Page 78 of In the Garden of Monsters

A flash of memory ripped through me, of Ignazio’s description of Orlando Furioso raging through the woods, filled with jealous rage that his lover did not return his affections. The broken statue was the woodsman that Orlando threw across the field. The stone man’s head had rolled to a spot in front of Paolo, its face staring up at us, its mouth a rictus of horror. Its body was broken, and its legs and arms had detached and skidded across the ground, making tracks in the snow.

Thud. Thud. I looked back but could not see the stone giant through the snow, only its glowing green eyes, the same as the statue of Ceres.“Andiamo,”Paolo screamed, and we flew into action, scrambling to move around the broken statue before us.

I ran as fast as possible, my lungs aflame with the searing cold. I didn’t look back for fear I would find Orlando right behind us, readying to toss us aside with a heavy fist.

When we reached the door, Paolo and I began to pound upon it, hard, and when Minos opened it, I fell inward, stumbling into the palazzo, grateful for the hard tiles beneath me. The door shut behind us, and I lay there with my eyes closed, desperate to get my breath back.

“Dov’è Lillian?”Paolo’s voice was frantic. He scrambled to his feet and pushed the servant aside. Opening the door, he ran back out. But Minos just stood at the door, his head cocked, looking at us like nothing unusual was happening.

“Lillian,” Paolo screamed into the snow as he ran back down the street toward the village entrance.

I jumped up and ran after Paolo into the blizzard, finding him at the Bomarzo gate in a heap on the ground. One leg was twisted unnaturally. He wasn’t moving. Digging my hand under his scarf to feel a pulse at his neck, I was relieved to find one. I couldn’t tell what had happened. Did he slip and hit his head? Did something knock him out? I knew I wouldn’t be able to lift him.

And where was Lillian? She had been behind me at the village arch, and next to me when the statue fell in front of us.“Aiuto!”I screamed for help down the long brick corridor toward the palazzo. I hoped the snow didn’t deaden my cries as I alternated my shouts for help and for Lillian.

Just as I was beginning to wonder if I would have to drag Paolo back to the palazzo myself, Ignazio and Jack appeared at my side. Ignazio cursed as he drew close, something that sounded like “damn her.” Then he was kneeling next to Paolo. The snowflakes didn’t seem to touch him at all—I thought of his heat when he touched me and understood.

He looked Paolo over. “We can’t set that bone here. Help me.” Ignazio and Jack gingerly picked up Paolo, doing their best to avoid jostling his broken leg. As we moved through the snow, the storm intensified around us, snowflakes lashing at us like shards of ice, driven by a wind that seemed to cut through every layer of clothing. Visibility was reduced to almost nothing; the palazzo that was usually just a short distance away appeared as a vague shadow amid a blinding white landscape.

With each step, my ruined shoes sank deeper into the snow, now accumulating at an alarming rate. I trudged behind them, my heart heavy and eyes squinting against the harsh wind. Every few paces, I glanced back, my eyes straining through the increasingly impenetrable wall of swirling snow, hoping against hope that Lillian would somehow emerge. The severity of the storm made it clear: venturing out farther, even for help, was becoming perilous, if not impossible.

“Was Lillian with you?” Jack asked me after he and Ignazio had laid Paolo down on one of the long couches in the small salon where we’d earlier danced for minutes—or hours.

I couldn’t answer Jack. I could only nod and cry.

Jack brought me to a nearby settee and sat down next to me. I curled into him, glad for his warmth, for his strength. As he comforted me, a woman I had never seen before entered the room and went to Paolo’s side. Tall and spindly, she, too, looked remarkably like Minos. She examined Paolo and said a few words to Ignazio before leaving the room.

“Paolo will be fine,” Ignazio reported, pulling up a chair to join us. “He must have passed out from the pain when he broke his leg. We won’t be able to get to the doctor in this weather, but Furia is fetching materials to stabilize it until we can get someone here to set it in plaster.”

Furia.Fury. Even in my distressed state, I thought it an odd name for a woman. I half expected her to sprout wings.

Our host leaned toward me, his voice gentle, concerned. “Julia, we won’t be able to go after Lillian until the storm breaks. Mother Nature is angry, and I fear this blizzard of hers is too much for even the strongest in this house to brave.”

I buried my face into Jack’s shoulder. Deep in my heart of hearts, I was sure Lillian was dead, and it was because of me. I should have just gone home. I should never have agreed to go to theboschetto. I should have stopped her from going near Ceres. I should have known she would throw that pomegranate.

“What is going on?” Dalí stood in the doorway in a plush bathrobe and red silk pajamas. Gala pushed past him into the room. She, too, was in a bathrobe and wore a kerchief over the curlers in her hair.

“What happened to him?” she asked when she saw Paolo stretched out on the couch. Furia had just finished setting the broken bone in a splint.

Ignazio beckoned to the pair to sit with us. Dalí folded himself into a chair, but Gala refused. She stood beside her husband, arms crossed, waiting for an explanation.

“He took a fall in the snow,” Ignazio explained. “He will recover, but his leg is broken.”

Gala stared at him, hands on her hips. She cursed in Russian, and I didn’t need to know the language to realize that she was upset that their cameraman was now out of action. She didn’t care one whit about Paolo himself.

“Snow? In the Lazio?” Gala said. “I’m sure it is nothing. It never snows here.”

I was about to charge over to the window and rip open the curtains to show her, but she whirled on me before I could.

“You need to get to sleep. We have one day left to paint, and you better be ready. Jack, you come with me.”

I gaped at her.

“Gala, darling, sit down,” Jack said. “Something bad has happened.”

She opened her mouth to retort, but she must have seen something in his eyes to know that perhaps she should listen, so she sat down on a chair next to her husband.

“Julia, Paolo, and Lillian were out in the storm,” Ignazio said.

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