“It’s a medieval castle built by the Muslims who inhabited the land here until the thirteenth century,” James explained, bypassing a rare opportunity to tease her for her lack of preparation. “Construction started around the eighth century. There was some damage after the earthquake, of course, but recently the government began efforts on repairs.” He gazed up at it. “On clear days, you can see those ancient crumbling walls, but otherwise, it’s hidden beneath the mist.”
“There’s something magical about that.” Ava spoke the wistful thought aloud, then her cheeks flared with heat immediately after at having done so.
Except that James didn’t laugh at her. Instead, he nodded and turned to her with a crooked half smile. “Just wait.” He offered her his arm. “Shall we?”
A damp chill touched the air, but the warmth of his body against her side kept her from being cold as they strode together.
Lush foilage grew up on their side of the gravel path with glossy green leaves dotted with small white flowers. Large trees were interspersed throughout, stretching up to the layer of mist that clung to their tops like fine cobwebs, giving off the sense of being entirely one with nature.
Such places always made her recall the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.
“If you’ve read Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage by Lord Byron, the poem was about this very estate.” James tilted his head and added, “Before the current updates by the new owner.”
Ava looked at the vegetation around them through the lens of Byron’s narrative, awed to be walking the same steps he once had. There was a natural look to the landscape that cast away the rigid, boxed-in appearance of the plants and lent the area a wild beauty. She could easily imagine it overrun as Byron had described as she breathed in deeply, relishing the fresh, verdant aroma of prevalent flora and rich, wet earth.
“What does it remind you of?” James asked. “Aside from Lord Byron, of course.”
She looked around, flexing her mind to account for the many books she had consumed in her life. “Robinson Crusoe with some of the junglelike trees. And, of course, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden.”
James nodded. “The latter is what I anticipated you’d say.”
“And you’ve read it?”
“I have.”
She looked at him with fresh eyes, reconsidering this man who knew Byron and spouted sonnets by moonlight and had read The Secret Garden.
“I believe my mother read it to me in a bid to keep me well-behaved.” He put his free hand into his pocket, his gait loose and casual as he chuckled.
“Did it work?”
He shook his head. “Instead, I aspired to be like Dickon and came home so filthy from attempting to frolic about with the denizens of the forest that she swore she’d never let me read it again.”
It was a strange thought to imagine James running about in the woods, trying to befriend birds and squirrels, and she couldn’t help but laugh. The act felt peculiar somehow after the melancholic fog she’d been in following Otto’s death.
“And how about you?” he asked.
“I read it with my mother.” Ava recalled how they had discussed the story together over tea when she was a girl and how very grown-up she felt relaying her thoughts and opinions. “I enjoyed the book immensely. I thought Mary was a brat but hated that her parents had died. Even before I’d lost mine.”
James pulled his arm from her hand and smacked his palm to his forehead. “What a dolt. Ava, forgive me for not—”
“No, it’s fine.” She gently tugged his arm back into place and tucked her hand against the warmth of the inside of his elbow. “The truth is that Mary being so awful actually did help me. After my parents died, I had to go live with Daniel, as I told you before.”