Pence Page 19

  *****

  Pence marched into the clearing like a man out for blood. He stomped up a rising white root that was in his way, surfed down the opposite end, and walked directly to the bucket of water. He drew his splinter—the white wood blazed. Green tendrils of milky light spilled off the small sword and illustrated the air like the ghosts of newly sewn plants writhing toward the sun.

  Pence swung once, flinched away from his own strike in sudden fright and fell down, but his slash had opened a gap in the wooden bucket like it was no firmer than wet paper. Cool water gushed out for a brief moment, soaking into the ground around the gardener’s feet, causing them to sink into the earth a subtle fraction.

  “Drink up,” Pence said heroically, or to the best of his ability. As he returned to the path to the gate, he ran his hands through the grass that lined the first row of windbell flowers. Pressing his face against their shoots, he inhaled deeply, fanning air into his grain of rice with both hands. “The fragrance is rather like feet,” he concluded detachedly.

  “I wonder why that is,” said the old man, absent-mindedly staring at his feet. The purple handle of the whittling knife still protruded from his chest.

  “It certainly warrants further investigation,” said Pence. With a tinge of melancholy he whispered, “But something tells me I’ll not ever know.”

  “That would be the garden speaking to you,” the old man said now to himself, but he was asleep before his last word.

  When he walked back past the purple jewel, once upon a time the crowning eye of a prince’s axe, Pence tapped it lightly with the tip of the luminous splinter. The white wood melted through the jewel like it was warm butter. Pence stared in shock, put one hand to his temple as though there was an invisible hole in his head, then turned and ran away.