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“Interesting,” Wyatt says. He stands up and folds the blankets on the couch. Amity straightens the books on the coffee table.
“It’s a great story, but terribly dated,” she says. “The actress refers to her child as ‘an idiot’ and ‘an imbecile.’ She never says the child’s name or if it was a boy or a girl. It’s meant to be completely understandable that she immediately shunted the child off to an institution and kept it all a secret.”
“Agatha Christie would be canceled for that today,” I say.
We move toward the stairs and head up, discussing whether we think Roland Wingford and team have created an old-fashioned, golden age kind of mystery or something more contemporary. We all expect the former.
In my room, I drop myself onto my bed without changing. I lie still, but images are spinning in my mind. The actress inThe Mirror Crack’d from Side to Sidemoaning about the misfortune of having an “imbecile child.” Poisoned cocktails being moved around like chess pieces. Amity’s fictional lovers at improv class, leading every sketch toward a passionate embrace. I shake my head on the pillow to clear my thoughts. I close my eyes and conjure a moment that I want to feel again: Dev’s hand in mine, how it was the right size, the right weight, the right warmth. How much I didn’t want to let go. I hold on until, finally, I drift off to sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
MONDAY
Are the English a bit loosey-goosey about giving directions or are we Americans feeble about following them? Because we are completely lost. We’ve emerged from a dense, damp woods and are standing at the edge of a field trying to determine the difference between “bear right,” “bear slightly right,” and “bear right but pull gradually away.” Even if I weren’t hungover, I’d be lost.
“It says here we’re to head toward a copse of trees,” says Amity, looking down at the directions she’d been given by Constable Bucket.
Wyatt points to a row of skinny trees at the bottom of the field. “Is that a copse?”
“Isn’t that a strip?” Amity says. “A copse is maybe more like a little grove?”
“Can we rest?” I ask. “Please?”
I sit down on a fallen log. I’ve finished my water bottle, and, according to the directions for the scenic route that we think we’re following, Hadley Hall, the home of Lady Magnolia Blanders, is another mile away. My head is pounding.
“We have to find a copse, cross a meadow, and go through a stile.”
“What, pray tell, is a stile?” Wyatt says.
“It’s an opening, like a narrow passage or some steps, that we can go through but animals can’t,” Amity says. “It might even be a wooden turnstile, which I guess is where the name comes from. Or maybe vice versa.” She turns back to the directions. “After that we follow a lane that is not a path and traverse a woodland. Which may or may not be the same as a woods.”
“Cocktails are dead to me,” I say. “I’m never drinking again.”
Did I embarrass myself last night?
“Please,” Wyatt says. “We’ve all been there—you, me, and the Bohemian waxwing.”
I put a hand to my forehead to shield the sun from my eyes and look up at Wyatt.
“It’s a snazzy little bird that tends to overindulge,” he says. “When they eat too many fermented berries they get drunk and fly into buildings and fences.”
A sharp, high-pitched chirping right above us. And then a quick rat-a-tat-tat that goes directly into my head like a nail gun.
“Please make it stop,” I say.
“Great spotted woodpecker,” Wyatt says.
Amity puts her hands on her hips. “Onward. Lady Magnolia awaits.” She points to some trees in the distance. “I think it’s that way.”
We cross a meadow and follow the path into the trees, which Amity declares a woodland, where we come upon an astonishing sight. As far as we can see, blanketing the ground and circling the tree trunks, are bright purple-blue flowers that come nearly to our knees. The wind blows, and they bend in unison as gently as seaweed in shallow water.
“How beautiful,” I say.
Amity clears her throat and recites:
The Bluebell is the sweetest flower
That waves in summer air: