Lilith Bloom had a peculiar feeling that the rose garden wanted to eat her. She surveyed it through the open car window, unable to look away. The garden seemed to survey her back. It was enormous. Its red blanket surrounded a solitary mansion at the end of Rose Street, Rosenstrasse in German. No other houses stood in sight, only a distant forest. Apart from tires grating on the gravel, it was eerily quiet, too quiet for a hot summer afternoon.

Their rental sedan pulled into the motor court in front of the mansion, joining a long line of cars. A sudden gust of wind washed over Lilith’s face. She expected it to smell like roses. Instead, it reeked of rotten sweetness, of something decomposing. Lilith rolled up her window.

“Panther,” she whispered.

No answer.

“Panther Bloom Junior! Will you kindly wake up?”

She shook the black shape curled to her left. The shape yawned, revealing a long tongue and rows of pearly teeth, then promptly sat up and blinked. It wasn’t exactly a dog, not in the most typical sense of how one would describe it. It was a cat in a dog’s body. In proper canine terms, it was a whippet, Lilith’s pet and only friend. He possessed a unique gift. He talked, as Lilith ascertained her parents. Of course, they refused to believe her.

Lilith’s father, Daniel Bloom, an avid whippet breeder and dog race enthusiast, deemed Panther as the runt of the litter. Too softhearted to part with the puppy, he gave it to Lilith last summer for her twelfth birthday. Since then, they’d become inseparable, disappearing on long walks in Boston neighborhoods and arriving this fine sunny day in Berlin, after Lilith point-blank refused to go anywhere without Panther, especially not to the Bloom family reunion at her grandfather’s house.

“You’d think a herd of elephants died here,” she whispered.

Panther raised a brow.

No matter how much Lilith pleaded with him to talk in front of her parents, he viciously disapproved of the idea, lest they parade him in some freak show like an otherworldly miracle.

“Don’t look at me like that. I hate it when you don’t answer,” Lilith said, loudly enough for her parents to hear. They exchanged a painful glance.

“Here we are, my puppies. Looks like we made the cut,” said Daniel Bloom cheerfully, attempting to diffuse the mood. When nervous, he spoke in dog show lingo.

“Lilith, did you take your pills?” said Gabby Bloom, as she twisted in the passenger seat and gazed at her daughter through metal-rimmed glasses, her fingers momentarily paused from knitting.

Panther studied Lilith.

Lilith studied the front seat. “I thought we agreed that pills are for sick people, Mother. I must assure you that currently I don’t feel sick in the slightest.”

“Don’t take that tone with me, missy. Look at me when I talk to you. I asked you a question. Did you or didn’t you?”

Panther continued to study Lilith.

Lilith continued to study the seat.

Gabby’s lower lip trembled. She looked like a lost squirrel perched on top of a roof, not knowing how she got there or how to get down. Her brown hair could pass for fur standing on end.  

“Lilith, don’t be puppyish. Answer your mother,” Daniel muttered while patting his pockets to look busy.

An awkward silence filled the car.

“I flushed them down the toilet, on the plane. By accident. They’re excruciatingly slippery,” Lilith said with an innocent expression on her face. She liked using sophisticated words like excruciatingly to purposefully annoy her mother.

“You what? Daniel, are you listening? Did you hear what she said?” Gabby faced her husband.  

He squinted at something out the window. “I’m sure she didn’t mean for it to happen, love. We just crossed the Atlantic, effectively gaining six extra hours. She can skip a day, can’t she? For time adjustment purposes?”

“That’s ten dollars down the drain! Have you forgotten what happened last time?” Gabby’s hands performed an intricate dance of opening her bag, taking out rolls of wool, one half-knit sweater, another half-knit sweater, a handful of needles, and an orange vial of pills.

Lilith and Panther exchanged a glance.

Gabby stuffed the vial into her daughter’s hands and watched her reluctantly open it and take out two blue capsules.

“Now,” she said.

Lilith stuck the pills under her tongue, miming a fake swallow.

Meanwhile, escaping his wife’s mounting fury, Daniel stepped out of the car and busied himself with the luggage. Tall and scrawny, he looked like a whippet himself, missing perhaps only the tail.

Eager to spit out the bitter tablets, Lilith made to follow.

“Wait a second, missy. Show me your tongue.” Gabby leaned in for closer inspection.

Lilith opened her mouth and, without dislodging the pills, said with a practiced smile, “Sorry, Mom.”

“Do not do this again.”

“I won’t.”

“Good. Out you go. We’re late as it is.” Gabby hurried out of the car, her motherly duty done.

Lilith and Panther exchanged another glance and clambered out, looking around. They were at the end of a perfectly round courtyard crammed with cars of all types, their inexpensive rental the very last.

Lilith stood with a triumphant smile on her face. Slender and petite, she dressed meticulously. Taking forever to pick out clothes calmed her whirring mind, although it caused Panther to lose his. Today she sported a navy skirt, a striped sailor shirt, red Mary Janes, and a matching beret knitted by her mother.

Lilith had a collection of these. A rosy one for ballet lessons, a black one for walking Panther, a blue one for reading, and a red one for special occasions. Festive outings rarely happened in her life, but whenever they did, she always wore red, for confidence.

Lilith peered into her handbag, making sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. She confirmed her dog-shaped wallet with a few dollars in it, a pack of tissues, a leotard, a tutu, ballet tights, slippers, three berets, a journal, a pen, and a book. Always a book. Presently it was Arthur Canon Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles, a corner bent on page thirteen.

Warm wind ruffled her hair. Lilith took out a tissue and buried her face in it, overwhelmed by the sickening scent of rose mixed with other decaying sweetness.

“Lilith? You okay?” Daniel peered at his daughter, but in another second, he was distracted by a stout figure that emerged from behind heavy front doors and approached them with outstretched arms.

“Ah! Daniel...Gabby...Lilith. I see you made it. Come in, come in. We’re about to start dinner.”

Firm and charming, with a barely discernable accent, the voice belonged to Alfred Bloom, Lilith’s paternal grandfather, still handsome for his age. Tufts of white hair crowned his head, but this is where the jolly illusion ended. His eyes glinted steel.

Suppressing an odd urge to run, Lilith scrutinized her grandfather, the famous rose gardener who commanded astronomical prices for his flowers, supplying them fresh all over the world for weddings, funerals, and everything in between. Rumor had it that he fed his garden a special secret fertilizer. None of his competitors could match the beauty of his roses, the length of their life, the brilliance of their color, or the strength of their bouquet.

That, however, didn’t concern Lilith at the moment. She even forgot about the smell, letting the tissue slip out of her hand. What concerned her stood beside her grandfather’s leg.

“Excuse me, but that is not a dog. That is, dare I say it, a monster,” she whispered.

The monster was a big, pewter-colored mastiff, rolls of skin in place of a head, thick paws stepping in tempo with its master’s polished shoes, haunches rising and falling menacingly. If Panther looked like a cat, this thing looked like a bear. It looked at the girl as if studying her like food. Lilith swiftly picked up her pet.

“Did I mention I eat mastiffs for breakfast?” Panther growled into her ear, his first spoken words since they’d arrived.

“Unless it slurps you down as an apéritif first,” said Lilith.

“Incidentally, I’m too bony for that,” growled Panther.

“I don’t think he would care.”

“I understand that you love me very much, but may I ask you to loosen your grip a little? It’s rather hard to breathe.” Panther produced kind of a doggy smile.

Lilith narrowed her eyes and unclenched her arms. Before Panther could mutter another sarcastic remark, a balding butler emerged and took the mastiff away, to Lilith’s immense relief. Greetings were exchanged in both German and English, hands were shaken, and luggage was both wheeled to the porch steps and carried over. Alfred Bloom loudly professed his desire to take care of his granddaughter and ushered Daniel and Gabby inside to join the rest of the Bloom family, who’d arrived that morning and were now unpacked and waiting for dinner.

Apprehensive of crowds, Lilith hoped she could hide in her room until this parade ended and she was flying home, back to her books, ballet lessons, and walks with Panther.

“Lilith, my dear,” Alfred beckoned her.

She took a tentative step forward, when a shiver went through her, a premonition. She looked at the mansion, a big rectangular block of stone, about a hundred feet long, with its narrow windows and central tower rising from the roof like the bud of a rose. It didn’t feel welcome. It felt like a tomb that came alive at night, devouring everything in its wake. Red roses only added to the illusion, making the garden look like a pool of blood.

“Do you think it’s carnivorous? The mansion?” whispered Lilith.

Panther sniffed at the air. “Rather scavenging, judging by the smell. The place stinks like a dump.”

Alfred called again.

It wasn’t polite to drag her feet any longer. Lilith sighed, clasped Panther tighter, and forced herself up the steps and into the chatter of guests, the tinkling of wine glasses, and an otherwise merry concoction of noises usually associated with big fancy dinners.