The Aster Garden

The Aster Garden had always been a place of stillness, a half-acre of overgrown flowers and gnarled trees behind my grandmother’s house. After she passed, I inherited it, and I spent my weekends there, clearing weeds and coaxing life back into the soil. But it was the dreams that started three weeks ago that turned the garden into something else.

In the dream, I was in a room I didn’t recognize—all pale walls and too-bright light. A man stood before me. He had sandy hair and a soft smile, and he said, ‘You’ve been neglecting the asters.’ His voice was calm, almost kind. I remember thinking he looked like a gardener, with his beige overalls and dirt under his nails. But then his smile vanished, and he grabbed my wrists with a force that felt like iron. I struggled, my feet slipping on the linoleum, but he was impossibly strong. He shoved me to the ground, pinning me, his thumbs digging into the soft flesh just below my palms. I woke gasping, the ghost of pressure still on my skin.

The next morning, I saw the bruises. Two perfect ovals, one on each wrist, mottled purple and green. They ached when I flexed my hands. I told myself it was a dream, that I’d maybe slept on my arms awkwardly, but the symmetry was unnerving. And they hurt—a deep, throbbing pain that felt like it came from inside my bones.

I tried to ignore it, but the next night, the dream returned. This time, the man was in my garden, standing among the asters, his back to me. When he turned, his face was older, more tired, and he said, ‘You must water them at midnight.’ I woke with a start, and on my wrists, the bruises had deepened, and new ones had formed on my ankles, as if something had gripped me.

Every night after that, the dreams grew more vivid. The man’s name was Elias, he told me, and he had been the groundskeeper of a grand estate a century ago. He spoke of a fire that destroyed his home, and of his wife who died in it. He said he was trapped in the garden, in the roots of the asters, and that he needed me to help him cross over. But each time he asked for help, his touch became more possessive, and I would wake with new marks—on my shoulders, my neck, my hips.

One afternoon, I was in the garden, pruning the aster bushes, when I noticed something peculiar. The soil was churned up near the oldest bush, and there, half-buried, was a rusty key. I dug it out, and it felt warm in my palm, as if it had been held recently. That night, I dreamt of a hidden door in the garden wall, behind a curtain of ivy. Elias was there, and he pointed to a keyhole. ‘Unlock it,’ he said, ‘and we’ll both be free.’ I woke with the key in my hand.

I was terrified, but curiosity gnawed at me. I went to the garden at dusk, found the ivy curtain, and behind it, a small iron door I had never noticed. The key turned with a click, and the door swung open, revealing a narrow spiral staircase descending into darkness. I knew I should walk away, but something pulled me down.

The stairs ended in a stone chamber, dusty and cold. In the center was an old well, its rim cracked. Peering in, I saw nothing but blackness. Then, a voice echoed up: ‘You came.’ It was Elias. I stumbled back, but his voice filled the room. ‘I was a man once, a gardener for the Harrow family. They accused me of setting the fire that killed my wife. They chained me to this well and left me to die. My bones are still down there.’ I felt a cold hand on my shoulder, and when I turned, he was there—pale, gaunt, but real. ‘You have my key,’ he said, ‘and now, you have my release.’

He reached for me, and I felt his hands on my wrists, the same grip as in my dreams. But this time, he wasn’t pinning me down. He was pulling me toward the well. I struggled, but his grip was unbreakable. ‘You’ll join me,’ he whispered, ‘in the deep, where the asters drink.’

I screamed, and just then, the garden’s caretaker, an old woman named Mrs. Alcott who had known my grandmother, appeared at the top of the stairs. She shouted something in a language I didn’t understand, and threw a handful of salt toward Elias. He recoiled, his grip loosening, and I stumbled free. Mrs. Alcott pulled me up the stairs, out into the cool night air, and slammed the iron door shut, locking it with the same key.

‘That spirit,’ she said, breathing hard, ‘has been trapped there since I was a girl. He tried to lure me too. He can only manifest through dreams, leaving marks on your body to weaken you. He was using you to open that door.’

I looked at my wrists, the bruises now fading, but the scars of his grip remained as faint white lines. Mrs. Alcott told me to bury the key and to plant a row of thorns along the garden wall. I did, and though the dreams have stopped, sometimes at midnight, I hear a faint scratching at the aster bush, as if something is trying to dig its way out. And I see his face in every reflection, waiting for another gardener to unlock his door.