Glorious Gardens of Teetering Rust Read online

  Chapter 12 – Never Finding the End of It...

  The sharp acres of the Tuggle salvage yard surrounded a heart. No stacks of orange rebar towered in the center. No corners harbored sharp edges. Dust and rust did not shroud the sky, and sunlight flooded the center to energize the foliage that thickly grew in a garden hidden from the outer world by walls of rusting detritus.

  Mercy lay beneath a forest’s canopy. The trees grew tall and close within the heart. She spent her afternoons beneath the shade, counting the sunbeams that seeped between the leaves, watching the squirrels and woodland fairies that moved in the periphery of her vision. The branches wavering over her head were filled with foliage, and the shade succeeded where layers of sunscreen had failed.

  Mercy smiled all day in the heart. In the outer world, Mercy had believed she knew the meaning of treasure. She thought she had recognized sparkle. She thought she had seen all that glimmered. But after hopping onto a truck that carried away the last of her home, banishment taught her to recognize things much greater.

  She looked behind her shoulder at the sound of rustling branches. She feared no forest cougar or jungle tiger lurking at her back. The heavy, plodding steps could only belong to one creature, and she smiled as Brandon’s scarred face broke through a thicket.

  “Careful,” Mercy laughed. “You’ve plowed through more thorns. Your face is bleeding again.”

  Brandon shrugged. “I can hardly feel the thorns after all the cuts I suffered in the yard. And the thorns don’t leave the same scars.”

  “I brought back more sandwiches from the camper,” Mercy had found a picnic basket in the yard, and it brimmed with food as Brandon sat beside her.

  Brandon frowned. “You know how I worry when you go back without me.”

  Mercy shook her chin. “And you know how I hate it when you go trooping through the trees without me.”

  “Trees don’t shift like all the stacked iron.”

  “Are you sure?” Mercy raised an eyebrow. “A girl gets hungry, and you know how well I work the awning map after the lines shift.”

  Brandon was learning the odds of winning a debate with Mercy were slim. He grabbed a sandwich and sat beside Mercy before removing his heavy boots to let the grass tickle between his unscarred toes. He could sleep beneath the fresh air and not worry about sleepwalking into sharp corners.

  “Before you start snoring,” Mercy rested her head on her companion’s shoulder, “tell me if you found the other side.”

  Brandon grinned. “The heart doesn’t seem to have another side to it. It felt like I walked forever. I finally came to a stream, and all I saw on the other side was shoulder-high grass for as far as my eye could see. I climbed a tree as high as I dared, and I looked all around, but I couldn’t see the top of one of the salvage stacks. This is a strange world in the middle of the yard, Mercy Gable, but I hope I never find the end of it.”

  “It’s a new world,” Mercy sighed as she leaned into Brandon’s warmth. “Or maybe it’s an old one. But it’s beautiful no matter its age.”

  Brandon closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Mercy’s touch electrified him.

  “I wonder,” began Brandon.

  Mercy punched his shoulder. “Don’t even think it. You could at least give a girl some peace when she first gets to the garden.”

  Brandon laughed and kept his thoughts to himself.

  And while he napped through the remainder of the afternoon, Brandon dreamed of all the ways he might find to fill such a wonderful space.