A Stranger in the Garden Read Online Free PDF Page A

your birth. And whatever you do, you must not give in to the Grue’s cries for blood.”
    “Why are you helping me?”
    “Because, Charles Darwin Waddingly, you have much good to do. And a mortal lifespan is a short time in which to do it. Now go, before my hunger overcomes my good sense.”
    She disappeared back down the stairs, and the earth folded closed behind her.
    Gwen woke slowly. She sat up, yawning, and rubbed her eyes. “What happened?”
    “You evidently took a nap while I was looking at beetles,” Charles said. He hid the shears back in his coat pocket.
    She slid down off the stone and took his hand. “You’re bleeding! Did something bite you?”
    “Yes,” he said. “That is exactly what happened.”
    “Let’s get you back to Granpapa. He’ll know what to do!”
    And she skipped merrily back into the mist, none the worse for wear.
    The Grue was raging. Charles bit at his bloody finger, sucking at the blood to quiet him.
    I can make you devour yourself alive, the Grue said.
    And then what would become of you?
    His anger nearly blinded Charles. Before he knew it, he was chasing after Gwen. He snatched her up in his arms, the Grue’s teeth erupting in his mouth.
    I will not lose this one chance!
    Gwen screamed, kicking futilely at him. Fog beaded on her skin like the drops on the sundew’s leaves.
    Take her. Her blood will flow free and open the gates again, the Grue said.
    Charles couldn’t think anymore. He opened his jaws wide. The points of his teeth pressed against her warm throat.
    Thwack. The pain across his shoulders was so startling and intense that he loosened his hold on the girl.
    Thwack.
    His head blossomed into a white flower of pain before he slumped to the ground.

     
    When Charles woke, it was deep in the night and he was rattling around in a carriage, careening toward Saints knew where.
    Darwin was sitting across from him, watching him, his face barely visible in the moonlight that occasionally sliced through the carriage windows.
    Charles sat up slowly. His shoulders ached, and when he touched the back of his head, there was a great egg on it that made him wince.
    “I am sorry for your head, but I did what had to be done to save my Gwen,” Darwin said. “Hopefully, there is still time for you.”
    “Where are we going?” Charles asked.
    “To Malvern. They cured me there. Possibly they can cure you.”
    The Grue was awake and furious again. But he could do nothing.
    “I have given the boy a tonic,” Darwin said, raising his voice as if he needed to shout for the Grue to hear him. “You will not be able to do much of anything until it wears off.”
    Foam came out of Charles’s mouth instead of words, the exudate of the Grue’s rage. He twisted with such pain and frustration that Charles both feared he might die and wanted to die all at once.
    Darwin tossed a handkerchief, and it landed in Charles’s lap. He dabbed at his lips with shaking hands.
    The Grue turned in his guts, vicious in his hunger. “I will devour you before we arrive there,” the Grue whispered through Charles’s lips.
    Darwin leaned forward, his visage like a death’s-head in the moonlight.
    “Try it. I have been through this before, remember. I am well aware of what you can and cannot do at this moment.”
    Charles gritted his teeth. The Grue wanted to vomit on Darwin out of spite.
    EAT HIM.
    Charles put his hands under his legs on the bench seat. He clenched his fists to feel the hard wood against his knuckles. Pain kept him from losing himself utterly.
    “It is painful, I know. I have given you the tonic, but perhaps you would also prefer this?” Darwin took a little vial from a coat pocket.
    Charles tried to grasp it without faltering. The carriage jouncing around in the darkness made it hard enough, but the Grue would not rest at his powerlessness. He threw every memory he could against Charles—the deliciousness of the Sphinx, the power that filled his body when he had eaten the Wyverns.