Page 48 of In the Garden of Monsters

Crimson heat rose to my cheeks. “Thank you,” I managed, still unnerved from my dream encounter with him the night before. I drew upon what courage I could. “Signor, you are picking up my friend Lillian today, right?”

Ignazio nodded. “My driver will leave for Attigliano this afternoon. She will be here in time for dinner.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

“Anything for you, signorina.”

I didn’t dare look at him, unable to stop thinking about his hands upon me. Surely it had been a dream, but it didn’t feel like a dream. I hardly dared to admit to myself how much I wanted his touch again.

Turning away from him, I went into theorco’s mouth. I sat next to Paolo and tried to cleanse my mind by focusing on Lillian’s arrival. My friend would be here soon, and if I knew Lillian, she wouldn’t put up with any shenanigans, ghosts, or whatever Ignazio was. Gala, I was pretty sure, would hate her. For the first time in days, I was filled with hope.

But that feeling didn’t last long. Thepeperinotable had been laid with simple fare, salads, meatballs, andbruschetta. Dalí took the liberty of making a plate for me, but my heart sank when I saw that pomegranate seeds dotted every dish he’d served me. Rejecting his offering, I took a hunk of bread, slathered it with butter, topped it with some sliced figs, and decided that would be my lunch. I wasn’t going to ingest another seed of my own volition.

“You need to eat more, my goddess.” Dalí deposited abruschettawith ricotta, olive oil, and a pomegranate seed on my plate. “We have a long afternoon ahead of us, and you must keep up your strength.”

“I’m not that hungry,” I said, feeling Ignazio’s eyes boring into me. He stared at me so intensely that I thought he might burn a hole through me. It was as though he was trying to will me to eat the food Dalí had proffered. I smiled awkwardly at him, then turned back to my piece of bread, heat rising to my cheeks.

“I’ll have it,” Paolo said, plucking thebruschettaoff my plate.

It was an impolite gesture, one that caused Ignazio to turn on his heel and leave theorco, but it made me want to hug the cameraman.

“Why did you do that again? You should have eaten it,” Gala scolded me once Ignazio was out of sight. “You are always insulting our host.”

I didn’t even bother to answer her, and Dalí happily filled the silence gabbing away about how, as an adolescent, he would regularly throw himself from the top of the stairs at school for attention. When I’d had my fill of both bread and Dalí’s narcissism, I excused myself by saying I was going for a walk. Jack rose to join me, but Gala’s hand on his arm stopped him in his tracks. When Paolo also moved to follow, I waved him back to his seat as well. I wanted to be alone, away from them all, to try to make sense of my thoughts.

I headed toward Proserpina’s bench, but instead of taking the fork back to the hippodrome, I went right, past a few lesser statues, until I reached the well-worn ram of Aries. Patting its snout, I wondered about the artist who had fashioned all these creatures, when a flock of turtledoves swarmed above me, their wings making a deafening sound. They came to rest on the path, their sonorous coos filling theboschetto.Then the flock began to walk away from me, their gray heads bobbing, the orange on their wings bright in the sunlight. They moved together, like one living organism, with purpose. I couldn’t help but follow them.

They approached the statue of Ceres. Most pooled around her enormous legs, a few perched themselves on her arms and moss-covered shoulders, and the rest on the edges of the flower basket atop her head. Unease gnawed at my insides as we drew near, a silent warning whispering in the back of my mind. Yet the enchantment of the birds, with their soothing coos and the hypnotic flutter of wings, lured me closer, overshadowing my intuition. When I reached Ceres’s feet, buried in the earth, I looked up at her face. She seemed so serene, so sweet, so relaxed.

While I gazed upon her visage, it seemed to come to life, her lips curling into a slight smile, her head turning slowly to look at me. Then her left hand, which rested on her knee, turned upward before my eyes. I was too entranced to be afraid. The forest around me was filled with the sound of the turtledoves. Their wings brushed against my legs and my arms, their feathers soft and warm. A strange force compelled me. I wanted to take her hand, to hold my body against hers, to feel the stone turn to flesh and wrap me in her comfort.

I reached my hand toward her massive hand, and as I brushed against her index finger, the bushes around the statue burst into flames, causing the turtledoves to fly upward in a cacophonous swirl. With a scream, I spun around, relieved to see the way behind me was clear. Orpheus stood just beyond the fire, mewing at me. I ran toward him, and he led me away from the flames to the clearing beyond theorco.And when I looked back at the statue of Ceres, it was stoic. There was nothing—no smoke, no fire, no turtledoves, no evidence to suggest that anything I’d just witnessed had actually occurred.

My heart in my throat, I hurried back to the Mouth of Hell but found that my companions were no longer there. I was baffled by their absence—how did they not see all the doves? The statue of Ceres was visible from the opening of theorco.They were probably waiting for me at Proserpina’s bench, Dalí impatient for my return, and Gala ready to dock my pay. The weight of the last few days crushed down upon me. I entered theorco, sat down at the stone table that was its tongue, and cried.

When I finally pulled myself together and returned to Proserpina’s bench, only Dalí and Paolo were there, and while I was sure they could see I had been crying, neither of them dared to ask why. Dalí arranged me for the sitting, but I barely registered him moving my arms and hands. I was numb and empty inside. Only when he placed the pomegranate in my hands did I feel a spark of emotion rise within me. I repressed the urge to hurl it to the other end of the hippodrome. If I managed to finish out the week, I vowed I would never touch another pomegranate so long as I lived.

Dalí let me look at the canvas when we were done for the day. It was different from the piece he’d painted the night before. In this scene, I sat on a bench at the edge of a vast field, staring off into the distance, my golden locks framing my face, the blue sky beyond, with dark clouds impinging on whiter ones. The pomegranate in my hand had uneven jade and ruby stones embedded in its side, and its crown had been made into jeweled points. It was hardly complete, but it was already breathtaking. I thought of Gala’s words—how Dalí wanted me because I was so surreal—yet I was the least surreal thing in the painting. I looked as I should, I thought. It was everything else around me that was wrong.

14

I was overjoyed to find Lillian waiting for me at thepalazzo. Seeing her gave me the jolt of determination I had lost earlier when I cried in the Hell mouth. With my friend by my side, I would be able to see the week through, I was sure of it.

“Lily!” I threw myself into her arms and buried my face into her shoulder. She hugged me tight.

Gala cleared her throat behind me. My heart sank. Dalí must not have told her Lillian was coming. I let my friend go and turned to face Gala.

“This is Lillian?” Dalí asked, striding forward before I could make the introduction. He took Lillian in his arms as though she were his dancing partner and twirled her around.

Gala looked like she might whip a knife out and stab one of us.

Lillian gave Gala a broad grin and went to her. She grasped both of Gala’s hands in hers and gripped them tightly. “I am honored to meet you, Signora Dalí. I have heard so much about you.”

Gala did not look pleased by Lillian’s bold behavior. “I’ve heard nothing about you,” she barked, withdrawing her hands.

Lillian wasn’t deterred. “I’m Julia’s roommate. She tells me you are an inspiration to her, a woman who knows what she wants in life and isn’t afraid to take it.”

I had said no such thing, of course. But I had seen Lillian do this before. She was a marvel when it came to smoothing things over, assuaging doubts, and bolstering her friends. I had told her how difficult Gala was, and this was her way of mollifying the Russian. It worked. I glanced at Gala and saw the slightest twitch of pleasure at the edge of her lips.

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