Page 22 of Atlas of Unknowable Things

Bells were beginning to go off in my head, though I couldn’t precisely grasp what I had at my fingertips until a few minutes later when I stumbled across a curious piece of trivia.

Apparently the Cyrenes so revered the plant that they stamped the image of its seedpod on their currency.

That seedpod, it turned out, looked exactly like the modern-day representation of a heart, and some sources posited that this humble seed was in fact the origin of that symbolism.

I thought back to the heart design I’d seen on the front gate when I’d arrived, and possibly even what I’d mistaken for an ouroboros above the entrance to the scriptorium.

My heart raced with excitement, but my mind was getting a little muddled, so I decided to go for a walk to clear my head.

The afternoon sun beat down on my shoulders as I headed along the twisting garden paths, around fountains glittering with flowing water, and eventually found myself at a building tucked into a verdant spot in the woods.

All heavy beams and stonework, it resembled a formidable hunting lodge.

It seemed like a place where important things might happen, and yet it was dark, with looming windows.

Shallow stone steps led to an oak door, but when I tried the handle, I found it was locked.

I noticed that there was a slot for a key card nearby.

Standing out there at that building, I was overcome by an eerie, uncanny feeling.

I peered through a window, and I’m embarrassed to say that something about the deserted, darkened hallway gave me the creeps.

I couldn’t tell if it was a dormitory or a set of classrooms, but I was struck by a profound desire to go inside. If only I could get hold of a key card.

Giving up, I headed back through the garden toward the cabana. When I reached the path, I was surprised to see Finn there, gathering velvety spears of lavender and gently placing them in a wicker basket. The scent rose sharply in the air.

“What are you up to?” I asked.

Around us the lavender plant buzzed with insect activity.

“Picking some lavender for tonight’s dessert. Lexi’s making chocolate lavender mousse.”

“Lavender mousse?” It sounded wretched to me, but I made a noise as if to convey I thought it sounded delicious.

“Yeah. It’s disgusting, but we all pretend to like it so Lexi doesn’t throw a tantrum.”

“Oh, that’s right.” I’d forgotten we were supposed to have game night soirée tonight—the whole gang. Back in New York, I loathed activities like game nights (I did not play well with others), but I was determined to be polite.

He looked back at the bush, at the flurry of little pollinating wings, and then shook his head. “Pollinators are dying out, you know.”

“I’ve heard. Just one more sign we’re staring down the barrel of our own demise. It’s pretty bleak.”

He looked at me deeply as if trying to figure out the answer to a riddle, and then I detected a strange shift in his demeanor. “You’ve heard of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, right?”

“The oil rig that exploded a while back?”

He nodded. “Do you know how much oil spilled into the ocean? Five million barrels. Think of the devastation to marine life that caused, not to mention the workers who were killed in the blast. It was months before they were able to cap the broken well.”

“That’s awful,” I said uneasily. I noticed a particularly large insect that was crawling along the balustrade. “Is that a wasp?”

“Yep. They grow pretty big up here.”

I had an uncanny feeling that this had all happened before.

“Do you know the difference between bees and wasps?” he asked.

“Bees make honey and wasps don’t,” I said. “Bees are pollinators and wasps aren’t.”

He shook his head. “Wasps are pollinators, too. Very important for our ecosystem. No,” he said. “The real difference is that wasps don’t die when they sting.”

He held my gaze a moment and then cheerfully went back to collecting the lavender.

I spent most of the rest of the day and early evening reading in the cabana before quickly hopping on the Zoom I had scheduled with Guillaume. Thankfully, the connection wasn’t too bad.

“You are pretty,” he said, and I flinched.

He was young, maybe twenty, with floppy reddish-brown hair.

Immediately I disliked him. He seemed to be set up in the tavern, because I could see empty barstools lined up behind him.

“My manager is afraid of the bad press, but he isn’t here now.

” He scooted forward on his chair, or maybe it was a barstool.

“Now, what do you want to know about Sabine?”

“Well,” I said, looking down at my notepad, “I’ve read the newspaper accounts of what happened, but is there anything else you can tell me? Anything that might not have made it into the papers?”

“Like what?” He squinted at me.

“Just in general, is there anything you can tell me about her. What was she like?”

Guillaume seemed to be thinking for a moment. “She was a good girl. Dressed properly. Not like some girls. You know the kind—trashy girls. My sister was not trashy.”

I tried not to show the revulsion I was feeling. “Did she have any particular interests?”

“Interests? How should I know? My grandmother, Jeanne, knew her best. You should talk to her probably. Mostly Sabine was, what’s the word?… stubborn. If Sabine decided something, there was no use trying to tell her something different.”

“Stubborn how? Can you give me an example?”

“No. Just stubborn. She did what she wanted, didn’t listen to my parents. She was different from most girls. Not looking for romance.”

I raised an exhausted eyebrow. “I think a lot of young women are looking for things other than romance.”

“Okay, but Sabine, all she cared about was money and power.”

I felt a strange chill. “What kind of power?”

Frowning as if searching for the right words, he gesticulated. “Power. You know. Control. Jeanne told me things.”

“What kind of things?”

“She was obsessed with royalty. And with Hildegard.”

So there definitely was a connection. There was a silent moment where I tried to process that. I must have been very still because Guillaume thought my screen had frozen.

“Are you still there?”

“Yes,” I said, shaking away the cobwebby feeling that had come over me. “Sorry. You mean up here? Sabine was obsessed with the college?”

“Sure. She thought it was her ticket. I figured you knew. That’s why you’re asking about her, no? Because of the school?”

“It makes sense that she would know about this place, but I didn’t realize that she’d come up here.”

“Well, she did,” he said with a hint of defensiveness. “I don’t know what she did, but I know she was up there. She told me about it.”

“What did she say?”

“Not much. Just that it was very nice. She seemed very happy about it.” Suddenly Guillaume looked shiftily around the room he was in, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he was alone or if there was someone else there, just off-screen and out of view.

“Is everything all right?”

But he didn’t answer my question. Instead, he stared at me with heavy-lidded eyes. “You don’t think it was a bear, then?”

“Excuse me?” I said, still focused on my paranoia that he was surrounded by a malevolent cabal.

“The police, they said it was a bear attack.”

I thumbed through my notes. “Is that true? I don’t think they concluded that it was without a doubt a bear, but an animal attack, yes.”

“But you don’t think it was?”

“I don’t think anything, Guillaume. I’m not an investigator. I’m just interested.”

“It wasn’t a bear,” he said with sudden intense conviction.

“What do you mean?” I asked, leaning forward.

“You must know. About what’s in these woods. Up at Hildegard. It is a secret, but not very much of a secret.”

My heart began to race. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you mean. Can you elaborate?”

He pursed his lips, and his gaze dropped to his fingers, which I could just make out were tapping in a staccato rhythm on the table in front of him.

“I think you should talk to my grandmother.”

“Guillaume, what did you mean about the woods?”

He looked down and to the side, avoiding my eyes. “I will set up the computer for her. She’s not good with technology.”

“Guillaume,” I said, tightness spiderwebbing across my chest, “what’s in the woods?”

“I have to go. I’ll be in touch. Talk soon.”

He left the meeting before I had a chance to reply.

About fifteen minutes later, Lexi knocked on my door, looking slightly haggard, or rather, because it was Lexi, slightly less enchanting than usual.

“I was wondering, do you want to borrow something for the party?” she asked, and the way she was looking at me was strangely intense. I got the sense that there was something competitive coming from her.

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “I’ll just wear my normal clothes.”

“Nonsense. Wear something of Isabelle’s.”

That hit me strangely. “That wouldn’t feel right.”

“Don’t be an idiot. Her things are beautiful, and they would fit you.”

Her eyes were trained on me with such intensity that I suddenly had a creeping suspicion that if I said no that I would be wielding a gauntlet I had no intention of throwing.

“Okay,” I said uneasily. “As long as you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” she said with a quick cold snap of a smile, and then she turned and left.

Alone in my cabana, I showered and towel-dried my hair.

Then with some trepidation, I opened the armoire and began exploring.

Cashmere and chiffon and silk—these were fabrics I had written about, but had never worn.

I fought the slight thrill that tugged at me as I selected a green silk dress and put it on.

I pulled my hair back into a tight bun at the nape of my neck, slipped on some strappy black heels, and headed up to the house.