“Oh, hell no, Danny,” she said.
“No lovemaking in the interstices?”
“Please, honey, get off of me.”
“Love amongst the yew trees and daffodils?”
“I’m sorry,” said Cleo. “I’m justnotin the mood.”
Danny pouted. “You used to befun.”
Ignoring him, Cleo said, “So the guy who took our luggage said to take arightat the knot garden.”
“My mom had a vegetable garden,” said Danny. “In Iowa.”
Cleo was focused on trying to determine which direction to move in order to find a bed where she could conk out. “I feel like I’m inThe Shining,” she said.
“And I’m the crazy novelist who’s going to chase you with an axe?” said Danny.
“I didn’t mean that.”
“Sure.”
“Let’s not fight,” said Cleo. “We just need to find our way out of this…maze garden thing.” She pulled out her cellphone, but couldn’t connect. “Let’s go back the way we came,” she said.
“Good idea,” said Danny.
But neither of them moved.
“Which way is the way we came?” said Danny.
“I don’t know,” Cleo said, despairingly. Eventually, they found a sign:Welcome to the Mumberton Castle Knot Garden. A knot garden is a square space planted with aromatic plants and herbs.
“Ooooh,” said Danny, distracted. “Rosemary! Look, Cleo, every herb is labeled. And what is hyssop, I wonder?” said Danny.
Cleo ignored him as he meandered behind her,enjoying himself. After what felt like hours, Cleo located the Visitor’s Entrance of the castle, and a bellhop walked them back past the rhododendrons, took a right at the knot garden, and explained to the still-curious Danny that hyssop was an herb in the mint family, historically used medicinally for treating cancer, herpes, and ulcers.
“Hm!” replied Danny. “Well, isn’t that interesting!”
Was it interesting? Was it? Was something wrong with Cleo that she did not care one iota about what hyssop was used for in biblical times? Was she depressed? Was Danny a complete moron? Was this what people meant by “going on vacation”—wandering around foreign places, suddenly fascinated by random bits of trivia?
Cleo could remember studying things in elementary school—how to churn butter, how to make beaded bracelets. She taught herself to cut out and bake Shrinky Dinks in their oven just so she could watch the way Sylvie colored them so carefully, catching her tongue between her teeth. To tame Emma’s long hair, Cleo learned to make French braids from a book she found in the Missoula Public Library calledThe Big Book of Braids.
Once, a colleague of Cleo’s informed her that on his vacationin Belize, he had learned how a chocolate bar was made on a “Bean-to-Bar Tour.” How had her colleague transformed into a vacationer, someone who genuinely wanted to understand how a cacao bean made its way into a chocolate bar? Because Cleo was not interested—not in castle history, not in cacao. She had loved learning once—what had happened to her?
Cleo plodded up a stone spiral staircase to reach their room.The bellhop opened the door and Danny said, “Now that’s more like it!” as he surveyed their suite. Its walls were stripped back to stone and the bellhop informed them that they wereinside a turret.
Danny and Cleo beheld a ten-foot-wide bed with velvet curtains (“quite probably the largest four-poster bed in England,” said the bellhop), arrow-slit windows, and a fireplace the bellhop asked them not to use without assistance. A lush gold carpet stretched from wall to wall. The furniture was dark mahogany, intricately carved and upholstered in gold-and-rust-colored velvet. Each door featured a stone archway and a thick wooden door. The bellhop handed Danny a metal key ring with a leather circlet attached, the wordsThe Golden Suiteembossed on the loop in (what else?) gold.
On a coffee table near the fireplace, a plate with two square chocolate cookies was placed next to a cream-colored envelope. Danny grabbed both of the cookies and opened the note. “Breakfast is being served now,” he noted, checking his iWatch.
“Oh, good,” said Cleo. “I’m starving.”
“Grab me a banana, will you, babe?” said Danny, diving through the velvet curtains into their massive bed. “Silk sheets!” he exalted.
Cleo stared at the empty plate where a cookie meant for her had been.
Danny had left her just crumbs.
