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Roach shivered. The night was chilly even for early spring and he was barefoot and dressed in rags, it was true, but he didn’t shiver because of the cold. It was the anticipation and the apprehension; it was the thick silence of the night that seemed to press on his ears. It amplified his own sounds — the sound of his breath, slightly ragged, and the pounding of his heart. He ought to walk away but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. He licked his dry lips and glanced around again. There was no movement. Slowly, cautiously, he inched his way out of the crevice between the two buildings and worked his way along the line of the garden wall. He resisted the urge to run his hand along the stone as he walked; he didn’t want to risk setting off any unnecessary alarm spells.
When he reached the tree he grabbed ahold of a low branch and pulled himself up. He climbed until he was above the wall and had a good view into the garden. He ran a hand absently along the rough bark of the tree as he observed, taking pleasure in the feel of this old beauty. Below, lit eerily in the moonlight, was a garden of wonderful variety. He itched to get closer but he didn’t dare, not yet. Instead he stared and yearned and admired. He almost felt like he could hear the flowers snoring as they slept. He could feel the frustration building again. This was better than nothing but he needed more. Roach needed to feel the flowers basking in the sunlight, awake and singing. He needed to touch them.
He watched the house for weeks. At night mostly but after a while he started venturing ever closer while the sun was up. He found himself losing track of time and earned himself more than one missed meal when the Thief Lord caught wind that he was shirking his duties. One night he was so caught up that he forgot to go hunting at all; that night he got the whip. From then on he made sure to get enough coin and valuables before he went to see the garden so he could go straight to the Den when the sun began to rise.
In his daytime stalkings he’d realized that the gardener was there just after dawn and stayed until nearly midday. After that, no one seemed to be in the garden at all. Maybe, if he was very quiet, he could get away with a venture in the garden during the warmest hours of the day, when the flowers would be at their most joyous. His heart thudded at the thought.
One day, he decided it was time. He watched from the tree, silent and still as a stone, as the gardener finished up the day’s duties, packed up her tools, and left. Cautiously and as quietly as he could muster, he used the farthest reaches of the branches to slip down the far side of the wall. He was in.
He licked his lips and glanced around, trying to keep his breathing steady. In full sunlight and up close, the flowers and shrubbery and small trees were glorious. Carefully he reached for the nearest bunch of flowers — long thin white petals surrounding a bright yellow center. He touched a petal with tender, trembling fingers. His breath hitched and he knelt, touching another flower’s green stem with his other hand.
“Ain’t you just a bunch o’ beauties,” he whispered, unable to help himself. “Sun feels nice, don’t it? Warm and cozy. Ain’t you lucky?” He trailed his fingers across each flower in turn, smiling when they bent to lean into his touch as though they yearned for his touch as much as he yearned for theirs. He didn’t dare go too far in among the greenery for fear of not having a quick enough escape route so he stayed near the wall by his tree and basked in the glow of green life and in the sunlight. He had been there maybe nearly an hour when he heard a sound that could have been footsteps. He held his breath and heard it again, then scaled the wall and climbed up onto his tree and back down on the other side as quickly and silently as he could. Then he ran. He ran until he was back in Deadman’s District.
He had hoped getting into the garden to feel the growing things doing what they do best would assuage the yearning but it only intensified it. He had to go back. And he did. Every day that he could slip away he went into that garden and touched the plants with loving fingers and admired them with gentle eyes. Then he would leave before he could get caught and put his thug mask back on, daring anyone who approached to mess with him; sneering and scowling and prepared to fight.
Those moments in the garden warmed him. They made him feel like he had a chance to live rather than just barely survive. It wasn’t much, maybe, but it was something. He was still hungry and scared and cold and alone; but when he was with the plants in that garden he felt the sting of it all fade away just enough to give him hope.
One day he was squatted among the white flowers and whispering to them when a quiet voice said, “Back again, are we?” He flinched and yanked his hand away, tearing a flower clean from its stem. He yelped with the pain and stared at the broken plant, mortified, then remembered himself and searched frantically for the source of the voice. An old woman stood on the pathway, leaning heavily on a thick wooden cane. Her white hair was pulled back into a bun and her wrinkled face wasn’t smiling but her eyes had a twinkle in them that gave him pause. She didn’t look like she was about to hit him or call the watch but that didn’t mean much. Still, he hesitated, looking back down at the flower.
“I didn’t mean to,” he said croakily. “I just wanted to feel them. The flowers. I never took nothin’.”
“I know, I’ve been watching,” she said in a calm voice that might have been soothing if Roach was in any state of mind to be soothed. She gestured vaguely upward and he followed her hand to a small window on the second floor of the building. He grimaced. “What’s your name, child?”
He shook his head.
“Come now,” she said. “Surely you have a name?”
“They call me Roach,” he said after few breaths.
She scrunched up her nose. “That’s not much of a name for a handsome lad like you, is it?”
He shrugged. “Ain’t my choice, madam.”
“Is that the name your mother gave you?”
He shrugged again and didn’t respond. She sighed, then groaned slightly and grimaced, adjusting her cane.
“I need to sit,” she grumbled, slowly ambling to a nearby bench. Roach hesitated, unsure, and then ran to her side opposite the cane, steadying her by her elbow. “Thank you kindly, young sir.” When she was sat comfortably she said, “Bring me that daisy that got torn.” He frowned at her guiltily and then did as he was told, silently apologizing to his green friend before passing it over.
The woman tucked the flower into her hair by her ear and grinned at Roach. He didn’t smile back.
“Now, at least, it wasn’t taken up entirely in vain,” she explained. “Even flowers like to feel they’re useful, you know.”
“You called it somethin’, before. What was it?”
“A daisy. That’s its name.” She laughed at his look of fascination and befuddlement.
“Flowers have names?”
“Indeed they do. These little ones with the yellow centers and the little white petals are called daisies.” She touched a red flower on her far side. “This is a rose. One of the loveliest to my mind. And it smells incredible. Come take a whiff.”
He stared hard at the flower — it was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen — and then glanced at the woman sidelong before carefully easing his way to the flower and leaning in to smell it. He half expected it to be a trick but his nerves steadied when he inhaled that scent. It smelled as lovely as it looked. He sighed dreamily. The woman chuckled softly. He glared at her — he didn’t like being laughed at — but he softened a touch when he saw that she was not mocking him but sharing in his appreciation.
“Ain’t you gon’ call the watch?” he asked, uneasy. He didn’t need his carelessness to get him nabbed. He already had one X on his hand and he didn’t need another.
“Ought I?” she murmured, closing her eyes and tilting her head back as if she herself was a flower reaching for the warmth of the sun. “Thought you said you weren’t here to take anything.”
“I ain’t.”
“Then I won’t.” She said it matter-of-factly, as if dirty street boys ended up in her garden every day.
Roach wasn’t sure what to think of this woman but his gut was telling him she was alright. She didn’t seem concerned in the least by his presence. He flinched when a clock in the distance chimed the third hour after midday.
“Gotta go,” he said, more to the plants than to the woman.
“Will you be back?”
He hesitated, unsure of what to say.
“I’d quite like it if you came back,” she added, opening her eyes to look into his. “You’re good company, Bright Eyes.”
“It’s Roach,” he said adamantly, cheeks pink at the friendly words.
“You’re no roach and I won’t call you such,” she said firmly. “Until you have a proper name, Bright Eyes is what I’ll call you.”
He snorted and rolled his eyes but shrugged. “No skin off my neb,” he grumbled.
“Tomorrow, Bright Eyes.” He licked his lips but nodded, and scaled the wall.
He did indeed go back the next day, cautiously. She was already there waiting on the bench when he arrived. When his feet touched the ground soundlessly she opened her eyes and smiled.
“Good to see you again, Bright Eyes,” she murmured. His eyes flicked down to a basket by her feet; it was covered by a cloth. She caught the motion and grinned, motioning to the basket. “Are you hungry?” His eyes flicked up to her face and back to the basket, wary but indeed very hungry. “You’re a scrawny thing, you could use a proper meal. Please, eat.”
He felt twitchy. Surely this was a trap. He looked around but saw no one. He looked back at the basket and then to the old lady but she had her eyes closed again, basking in the sun. He snatched the basket and considered taking off with it, eyes flicking to his escape route, then he decided not to waste any more time thinking. He sat down and gobbled down everything in the basket in record time. His belly hurt by the time he was finished but he was just glad it was gloriously full. When he had finished every crumb he placed the basket back by the woman’s feet and, assuming she was asleep, he turned his attention to the plants. He grew braver and ventured a little further than before, touching new plants; he stroked stems and leaves and petals. He had come back near the woman and was running his hands over the trunk of a small tree when the tree slowly lowered a branch to press its leaves to his cheek. He grinned, enamored, and pet the branch as he stood on tiptoe and nuzzled his face against the affectionate leaves.
“Curious,” the woman murmured. Roach flinched away from the tree and whirled to glare at her. Her eyes were twinkling, a small smile playing across her face. “Don’t mind me, boy, I didn’t mean to startle you. That tree thinks highly of you. And trees are good judges of character, don’t you find?”
He scrunched up his nose at her. “‘S’only a tree,” he informed her. “It don’t know nothin’, can’t judge nothin’.”
Her smile broadened. “Is that so?”
He snorted. “O’course.”
“You may be surprised one day. Trees know more than most people, I reckon.” He scowled, incredulous, but decided not to argue. “Wise, they are,” she continued in a low murmur, as if she were half asleep. “They don’t talk much but they observe and they learn and they pass what they know onto their saplings. Even if their saplings are far away, they can talk through their roots.”
He wasn’t sure about all that.
“Where do you live boy?” He didn’t respond. “Do you have a home?” She was watching him soberly. She knew the answer; it was clear in the rags he wore and in the layer of muck on his face and body that was as thick as the cloth, if not thicker. She could see the desperation in his eyes and the lack of fat on his body. “I prayed hard last night,” she told him in a voice so quiet it was a whisper. “To every god and goddess I could think of, that you’ll find a home where you’ll be safe and loved.”
He glared at her, furious as tears pricked his eyes. He refused to feel the pain, the sorrow, that those words caused to bubble in his belly. Anger was easier, anger was safer.
“Don’t need no prayin’ from a daft ol’ lady,” he snarled. “I take care of m’self. I ain’t complainin’ and it ain’t your business, y’old foolish bleater.”
She merely smiled at him, far too understanding. The kindness in her eyes stabbed him in the heart like a knife. She was a fool and he oughtn’t waste any more time here, not when he had real work to tend to. He had a job to do and another night to survive. He turned and left and he never went back. But he thought about that garden often and he thought about the old woman who been kind, who had fed him, and who wanted better for him.