This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Otherwise, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2022 by Tomi Champion-Adeyemi

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by Amazon Original Stories, Seattle

www.apub.com

Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Amazon Original Stories are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

ISBN-13: 9781542028684 (digital)

Cover design by Will Staehle

Cover image: © Niday Picture Library / Alamy Stock Photo

WHEN YOU VISIT THE GARDEN

when you visit the Garden,

there is a promise you must make.

a sacred vow you have to take.

a toll your soul must pay.

when you visit the Garden,

you must be prepared to shed all that you are

for no false face

can enter

Sacred Space

and return

to the old world

unscathed

when you visit the Garden,

you must forget

everything you know

for only when you have the truth

will you see through their coup

and realize every lie you hold

when you visit the Garden,

you must prepare to be changed

for none

can enter liminal space

without being transformed by the original

Face.

“Lęina?”

Lęina wasn’t prepared to hear her real name. For fifteen hours she’d been nameless.

Or maybe it’d been fifteen years.

That was how old she was when she first found her mother’s journal, locked in a wooden crate of other nameless things.

That was how long it had been since someone called her “Lęina” like that.

The same way her mother used to say.

“Olá.”

The man Lęina knew to be her guide lowered his tattered sign and made his way past the crowd of families and drivers outside the arrival gate. To Lęina’s left, two sisters swarmed the eldest daughter of their clan. The girls chained their sister in hugs before she could even claim her bags.

Lęina watched the sight spread ripples through the crowd. She watched the way it made people smile.

Lęina looked back at the girls.

She wondered why she couldn’t smile the same way.

Angelo was far younger than he had appeared through her computer screen. His tawny skin was sprinkled with freckles and kissed by the sun. A flat-brimmed hat that read GATINHO DA SELVA flattened his head of chestnut curls. Something about her guide was easy; it made Lęina tie back her long braids.

“Tudo bem? How was your flight?” Angelo extended his wide hands; both were dotted with calluses and sores. His rough skin felt at odds with the aroma of lavender and the soft touch of Lęina’s own.

The edges of his sandals were ripped and frayed. There was something strangely confident about his gangly gait. Angelo looked like he had been born to step into the unknown.

Lęina had always been told she was born to stay at home.

“Are you hungry? Is this all you have?”

Lęina watched her single pack float from her arm to his. Angelo motioned for the journal clutched in her hands. Lęina held it closer and shook her head.

She didn’t really have words to share, but Angelo seemed to have a steady stream. Lęina attempted to follow the melody of his voice as he spoke of the journey the two were about to begin.

“First, we will head north. Straight for Belo Horizonte. The drive will take six or so hours, depending on when we leave. When we get there, I think there are some museums you might want to see . . . Then we have a straight shot—thirty-two hours to the state of Maranhão. We will rest there for one night before taking the train to São Luís—”

Somewhere along their three-thousand-kilometer trek to the heart of Brazil, Lęina got lost. Her head spun with the distances and drives, the number of nights they would spend on a historic riverboat versus the number they would spend at a small ecolodge.

Lęina wanted to tell Angelo she didn’t care—she barely understood why she was here.

She’d had a plan.

She’d had her dreams.

Now she felt trapped in the real thing . . .

Lęina . . .

The journal pressed to her chest seemed to call out her name. Lęina looked down to the familiar sight of worn leather against her dark-brown skin. If she cut out her perimeter, this sight made sense. This picture looked the same.

With a simple crop, she could be back in the States—back in her apartment, under the covers with coffee in hand. Maps and sketches would be pinned to every wall. Thrifted skirts and stolen cardigans would litter her floor.

But she couldn’t alter her view.

She couldn’t crop out what didn’t belong.

Lęina wasn’t plotting in her bedroom anymore.

She was playing in the real world.

“We will be over here.”

Lęina tried to follow the rhythm of Angelo’s voice through the thickening crowd. He flitted from word to word, always like he was lost in a song. Lęina followed him to the nearest entrance, but when the doors slid open, she couldn’t bring herself to step forward.

She stared at the cracks under her feet.

For a moment, she couldn’t think.

“This is where she would have walked . . .” Lęina whispered the words. “Where she might’ve stood . . .”

Something called Lęina to stare at the streams of sunlight pouring through the sliding doors. Lęina didn’t know if she’d ever seen sunlight like that before.

Could sunlight glitter and dance?

“Lęina?”

She could still go.

She could still turn back.

Lęina knew this was her last chance.

She could dump the journal in the trash.

“Lęina, tudo bem?” Angelo asked. “Are you okay?”

Lęina looked away from the light and into Angelo’s hazel eyes. She felt she stared at them for a long time.

Lęina didn’t remember her knees giving out.

She only felt herself shout.

HOW COULD LĘINA TELL HIM

by Lęina Amaudi

How

could Lęina

tell him

she’d traveled all the way to Brazil

to chase a ghost.

That every time she thought about her mother,

she couldn’t speak.

She felt like she would choke.

How

could Lęina

tell him

she’d traveled all the way to Brazil

because she knew she knew too much.

and she felt the things

the other couldn’t touch.

how could Lęina tell him that the skies cried

because parts of her died

and she could always hear it in someone else’s voice when they lied.

How

could Lęina

tell him

she’d traveled all the way to Brazil

to recover someone stolen from her a long, long time ago.

How

could Lęina

tell him

she knew she would never return.

How

could Lęina

tell him

she was no longer afraid of how this world could burn.

“Your burger.”

Lęina grimaced at the plate that clattered on their plastic table. The meat looked worse than what she’d cook herself. Her stomach had already turned. This wasn’t going to help.

Lęina had imagined many things for her first meal in Brazil: pastéis with shrimp and fried cheese balls. “The Wingman” at the airport’s TGI Friday’s shattered all her illusions.

This was a sign she should return home.

“Is this not what you ordered?”

Lęina hated this burger. She hated the way she picked at it under Angelo’s gaze. She wondered what wiry creature she must look like, knees curled all the way up to her chest.

Lęina imagined a creature who hadn’t eaten. One who couldn’t sleep. A creature who fainted in foreign countries, then demanded to be guided to a TGI Friday’s.

“It’s fine.”

Lęina abandoned the burger, instead reaching for the fries. They were square. Square and cold.

Lęina almost started to cry.

“You need to drink water.”

“I can’t.”

Lęina didn’t buckle under Angelo’s stare.

“It has ice.” She pointed to the glass. “They told me not to drink anything with ice.”

Angelo’s brows knit slightly, but he hid whatever emotions rose behind his hazel eyes. Lęina watched as he left for the next store. Lęina attempted to eat another fry.

“Lęina . . .”

She looked down at the leather journal. Her ears crawled with the way it whispered her name. It was like it knew it had returned. That the Garden was no longer an entire ocean away.

Lęina wondered if her mother had felt the journal’s pull . . . the skeletal hand it reached through her chest. With every page Lęina turned, the journal’s claws dug deeper into her skin.

Lęina could feel the icy sensation within . . .

“Here.”

Lęina flinched with the bottles of water Angelo placed down.

“Thank you.” She ripped off the first cap, emptying the bottle in one gulp. She reached for the next, only stopping to force down her fries.

She met Angelo’s surprised stare.

“Am I the worst guest you’ve ever had?”

Angelo shook his head.

“I try not to judge.”

“Trying not to judge doesn’t mean you’re not.” Lęina ate another fry. “Judging me.”

Angelo looked from Lęina to the journal still clutched to her chest. She hadn’t let it go. Not even when she fainted on the floor.

“May I?”

Lęina looked at Angelo’s calloused hands.

“Do you think a book can be cursed?”

Angelo paused—Lęina doubted anyone had ever asked him that.

“Do you think that book is cursed?”

Lęina nodded.

“Most people who follow it end up dead.”

“And that’s what brought you here?”

“It did more than bring me here.”

Lęina didn’t think there was a way she could sum up fifteen years. From the moment the journal first fell into her hands, she had committed herself to following its path. Its teaching broke through her barriers and lines.

For the first time, there was order in her mind.

Lęina had vowed to follow its pages to the bitter end. She had spent her nights piecing together the fragments of its secret map.

Scribbles her mother left began to merge with the red ink of Lęina’s pen.

This journal had taken her life and given her a journey instead.

“This map you drew me . . .” Angelo looked at her complicated sketch. “Is it real?”

“Do you think I would travel all this way if it wasn’t?”

“I have taken people off the usual trails, but this is the first location I’ve been given that I could not look up myself.”

“It’s real.” Lęina clutched the journal tighter. “I know it is. My mother’s been.”

“Where does it lead?”

Lęina’s voice got quiet.

“It’s more of a legend than a place.”

THE GARDEN

by Yuliana Amaudi

Yuliana

traveled to

the Garden

she left

to shed

her

skin.

She was tired of the life she inhabited.

The way she was forced

to live.

Yuliana

traveled to

the Garden

she left

to find

the way.

She was told once there

she would find

the answers

to take away

her pain.

Yuliana

traveled to

the Garden

she promised

she would only be a few weeks.

She said it would be like a vacation.

Restoration for

the

weak.

Yuliana

traveled to

the Garden

she left her old life behind.

She left her daughter.

She left her home.

She left

her

whole

damn

mind.

“You know that’s fake, right?” Angelo asked. “About the ice?”

Lęina rested her head against the window as they drove north. She studied the growing forest and Portuguese billboards. The occasional pasture of cows. There was something about being driven in a foreign country that made her feel small.

Like her entire life didn’t matter at all.

Lęina felt she could drive forever, spend the rest of her life in this passenger seat.

There would always be water to drink.

Cold fries from TGI’s to eat.

“The ice is fine,” Angelo disagreed. “They just want you to be afraid.”

“You never answered my question.” Lęina turned back to him. “Do you think a book can be cursed?”

“Before I can know whether or not I think a book can be cursed, I have to know whether I believe in curses at all.”

Lęina gave his point some thought; she didn’t see why he couldn’t just answer.

But she enjoyed following the way he talked. The logical way he thought.

“Then do you believe in curses?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re ruining the game.”

“Is this a game?”

“Don’t answer my question with a question.”

“Even if my question leads to the answer?”

Angelo took a moment to think as he drove his red Jeep. Lęina counted the lighters around his car: two with spiral patterns, one dotted with stars.

“I think people can be cursed,” he finally answered. “I’ve met a few.”

“What happened to them?”

“Misfortune followed them like a cloud. Bit by bit, it took them down.”

“So people can be cursed?”

“I think people can be cursed.”

“People—but not books?”

“I think something has to be alive to be cursed.”

“And you don’t feel something alive in books? Haven’t you ever felt the kiss of fabled winds brush across your face?” Lęina whispered. “Haven’t you ever found yourself floating in an infinite space? Haven’t you shed tears for characters you’ve never known? Felt emotions that can’t possibly be your own?”

Angelo stared at Lęina as though transfixed.

“You don’t know that feeling?” Lęina pushed. “Deep, deep in your heart?”

“I think I do . . . ,” Angelo finally answered.

“Then you think books can be alive.”

Lęina nodded in triumph. She returned her forehead to the window.

“You believe in curses, Angelo. I know you do.”

THINGS LĘINA FELT

by Lęina Amaudi

Lęina felt

she was made

of secrets.

More

than one human

should bear.

She felt her inner world

had formed its own inner world

and now she was too far down

her own soul

to hear.

Lęina felt

she was made

of sorrow.

More

than one human

should bear.

There were long months when she

couldn’t cry.

Then certain years

where she

drowned

in tears.

Lęina felt

she was made

of laughter.

Of laughter and riddles and fear.

Late at night she could feel something

beating in her heart,

something the others didn’t seem to share.

Lęina felt

she had made

a mistake.

Lęina felt

she didn’t

belong.

Lęina felt

she should’ve left

that day

and found

the Garden

with

her mom.

“I think I’m addicted to sadness.”

Lęina pushed down the windows of Angelo’s red Jeep. There were times when the winds blew too hard. Other times when she craved wild air.

“I really do.”

Lęina studied Angelo—she knew it was a strange thing to say. Someone had once told her that everyone was addicted to something.

But Lęina thought that was just something addicts liked to say.

She could smell sadness like a fragrance sprayed in the air. Something young girls dotted behind their ears. She smelled the way men carried sadness in their chests, always given to them by their fathers, or a girl who broke their heart.

“I smell it on people . . . ,” Lęina continued. “I smell sadness the way a dog smells fear. It’s something that calls me to others. The sadness I feel always draws me near.”

Now Lęina could feel Angelo studying her, like a strange bird he’d found in the woods. He seemed to get lost in her words, coming further and further into her world.

“I think men are afraid of their fathers,” Lęina continued when Angelo didn’t answer. “Afraid. Or at odds. Sons used to replace their fathers. Now both live too long.”

“Do you really believe that?”

Lęina thought for a moment.

“I don’t know what I believe.” She shrugged. “I think that’s just something I heard.”

They continued down the highway in silence, watching the setting sun. Here, it turned the sky orange. Clouds floated like tangerines.

“Do you fear your father?”

Angelo laughed. Lęina didn’t know why.

“Do you want to know what I think?”

Lęina nodded.

“I think you are drawn to the familiar.” Angelo smiled. “As people, we all are. We go to what feels the same. Even if that feeling is pain.”

Lęina stared at the journal on her lap—was that what this tome was? Old pain bound in leather skin? Something familiar she was willing to follow till her end?

“Does that mean we can never change?”

Angelo shook his head.

“I think we can always change.” Angelo shrugged. “You just have to be willing to walk away from the pain.”

ON PAIN

by Lęina Amaudi

Lęina

heard

pain was like a weapon.

a gun buried

deep in her heart.

Lęina

heard

pain was like

a knife.

one you couldn’t use

more than once.

Lęina

heard

pain

when she closed her eyes.

when she thought

of everyone

who lied.

Lęina

heard

pain

in others’ smiles

Lęina

heard

pain

in their silence.

Lęina

heard

pain

was

like rain—

You could only avoid the storm

when you let

it fall.

“Do you believe in magic?” Lęina asked.

“Real magic?”

“Yeah—like the sun and the moon and the stars.”

“And wolves that roam free at midnight?”

“Fated love that heals old scars?”

Angelo chewed on Lęina’s question, pulling off the highway for gas. His fingers drummed against the dashboard as he waited for a station to go free. Lęina’s ears danced to the complicated beats.

“You’re a musician?”

“You can tell just from that?”

She nodded. “I used to play in a band.”

“What instrument?”

“Guess.”

A crooked smile broke out across Angelo’s face.

He looked like the type of person who enjoyed these types of games.

Angelo didn’t rush for an answer as they waited. He didn’t speak when a pump went free. Angelo’s fingers seemed to investigate as they danced across the shiny yellow pumps that read “4.57 Real.”

He continued to look back at Lęina, combing over her tennis shoes, the ribbon in her hair, even the curve of her manicured nails.

“Keyboard,” he finally answered.

Lęina smiled.

“How did you know?”

Angelo crossed his arms like there was nothing in this world he did not know.

“You have a beautiful voice. But your fingers are soft. Too soft.”

“No one’s ever described my fingers that way.”

Angelo reached over. Lęina held out her hands.

A shiver ran through her as he touched her fingers, turning them toward the sun.

“Consider it a compliment.”

Lęina stared. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

“What was your question?”

Angelo didn’t let go of her hand.

“Do you believe in magic?”

“Do you believe in destiny?” Angelo asked back.

Lęina shook her head. “‘Destiny’ feels too big. Too big to be real.”

“You see this?”

Angelo extended his forearm and pulled up his sleeve, revealing a small bouquet of flowers above his wrist. The thin stems, tied together with a yellow ribbon, crisscrossed against his greenish veins.

“My grandmother was a gardener. Is a gardener. That is what she’d make me say. Her favorite flowers were camellias. She’d plant them every May.”

Lęina held her breath.

This was more than she’d gotten from him before.

Angelo was adept at maneuvering around a question, polite at responding, yet rarely answering.

“The day she died, I passed a tattoo parlor. I had never gotten one before. They all felt too permanent . . .” Angelo tilted his head. “The woman who gave me this had yellow camellias on her bench. A thin bouquet with baby’s breath and thorns. Someone gave them to her that morning. She told me the florist liked her smile.”

Lęina watched Angelo intently as he removed the gas pump and closed his tank. She liked the distant look in his hazel eyes.

It reminded her of rain.

“The artist told me she believed every tattoo she gave was one she was destined to give. I believe that’s magic.”

Angelo took his seat.

“I believe that’s real.”

THE GARDEN

did you know

you were born

with magic?

deep

inside

your chest?

did you know

you carried power

in your wombs

the power

to break tombs

a power

they wished

did not

exist?

did you know

you could awaken

this power

take hold

of all

you are owed?

ask yourself, dear,

be bold—

are you ready

to

transform?

“What about your parents?” Lęina asked late one night, when everyone else had fallen asleep. The rusted train rattled underneath. They were packed body to body in uncushioned seats.

Angelo sat to her left, freeing the window on her right. Lęina watched the vast swatches of green pass them by, the emeralds of the rain forest shining deep into the night.

“What about my parents?” Angelo asked.

“You haven’t said anything about them.”

“What do you want to know?”

Lęina took the time to think about her question.

“Which parent did you hate the most?”

Angelo stared at Lęina for a long moment, clearly wondering if this was a joke.

“Never mind.” Lęina shook her head. “Maybe that’s just an American thing . . .”

“You hate your parents?”

“I think I hate everyone.”

“Even me?”

“Especially you.”

Angelo seemed hurt. He pondered the possibility, sun-kissed skin creasing with the thought.

“You’re wrong. Everybody loves me.”

Lęina began to laugh. A real laugh, like silver and rust.

Angelo looked at her as though he could see her laugh lighting up her chest, shining through her dark skin.

“Have you seen my reviews?” Angelo cocked his head. “Two hundred. All five stars. You try to do my job. You see how difficult that is to do!”

“Shhh!” Lęina pressed a finger to her lips, stifling her own laughs. Someone grumbled at them in Portuguese. Angelo apologized on both of their behalves.

“What review will you give me?” Angelo asked.

His first real question.

Lęina lost herself in the thought.

What review could share what was in her heart?

YOUR 201ST REVIEW

by Lęina Amaudi

How

could Lęina

tell him

if she could,

she would share every secret she had.

she would unload them

one by one

set down her armor

and remove every bullet

from her gun.

How

could Lęina

tell him

Angelo made her feel safe.

that he made her feel heard.

but she feared he was listening

because it was his job,

not because

he needed to hear

every single word.

How

could Lęina

tell him

that when they spoke

the light in her heart

took flight

and Lęina realized she might not want her journey to end

after all?

How

could Lęina

tell him

that she was lost,

just not more than most.

How

could Lęina

tell him

that her life

wasn’t her

own?

How

could Lęina

tell him

that her heart

belonged

to her mother’s ghost?

“Will you ever tell me where we are going?”

“I told you where we’re going.”

“You told me we were chasing a legend more than a place.”

“That was enough for you before.”

“Now I want to know more.”

Angelo cleared away the last pieces of tuna on his plate. A pair of running brothers caught his eye. They ran toward the rising waves, surfboards in hand and wild looks in their eyes.

Lęina pushed Angelo’s plates to the side and placed the journal on the table.

She turned it so Angelo could see THE GARDEN written in golden script. The strap keeping the journal closed was about to rip. The hundreds of handwritten pages, pressed flowers, old letters. Faded maps and old pieces of film.

“Aren’t you going to touch?” Lęina asked.

Angelo shook his head. Lęina watched him inspect the journal from the other side of the table.

Perhaps he believed it could be cursed after all.

In a few hours, they would board the riverboat. A two-day sail would take them to the ecolodge. Once there, a local would take them deep inland, as far into the rain forest as they were allowed to go.

At night’s fall, Lęina planned to leave camp.

She would take her flashlight.

She would take the only map.

She had always thought she would enter the Garden alone, but the way Angelo stared made Lęina think she might not be on her own . . .

“Haven’t I already chosen to know?” Angelo pressed. “By traveling with you all this way?”

“You’ve only chosen to guide me.” Lęina shook her head. “You haven’t chosen to stay.”

“Would I want to stay?”

Lęina reached for the journal. She twisted the button around the faulty latch. She had never shared her mother’s old stories with anyone else.

But the way Angelo studied the journal made Lęina feel like he could hear its call.

Maybe she wasn’t insane.

Maybe there was something to the old stories after all . . .

“My mother told me of a garden . . .” Lęina spoke slowly. “A place where the moon was always full. She spoke of a land where orchids bloomed at her feet and the air was wild and sweet, and the trees were always heavy with ripe mangoes.

“My mother told me of a garden . . .” Lęina spoke slowly. “A place where the fern first learned to grow. A place where patterns formed from the chaos, and rivers ran with ancient knowledge, and even the smallest girl could summon the fiercest snow.

“My mother told me of a garden . . .” Lęina spoke slowly. “A soil where every flower could grow. The only cost of admission was your old soul.

“My mother told me of a garden . . .” Lęina spoke slowly. “A place where the first rivers met. She spoke of a place where ravens danced with stars, and every woman released her scars, and queen bees traded their stingers for crowns.

“My mother told me of a garden . . .” Lęina spoke slowly. “A place where the day twisted into night. A place where weary travelers could find refuge and reconnect their hearts to all of their darker lights.

“My mother told me of a garden . . .” Lęina spoke slowly. “A place deep in the forest where you could always hear the crashing ocean waves. My mother told me of a garden . . . she followed it to her grave.”

Lęina could feel Angelo drawing closer, spellbound by her words. It was the same look Lęina used to give her mother when she would tell Lęina the stories of the impossible lands where she planned to go.

The only place in the world Yuliana had felt she could grow.

“Most people journeyed to the Garden for its mythical beauty. Others went in search of their hearts.”

“What did your mother want to find?” Angelo asked.

“My mother wanted to transform.”

THINGS MY MOTHER HATED

by Lęina Amaudi

Yuliana

hated

her clothes.

she didn’t feel

her wardrobe

matched

her skin.

she once read that clothes

were meant to bring out

her undertones.

and she didn’t know

where to

begin.

Yuliana

hated

her car.

she hated the way it would

groan.

she hated how loudly it wore every bump,

how scratches in its purple paint were bright

like scars.

Yuliana

hated

Lęina’s dad.

sometimes she couldn’t believe

that she chose

to have—

Yuliana never allowed herself to finish

the thought.

That wasn’t

what

she

was

taught.

But Yuliana

hated

her life.

She hated how she and her husband

could never

talk.

Yuliana

thought

she would find

answers

in

the Garden.

Yuliana

wanted

answers

with all

her

heart.

“You know, you never answered my other question.”

“Which question?”

“On parents. And which one you hated.”

They lay on bamboo lounge chairs, gazing up at the banner of stars above the ecolodge. Angelo pointed out the swatches of the Milky Way. Lęina outlined the few constellations she recognized from home. She seemed to always find the Big Dipper.

The Big Dipper and Orion’s Belt. This time she saw a fishhook.

“I suppose . . .”

“‘I suppose’ means you’re lying. It’s what you say to blunt the edges of whatever you really feel.”

Angelo gave Lęina a pointed look.

“I suppose . . . I’m closer to my mother.”

“You see?” Lęina smiled. “Was that so hard to say?”

“But I do not fear my father,” Angelo pressed. “I love him. I do. We just speak less.”

A silence settled between them. Lęina lowered her head.

She liked this version of herself.

She liked the person she was when she was with him.

“I hate my mother,” Lęina decided. “Because she left.”

The moments between them stretched into minutes. Their sentences shriveled into silence. Lęina wondered if she had crossed a line, torn something between them that made her feel like she didn’t have to lie.

“Is there someone you are leaving behind?” Angelo finally asked. “Someone who will hurt if you disappear?”

Lęina shook her head.

Her father didn’t even know she was here.

“Then how can you know?” Angelo asked, sitting up in his chair. “How can you be sure she really left you if she came to the Garden to heal?”

THINGS LĘINA WISHED

by Lęina Amaudi

Lęina wished she could tell Angelo

she was scared.

More scared than she should have been.

She wished she could tell Angelo

the things she’d seen in her head

and how this was the end

of the way the old world had lived.

Lęina wished she could tell Angelo

that she wanted to go home.

Because at home

she could be

alone.

Lęina wished she could tell Angelo

she thought she wanted a friend

but now she was worried

because of her

he would end

up dead.

Lęina wished she had booked a different trip,

one that wasn’t based on myth.

She wished she could feign interest in sculptures

and look invested in different cultures

instead of holding on to her mother’s journal

like a second skin.

Lęina wished she could tell Angelo

she had made a mistake.

That all these plans were better carried out

in her head.

But if she never left her room

and only lived through Zoom

then what life

did Lęina

really have left?

Lęina wished she could tell Angelo she loved him.

But she knew that wasn’t true.

He entertained her.

That wasn’t love.

That was what a guide was supposed to do.

“I’m afraid this is the end.”

Lęina came to a stop on the path.

She was surprised at the way Angelo’s words made her heart drop.

He had led her all this way.

She had thought he had decided to stay.

The last section of the map showed a thin trail, nearly eight kilometers long. At the end, Lęina was supposed to find the entrance to the Garden.

The place she’d sought for so long.

“Do you think you can do it alone?”

Lęina nodded; she’d been prepared to make this part of the journey on her own. From what her mother had written, Yuliana hadn’t even used a guide to get this far. She’d found her way to this very trail with her mahogany eyes and her native tongue.

“You’re not curious?” Lęina asked.

“Of course I am curious. But I didn’t receive that journal.” Angelo shrugged. “Our destinations aren’t the same.”

Lęina smiled at her guide. She wondered what this journey would have been if she had been forced to do it without him.

“Angelo, do you think I’m stupid?”

“I think you’re brave.” Angelo set his pack on the ground and sat down, leaning against it. “I’ll wait right here.”

“And if I don’t come back?”

“I’ll understand.” Angelo touched his heart. “I’ll pray it’s because you found whatever you are looking for.”

WHEN YOU VENTURE INTO THE GARDEN

by Lęina Amaudi

when you venture into the Garden,

there is a promise you must make.

a sacred vow you have to take.

a toll your soul must pay

when you venture into the Garden,

go with the understanding

that nothing will ever be the same.

the life you know will fade away

and leave a new skeleton

in your place

when you venture into the Garden,

you must be willing to break with your past,

allow your mind to shatter

realize your memories are transparent,

weak and fragile like glass

when you venture into the Garden,

you must be willing to lose all that you love.

understand those that stand in the way

of the answers you seek

from above.

venture into the Garden, my child.

reach your fingertips up to your neck.

feel for the pulse that tells you

you are still here

today, you have escaped death

venture into the Garden, my child.

return from where you first came,

recall the smell of wild daisies you used to pick

and wishes you once gave to the wind

and that moment before your thirteenth birthday when you blew out the candles on

your cake and thought your whole life

was about

to begin?

return to the Garden, my child.

understand why I’ve called you home

see why you know the ways of lands you’ve never seen

why you feel like all this time

you’ve been lost

in one

eternal

daydream

return to the Garden, my child.

remember all the things they asked you to forget.

remember the Garden, my child.

I am calling

You

Home.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Photo © 2022 Tomi Champion-Adeyemi

Named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people, Tomi Champion-Adeyemi is the number one New York Times bestselling author of Children of Blood and Bone, which won the Andre Norton Award and the Lodestar Award; and its sequel, Children of Virtue and Vengeance. After graduating from Harvard University, she studied West African mythology and culture in Salvador, Brazil.

Table of Contents

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT PAGE

WHEN YOU VISIT THE GARDEN

HOW COULD LĘINA TELL HIM

THE GARDEN

THINGS LĘINA FELT

ON PAIN

THE GARDEN

YOUR 201ST REVIEW

THINGS MY MOTHER HATED

THINGS LĘINA WISHED

WHEN YOU VENTURE INTO THE GARDEN

ABOUT THE AUTHOR