Page 27 of In the Garden of Monsters

“That’s a well?” It looked utterly unlike any well I had ever seen.

“It is. It was the first thing they dug before building the castle. That they were able to bore deep into the rock is a feat in itself.”

“How old is it?”

“Nearly a thousand years old.”

I tried to imagine a medieval peasant woman hauling water up through that hole. That impression in the floor probably once held a winch. As I turned to ask Ignazio, a loud hiss sounded and a huge snake slithered across my foot.

I screamed and dropped my lantern, the oil spilling out and catching fire. It flamed up and suddenly Ignazio’s arms were around me, pulling me back. Heat warmed my body. We were trapped in a corner near the well, the fire licking up the oil in the doorway.

“It will burn itself out,” Ignazio reassured me. “It’s a good thing it’s all rock down here.”

The smoke was thick and dark, and I began to choke. Ignazio held me close, smoothing my hair and whispering words I couldn’t hear over my coughing. The heat from his body was nearly more than I could bear, but the fire just feet away was even hotter. I shook against him, burying my face into his chest, the smoke coating and searing my lungs. It wasn’t long before it felt like a fire had been lit inside my chest and there was less and less air to breathe.

I looked back at the fire, hoping it would burn itself out soon. To my utter horror, a woman stood in the center of the blaze. She wore a blue dress fit for a baroque ballroom, her long blond hair piled high upon her head, and she held three fingers toward us. There was a frantic look in her eyes. Despite my growing inability to breathe, I let loose an expletive, realizing that this woman looked exactly like me. The world around me started to gray, like a movie fading out when the end came, and Ignazio’s mouth was against mine, his lips sealed to my lips, his heat flooding into me.

Smoke. Cinnamon. Then nothing.

I woke in my room, the pillows amassed like a soft fortress around my head and shoulders, a lamp on the nightstand emitting dim light. Somehow, I was wearing my pajamas, not the dress from that morning.

How oddly hale I felt... I took a deep breath to be sure, but the smoke seemed to have had no consequence to my lungs. I didn’t need to cough and wasn’t burnt. But for the smell of smoke and oil in my hair, I would have thought it all a hallucination.

Rising, I went to the window and pulled open the heavy curtain to find it was dark. The entire day must have passed me by. And that cursed glow, verdant and eerie, was back in the garden. I kept the curtain open, trying to understand where it was coming from as it grew greener and brighter—angrier, it seemed to me—until it illuminated the garden. Then, with no warning, it winked out.

A knock at the door made me jump. I hoped it might be Jack. I needed a comforting face. But there stood Demetra, a tray of tea in her hands.

“If you are rested enough, the others are gathering for dinner soon,” she said as she swept past me and deposited the silver tray on the table near the window.

“Do you know who took care of me?” I asked, thinking it must have been Ignazio. “Did you put me in my pajamas?” I didn’t think I had been taken advantage of, but then again, the memory of his lips upon mine was still strong.

“It should have been me,” she said, turning to me, her eyes full of anger.

“Who was it?” I asked, alarmed at the intensity in her voice.

She turned on a heel and left, not bothering to shut the door behind her.

I poked my head into the hallway to call her back, except she wasn’t there. I shut the door in a rush, my heart hammering inside my rib cage. She couldn’t have disappeared so quickly. What was happening to me? Sitting on the edge of the bed, my mind raced. I had expected Dalí to be the most surreal thing about this trip, but he was practically normal compared to the garden, the empty-eyed servants, the fantastical meals I had eaten, the fire, and the terrifying magnetism of Ignazio.

“Julia?” Gala’s voice sounded at the other side of the door.

I never thought I would feel relieved to see Gala, with her snarky words and prickly countenance. She was no friend, but when I let her enter, I was infused with a wash of comfort that she was there, real, standing before me.

“You look a lot better than you did this morning,” she noted, looking me up and down.

“You saw me this morning?”

“I did.” She went to the window and shut the curtains. “You are a load of dead weight when you are out cold, you know.”

“Were you the one to dress me?”

“Yes, you stupid girl. And not only that but you wasted a whole day of work! When they called me to your room, you were passed out. You reeked like smoke. Ignazio said he had already had the village doctor check you out, and you just needed to sleep it off. You wasted a whole day that Salvador could have been painting you.”

The brief respite her presence provided quickly gave way to tension once again. “Gala, I was incapacitated,” I said, exasperated. “I didn’t intend to miss the sitting.” I was incensed at her attempt to lay a burden of guilt upon me.

She folded her arms and stared at me. “What happened? Ignazio would not tell me.”

I told her the story but left out the part about the woman in the fire. And I certainly did not tell her about Ignazio pressing his lips to mine.

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