Bert only crossed her arms and threw her a broad wink.
Cosima wondered if it made her a bad person that she’d so quickly had her fill of Bert. She wanted to get back to the part of this day that was just her and Edie and the open countryside. “Would you be able to point us in the correct direction?”
“The map wasn’t exactly specific,” Edie added. “There was one of those tiny rulers to measure the space and convert it to how many miles to go, but I don’t really understand how to measure the distance for yourself once you’re in the place and not using the map. I think we’ve been walking across this field for a half mile-ish.”
“Edie’s navigating has been quite helpful,” Cosima said, because she didn’t want Bert to get the wrong impression. “I think we only need a last point to get us there.”
Bert’s smile showed off the glint of gold crowns. “In the end, you might need a bit more than a point. That’s what I think. But I reckon you’ll find quite a bit of what you’re looking for, and maybe more than you can believe possible.”
“Do you mean the treasure?” Edie stage-whispered. She gazed up at Bert with eyes that had gone so green, they matched the grass.
“For heaven’s sake.” Cosima pressed both of her palms to her temples. “Hermione’s Stile?”
Bert gestured to a wide-limbed tree hulking over a low dip in the field some fifty yards away. “You’ll have seen that on your map. Harrington’s oak, it’s called.”
“We’re close!” Edie exclaimed. “On the map, the stile is only one length of the tiny ruler past the tree!”
“About that,” Bert agreed. “Lucky for you, the weather will be nice and clear all day in the event you may need to venture a bit farther.”
“We should go, then,” Cosima said. “Bert, it was lovely meeting you. Thank you for your help.”
Linda stood up and gave herself a shake as if Cosima’s words meant the same to her as to her mistress. Bert beamed. “Watch your feet heading down the hill. It’s slippery from the rain. I will see you two by and by.”
Bert whistled at Linda, and they took off in the direction they’d come from, Bert in long strides and Linda only visible as she parted the grass in front of her. “By and by,” Cosima said. “Good lord.”
“Wasn’t that the best thing that has ever happened to anyone on earth?” Edie’s eyes were wide when she turned to Cosima. The sun had brought color up in her cheeks and the blunt tip of her nose. The breeze was picking up her hair and sending it in piecey bits, like she had walked out of a Ralph Lauren ad. “Obviously, if having a nice conversation in a pasture with a boomer and her dog is the best thing that has ever happened to me, I’m still winning at our game, but I canpretendit’s magical.”
Cosima couldn’t help it—she snorted and started walking toward the tree. “You’re not winning. Not by a long shot. My life has been so repressed, for example, that it never occurredto me I could text Duncan about something trivial, like the cipher. I felt I couldn’t, not without giving him a reasonable explanation for why I’ve abandoned my post and am developing a dust allergy in England.”
“Hmm.” Edie reached down and picked a long strand of grass to twirl. “You definitely get points for that. Though, get ready for my next observation.”
“Which is?” Cosima couldn’t be sure if she was ready, but everything she wasn’t ready for was another turn of the key, winding everything up, pushing her forward. Was that good or bad? Did she want to be awake?
“I didn’t know it was so nice to have clothes that fit.” Edie ran her hand over the sleeve of her jacket. “I’ve never done anything but make do when it comes to clothes. I feel like an entirely different person wearing this jacket.”
Oh, she certainly hadnotbeen ready, and now Cosima wasn’t sure what to do with her hot cheeks. “Who do you feel like?”
Edie gave her a one-sided, crooked, self-effacing smile that pinched Cosima’s heart. “Myself, I think. Who knows? Turns out I’ve hardly met her.”
“Yes.” Cosima turned away from that smile, which was beginning to feel emotionally lethal. “You do get game points for reaching the ripe age of twenty-eight before owning a properly fitted garment.”
“Do I get extra points if the reason I own it is because you’re the first person who’s paid attention?” Edie knocked Cosima with her shoulder, soft against her arm. It made her want to close her eyes and see if it would happen again.
The first person who’d paid attention. What world had ignored Edie Whitelock? Her appeals were so conspicuous. The jacket simply made EdiemoreEdie.
Edie in her green jacket was, to Cosima, as correct as theperennial beds at the Castle, shape-shifting through the high season from one glorious bloom to the next.
She supposed it was how her mother felt, making movies.
It was a feeling Cosima wanted more of for herself.
They reached the tree, which was dripping with rain under its branches. Edie held her hands up to the water. “Do you know what this is called? Fog drip. This tree is so huge, it’s nearly storming under here.”
And this woman had calledhera nerd. “The hill is steep.” Cosima walked around the trunk of the oak, brushing rainwater from her arms and hair while looking dubiously down the rain-flattened grass of the hillside. “Maybe we should find a way to walk around.”
“Let me see.” Edie came up beside her. “Cosima! Look! There’s the stile! It’s just—”
And that was when Edie fell down the hill. On her ass. Like it was a slide at the carnival.
