Page 16 of In the Garden of Monsters

“Now you are letting your imagination run wild,” Jack said, giving me a light sock in the arm.

I laughed, but I was unnerved. How could I feel such conviction about something I had no knowledge of? And why had this ghost chosen to communicate with me? Why not Jack or any of the others? I changed the subject to quell my rising anxiety. “So, why do you think Vicino Orsini created so many monsters to represent death and the Underworld?”

Jack laughed. “We humans are all obsessed with money, sex, and death, aren’t we? But wait, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

There weren’t many trees in that part of theboschetto, and two statues were visible a few paces ahead of us—a monstrous elephant with a castle on its back, and a bizarre, doglike dragon fighting off lions. As we neared, I could see Dalí had mounted the elephant and stood in its castle, holding an arm out, pointing the beast forward. Paolo was at its base, filming.

“We’re up here,” I heard Gala say. It sounded like she was right next to me, but when I whirled about, I didn’t see her anywhere.

Jack nudged my arm and pointed up a path toward a gigantic face, its mouth wide open in a scream. I gasped. This must be the screaming ogre that Dalí mentioned yesterday. Gala stood inside the mouth of the monster, below its two stone teeth, waving at us.

“But I could hear her perfectly,” I said in awe.

“An acoustic trick that Ignazio showed us. Killer-diller, huh? Come on—there is a mountain of food up there.”

We made our way up the dirt trail to theorco. Pomegranate bushes laden with fruit flanked the stone of the monster’s cheeks, the surrounding ground littered with fallen fruit. As we approached, I saw it had a tongue—a table carved frompeperino.Above the mouth was an inscription:OGNI PENSIERO VOLA.All thoughts fly. Or at least anything said in the mouth of this ogre.

Jack went right in, but I stopped to admire the incredible structure before me. The “tongue” table was laden with food, and around the interior of the monster was a long bench carved into the rock. What a feat of engineering this must have been to create.

Dalí waved me in, and I stepped forward, crossing below the enormous teeth, but as I did, the stone walls seemed to press closer to me. My world spun terribly out of control, and everything became a blur...the faces of my companions, the food on the table. As theorcobecame awash in shades of gray that grew darker by the second, a roaring sound filled my ears, and the smell of smoke overwhelmed my nostrils.

I came to my senses in the fiery hot arms of Ignazio, who must have caught me before I smashed my head on the table.“Ogni pensiero vola,”he whispered in my ear.

The world stopped spinning abruptly and all the puzzling sensations I was experiencing ceased just as quickly. There was no smoke, no roaring noise. I took a deep breath. Ignazio righted me and let go.

“Be careful, Julia,” Jack admonished. “Those shoes really are terrible.”

“Grazie,”I said to Ignazio, but I wasn’t sure I was thankful. What did he just do? Why had everything righted with his whisper?All thoughts fly.I moved away from him to the opposite side of the tiny room.

“Grab a plate, Julia. Eat up,” Gala instructed. “You clearly need some sustenance to fulfill your duties this afternoon. It would not do to have you faint on the job.”

I pursed my lips and said nothing, surveying the spread before us instead.

Lunch was set up buffet-style, and I looked on in awe as Ignazio described the dozens of little dishes sprawled out on the table: garlic rolls; canapé of chicken liver, truffles, and woodcock; little salads withbresaolaand pomegranate seeds;maccheroniwith bread crumbs; apple and pomegranate fritters; pastry puffs with cheese and mortadella;coratella, a much revered Roman dish made of lamb’s liver and offal; roasted mushrooms; potato salad;Romanescobroccoli with pomegranate and pine nuts; roast chicken stuffed with prosciutto; and a ricotta tart for dessert. I wondered how much Dalí was paying for such catering.

“Please, partake,” Ignazio said when he’d finished. He laid a hand on the artist’s shoulder and held it there for a moment, which I thought odd—it seemed a gesture of power, and Dalí was not someone who let anyone other than Gala dominate him. I expected the artist to move away or say something, but Dalí didn’t even seem to register it.

Nor did he seem to notice that Gala had her hand high on Jack’s thigh, a sight I couldn’t help but see when I took my seat on the bench.

“Mon Dieu,”she said in French after biting into a golden croquette of some sort. She closed her eyes, savoring the flavor. “Potato.”

“Try the broccoli,” Dalí instructed me, pointing to the whorls of green on my plate. I lifted theRomanescoto my mouth but purposefully lost a pomegranate seed to the floor. A bird would find it later, I supposed. I took a bite. The broccoli, to my surprise, wasn’t cold. We were a long way from thecastello,and I did not smell or see any fire to warm the food.

Dalí looked unsatisfied. “Did you have the salad? The pomegranate seeds are the ultimate complement to the chicory andbresaola.”

I gave him a sheepish smile. “I’m not partial to salad.”

He pointed at a fritter on my plate. “Then you must have the fritters.”

I couldn’t understand his weird insistence that I eat certain foods, although I noticed they all had pomegranate seeds. Dalí being his freakish, surreal self, I assumed, wanting me to really fill Proserpina’s shoes. Fine. Much as I hated pomegranate seeds, perhaps if I ate a fritter he would leave me alone. I lifted the pastry off the plate and thought I heard the faintest of whispers.

Julia...don’t...

I was tired of my mind playing tricks on me. I took a bite. The crunch and sweetness of a pomegranate aril hit my tongue, and for a moment, I was transported. My senses were overwhelmed by a rush of indescribable love, so profound that it seemed to permeate my very being. I felt as though I was floating, ensconced in the warm embrace of someone deeply familiar yet distant. Passionate kisses, whispered promises—I experienced them all, vivid as if happening in the present.

I heard a whisper.“Ogni pensiero vola.”

And then, as suddenly as it had come, the sensation was ripped from me, leaving an aching emptiness where that feeling of pure love had been. My world was spinning, my eyes refocusing on the stone room around me. I was struck by the heady aroma of smoke and leather, as if remnants of that ephemeral moment had followed me back.

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