Ducking beneath the rowan tree, Katie rubbed at the splotch of mud on her stocking. It marred the creamy white, and she knew her mother would comment on it later. She sighed, then put it out of her mind. Giving a decisive shake of her head, auburn hair streaming down her back, she stepped to the hidden door. It was small, a child’s height, which was how she had found it originally. Her shiny black shoes crunched golden leaves as she fumbled with the small bronze key, fitting it to the lock. She cast a glance over her shoulder but the rowan shielded her, shrouding her small frame. She pushed, and entered.
Katie sighed. It was as she had left it. The marble fountain stood in the middle, old and broken and filled with leaves. No water flowed. The grass grew tall around the fountain, different varieties, amidst places where the weeds choked out any other life. The shed remained- small, its walls pocked with rot; its interior housing rusted shovels, rakes and hoes. A variety of trees lined the garden, their canopies a brilliant mix of orange, red and gold. Bare branches rose up, and Katie thought about climbing one, as she had done in the past. The garden was walled off- a black fence contained it. But if she were to climb the fence, or scale the tree, she would see the large grey building across the street.
St. Martin’s Home for the Criminally Disturbed, the sign on the building read. The letters had been cut into the grey stone, the words strong, imposing. There were windows, but the curtains were drawn. Sometimes she saw flashes of light, could hear groans and screams. She had asked her parents about it, once. They had exchanged frightened glances, then turned to her. Her mother had knelt on the floor so that she was approaching Katie’s height. Her eyes darted back and forth as she stared at her daughter.
“That is a place where very bad people go,” she said quietly. “You must never ask about it- or show interest in it- again. Do you understand me?”
Katie had looked up at her father, wondering if he shared her mother’s view. He, too, had looked uncharacteristically serious. Her father was the one who accompanied her when she rode Phillipe across the grounds. He laughed as she tried to learn piano, sprawled on the floor beside her as she stitched and stabbed her finger more often than not. But his eyes weren’t mischievous now.
“That is not a place for you, Katie,” he said. His tone was quiet but she could tell- he meant it.
Katie had caught her parents whispering to each other and motioning out the window in the direction of the home for the criminally disturbed. Her mother’s face had been very white. Her father had been holding a newspaper; it was creased as though it had been folded and unfolded. She saw her father press a kiss into her mother’s dark hair, then wrap his hand around her waist, as though that would be enough to stave off the dark. It had been before breakfast, and as Katie had entered the room, her mother had laughed, a false, brittle, laugh that rang in Katie’s ears.
Katie locked the door to the forgotten garden, then proceeded to the lip of the marble fountain. She sat down, and fingered an object in the pocket of her school blazer.
Katie, like others before her, attended Silver’s School for Girls. The girls wore identical dark blazers edged with crimson lines over white collared shirts. The blazer bore the emblem of the school, a silver lion, surrounded by a red border. Their skirts were short, just hitting the knee, and they wore white stockings and shiny patent black leather shoes. It was standard issue, all of it, but Katie had found something that wasn’t.
Removing the object from her pocket, Katie looked at it and wondered.
It was unprepossessing. A silver whistle. The gym mistress had one that was similar. When she blew, short, angry blasts emerged, shivering the air. The girls hefted balls or weights or climbed ropes at her command. But this whistle was different. It was etched with an engraving of some kind, and when Katie blew it, it made no sound.
But something happened.
Katie realized that when she had tried, she had felt the shiver all through her body. It was an electric hum, as though something were gathering within her, something thrumming from the tips of her toes up through her spine and gathering in the back of her neck. It was a heat that ran through her, pooling within her, and while she didn’t know what it was, she knew it felt important.
And so she had come here, to her garden, her secret. She placed the whistle to her lips- and blew.
And here, as it had not done when she was at school, notes shivered out. But they were not the sounds a whistle should make. Instead, they were plaintive, longing. It was a nightingale’s song, warbled to the world. It was a keening cry. It was beautiful and magical and it brought tears to Katie’s eyes.
And then she felt the hum again. The throb within her bones. She felt the warmth rising from her shiny black shoes and winding its way through her body, building in her chest. She stood. The whistle grew warm in her hand. Instinctively, she opened her hand, letting it fall.
And then she saw it.
A sphere of golden light - small, round, smaller than a chicken’s egg- lit her palm. But it wasn’t solid. She raised her other hand to it, and it passed through. It was light, and it hovered above her palm, but if she closed it- and she did so, experimenting- it winked out.
She hissed out a breath, marveling. She had seen many things, including advances in science and engineering. The laboratory at Silver’s contained many cunning objects, whether telescopes, microscopes, weights or measures. She had never seen a thing like this. Did it come from the whistle? Or could she control it without?
She closed her eyes and reached for that thrumming power within herself. She felt it beneath her fingertips and opened her palm, waiting to see whether the light would return.
It was there, but a mere flicker of it, not the golden sphere she had managed before. Was it the whistle? Or was it just a question of practice?
She heard the scrape of a key in the lock. Starting, she scrabbled on the ground, picking up the whistle and slipping it back into her blazer. She held her breath. Would they get in? Who was there? It was her garden- she had found it. The key had been threaded on a necklace, one her mother wore often, and had then thought lost. But it wasn’t lost- it was just that Katie had wondered, and had then been proven right.
“It’s boarded up.” She heard the soft, plummy voice. It was a man’s voice, and she could picture him- Inspector Gavant. He wore a tweed coat and a fedora usually, and sometimes came to dinner.
“Are you certain?” That was, Katie thought, her father’s voice. “Ever since Evelyn,” and his voice cut out, as a gust of wind caught it and flung it far from her, “dangerous,” he concluded.
“No one comes in here,” the Inspector assured her father. “No one could. Evelyn has the only key.”
“Keys can be found,” her father whispered. “And after what happened the last time- I sometimes think we should burn it. Raze it to the ground.”
“No way to do that without drawing undue attention,” the Inspector said in a brisk tone. He clapped his hands together. “Must be going, eh?”
Katie listened as the sounds of their steps faded away. She looked at her wristwatch. It was nearly five.
Her mother would be expecting her for dinner. If Katie were lucky, she would have time to strip off her stockings and place them in the hamper. She might avoid a scolding that way.
Making her way towards the door, she was about to fit the key to the lock when she heard a low groan. It was followed by a shout. The sounds were not abnormal. The people in St. Martin’s Home for the Criminally Disturbed could not be expected to behave as the rest of them did.
She shivered. Then, resolute, she slipped out of the garden, locked it, and made her way home for dinner.