Part 11

      I turn back and re-cross the bridge, deep in thought. There is definitely something odd about this garden... obviously, it's haunted as anything, with the fire and odd mysteries around the family and the original owners. But for all the hundreds of ghost stories I've read, I never really thought about the practical effects of a haunting. Like you always hear about orbs and voices and things moving without explanation, but... Who says an orb has to be a perfect little circle that shows up on your photographs? Maybe it's just that fleeting flash of light at the corner of your vision, disappearing when you turn to look straight at it. Maybe that strange shadow on the floor doesn't have to be shaped like a person, it can just be a patch of darkness, like a real shadow would be if the light were directly above you. I truly do believe that there's more to the world and our lives than the things we normally see with our eyes, touch with our fingertips... I think every artist, no matter what their medium of expression, believes that. Art is an expression of something that words can't quite grasp... even if that art is writing, it's using the words in ways that convey more than the pure definition of the words, it's using rhythm and flow and the feel of the words, to create a feeling of something more than just the component parts. Just as a drawing is more than a mere recreation of a scene, just as there is a world of difference between a photograph and a snapshot...
      There is much more to light than the narrow spectrum our eyeballs can interpret. No reason the rest of our senses wouldn't be missing things too. And as for the soul... well, that's another one that goes with the artist territory. And if there's something intangible and immeasurable by all our science... hell, we couldn't measure cells and atoms for most of human history, but now they're as irrefutable as sunlight. Who's to say that ghosts won't be common textbook material in another hundred years? Though probably in a much different form... cells are pretty far removed from the whole homunculi concept.

      Picking up my bag, I stand on the edge of the bridge, looking over the water, then into the trees, trying again to see under the overgrown plants, trying to see the garden as it was planted... and I can get glimpses, but so much of the structure is hidden away. I'll have better luck on a small scale, I think, catching bits of the bigger picture by seeing the attention to small details, like the small cobalt blue flowers against the white marble pillar.
      I consider walking along the creek beyond the bridge, but the plants are pretty dense. The trees trickle down toward the water here, though farther on it clears out a bit. I'll head toward the weeping willow – while I can't draw the storybook scene as-is, I'm sure I'll find smaller compositions to be inspired by.
      Looping back into the copse of trees, I push my way through the giant, thick leaves of the plants on the ground. A larger shrub-like plant bars my intended path near the edge of the trees, and as I start to walk around it, looking for a way past, I realize it's a huge rose bush. I had no idea they could get this big! But I know there are different varieties... There are those tiny little tea roses, I suppose someone decided to cultivate a larger version as well. This one is something like the size of a full-grown lilac, and I hope I can make it back here when it comes into bloom...
      On the ground is a circle of brickwork, maybe fifteen feet across. There is another intricately-wrought iron bench off to one side, and near it, a large metal urn, half-hidden by the plants cascading out from it. In the center of the circle is a sundial – I've never seen one in real life, there's something very classical and elegant about its form. This one in particular is striking, standing on a column of delicate iron tracery, the sun dial itself undoubtedly in bronze, all warm gray-green and charcoal now, though I know it was once a warm golden shade. I smile as I try to discern the time – the numbers are all in Roman numerals, and I strain to remember the numbers, having last seen them on an old clock on my grandmother's living room wall. It's somewhere between three and four, which I knew instinctively by the light anyway, as it's just beginning to turn from the straight vivacity of the noon hours to the warm drama of late afternoon, early summer evening. I keep my camera near to hand as I follow the brick path that leads from the circle farther into the garden, knowing that the best hours for light are approaching.
      There are trellises here and there, some smaller side-paths, benches and bits of statuary. Most of the sculptures are human in form, Grecian men or art nouveau women, angels of uncertain gender with long sweeping wings, tiny fairies whose faces have worn away, perched on bird baths and long-dry fountains.
      I stop here and there, taking pictures or jotting down notes and ideas... and I realize after awhile that the path is going nowhere near the willow. What it is going toward, is the big fountain. Which is a good goal too, so, I stay on the brick. Whatever odd fragment of feeling came over me near the woods is long-gone now... The garden really isn't anything but empty, and somewhat lonely, being so long neglected. I'm sure all the ghosts can't be angry ones...
      But I do wonder what happened to the mansion, what the story of the fire is... and what the mansion looked like... and who the people were, the Masons, and Mr. Mason's brother, who built the house and the gardens for his wife... who, despite knowing nothing about, my imagination has decided was very beautiful, somewhat younger than her husband, and had a lovely laugh. Probably consumptive though, what pretty young wife wasn't? I shake my head with a grin, knowing how ridiculous my thoughts are getting. I've got to do more nosing around in town, and see what I can learn about the actual history of these people, before I start getting attached to my brain's clichéd inventions.
      On reaching the fountain, I stand still a few minutes to study it. It's absolutely stunning... Most of it is in some kind of metal, though the outer wall of the basin is stone, with low niche benches carved into it. Every inch of the fountain is carved in minute detail, every draping inch of fabric thoughtfully wrought, each petal of a flower is curled just so, and I can only imagine how naturally the droplets of water from the fountain must once have clung to each surface...
      The main body of the fountain is composed of two young men, their bodies with the slim lithe shape of youth, each with their arms wrapping around to just brush the fingers of the other boy... no, not boy, they are definitely men, but the sense of youth is incredibly strong. They have the bodies of dancers, of runners... All around them are flowers, dozens – no, more – of varieties that I couldn't guess the names of, though I can see roses and lilacs, ferns and tulips. The forms of water lilies are embossed on the inner wall of the basin, and I'm sure some must have grown here long ago, though the fountain is now dry, with only a little rusty rainwater puddled in the bottom, moss and moldering leaves clinging to the old metal and stone.
      I gently sink onto one of the stone benches, and lean my arms on the time-smoothed wall of the basin. Looking closer, I can see that there were once words here, in the stone... but they have long since faded, their shapes worn smooth by the passage of years, by the hundred brushes of hands and the thousand caresses of wind and rain...
      I sit there for a long time, taking a few small sips from my water bottle, but mostly just gazing at the flowers, at the yearning expressions on the beautiful faces, at the thousand tiny details of leaf and vine and muscle, at the tenderness in the curve of each flower petal and gesture of hand... I see far more love here than I've seen in any statue of Aphrodite in any of her guises. It's a long time before I can pull my eyes away long enough to even lift my camera, and even then, it's hard to look for composition when all I want is to be lost in the fluid lines and sensual details. The whole fountain looks like an Oscar Wilde poem, it has that same yearning romanticism to it, that aching sense of beauty, with a trace of sadness underneath, like the shadows that bring depth to all color and light.
      I sketch a few of the flowers, capturing small portions of compositions, trying to record the sense of fluidity I can feel more than definitively see... if only I could have seen this with water flowing over it, as it was meant to be seen, the water blurring the images in places, and bringing other elements into sharp focus, then changing the view entirely in the very next moment. Leaning over the wall of the basin, I peer at a particularly dense bit of flowers and vines, trying to decide if they're all sculpted, or if that leaf there is an actual leaf of a vine that's somehow found a bit of nourishment on the metal surface. It's nearly the same colo---
      Gasping, I grab at the stone, scraping my fingertips raw, and barely manage to catch my balance, saving myself from falling head-first into the muck, onto the hard bottom of the basin. I... need to learn to keep my art-gazing trances at bay a little better.