Bo and the Beast (Book #1) (Completed)

13. An Impossible Garden

She was in the hall for a few seconds before Fil appeared from around a corner. His light flashed green, and his engines whirred as he came to her side. "Did you have fun with the Master?" he asked, his voice all high childish happiness. Bo glared at him.

"Why would I ever have fun with that creature?"

Fil made an inquisitive beeping sound, and if he had features Bo was sure he would look confused. But by that time Dent appeared and made irritated grumbling noises.

"You're already out?" he said. "There's still a long time until the meal. What are you going to do until then?" It sounded accusative, as if she had committed some rude offense.

Bo grit her teeth and bunched her hands at her side. "I'm sure I'll find something."

"Don't stray too far. We'll have to come fetch you soon enough," Dent said, his lens somehow looking stern.

"Fine," Bo spit out. Somehow, this seemed to be answer enough for the two robots. Dent flashed his green light in her face, and then turned around and zoomed back to where he'd come from. Fil lingered a moment, and Bo thought for a moment he might say something. But then he too turned and hovered away, leaving her alone in the entrance hall.

She walked to the grand staircase and sat on it, taking a few minutes to calm herself and stop her spinning thoughts. After she controlled her breathing, she was able to think about things other than the Beast and his twisted plan to trap her here. Now that she wasn't forcing herself to think of other things, however, Bo realized that she was bored and really had nothing to do. Back home, she had three precious books stashed under her cot that she would read and reread any free moment she got... which hadn't been very often since her dad went missing. Now, she missed them like crazy. Perhaps the familiar worlds, with princes and thieves and flying carpets, could distract her from the pit of longing in her stomach for her family and camp.

Knowing that the longer she spent sitting alone, the more she'd become upset, Bo stood up and began to wander around the entrance hall. For the first time, she noticed the black and white marble was patterned in large stars, and that carved stone gargoyles looked down at from nooks on the beams holding the roof in place. It was all a bit surreal. She'd only ever seen places like this as illustrations in one of her books, and she had never quite believed they'd ever existed. Yet, here she was standing in this fantastical place. Only, an alien had decided to stay behind after the rest of its species' retreat and ruin any sort of pleasure she might have gotten from exploring the grounds.

Still, she couldn't let a good bit of snooping go to waste, although, she told herself it was to find routes to escape.

Crossing to the front door, she grabbed the handle, and, to her surprise, it gave easily and opened to a breeze of damp air. Not waiting to see if a robot would appear from nowhere to stop her, Bo slid onto the front porch and limped down the steps to the lawn. It stretched out in an endless green ocean, and she couldn't help but to bend over and run her hands along the tops of the blades of grass. They felt so impossibly soft and alive. She closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of this place. While she dreaded its owner, it was also the most impossible and perfect place she'd ever seen.

After a few moments of just soaking in the smells and the gentle feel of the sun on her skin, Bo stood back up and began to walk parallel to the house, heading for the back lawn. She kept her eye on the spot where her hopper had crashed and where her dad had disappeared through the mist, but didn't attempt to reach it. She'd spotted a robot hovering by a tree a few yards from the spot, supposedly trimming the branches, but its lens was focused squarely on her. She knew it would never allow her to get anywhere near the border.

The back lawn also had robots gardening. They greeted her with wary voices, but none of them were ones she recognized. It looked like Madame and Chan were taking their break elsewhere, and Dent and Fil were busy in the house.

Bo did her best to seem as casual and confident as she could as she nodded back at the robots that greeted her, and kept up her brisk walk, hampered only a little bit by her large yellow skirts, toward a tall stone wall that encapsulated almost the entirety of the back lawn. A gate made of curling iron painted white greeted her, taller than she was. She unlatched it and pushed it open and saw that beyond was a garden that matched the rest of the house. It looked just like the garden at the back of the castle in one of her books, and it was even more magical in real life. White gravel paths, privet hedges, fountains, thin trees shaped like animals. It took Bo's breath away and she stood with her hands hanging by her side in the gate's arch, just staring at this world she never would have believed existed.

After she gathered back up her senses, she wandered down the paths to see the wonders of the garden. She passed cultivated flowers in rich brown beds, and trees perfectly green and lush. The path took her in a curved trajectory to the back of the stone wall, where she discovered another gate, half hidden in ivy. Someone has recently torn some of it back to reveal the door, and the ivy vines still hung ripped and raw. This gate was more of a wooden door, with only a tiny window too high up for her to see through. Bo's heart rammed into her ribs as she stared at the door. No lock sat under the heavy iron latch, and she wondered if this might be a door to the outside world. Had the robots really been stupid enough to let her get close to such an escape route.

She whipped her head around to see if anyone was watching, but thankfully the robots had not followed her into the garden. She was alone, and this door was her only company. Her hands itched on the latch, and she shivered as she thought that she might be finally getting free. She would miss the lush greenery and clean air, but she'd gladly trade it back in to the orange and dust if she could only have her father and family at her side.

With a deep breath, she pushed down on the latch. The door was heavy, and hindered by rust on its hinges. She had to use her shoulder to push it open, and so she tumbled into the area beyond when it suddenly popped open.

She yelped, her hands extended in front of her to cushion her fall as she slammed into the dirt. She cursed as pain burst into her knee, and she rolled over to sit up. She had to dig through all the yellow skirts to find her knee and rub at it under the bandages. While she did this, her eyes scanned the area around her briefly as she started to push herself up. She was halfway up, her skirts pushed up around her knees, when her mind finally computed what she had seen. Slowly, her gaze once again swept over her surroundings.

Roses. Thousands and thousands of roses that should have been extinct and dead and gone. Flowers that, like the alien inside the house, had somehow survived and taken root. Bo nearly fell over at the sight of the perfect blooms in red and pink and white, and even blue. The smells rushed her nose, and she suddenly recognized it as the scent that had been put in her bath.

A thin path of beaten dirt ran through the thorns and blooms, winding into a confusing maze of offshoots and dead-ends. Bo could imagine getting lost forever in the small warrens and tunnels that the rose bushes created with their branches. And in fact, she thought she might try.

Shutting the gate behind her, she launched into the warren of paths. It was all so wild with almost no plan. The path looked as if the roses dictated where you had to squeeze through their thorns, and nothing was pruned or trained. Yet Bo couldn't think of anything that could be more gorgeous than the full blooms just like she the illustrations in her book back home.

Eventually her knee began to ache and she stopped to rest it, sitting on the ground near a bush that sported blood-red blooms. They embraced her in their scent, and she closed her eyes as she leveled her breathing. Her mind came close to sleep in the quiet world of the roses, lulled there by the musky scent and the shadows they cast over he face, but just as her head nodded forward, she was jolted awake by a rumbling voice that broke the spell of peace. Surging to her feet, Bo spun around to face it.