Soul Garden
by R. Bail

Lydia groped for her blankets, but none were in easy reach. She shivered from the cold and reached out farther, but her fingers met nothing but chilly air. The cold dug into her, forcing her more awake than she wanted to be, and dim awareness dawned in her mind that something had gone wrong with her bed. It felt hard and lumpy under her back, almost as if she were lying on the ground.

She rubbed the crust from her eyes and opened them. Above her a melancholy gray sky loomed behind the skeleton lattice of dead tree branches. Lydia stared at them, and stared at the puffs her breath made in the air before she struggled upright.

The branches belonged to a dead black tree close to her left. She sat beside it, and from there the bare ground stretched forward, marked by paved pathways that ran along groups of tombstones.

Lydia had woken up in a graveyard.

She scrambled to her feet in alarm but a wave of dizziness caused her to fall back against the rough surface of the tree.  She rubbed at her temples and tried to think of how she could have gotten to this place. Lydia was still dressed only in her nightgown, without even slippers on her feet; the last thing she could remember doing before crawling into bed was blowing out the candle on her altar and saying, "Be safe wherever you are, Samael,"  as she concluded her own private memorial.

She couldn't remember anything after that, not even dreams - just the sudden shock of cold that had wakened her. Lydia stepped away from the tree and looked around. She couldn't see anyone else in the place, and aside from tree, the tombstones, and a large mausoleum, the graveyard lay empty.

She turned and walked to the stern iron fence that enclosed the graveyard. It stretched high above her head, the thin poles ending in wicked spikes, and beyond it swirled a thick fog. She couldn't see anything beyond it, not even when standing directly in front of the fence. This place could be anywhere, she thought with rising fear. Or... no place at all.

But this was the back of the graveyard - there had to be a way out through the front. Even if the gates were closed, someone would have to be along to open them soon. Maybe I can rattle them until someone hears and opens them to let me out, thought Lydia, rubbing at the gooseflesh on her arms.  She turned and walked past the tree and onto the pathway. The pavement beneath her feet felt even colder than the bare earth had and its cracked, uneven surface proved treacherous, as she stubbed her toes almost immediately.

Lydia limped along, cursing under her breath more out of a need to hear a voice, even her own, than real anger. Her mutters died away as she passed the first row of tombstones, however. She stopped and stared at them, for no flowers, wilted or otherwise, adorned the graves, no ribbons, no pictures, no little figurines. The ground in front of the tombstones was as bare as the rest of the graveyard. Even stranger were the tombstones themselves, as small, cheap stones stood among huge, expensive monuments, and practically new stones stood among stones that were crumbling. The only regularity in the graveyard was the layout and spacing of the stones.

As Lydia passed each row she looked down it, and each row was much the same - no flowers, no gifts to the dead to show that they were still loved and remembered, rich and poor and ancient and new all jumbled together alike. The only change came as she neared the front of the graveyard, where she could make out a large statue of a figure cringing away from some unseen attacker.

Before she could get that far, however, she had to pass the mausoleum. It crouched to the right of the path ahead, streaked black walls sucking in the light around it and the clouded windows staring blindly. As Lydia approached she could see that the door to it stood slightly ajar.

She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. If it had been completely open she wouldn't have found it as frightening, but the door being just barely open made her imagination run rampant. Lydia wanted to tell herself that there was nothing to be afraid of, that dead people couldn't bother her, but she'd never been convinced of that, and she couldn't hope to convince herself of it in this place.

A deep shudder ran through her. She felt more chilled by the moment. She looked across the graveyard and considered going to the other side, but she was already so cold that she didn't want to delay getting out any longer than she had to. Her feet were bare, though, she didn't make any noise as she moved... if there was anything there, it wouldn't hear her. Lydia stepped forward as carefully as she could manage.

The hinges of the door made a low moaning noise. Lydia swiveled towards the sound and stared in quivering terror as the door swung open.

A young man stepped out. His pale skin looked waxen, his black silk clothing hanging loosely on a skeletal frame. Some wind that Lydia couldn't feel caused the garments to waft about him and stirred his long, moonlight colored hair.

Her jaw dropped open. "S-Samael?" she blurted out.

His head whipped around and he stared at her. A thin smile spread over his lips. "You did come after all. You did hear me. Oh, Lydia, I'm so happy to see you."

Lydia lurched forward a step, wanting to wrap her arms around him, bury her face again in that long, soft hair, but his eyes stopped her. His eyes gave her a cold, mad stare. She stepped backwards as involuntarily as she had lurched forward, her brow furrowed. "I... what do you mean? Sam, where are we? Where have you been?"

He chuckled and put a finger to his lips. "Shh, shh, my lovely, one question at a time." He walked towards her. "I heard your voice, saying my name, so I called to you and you came. I didn't know if you would, it's been so long. So long." His eyes widened. "How long?"

"A-a year." She took another step backwards. "Why..."

"Oh Lydia, so long. I've missed you so, but I had to search for my niche. Find my... place. And here it is!" He stopped and spread out his arms. "It's my garden of souls."

Her spine turned to ice. A year and a half before he'd started talking to her about souls, asking her if she thought some people even deserved to have them. She thought... she thought it'd been some weird philosophy. "What do you mean, Sam? This... this doesn't look like a garden. There aren't any flowers."

 Samael shook his head and smiled ingratiatingly. "My lovely, this isn't the sort of garden that has flowers. Go, look - the headstone two rows down from you, on the end."

Lydia stared at him a moment with wide eyes before she did as she was told. The tombstone was one of the most decrepit ones, the inscription barely readable. "Terry Cabell, his soul hanging forever within my grip, he who d-died of... his own sins," she whispered, her voice shaking. She looked over her shoulder at Samael, who still wore that ghastly little smile. "The newspaper said that he shot himself! Did you do it?"

Samael shook his head and chuckled. "No, no, he killed himself. Hn hn hn... He kept dreaming about what he did to you from your point of view, every single night, until he put that gun to his head." His lip curled. "I told him he shouldn't have touched you. Now he's mine forever, and he can't hurt you anymore, Lydia."

Her guts twisted. She had felt a vicious glee when she'd read about Terry's death in the paper, but now she just felt sick. If Samael was telling the truth, if it was even possible to do what he claimed, she felt it was even more horrible than what Terry had done to her.

As she stared at the stone Samael started speaking again, but she wasn't listening. Instead, she drifted away and looked at another of the crumbling tombstones. Cynthia Goulet, her soul hanging forever in my grip, who lingers between life and death forever... Cynthia, a former girlfriend of his, who had crashed her car into a tree and had been in a coma ever since.

Lydia's steps quickened as she walked between the tombstones and looked at the inscription on each. Her heart sank further with each name she recognized - they brought to mind sometimes a face, sometimes a faded memory of a newspaper blurb, and always, always, a memory of whatever litany Samael had against them.

She stood on the middle pathway, staring at the statue - something laid at the figure's feet. Heedless of Samael's attempts to get her attention, she walked, then ran to and around it, hoping against hope that it wasn't of who she thought it was.

All warmth fled her body as she studied the front of the statue. It was a woman cringing from some horrible thing, with the broken body of a little girl at her feet. She'd only seen them once, but she recognized the faces immediately, and the tarnished metal plaque in the base of the statue confirmed it: Irene La Croix and Lilith La Croix, Samael's mother and little sister.

Lydia sank to her knees, resting her head and arms on the base of the statue. The one thing that had frightened her the most about Samael before he had disappeared was how badly he took the smallest insult, the most petty injury, how he growled that he would never let that pain go. He had kept to his word, apparently - even with his sister, who's biggest crime had been to be born.

She shook with fear. Just before he had disappeared, she and Samael had argued, a horrible argument that had left her empty and sick for days. Heavy footsteps came near her, and she looked up to see him approach, his mad stare contorted with confusion.

"Samael..." She bit her lip. "Sam, where's mine?"

His mouth hung open for a moment before he started to laugh. The low laugh she had so enjoyed before had sharp edges from hysteria now, and it spiraled upwards into a crazed barking. "L-Lydia!" he gasped between the laughs, "Oh, my foolish lovely! You don't have one, you don't belong here like they do!" Samael tried to calm himself, pressing a skeletal hand against his lips in an attempt to keep the laughter muffled.

She trembled, a mote of relief pushing its way through the fear. He shook his head and gave her another horrible smile. "I love you, Lydia. I want you to be safe. You should have read more names - you'd see how I picked out every person that hurt you. I'd keep doing it, too, and now I can. Now you can be with me and tell me about anyone else that's hurt you, and I can keep you safe."

The mote died, swallowed by a fresh tide of fear. "You can't... Sam, you can't do this. This is wrong!" She pushed herself to her feet. "This, whatever it is, isn't any way to keep someone safe! What's the point of it, feeding off of their pain?"

He crossed his arms and tilted his head, his smile folding up and becoming small and secret. "I remember what you said about Terry, Lydia. How you wished he could suffer for the rest of his life. I only granted your wish." He walked towards her. "What about Darla? Geoff? Lizzie? How much they made you cry and how you swore you'd get back at them?"

She stumbled backwards and shook her head. She tried to speak but guilt choked her. She'd hated them at the time, what they'd done, but she'd never meant-

"As for the point, dear Lydia, I see no reason not to make use of their pain." He flipped his hair over his shoulder with a flick of his head and let his smile grow larger, seductive. "It gives me power, Lydia, that power I always told you that I'd find. Power over all of them." He swept his arm in an arc, encompassing the entire graveyard.

Lydia walked backwards as he approached until she nearly fell over a tombstone. The stumble and scrambling jarred her senses, shocked her brain into working again. She had to get out of here and away from him. If she said the right things, made him remember the world outside, maybe he'd want to go back. He could bring them out of there and then she could run away.

"I-I understand, Samael! I know! But what good is power going to do you here? There's nothing but tombstones and dirt!"

He stopped and frowned. "It's safe here. I can get to them, and they can't get to me."

She shook her head frantically. "But there's nothing here! This place is sick - dirt, one dead tree, no sky. Everything here is dead!"

"You aren't, Lydia. I'm not. We have each other."

"That's not enough!" Her heart clenched as his lip curled upwards, and in panic words tumbled out of her mouth. "We do have each other, but we need more to, to feed our love. We need blue sky and sunshine, and wind and clouds, and, and... flowers!"

 His snarl fell away, leaving confusion behind. Lydia pressed onwards. "You remember flowers, don't you, Sam? How we'd walk together through the city gardens, looking at the foxgloves and hyacinths, smelling the roses?" He nodded mutely. "Remember how in the spring we'd walk through the rain, and how happy we were when we spotted the first violets? Remember? Those were your favorites!"

Samael's face tightened. He put a hand over it and turned away, and despite herself Lydia felt a pang of pity. She stepped up to him. "No, Sam, please look at me." She put a hand on his shoulder. "Please. I want to go find butterflies with you again. I want to look at the moon with you again. I want to hear music again! There's no sound here but our voices, and I couldn't stand it for very long."

Both of his hands covered his face now. "No, stop it, Lydia. Stop..." His shoulders convulsed with a muffled sob.

The sound tore at her heart. Her fear and wariness slipped away and she could only remember how much she had missed him, how she had worried. Lydia wrapped her arms around him. "You're so thin," she said. "You're almost a ghost, Samael! I'll turn into one too if we stay here. We have to leave or we'll wither and fade into nothing. I don't want to be nothing, Sam, I don't want you to be nothing..."

"No, no, you don't understand!" He shrugged out of her arms. "I can't leave! If I leave I'll lose the power I have here, I'll lose all of my work!" His hands balled into fists and he whirled around to face her. His eyes had filled with flames of rage.

"Sam, I do understand - you're obsessed! You're so obsessed you'll let yourself, let me turn into a wraith here! You don't have power over them," she said, gesturing at the tombstones, "so much as they have power over you!"

He snarled and raised his arm and she cringed away, flinging her arms up over her face. When no blow came Lydia opened her eyes to see him standing with his head down. "I... I can't... Lydia..."

Lydia reached out to him again, her arm trembling. He didn't turn away from her touch. "Please, Sam. Please come out of here. I never gave up on you, Sam... I can't let you do this to yourself." She swallowed, a tiny bit of her mind hating herself for saying it, and hating herself even more for it being true, even though he frightened her so. "I love you, Samael."

Samael moaned and clutched at his head. He trembled as well now, and his face clenched up as he fought some internal battle. Lydia waited and watched, holding her breath. He started to mutter, shake his head, and tear at his hair, his breath coming in quick gasps. Lydia thought that she should run away, but her feet remained planted to the ground.

After a long few minutes his breath slowed and his face smoothed out. He raised his head and shook his hair out, then looked at Lydia. A fierce glow of hope rose in her belly, because she couldn't see the madness in his eyes any longer - they were as clear and lucid as when she had first met him.

"Lydia, I'm so sorry I've frightened you so badly." He smiled again, the warm smile she remembered, and reached up to stroke her hair. "You're right... I've been obsessed, and I nearly lost myself. If you hadn't answered my heart's call, I would have never gotten free, myself." He shuddered lightly.

Lydia flung her arms around him. "Oh, Sam, I...!" She buried her face in his shoulder.

He pet her back. "Thank you, Lydia. I needed you. Now, now, stop crying." He pushed her away just enough to look into her face. "I need to leave here immediately. I'm realizing how badly I long for the real world. Come with me."

She took his hand happily and walked with him, relief and hope outshining any other feeling that she might have.  They walked up to the gates, ugly black things that didn't look like they could open at all, for where they met they looked as if they had been welded together. In front of them he stopped and took her other hand as well.

He looked her up and down, a tiny smile playing on his lips. "I've missed looking at you, Lydia. I've missed hearing your voice. I hope that you've been well all this time, even though I've been gone."

She'd cried herself to sleep for a month, but the pain had faded. She'd started going out by herself again in the evenings, had even dared to make a few new friends in her classes. "I have, Sam," she said. "I never forgot you, though."

"Good." He dropped one of her hands, and made a gesture at the gate. The metal groaned and then slowly, slowly, the doors parted. Samael looked at Lydia again and then kissed her softly on the lips before dropping her other hand and starting through the gate.

Her heart skipped a beat, but she followed him. However, before she could exit the gate started to swing close right on Samael's heels. Panic rose in her chest and she tried to fling herself through the rapidly narrowing gap, but it had already grown too small. She had to wrench herself out of it before the doors of the gate crushed her between their bars.

"Sam? What's going on? Please open the gate for me!"

He turned around, his face gentle and sad. Samael shook his head. "No, Lydia, you'll have to stay here."

Betrayal turned her body to stone. Lydia fought to find the words and finally gasped out, "I can't stay here, Sam! I'll turn into nothing! I'll die!"

"No you won't, Lydia." He smiled slightly. "No one can die while they stay here. That's why you can't leave... I don't want you to ever die." He tilted his head. "I can't lose this place, not now. I need it, and I need someone to keep it open for me. You'll do that for me, Lydia, because you love me -"

"No!"

"- And nothing can hurt you here, nothing at all." He frowned. "I couldn't stand to see you hurt again, Lydia. I'm so glad that you weren't hurt while I was gone; now you can be fresh and whole here, forever."

She threw herself at the gate, clutched at the bars to rattle them, but it was as solid as a mountain and burned her fingers with cold. She fell away from it. "That's not living, Samael! You can't do this to me! I can't live without -"

"I'll bring you things, my love. I didn't have anyone to bring me things. You'll have a much nicer time than I did, I promise." He blew her a kiss and walked away.

"How dare you do this to me, Samael! HOW DARE YOU!"

Samael looked over his shoulder at her and smiled his best smile, the one that made her fall in love with him. It hit her like a punch in the stomach. "I'm not doing anything to you - you're doing this for me. Be good, Lydia." He waved at her, fingers waggling obscenely, and turned back to walk into the mists.

"I loved you, Samael!" He didn't turn around again, however, and soon he had disappeared. Lydia's vision clouded as her eyes filled with tears, and her knees buckled under her. She sat with a thump onto the ground and stared through the gate at the nothing beyond.

"I don't love you anymore," she whispered. "I hate you. I hate you, Samael La Croix."