was then that Julie began to notice all of the gnomes surrounding the flower beds. They were all small, perhaps a foot tall at most, made of either ceramic or porcelain. Each was unique in face and dress, with some being fat, some thin; some bearded, some clean shaven; some old, some young. Once their presence was known, she realized they were everywhere. Several of them even looked to be guarding the flower beds.

"What's with the gnomes?" Julie asked, genuinely amused by them.

"They're my scarecrows."

"What do you mean?"

"They protect the flower beds from evil-doers," her grandmother replied, putting particular emphasis at the end. "You wouldn't believe the kind of critters that want of piece of my prize. The gnomes make sure that doesn't happen."

"The critters are afraid of them?"

"You bet they are."

Julie squatted down next to the nearest planter - a long rectangular unit elevated on stubby legs and filled with daisies - and examined the three gnomes that stood by it. Two younger-looking gnomes were standing on either end, each with bright red overcoats covering patched blue overalls. Atop their heads, they had floppy yellow hats, and in their mouths, they held long brown pipes. The one on the right, who sported a scar across his left eye, was leaning against the planter with his arm outstretched. The third gnome was older, sporting the traditional long white beard, and was similarly dressed with opposite colors. His shirt was red and his overcoat was blue. Instead of a floppy yellow hat, the older gnome sat a black stove top hat atop his long white hair. He looked to Julie like a Victorian vision of Gandolf the wizard from The Lord Of The Rings.

"Are they all different?" Julie asked, examining the creases that lined the old gnome's little face.

"As different as you and I and everyone else on the planet," 

"Where did you get them all?"

"Oh," her grandmother replied with a sigh, "here and there. It's hard to remember anymore. They've been with me for so long now, especially Old White there."

She pointed to the old gnome that Julie was examining, crouching down to join her granddaughter at her level.

"He's been guarding my daisies since your mother was a child. These were some of my first-prize winners, and Old White has been with them through it all. Now he's got his sons to help him out, but they're pretty lazy."

Julie wondered if her grandmother was a little off her rocker. She spoke as though the porcelain gnomes that dotted her garden were, in fact, sentient and capable of procreation. Either that, or she was undervaluing the maturity of her fourteen-year-old granddaughter.

"You think I'm a little crazy, don't you?" She asked Julie, again seeming to read her thoughts straight off of her face.

"Not any crazier than someone who holds conversations with their dogs. I think it's kind of cool that they have backstories."

"Everything comes with a backstory, my dear. You just have to be open enough to hear it," She replied, then stood up and began walking back to the house. Julie saw that the path had not ended. There was more to the garden than that brilliant clearing of flowers.

"What's down there?" She asked, pointing to the arched hedges that lead off passed the fountain.

"Unfinished work not ready to be shown. Try not to go back there, my dear. Botanical works in progress can be delicate. Can you promise me that?"

"Sure," Julie replied, wondering what was hiding beyond the hedges.

4.

Julie's first night at her grandmother's estate was uneventful. There were the normal creaks and groans of the old house to contend with, not to mention the symphony of reptiles and insects blaring outside, but Julie slept soundly. All through the night she dreamed of the gnomes. Nothing in particular, just the idea of them. Little gnome dramas played out one after the other in a stream of consciousness that was hardly decipherable in the morning.

When she finally awoke and made her way downstairs, she found her grandmother hard at work in the kitchen frying eggs and bacon in a skillet. Julie rubbed her eyes and then peaked into the bubbling skillet. Her grandmother quickly pushed her away.

"Don't get too close to that skillet! You'll burn the holy hell out of yourself."

Julie, who was still half asleep, looked up at her grandmother incredulously. No matter how awake she was, she didn't like being treated like a child.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you to be safe around bacon grease?" her grandmother continued. 

"She never cooks breakfast," Julie replied, sitting down at the kitchen table and pouring herself a glass of orange juice from a large pitcher. One sip and she knew it was freshly squeezed and devoid of preservatives.

"That's a crying shame," Julie's grandmother replied, her eyes still fixed on the skillet. "What does she feed you?"

"If I do have breakfast, I have cereal."

"You know," she said, slipping the fresh bacon onto a plate covered in paper towels. "I taught her everything I know, everything my mother taught me, and so on."

Julie reached over and picked up a piece of the bacon. She tossed the whole piece in her mouth and felt her taste buds sing out with joy, taking particular note of the maple and hickory.

"You're telling me my mother can cook bacon like this?"

"I don't know if she can anymore," she replied, taking a sip of her coffee. "But I sure as hell taught her how."

Julie indulged in the giant breakfast, filling her belly to the point of pain. Her grandmother regaled her with stories of the recipes that she passed on to her daughter, only to learn that all of them have been left to rot in the dark recesses of Sarah's memory. When the breakfast was finally over, Julie helped her grandmother clean up and do the dishes.

"I've got to go to town this morning to run a few errands. Think you can entertain yourself while I'm away?" Her grandmother announced once they had put all the dishes away.

"There's a whole library of books in there that I'm just itching to get into."

"Well, good. I'll be back this afternoon sometime."

The first thing Julie did when she knew her grandmother's car had left was go into the garden. The sun was already high in the sky, and the humidity was rising. Julie could not remember feeling heat that was so wet before. She was soaked with sweat before she reached the koi pond and the arched hedges. She stopped and admired the colorful fish that danced beneath the lily pads. She dipped her hands into the pond and splashed the cool water on her face. It smelled funny, but it cooled her down.

Julie got back to her feet and strolled onward to the clearing of flowers. In the morning sunlight, the flower pedals were less impressive, saving their energy for the peak of the day. Julie approached the planter of daisies and fondled their pedals in her hands. They were beautifully pastel and delicate. She could easily see why they were so lauded. 

Old White still held sentinel in front, as did his two sons on either side. Julie stroked Old White's beard and tapped her fingers on his stovetop hat.

"Neither rain nor sleet, huh?" She asked him, wiping some of the dew off of his shirt.

She looked over to the son leaning against the planter, the one with the scar across his eye. His face looked neither pleasant nor inviting. He looked as though he were pouting.

"What's your story?"

The gnome looked back at her in anger, his one good eye seeming to stare right at her. The intensity of the gaze spooked Julie enough that she stood up from the planter and moved on deeper into the garden. When she looked back, she swore the gnome was watching her leave, his gaze still locked upon her. Those thoughts were held onto long enough for logic to swoop down and take control. It was much too early in her stay to believe her grandmother's gnomes were spying on her.

She moved deeper into the garden, admiring the wildly exotic breeds that poked up out of planters made of stone and plastic alike. Some were long and rectangular, with several breeds sharing the same space, while others, mainly those of distinction, occupied their own beds. Next to several were plaques naming the myriad of awards that had been heaped upon the plant in the past, some with as many as five awards in one season. Julie had no green thumb, and could only admire them for their basic beauty. She had no idea what made them so special, let alone award-worthy.

When she reached the edge of what her grandmother had allotted as safe ground, she stopped. She could tell the mulch path led to yet another clearing, but beyond that, she could not tell. Her grandmother had asked her to stay away from that part of the garden, but she took that warning with a grain of salt. Julie couldn't imagine anything back there being dangerous and worth hiding. She thought for a moment before deciding she would investigate, trying to be careful with her steps. If she left no evidence of her snooping, her grandmother could never get mad at her.

Her mind made up, she moved on. The arched hedges led the way to a third, much smaller clearing, beyond which was a stone wall. It was encircled by even taller hedges, they too freshly cut. There was only a small entrance, arched at the top, that allowed a visitor to the clearing. Julie felt her heart begin to race with each step she took. Part of it, she knew, was her grandmother's wish for her to stay away, but the rest was something else she could not place. Beyond the mulched pathway, the yard took on the look of the swamps she had seen driving in the day before. Lush green ferns and long-limbed plants reached out to itch her skin. There was nowhere else to go but back or further on.

When she reached the entrance she heard what seemed like her conscience asking her if she was willing to risk entering. She couldn't understand why it seemed like such a risk, but her heartbeat could not lie. To enter the clearing would entail consequences. 

She decided first to just look in. It was only about twenty feet from end to end, with the hedges tight along the side. At first, she saw nothing of note inside. There were no planters or flower beds, nor fountains or ponds. Instead, the clearing was empty, save for the grasses that grew tall and the red and white amanita muscaria mushrooms that peaked up in between the blades. The brightly colored fungus seemed to be growing near the center of the clearing. Julie took a step into the threshold to get a closer look. The mushrooms were growing in a circle. She could not tell how big it was without going into the clearing, but they were definitely growing in a circle. Just as her curiosity reached its peak, her heartbeat raced again and she stepped back out of the clearing. She swore she saw, out of the corner of her eye, one of the gnomes moving to stop her. It was her imagination running wild, Julie told herself, but it was enough to make her turn around and head back towards the fountain and the flowers.

When Julie's grandmother returned, she found her granddaughter sitting quietly in one of the dusty chairs that littered the foyer. Her hands were full of shopping bags of all varieties, an amazing feat of carrying skills. Julie closed her book and went to help her.

"There's more in the car," she said, motioning out the door with her head.

Julie went out to her grandmother's open trunk and grabbed the rest of the plastic bags it held. She brought them into the kitchen and placed them on the table with the rest of the groceries. Julie marveled at the bags of clothes, sewing fabric, and groceries that the woman had accumulated in only a few hours. It was more shopping than she'd seen her own mother do in six months.

"Where did you go?" Julie asked, helping her unbag the groceries.

"There's a pretty decent mall in Lakeland. I'll take you there sometimes. They've got anything you want and more, or at least anything I want and much more. I never leave that place without my hands draped in bags."

"I'm not big on malls. Too many people make me anxious."

"Where do you do your shopping at home?"

"Different places."

"Well, this isn't a big place, and there ain't more people in there than you'll find in your average Wal-Mart. You'll see. Now, what did you do while I was gone?"

"You're looking at it," Julie replied, jumping back into the chair and flipping open her book. "Working my way through book number two."

"You read an entire book in four hours?"

"It wasn't a very long one."

"A girl your age should be out with kids your own age. All these books will stunt your growth."

"That's absurd!" Julie exclaimed, following it with big belly laughs.

"You wait and see," her grandmother replied with a smile. "Now, help me put all this food away."

5.

That weekend, Julie's grandmother took her to the Webster flea market. It was a gloomy day, the sky filled with gray clouds, yet that was hardly a deterrent. As they pulled into the massive blacktop parking lot, she could see that it had not stopped the local population either. It seemed that every antiquarian shopper in the county had made their way to this secluded flea market. They were all funneling towards the turnstiles that let them inside, above which a large hand-painted sign welcomed them all to "Webster's Famous Westside Flea Market and Swap-O-Rama."

"What's the Swap-O-Rama?" Julie asked.

"The real reason why people from all over the county come here," her grandmother replied.

They entered into a large pavilion crammed with vendors hawking wears from flimsy pop-up booths. Many of them were simply tables purchased from Wal-Mart, draped with colorful fabric, and then stacked with whatever it was they were selling. In between all of the booths were a slithering mass of people. Julie wondered how anyone could move in such a crowded marketplace. Her grandmother just continued to lead her through, choosing to bypass the pavilion by walking along the edge of the room and quickly making the other side.

"We can come back here later if you want. It's impossible to walk through there at this time of day. You'll find that people are completely oblivious to anything except the deal at hand."

"What do you mean 'the deal at hand'?" Julie asked, looking passed her grandmother to see what she was talking about.

"The reason people really come here is to haggle. That's the name of the game. A listed price is only the starting point. So, if you find something you want, you gotta haggle. You pay the list price and you become a mark."

"What's a mark?"

"A fool, and I know damn well my granddaughter ain't no fool, now is she?"

"She is not," Julie replied firmly.

"That's what I thought," she said, her manner becoming more erudite and cultured. "Now, come, come. The fun is only beginning."

She moved them on toward the Swap-O-Rama, a large open field sliced by dirt paths and filled with the same kind of vendors that occupied the pavilion. Many of these sellers had simply parked their cars or vans on the grass and opened up the trunks to display their merchandise. Others were simply displaying their wears on dirty blankets held to the ground with clothes pins.

"What makes this part different from that?" Julie asked, pointing back to the pavilion.

"You have to pay a steep fee to have your booth in there. Plus, you have to follow their guidelines. Out here, it's bedlam. This is where you find your deals, your gems. This is where you can hone those haggling skills. Trust me, you do this enough, and you'll start to be able to eye what something is worth just by touching it. It's one of the most overlooked skills in the playbook of life. You'll be a cut above just by knowing how to haggle properly."

"What if the price is reasonable?"

"The price is never reasonable."

As they were chatting, a man wearing a red flannel shirt tucked into a dusty pair of Levis jeans came up behind them and wrapped an arm around Julie's grandmother's waist. As he did this, he placed his chin on her shoulder and began to dance with her from behind.

"Hello beautiful," he said, his voice low and playful.

She squealed with delight, her face beaming, and turned around to greet the man. He looked older than her, his hair that color of gray that was still shot through with hints of the old color.

"Not here," Julie's grandmother said finally. "I'm with my granddaughter."

"Granddaughter?" The man exclaimed. "Since when do you have a granddaughter?"

"Fourteen years now. Isn't that right, Julie?"

Julie smiled, clearly uncomfortable with the situation. The man in the flannel leaned to her grandmother's ear and quietly whispered. She pushed him away, her face giggling again.

"No, Paul," She replied to the man. "Nothing has changed."

Paul grinned from ear to ear upon hearing this. He put both hands in his pocket and fidgeted in place for a second before replying.

"Well, all right then. I'll see you later."

Before she could say anything more, Paul turned around and jogged off back toward the pavilion. Julie's grandmother watched him go, unconsciously licking her lips.

"What's the matter? Didn't want to introduce me to your boyfriend?" Julie asked.

"Who him?" Her grandmother replied with a snort. "He wishes." 

They walked on through the open field, many of the vendors smiling and calling out for Julie's grandmother. It seemed she was a regular, sometimes even occupying one of the booths to hawk wears she no longer had room for. Near the back corner, they stopped at a silver airstream wrapped with tie-dyed blankets and circled with tables stacked with shirts, blankets, and other fabrics. An old woman with longer gray hair and circular sunglasses sat behind one of the tables with her son, a boy of about Julie's age. He had a kind of scrunched face and his blonde hair was cut in an exaggerated mullet, the kind that Billy Ray Cyrus would have been proud of. He was the embodiment of Julie's vision of the locals in Webster. 

The old woman caught sight of the two of them approaching and stood up from the table, her arms outstretched.

"I figured you'd be around at some point," The hippie woman said, her flowing dress dangling off her fat arms. Julie thought she looked like she wanted to be like Stevie Nicks in 1975 and never grew out of it. She wouldn't have been shocked to hear that woman described herself as sometimes a little 'witchy.' The son looked nothing like the mother, save for the scrunched face that the older woman had given him.

"I had to bring my granddaughter to see. She's convinced there's no culture down here."

"This is your granddaughter?" The hippie woman asked her hand over her heart to fain shock. "You are far too young to be having a granddaughter this old. What are you twenty-two? Twenty-three?"

"I'm fourteen," Julie replied, not remotely flattered by the woman's obvious fiction. It was true that most teenagers wanted to be viewed as older, but Julie already felt older. She didn't need it shoved in her face.

"You never can tell anymore these days. Girls just grow up too fast."

"Hey Skip," Julie's grandmother said to the blonde-haired boy. "Why don't you take Julie around to meet some of the other kids while your mother and I do some business?"

"Okay," Skip replied in a monotone, looking up at her with glassy eyes.

Julie protested with her eyes but did not speak up. She was still too new in the house to be making a pain of herself. 

"Skip knows all the kids around here," her grandmother persisted. "I'll be done in a few minutes."

Skip grabbed Julie by the hand and led her away from the airstream, towards the middle of the field of vendors. Once they were away from view, he stopped and looked Julie in the face. He had changed from a dimwitted kid to a frighteningly determined teenager.

"What are you doing with that crazy woman? Are you crazy? Don't you know who she is?" Skip said, his voice low and a little manic.

"She's my grandmother," Julie replied, a little annoyed by Skip's sudden change in demeanor.

"She's really your grandmother? Her?" He continued, unable to comprehend Julie's answer.

"Yeah, what's the big deal?"

"So, you really have no idea?" He persisted.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I can't tell you here. I can't risk it. She's too close and she'll suspect something."

"Who will?" Julie asked, beginning to be creeped out by the boy.

"I've said too much. Let's keep moving."

"What about the other kids?"

"Another time," Skip insisted, his tone now demanding and forceful. "Promise me you won't tell her about what I said!"

"I don't understand."

"Promise me!" He insisted through clenched teeth.

"Okay. But what is it you think my grandmother is?" Julie asked, her mind already racing from the encounter.

"Not here!" He cried out. "Another time. Now, come on."

Julie and her grandmother spent most of the afternoon at the Swap-O-Rama. After she visited with the hippie woman, Julie found her grandmother more relaxed and in the mood the haggle. She purchased all kinds of items, ending up with a myriad of plastic bags again hanging from either arm. The entire time, Julie tried to shake off her encounter with Skip, and the crazed way he talked about her grandmother. What did he think she was? Why was he so afraid of her hearing? None of it made sense to Julie.

As nightfall descended, they made their way back to the estate, Julie's mind racing with questions whose answers seemed unattainable at the moment. They ate a small supper made up of mostly leftovers from previous feasts earlier in the week. Sometime around nine o'clock, Julie retired to her bedroom to read in the comforting solitude it provided her.

Sometime later she awoke to the sound of her grandmother laughing. She had not meant to fall asleep. The book she had been reading was lying on her chest like a blanket. She rubbed her eyes and looked at the clock. It was only eleven-thirty at night, but even that was late for her grandmother to be up. Julie got out of bed and walked out into the hallway. She could hear another voice coming from downstairs. It was a man's voice and one she recognized. It was Paul from the flea market.

Julie tipped toed down the hall, trying hard to make no sound. The voices seemed to be coming from the Florida room in the back of the house. She could also smell the ripe odor of marijuana wafting through the house. Her mother occasionally indulged in weed with friends, so Julie was acutely aware of its odor. As she got closer to the lip of the stairs, she noticed a small shadow being cast across the threshold. It was a gnome standing guard near the top of the stairs. Julie had not noticed the gnome before. In fact, she'd never noticed them anywhere in the house. It seemed strangely out of place standing in the hallway, his floppy hat casting an odd-looking shadow. When she got close, she could see that the gnome's features were familiar. She bent over and picked it up to have a closer look. A shudder crept down her spine when she saw the faint scar running across the gnome's face. Quickly, she put the gnome back down where she found it.

The noise from the Florida room morphed from laughter to faint moaning. Julie crept to the bottom of the stairs and peeked around to see if she could see anything through the hallway. Paul was straddling her grandmother, his shirt off but his skin-tight jeans were still on. She could see arms reaching around and caressing his back. Julie couldn't believe how un-grandmotherly that woman was. She seemed more uninhibited than her mother.

She took in just enough to understand her presence would not be wanted. She turned around and crept back up the stairs, her eyes watching the gnome the whole time. He too was watching her, it seemed. When Julie reached the top, she kicked the gnome onto its side. She'd had enough of his unflinching stare.

6.

For the next several nights, Julie's dreams were invaded by the gnome with the scar. It did not matter what she was dreaming about; the gnome would find a way in, even if it was just as an addendum tacked on to the end, just to remind her that his creepy presence could be lurking anywhere. The morning after his appearance at the top of the stairs, Julie found him back in the garden, standing guard with the rest of his clan by the daisies. She questioned her grandmother about the gnomes' unexpected trip inside, but she just brushed it off as the figment of an overactive imagination. The estate was full of gnomes, both inside and out, it was entirely possible that more than one could have a scar over his eye. Julie did agree with this logic, but deep down, she knew it was the same gnome. The question really was, why had her grandmother placed it inside? Was it to make sure Julie didn't disturb her late-night liaison? If so, it had worked like a charm.

Julie did not mention what she saw. It would have been imprudent to question her grandmother about her suitors. Better to just know they would be a presence in the house from time to time, and that it was best to pretend they didn't exist. Her grandmother did her part by never bringing it up either. Julie had a sense that the woman knew she had spied, but was too civilized to bring up the topic. It would have tarnished the aristocratic veneer that she hid behind.

For the next week, Julie was introduced to a string of eccentric friends who stopped by for social hours with her grandmother, not a single one of whom was a suitor. There was Margie, a much older woman who walked with a stoop caused by a back hunch. She had bright red hair, as obvious a dye job as Julie ever saw, and smiled with teeth whose color was somewhere between gray and brown. Just a few minutes of conversation and Julie knew she was with the town gossip. For her whole visit, Marge rattled off an endless list of names and the latest news surrounding them. Julie's grandmother took it all in, answering the woman with smiles, nods, and the occasional colloquialism. 

Another was Patty, a woman roughly the same age as Julie's grandmother, whose features were far more haggard. She had a large bag under her eyes and her face was a mass of swirling wrinkles. Patty was a lush. Her visits were centered around bottles of wine and endless barrages of howling laughter. Patty was also a garden lover who reveled in guided tours of the grounds, all the while giggling and sloshing around glasses of Merlot, guaranteeing a stain on her shirt. 

Julie also saw the hippie woman from the flea market. It had been obvious the first time that she was her grandmother's dealer, and judging by the frequency with which the old woman visited the estate, she was a valued customer. When she dropped by at the end of the week, she brought her son, Skip, along with her.

"Why don't you take Skip out back for a bit?" Julie's grandmother asked her.

"It's like a hundred degrees outside," Julie retorted, not wanting to be outside at all.

"Come on, you don't want to be cooped up in here, do you?"

"What's wrong with that?"

"Skip doesn't want to be stuck in here, do you?"

"I don't really care," Skip answered.

"Just go outside and let the grown-ups have their time," the old hippie woman barked, tired of the charade of back-talking teens.

Julie closed the book in her lap and returned it to its place on the bookshelves downstairs. When she returned, she gave the two women as put-out a look as she could muster.

"You ready to melt?" Julie asked Skip.

"Do I have a choice?" he replied, looking at his mother with fury.

"I doubt it," Julie replied, grabbing him by the shirt sleeve and dragging him out into the backyard. 

Julie and Skip found their way through the hedge maze toward the center courtyard with the fountain surrounded by flowers. The sun was high in the sky and the wind had all but disappeared. Within a minute, their brows were soggy.

"I don't understand why she keeps up this charade," Skip said, breaking the silence between them since leaving the house. "Everyone in town knows she grows and deals. Half the town buys from her. I don't know what she thinks she's sheltering me from."

"She probably just doesn't feel right about it," Julie replied, running her finger in the water of the fountain.

"So we have to suffer? Kind of fucked up, don't you think?"

"You wanna go break them up?"

"I don't want to feel her wrath," Skip said, dipping his hand in the fountain and pouring the water into his hair.

"Your mom's strict, huh?"

"I'm not talking about my mom," Skip replied, his demeanor getting serious. "You really have no idea, do you?"

"There you go again getting all weird about my grandma. What could she possibly be, besides a pothead and a lush."

"They say she's a killer," Skip continued. "Well, that's the rumor anyway."

Julie burst out laughing. She could not believe how preposterous that sounded. Her grandmother was many things, but a killer was certainly not one of them.

"You've got to be kidding me," Julie replied once she finally regained her composure.

"I'm dead serious."

"Who?" Julie protested. "Who did she kill?"

"Her husband for one."

"You're crazy!"

"I'm just telling you what people have told me. There are all kinds of rumors 'round these parts, but that one is about as old as I am. Everybody talks about it. Everybody believes it. Some say she shot him with his favorite gun, other's say she drowned him in the swamp."

"What do you believe?" Julie barked while perching herself along the side of the fountain.

"I don't know, any one of those. You pick, It don't change the fact that he ain't 'round anymore and they ain't no reason why."

"Well, I think that's a bunch of backwater horse shit. You swamp people got too much damn time on your hands. Sure, she's a little weird, but so what? I know plenty of weirdos in the city."

"You stay around here long enough and you'll find out," Skip replied seriously. 

Julie scowled at Skip and was about to continue defending her grandmother when she stopped herself. Skip noticed and called her out on it.

"What?"

"I don't know. Maybe you're right. I don't think you are, but what do I know?"

Skip could tell that he had touched a nerve so he backed off and began making his way toward the forbidden corridor of the garden.

"Don't go back there," Julie cried out. "You'll get in trouble."

"What's back there?" Skip replied, his curiosity peaked.

"It's just more garden, but she told me specifically to not go back there."

"And you don't find that to be odd?"

"Why should I? She's probably got seedlings or something back there that she doesn't want trampled on."

"Is that what she told you?" Skip asked, moving to the curve in the hedge arches.

"She didn't tell me anything except to stay away."

"Oh, now I got to see this!" Skip exclaimed before disappearing around the corner.

"Wait!" Julie cried, jumping off the edge of the fountain and running to catch him.

She ran down the mulched pathway and quickly turned the corner. She found Skip standing on the threshold of the third clearing. He seemed to be mesmerized by the tall hedges that encircled it. They were like the walls of a castle, and the third clearing was its keep.

"I don't get it," Skip said to Julie when she reached his side. "There ain't nothing in there."

"Maybe it just hasn't grown yet?" Julie replied.

"No way," Skip said, walking into the clearing. "None of this ground has been prepared for planting. It's just grass."

He walked to the middle of the clearing and looked around. Julie remained on the outside of the circle watching with apprehension.

"What? You're not coming in?"

"I don't know."

"Don't be chicken. Your grandma is probably high as a kite by now. Besides, what is there to be afraid of?"

"I don't know," Julie said again.

Skip continued to walk around the clearing, not seeming to notice, or choosing not to comment on, the four gnomes who occupied the corners of the clearing. After a few moments he stopped and in his tracks and looked down.

"Hmmh," he said, scratching the back of his head.

"What?" Julie replied.

"You see these mushrooms?" Skip continued, pointing down to the Amanita Mascara mushrooms growing in the grass.

"Yeah?"

"I think they're growing in a perfect circle."

Skip started to spin around in a circle, admiring the brightly colored mushroom and their strange circular growth pattern. 

"This is wild!" He continued.

"Let me see," Julie exclaimed, crossing the threshold and joining Skip in the middle of the clearing. 

As soon as she reached the center she knew he had not been lying. The mushrooms were indeed growing in a perfect circle, and it seemed in the exact center of the clearing.

"Do you think she did it on purpose?" Skip asked.

"I've never heard of anyone planting mushrooms."

"I guess you ain't never heard of magic mushrooms."

"Those aren't magic mushrooms," cried a booming voice from the entrance of the clearing. 

Skip and Julie both looked up to see Julie's grandmother and Skip's mother standing with their arms crossed, scowling at them through squinted eyes. Julie felt her heartbeat accelerate.

"I'm so disappointed in you, Julie," she continued, unfolding her arms and placing them firmly on her hips. "I told you specifically to not come back here and what did you do? Now, get out of here and go back to the house. Hopefully, you haven't done too much damage."

Julie and Skip quietly exited the third clearing, their heads hung low.

7.

After Julie's brazen flouting of her grandmother's rules, she was barred from the garden. Despite all of her pleadings, Julie's defense could not hold up to the sheer fact that she had broken the one rule she'd been tasked to adhere to. Her grandmother remained cold and distant for days, saying little to Julie beyond the basic pleasantries. She spent more and more time in the garden, knowing that Julie could not come out and bother her. Julie took the cold shoulder hard. She had never intended to break the rule but had instead succumbed to peer pressure. Hadn't she been a teenager once?

Eventually, Julie's grandmother relented and began to treat her as she had before. They went shopping together and played board games. Julie even learned to cook some of the family staples. All the while, she was still barred from the garden. It had not occurred to her how much she enjoyed the garden until she was forbidden from entering it. Without the garden to escape to, the house grew gloomier with each passing hour.

About two weeks after the incident, the week of the fourth of July, Julie's grandmother called her into the Florida room. She was sitting on the couch knitting what looked like a scarf, her rarely worn glasses sitting at the end of her nose.

"I know I've been hard on you these last few weeks," she said, not looking up from the scarf. "But I had to be. You broke my rule. More importantly, you broke my trust. That being said, I realize your side of the argument. It can be easy to follow others and disregard what you know is right to gain the approval of your peers. So, I'm willing to put this little instance to bed if you can promise me that you will stay away from that part of the garden. Don't take this promise lightly, my child. Will you promise to never go back there again?"

She finally looked up from her knitting and stared at Julie with eyes she had never seen before. They were her normal eyes, color and all, but somehow they glowed. She knew it was only her trepidation being projected upon her grandmother, but it spooked her nonetheless. The power of the eyes made it hard for her to gather her words. She could feel the seconds slipping by while her grandmother patiently waited for her reply. Julie began nodding as a placeholder before she finally spoke again.

"I promise."

"Good," her grandmother replied, her eyes instantly losing their glow, her face returning to its normal, carefree state. "Because I'm having a July fourth party this Saturday and we'll all be out there. I'd hate for you to not be a part of it."

"Is Skip coming?" Julie asked.

"They're invited, I'm not sure whether they'll come or not."

"Does he know not to go back there?"

"I'm sure his mother got the message through to him."

Julie could tell that meant something more sinister than her grandmother's smile entailed. She imagined there was a wooden paddle involved, or perhaps a leather belt.

"Well, you're welcome to it again. Just heed the rules and remember to be careful. Some new perennials behind the fountain don't have a home yet, so watch out."

"I will," Julie replied before rushing out the door and disappearing into the hedged archways.

Saturday came quickly upon them. All week prior, her grandmother scurried from one store to another, making sure she had enough food, fireworks, and general libations of all kinds to accommodate what she was sure would be a full house. All day Friday was spent preparing all the cold foods: several different pasta salads, potato salads, coleslaw, and deviled eggs, along with cold desserts like pudding and ice cream. Julie cranked out at least four gallons of various flavors of ice cream by herself. By sundown, the entire surface space of the kitchen counter was covered with bowls and trays covered by aluminum foil or saran wrap.

"Do you really feel like you need to make this much food?" Julie asked when they were wrapping all the dishes.

"This ain't even half the dishes that'll show up with our guests," her grandmother replied.

"How many people are coming again?"

"I keep telling you, I don't know. I invited most of the town, so I can only assume that a good majority of them will show up if only to just get some free food and booze."

"Am I going to have to hang out with the kids or can I just stay inside?" Julie asked while she placed a large bowl of Jell-O into the refrigerator.

"Why on earth would you want to stay inside? It's the fourth of July!" Her grandmother said, her hands clinched into fists on her waist.

"The kids here are weird."

"Aren't all kids weird? You're weird!"

"I just don't have anything in common with them."

"The only one you've spent any time with is Skip, and I wouldn't use him as a good gauge of the kids 'round these parts," her grandmother said, returning to the tray of deviled eggs in front of her. "You can do whatever you wish tomorrow, but I think you'll be sorry if you sequester yourself inside instead of hobnobbing with the locals, eating good food, and watching a damn fine fireworks show!"

"You gonna set fireworks off in the garden?" Julie asked.

"Hell no! We're going to move to the front for that portion."

"You don't worry someone will trample your flowers?"

"Everyone 'round these parts know about my flowers. They're all respectful. Hell, a lot of people come just to see them. They could give two shits about me, but the flowers warrant a visit. C'est la vie, you know? Besides, the only person who was ever cruel to my flowers was my poor husband. He killed my blue ribbon winners, accidentally of course, but it was bad. Stomped all over 'em. Couldn't believe it when I saw them."

"How'd he manage to do that?"

"I don't know," her grandmother replied, staring off into space. "He never told me. Just that it was an accident, nothing more."

Julie said no more but wondered to herself how he could have accidentally stomped flowers that were in raised planters, or furthermore, how her grandmother could be so even-keeled about it.

She awoke the next morning to the sound of voices outside her window. Julie rose from the bed and peeled the drapes to look down upon the front driveway. There were already seven cars parked around the fountain, and at least twice that many milling around, carrying dishes, or holding onto rowdy children dressed in their Sunday best. Julie looked across the room at her clock and saw that it was only a few minutes after nine in the morning.

"What the hell?" She muttered to herself.

It took her another half an hour to get out of bed and put herself together. During that time, another dozen vehicles had arrived, with family after family making their way to the backyard. Once she picked out her clothes and pulled her hair back into a simple ponytail, she left her room and headed downstairs. Her mental distraction was enough for her to not notice the gnome standing sentinel beside her bedroom door.

When Julie reached the Florida room, her eyes were greeted by what looked like a circus in the backyard. There were dozens of people standing in circles, holding red solo cups and styrofoam plates in their hands. Above them was a large canopy, somehow erected that morning, shading them from the ever-scorching sunlight. Julie's grandmother noticed her immediately and made a show of welcoming her to the party!

"Here's my sleepy little granddaughter! It's about time you joined the festivities!" She said, giving her granddaughter a large, exaggerated hug.

"I didn't realize you'd be starting so early. Get-togethers in the city never start until the afternoon."

"Well, for one, this ain't the city. More importantly, this ain't a get-together. This is my Fourth of July party, and I start whenever people arrive. Some years, they are more eager than others, but I'm always prepared one way or the other. Now, why don't you get yourself a refreshment and start to enjoy yourself. Feel free to add a little bit of whatever you want in there. Your grandmother will keep her back turned," she said with a wink.

"Okay," Julie replied, a little confused by the sudden congeniality her grandmother was showering upon her.

"Have a ball, my dear!" She said before drifting back into the crowd and mingling with everyone who crossed her path.

Julie stood still for a while, completely transfixed until she felt someone walk up behind her. After a moment, Skip spoke up.

"That woman sure is something else. One week she's scolding you like the devil, the next she's telling you to get drunk. What the hell is all that shit about?"

"Oh, you overheard that?" Julie replied once her spell was broken.

"Yeah, I want to know what that's all about. Has she been casual about alcohol before?"

"No, she really hasn't."

"Then it's something. I wouldn't drink anything if I were you," Skip said with all seriousness.

"You really are crazy, Skip," Julie said, rolling her eyes, and then walking away.

"You don't think it's odd how she don't want you anywhere near that part of the garden?" Skip persisted as he caught up to her. "We both saw there ain't nothin' but them damn mushrooms in there. Yeah, they was in a perfect circle, but they was just mushrooms. Ain't no prize-winning flowers or nothing back there. Nothing 'cept..,"

"What?" Julie asked filling the silence after he trailed off. "Except what?"

"Your grandaddy," Skip answered, his voice lowered to just above a whisper.

"Here you go again with this 'grandma is a black widow' bullshit. I've seen literally no proof that she's anything other than a bit more eccentric than you country bumpkins can seem to handle," Julie retorted defiantly.

They walked through the walkway into the coy pond surrounded by hedges. There were a couple of other neighbor boys playing near the pond. They both had the same kind of backwoods appearance as Skip; camouflage shirts, trucker hats with fishing hooks in the bill, cowboy boots covered in mud. Skip acknowledged them immediately.

"Colt, Barry, come 'ere," he called out, waving the two boys over in his direction.

"'sup Skip," Colt replied, clasping hands and performing a shaking ritual that was antiquated at best. Barry did the same thing but the audible pleasantry was not repeated.

"Tell this city girl here about her grandmother," Skip told the two boys.

"Who's her grandmother?" Barry asked Skip, confused.

"Mrs. B, you dumb fuck!"

"Mrs. B is your grandmother?" Barry asked Julie, his eyes wide.

"Why is everyone so surprised by that?" Julie exclaimed.

"Because she's a fucking witch," Colt replied, calmly. "That's why."

Julie looked at Colt, his fat cheeks flecked with peach fuzz stubble, his bright orange undershirt sticking out obnoxiously from underneath his dark green hunting shirt, and wondered how this swamp creatine could have any insight at all into her grandmother's life, let alone her character.

"It's true," Skip said to Julie. "Everyone in town knows it."

"She cast a spell on her husband one day after he trampled her flowers. Died within a week," Colt continued.

"My grandfather died of cancer. That doesn't happen in a week."

"It sure as hell did for him," Colt replied. "He goes to the doctor to get checked up, they find a huge mass, and within days he's deader than all hell."

"That's not the way I heard it," said Julie. "Not the way I heard it all."

"Of course you didn't!" Skip exclaimed. "That's not the way anybody heard it. He wasn't proclaimed dead until a good month or two later."

"What do you mean?" Julie asked, her mind racing.

"I mean, your grandmother didn't tell anybody he was dead for a month."

"Then how do you know he was dead? It sounds to me like a whole bunch of conjecture," Julie said, pacing in a circle around the coy pond, looking down at the magnificent fish but not really seeing them.

"What's that mean?" Barry asked.

"It means bullshit!" Julie answered him sternly. 

"It ain't bullshit," Barry replied.

"Then how do you know?" Julie asked him, her voice escalating to a yell. "How the fuck do you know?"

Before he could answer, Julie's grandmother, followed by a parade of other party guests spilled into the clearing around the pond. They were all carrying full drinks that sloshed in their tipsy hands. Barry and Colt looked at Julie and then walked away without a word. She watched them leave and then looked at Skip.

"What was that all about?" She asked him.

"It'll have to wait for another time," he replied quietly.

8.

The last partygoers did not leave the property until after sundown. Julie spent her time on the periphery of the main mass, quietly keeping to herself and avoiding contact with the neighborhood boys. She met a bunch of her grandmother's friends, who were all just as sloshed as her grandmother, and met several neighborhood girls who were all as dumb as the boys and interested her very little. By the time the sun set, she was back inside with a book, relaxing in her favorite chair in the library. From her view of the side window, she could see the people streaming back towards their vehicles. Julie grew ever more calm the more people left. Finally, she heard her grandmother enter the house, stumbling a little as she walked. Behind her followed Paul, dressed much the same as he was the last time Julie had seen him.

"Julie?" Her grandmother exclaimed, her voice as slurred as her walking.

"I'm right here," she replied from the other room.

"Okay, good, I wanted to make sure you made it in. Wasn't it a glorious party?"

"It sure as hell was," Paul replied, reaching his arms around her waist and placing his head on her shoulder. Julie's grandmother reached her arms around his head and kissed him on the temple. "Best one yet!"

"Oh, hush now! You're a known liar!"

"You like liars," he replied, twisting the woman around to face him.

She giggled and kissed him on the mouth. Julie quickly realized that she had already been forgotten about. She looked back down at her book and picked up where she left off. From the kitchen, she could hear her grandmother and Paul opening cabinets and drawers.

"Where'd you put it?" Julie heard Paul ask.

"Where I always do!" Her grandmother replied.

"Well, I'm looking in the drawer and it's not there."

"Look harder, Paul."

"Oh," he said with a giggle.

Julie rolled her eyes and closed the book. She was used to her grandmother and various suitors and friends getting stoned on the porch or in the Florida room. What she had not gotten used to was the overwhelmingly pungent odor marijuana produces.

"I'm gonna go up to my room," she called into the kitchen.

"Oh my, I thought you already were!" Her grandmother replied. "Goodnight, dear."

"Goodnight."

Paul looked up from rolling a joint and simply acknowledged the girls' presence. When Julie reached the top of the staircase, she looked down the hallway and noticed the small figure standing next to her door. She did not have to move closer to know what it was. A lump suddenly welled up in her chest. It wasn't the gnomes themselves but their mysterious appearances that were beginning to freak Julie out. After a moment of panicked stillness, Julie rushed down the hallway and kicked the gnome as hard as she could. She watched the porcelain figure flip through the air and crash land with a thud and a crack. Julie felt another pang in her stomach. She walked slowly up to the gnome and flipped it over with her foot. A large crack had formed across the face of the gnome, cutting right through the left eye. Julie had never seen this gnome before, but somehow, it looked as though its face was anguished. Her skin crawling with gooseflesh, Julie raced back to her room and shut the door, locking both the knob and the deadbolt. She felt her heart racing at the prospect of what her grandmother would do to her when she found the treasured gnome. In Julie's anxiety-addled mind, that particular gnome was rare and valuable, one of those irreplaceable wonders. After a minute of doing her breathing exercises, the ones she learned from her therapist in Chicago, Julie relaxed. She told herself that it was just a porcelain figure, and her grandmother was extremely eccentric. It did not seem out of character for her to put a gnome by Julie's door each day. With that thought, Julie crashed down onto her bed and picked up where she left off in her book.

She woke up around three in the morning without realizing she had fallen asleep. The book lay sprawled on her chest, gently rising and falling with her breath. She knocked it off the bed and rolled over to check the clock. It didn't register at first, for her eyes were thick with grog, but soon after Julie realized that standing next to her clock was the gnome with the cracked face. She let out a cry of shock and then grabbed her mouth tight. His expression had changed from anguish to anger. His eyebrows were furrowed and his eyelids drawn to slits. In his mouth was a pipe, an accouterment that he had not previously held. Julie drew up the blankets and scooted away from the gnome. For the first time in her young life, she was genuinely terrified.

She was suddenly gripped by a need for action. She summoned the power to move and soon was walking down the hallway, gnome in hand, ready to dump him off in the clearing with the mushroom circle. Near the end of the stairs, Julie was stopped by an odd choking sound coming from the Florida room. With a quickened pace, she scaled the rest of the steps and turned the corner only to freeze. Through the library and the kitchen, she could just see the form of her grandmother straddling Paul, her hands wrapped around his neck. Paul's eyes were bulging, and his face was red as a tomato. He was emitting a kind of pitiful gulping sound as Julie's grandmother gleefully strangled him. Above the two of them was a dark mass, something like mist and smoke, swirling around and then settling behind the couch upon which the deed was being done. Julie watched with stunned amazement as the mass became the form of a crouched and hooded figure, featureless except for the shape and the smoldering charcoal lights that served as its eyes. Suddenly, the gnome that she had been gripping tightly became red hot, burning her fingers like a stovetop. Julie dropped the gnome, and it crashed upon the floor, loudly shattering into pieces. Her grandmother and the misty form turned their gaze at the young girl. It was then that Julie saw that her grandmother's eyes mirrored that of the shape's.

"You weren't supposed to see this, my dear," Julie's grandmother said with a smile, her teeth stained with blood. "But you just couldn't help yourself, now could you?"

Her grandmother and the misty form rose from Paul's corpse and started toward Julie. Thinking quickly, Julie turned and rushed toward the front door. She threw it open and raced into the night air. There was no moon in the sky that night. All around Julie was pitch black, save for the light coming from the house itself. Julie ran forward into the darkness, not thinking about her destination, just trying to escape the house. She could feel a presence on her heels, but each look behind brought only more darkness. For several minutes, she ran freely through the night. There was wet grass beneath her feet and the sound of rustling tree branches in the wind. After a while, she heard the sound of trickling water. As it grew closer, so did a dull grey light dancing upon the ground. Her heart pounding rapidly, Julie raced to the light. It danced ever closer until its true form made itself known to her. Julie's heart stopped when she realized it was the reflection of the moon in her grandmother's coy pond. Somehow, the darkness had sent her around the house and into the garden.

"Why would you want to run away, dear?" A voice called out from the darkness.

Julie screamed and ran deeper into the garden, racing around the flower planters and the great fountain, down the mulched path, and into the third clearing. The moon was shining brightly upon the circle of mushrooms. Each of the red and white fungi was glowing in the luminescence. Julie approached with trepidation, unable to look away. As she got closer, she was unaware that the hedge behind her was closing, the entry rapidly disappearing. Her focus was only on the glowing mushrooms before her. She was even unaware of the churning grass behind her and the rotting hand that was coming up from the ground beneath. The mushrooms grew brighter, bringing Julie to her knees with pulsing curiosity. Meanwhile, a second hand clawed its way out of the earth, reaching toward the crouched girl in front.

The mushrooms burst with light as the rotted hands grabbed hold of Julie's feet. She screamed with terror, looking back at the corpse rising from the ground behind.

The light from the mushroom circle enveloped her and the next thing she knew was darkness.