Opening his eyes, Gabriel’s blinded by a white-light, like the reflection from snow. He closes his eyes and hears digging and a voice tutting at him.
“You’re lying in my peonies.”
“What?” says Gabriel squinting through his eyelids, but this time his vision’s filled with green stems and many coloured petals. After the empty grey of his dream, the colours are incandescent. He drinks in the sight of them, until he feels the nudge of a pronged tool and moist soil seeping into his tailored tunic. He really is lying in a flower bed.
“Urgh!” he says, jumping up and fixing his hair. “What happened?”
“You tried to cross the Chasm of Darkest Nothing…again,” says the same voice. “Did you expect a different result?”
“I..I…I don’t know,” says Gabriel looking round unsure. “How did I get here? Is this the Eternal Estate?”
A voice, that could both sooth and command, says with a chuckle, “No, you’re not nearly ripe enough. A girl saved you. There was a girl here last time; you seem to be beset with them.”
“The same girl? But Lucie fell,” says Gabriel. Spotting his bag, with an emergency mirror in it, he walks over to it.
“No, a different girl.”
None of the girls Gabriel knows would’ve left him, especially if they’d just saved him, they’d want recognition. But then he remembered an incandescent light, brighter than any he’d seen before. Considering this, he grabs his bag and collects his staff. Then turning says, “And who are you?”
“Just the Gardener tending my flowers,” says the Gardener, collecting up a basket and turning away. “If you’ll excuse me?”
“But I need to know,” says Gabriel, stepping after the Gardener, his voice strained.
“Know what?” says the Gardener, turning back.
“The Truth.”
“About what?”
“Everything! About the First Message and Lucie and the Unmoved Master.”
“And you think the Truth is over there?” says the Gardener, nodding toward the Eternal Estate.
“The Unmoved Master knows everything.”
“The Truth is whatever you believe it is.”
“That doesn’t make any sense?” says Gabriel, rummaging through his bag. “Things either happen or they don’t; it doesn’t matter what I believe.”
“A plant grows. A plant is picked. Those are the facts. But is the picker a murderer? Is the gardener who weeds a destroyer?”
“But we can’t know what everyone thinks or feels.”
“How do you know if someone’s your friend?”
Gabriel shrugs.
“Exactly, you can’t. You just believe in them.”
“I believed Lucie was my friend,” says Gabriel staring into the mirror in his hand but for once he’s not seeing his outer reflection, instead he reflects on long buried memories. After a while, he continues, “She fell. Was I wrong to believe in her? Was I wrong to deliver the message?”
“Those seeds have been sown.”
“But all those mortals, the Red Ghosts. How can I fix it?”
“You believe it needs fixing? You believe you made the wrong choice?”
“Yes.”
“Then you better do something about it.”