Then we start to move.
We go into the restaurant and order two glasses of wine, which sit untouched between us. It gives us a chance to use the restroom and freshen up. Nicholas carries his garment bag inside, and I have a dress in my duffel bag (long, black, simple).
I slip the dress on, brushing my hair out, taking stock of myself in the bathroom mirror. I’m wearing the last few days on my face and do my best to mask it, splashing water on my skin, applying some lipstick and mascara. I’m doing what I can so I recognize the person staring back at me. My eyes popping back to life, my hair falling over my shoulders. I take a deep breath and force a smile at my reflection, which is its own form of armor.
When I step out of the bathroom, I find Nicholas waiting by the table. He is in a sports jacket, no tie, a nice pair of pants. He looksbroad and sure of himself—and stronger than I’ve seen him in a while. He looks ready.
“You clean up nice,” I say.
“I was about to say the same thing to you.”
Nicholas holds the door open and we head outside. But we don’t get back in the car.
We drop our bags in the trunk and we head, on foot, out of the parking lot and up the winding hill toward the main village, the cobblestones catching under my heels. We pass the entrance to the Nietzsche Path—that long trail between the seaside and the village, Frank’s home on the cliffs in between. The gardens beside it.
We keep going, heading toward the steps that lead into the main village itself.
The steps are steep and wiry, and I can hear it in Nicholas’s breath, as soon as we start climbing them. As much as he tries to hide it from me, I can tell that he’s struggling with the incline, the wear and tear on his lungs, on his heart. It’s visible on his face—what this walk is taking out of him.
It wouldn’t do any good to name it, certainly not now. So I walk slower instead. I walk slower in a way that lets him keep going.
We hit the final steps, and the village lays out before us. How can I explain? It’s like taking a step back in time. No cars. Just these winding cobblestone streets that can barely fit two rows of people let alone cars.
“Not bad, huh?” Nicholas asks.
“It’s so quiet,” I say.
“It’s mostly a day city. Tourist town. But after dark, especially this time of year… not much is going on…”
“Especially when one family takes all the available hotel rooms?”
“Exactly. There’s not a lot of reason to be here at night to begin with. And especially not when you have nowhere to stay over. There’s also Èze’s town motto.”
“And what’s that?”
“?‘In death, I am reborn.’?”
“That’s ominous,” I say.
“Well, it certainly doesn’t lend itself to a lot of nightlife…”
I start to laugh, turning toward him in a much needed moment of levity. But then I see it on his face. He’s still winded from those stairs. From the drive here—from all of this. He’s winded in a way that makes me want to insist that he turn around. Except he’ll never listen. I know he’ll never listen.
So instead, I just take his arm. I take his arm in a way that suggests I’m inviting him to be chivalrous, the two of us continuing down the path together. But it’s really so I can keep him closer to me, in my grasp.
We head down the cobblestone path, a fog setting in, a strong breeze, the quiet increasingly eerie.
And I have that feeling—the feeling I’ve come to know all too well since Owen disappeared. Since I was left to handle the moments of trepidation on my own.
For me—and, most importantly, for Bailey.
It comes up when I sense it: I’m getting closer to something threatening, something that won’t be stopped. That I’m about to run into it, the last moment before it’s too late to turn back.
“I guess this is what it means to walk into the viper’s nest,” I say.
“We’ve been in it, kid,” Nicholas says. “At least now we may have a way out.”
The Garden in the Sky
