A rose bush must have snagged his veil as he fell, pulling it from his face and leaving behind a few light scratches that were beginning to bleed. He had a large nose and heavy eyebrows. His jaw was wide and angular and his eyes were just as sharp. He might have been relieved or he might have been super angry, it was hard to tell what was an expression and what was just the harsh features of his face. She wouldn't have called him ugly but he certainly didn't have the beauty of Greek statues or pop idols or anything. His hair, which must have been in a ponytail, had also come loose, falling in his face. Staring intently at the rose, as if to ensure it was okay and was going to stay okay, he blew sharply from his mouth, trying to spit out the strands of hair stuck to his thin, wide lips.
He turned then, as if feeling her gaze on him. Their eyes met and both seemed extremely surprised at this. Calla's eyes widened, mimicking his, and he sat up and reached for his face. Not finding the veil, he yelped in shock and turned his head away. "Don't look at me!"
It hit Calla, then, what he kind of looked like, and she bit her lip in an attempt to hold back laughter. His face looked like he belonged in a death metal band but his attitude so thoroughly reminded her of a clergyman from an old novel she'd had to read for a literature class. The image of him dancing horribly, proclaiming how wonderful his patroness was, and then instead of reading monotonously from a book he'd instead start screaming in true death metal style, perhaps about the beautiful parsonage his patroness (had you heard of her? Surely you'd heard of her) had been so kind as to supply him with. She realized she was giggling now.
"I know I'm hideous but you could at least have the decency not to laugh! Hmph, but what am I expecting? You're a witch. What do you know of decency and manners? You've caused me to ruin my suit and my veil!" Mr. Pompous huffed, clearly deterred. He looked over the ground, trying to find his veil without turning his face toward her again.
"Sorry! I'm sorry! I'm not laughing at you, specifically, just something I thought of, I swear!" Calla attempted to reign in her giggles. She stood up and walked over to the rose bush where his veil had caught near the top and carefully unhooked it from the thorns. It was a bit torn but there weren't any holes big enough for someone to see through unless they got close and pulled at them. It was really intricate embroidery, though she thought that it was probably there to add thickness and patterns to the veil, making it harder to see through.
He was turned away from her, still trying to find his veil and still trying to hide his face. She supposed he did look a bit scary and would probably be a bit shocking to encounter in a dark alleyway, but he wasn't that bad. He wasn't horribly disfigured like most people who choose to wear masks and dress pompously are. Like in Phantom of the Opera, Erik wore a mask to cover disfigurement, which she considered unnecessary but could understand. Mr. Pompous, on the other hand, didn't seem to have any such reason to wear a mask--his face seemed perfectly normal, if a bit harsh.
She pressed the top of the veil against his forehead and pulled the ribbons around to tie them in the back as he'd had it before. As soon as the veil had come into his vision he'd frozen. Calla noted that his first reaction when surprised seemed to be to freeze and assess the situation. When Calla finished tying it and pulled away, Mr. Pompous scrambled to his feet, bid her goodbye and hurried away.
She raised an eyebrow at this, as he'd forgotten the rose he'd so desperately protected just a moment ago. She waited a moment to see if he'd come back for it, then silently chided herself for waiting since she didn't particularly think he should be the one keeping it.
"Sorry, again, little rose. You've had to go through so much today," she whispered as she hurried out of the garden with the pot in her arms, hoping Mr. Pompous wouldn't remember the rose and come back for it before she could get away. She slipped out of the Garden and weaved her way through vaguely familiar trees until she saw the gateway. She was about to walk around it again when she remembered the carriage had taken her through the gateway. If one goes through a gateway, to get out one must return through the same gateway. She couldn't remember if she'd read that or heard it from Grandma, but she followed the advice anyway and slipped through the gate.
She felt the magic flow over her again and, since she was going through slowly, she could feel that it was just as old and unused as the portal from Mr. Pompous's not-so-humble abode to his version of the Garden. She wasn't absolutely sure but she was starting to feel like her Garden and his Garden were like two sides of the same coin. Except one side is sad and dark and has been covered in ice for as long as anyone can remember.
On the other side, she looked back through the gate but, just as always, it didn't seem like a magical portal. It was still just the same old stone arch that looked on the verge of collapsing; no sparkles of magic, not even a hint that it led anywhere but this forest. The trees on this side looked... wilder. The trees on the other side had seemed like they led to somewhere inhabited but these had always looked like they led deeper into some enchanted forest. She'd always liked that about them. It had always made her trek to the Garden with Grandma seem just a bit more magical, a bit more mysterious.
Part of her wanted to walk around the arch and go check on her version of the Garden--her side of the coin--but it was already late and she was somewhat afraid that she might run into Mr. Pompous somehow. But she hadn't checked on the Garden today... and she was supposed to do it every day.... Calla looked back in the direction of home and then back in the direction of the Garden. If she went home and Grandma asked her if she'd taken care of the Garden today... well, there was no lying to Grandma, not even half-lying.
It was decided, then. She'd have to go check on the Garden. If she didn't, it would absolutely be the one day Grandma asked if she'd gone and Grandma would absolutely send her to go check on it. Stepping around the archway and clutching the rose close to her chest, she hurried through the woods to the Garden as the light dimmed, slowly enveloping the trees in darkness. She was reminded of last night when she'd hurried through the trees. She hoped there would be as few surprises as there had been then: none. She'd had enough surprises for the day.
Calla guessed the universe hadn't thought so because, as she stepped through the last line of trees in sight of the garden, she nearly screamed. Absolutely nothing was more terrifying than what was before her... the implications alone.
The Garden, the very Garden her family had kept frozen for centuries, was no longer frozen. The roses seemed to stare at her as she crept through the aisles... in the absolute creepiest way, as if they wanted to reach out with their thorny branches and drag her into their depths to feed off her and leech all of her magic from her. Calla clutched the rose closer to her chest, trying to walk in the absolute center of the aisles, as far from the rose bushes as possible.
She turned a corner and saw the gazebo. This might have been a relief to her except the glass display dome was sitting atop the pedestal without a so much as a scratch and it was no longer empty. Inside, peering through the glass at her, was a severed head. Skin pulled taught, hair barely clinging to the skull, eyeballs like raisins.