VIII

G H O S T   &   G O D D E S S

Sienna punched down the button on the beeping alarm clock and struggled upright. Seven AM, Monday morning.

“Wake up,” she said. “We have to eat breakfast early today. And they want our bags in the lobby before we eat.”

Lindsey groaned and pulled a pillow over her head. Last night had been another late session with Josh & Co, this time in the hotel’s basement pub where Chris, the manager, had stayed open past his usual time because, as he said, “It’s better than having you lot running wild upstairs.”

Today, thought Sienna, I’m getting away from that crew. She’d had enough drunken fart / fag / fuck humor to last a lifetime, thank you very much. She started by snaring first use of the bathroom, dressing, packing, and getting out of the room ahead of Lindsey.

Her bags were among the first to be dropped on the lobby pile. Then she stood at the window looking out, watching London come to life. Men in suits walked briskly along the sidewalk. A bakery truck turned the corner. A lady wearing brilliant red heels unlocked the front door of the chiropractor’s office next door.

Across the street, a double-decker bus stopped and an elderly lady got out, then crossed the street slowly, watching for the one-way traffic. She wore a raincoat, carried an umbrella and a plastic shopping bag, and her hair was styled in Old Lady Gray Curl. Something wrong with her hips, Sienna thought; she walked with a painful dip in every step. Where was she going, this early morning?

Once across the street, the woman limped right into the hotel and up to the front desk. Chris handed her a set of keys, saying, “Morning, Betty. A full list for you today, I fear.”

“Righto,” she said cheerfully.

She took her raincoat off and tucked it behind the desk. Underneath she wore a smock like an apron that covered a blouse and part of her skirt. Above the sensible lace-up shoes, her ankles were swollen.

She’s here to clean the rooms, thought Sienna, surprised by the pang this realization caused.

“Have a cuppa before you start, Luv,” said Chris. “Breakfast is laid on early today.”

His voice is kind, thought Sienna. I’m glad he’s a kind boss.

But why should Betty have to do this at all? Why did she have to struggle out with her bad hips to clean hotel rooms where teenagers left sheets to change and candy wrappers on the bedside table and … oh dear, it’s a good thing Lindsey made it to the toilet when she barfed last night.

It’s a job, isn’t it? Someone’s got to do it. She’s probably grateful for the work. That’s what Mom and Dad would say. She could hear their crisp voices, clear as day, saying matter-of-factly: That’s just the way the world works, hon; there are people who rent rooms and people who clean them, and your job is to make sure you’re the renter, not the cleaner, and you want the biggest room in life you can get.

It was a hard philosophy and Sienna had been well schooled in it.

But would Dad still say the same thing? Since his “midlife crisis”? She was surprised to find herself wondering what the new Dad would offer on the subject of hotel cleaning ladies. Maybe he’d even think, like her, that Betty should be sitting in a cozy sitting room in a really comfortable chair with flowered upholstery, reading a good book, and sipping a cup of tea. Life should have given her a better deal than hobbling around, cleaning the mess left behind by a bunch of bratty teenagers, that’s for sure.

But how could you make the world work like that?

It was too hard to figure out this early in the morning, so she gave up and went down for breakfast. She wanted to be done and on the bus early so she could pick her own seatmate this time.

Orange juice comes back at you, Lindsey reminded herself. But I’m getting better at managing these hangovers, she thought, pouring a half-cup of coffee, filling the other half with milk. Some plain toast with butter ought to stay down.

There was a buzz of excitement in the breakfast room because they were leaving London, going on the road; but the Grenfell girls seemed pretty quiet. Sienna (why hadn’t she waited?) and Ashley were already outside, lining up for the bus. Sonnet, who’d stopped hiding her dorky notebook, ate and scribbled at the same time. The only empty seat at the table was beside Kristen.

Doesn’t bother me, thought Lindsey and sat down.

She opened her mouth to speak but the others waved her to her seat, shushing and pointing at the partition which hid the next table. “The yucky lovers are fighting,” one of them hissed.

Mr. and Mrs. Robson’s voices, steel with suppressed tension, drifted around and over the partial privacy wall. They sounded sleep deprived and on the brink of a full blowup. Trouble in paradise, that was clear.

Mr. Robson recited the day’s schedule like a list of grievances: “Bus at 8:15. Drive to Warwick Castle. Bath in the afternoon. You’re looking forward to Bath, aren’t you?”

“Bath was how you convinced me this was a good idea. So, yes, I’m looking forward to Bath. I’d also like a decent night’s sleep. Where are we staying tonight?”

“I’ve no idea.”

Cups clinked hard into the saucers. In the silence, Lindsey recognized it all: anger in the crash of china, sorrow under a show of words that meant something else, the jelly panic in her own insides, watching the familiar disaster begin.

Then a sigh, as if Mrs. Robson had decided to make an effort. “How do you think the girls are doing?”

Eyes rolled at the table, but everyone leaned in to hear. How, exactly, were they doing?

“Fine,” Mr. Robson said. “They seem to be having fun. Don’t they?”

Sadly, the voices subsided to a frustrating murmur. They listened hard but only the occasional word made it across the partition, and they were just about to give up spying and revert to their own conversations, when Mr. Robson’s voice jumped up in volume and he said, “Look, Claire, the girls aren’t babies.” Once again his coffee cup hit the saucer with an impatient bang. “They’ll sort it out themselves. My advice is to leave it alone.”

Mrs. Robson answered him just as sharply. “What did you think I was going to do? Hold a public meeting? I just wanted to chat, for God’s sake.”

Silence fell.

A chair scraped back. Someone stood, hurriedly, roughly. Mrs. Robson’s next words came out small, hard, sarcastic stones. “Since we’re leaving this morning, I’m going outside to take a picture of the hotel. Our luxury honeymoon London hotel. For the record.”

She came around the partition, aiming for the door with such focus, she didn’t notice the kids who suddenly burst into fake conversation.

“Hi. Good morning,” said Kristen, finally acknowledging Lindsey’s presence, and went back to the copy of Lula she’d been poring over ever since yesterday when she’d discovered the British fashion magazine.

She’s trying to pretend it doesn’t bother her, me sitting here, Lindsey thought.

Well, that’s fine, because it doesn’t bother me, either. But it’s too bad I can’t tell her about last night. Me and Josh on the patio, before those last few beers. What did we used to call it? ... a little nooky-nooky? Outside, the ice queen. Inside, Lindsey blushing at the memory of Josh’s roving hand under her shirt.

She pulled herself back to the now. Now at breakfast, Kristen not talking to me, not really talking in spite of the “good morning.” That’s what you’d say to your aunt, not your best friend who was necking on the patio last night with the coolest boy, so you’d want all the details, all the giggles, from asking, is he a good kisser, to what happens next?

Too bad she couldn’t tell Kristen because, right now, Kristen would just be even more stuck-up. And, truth be told, she had to wait till Josh was less drunk to figure out how he’d really do in the kissing department.

That did bother her.

Kristen left with a casual, “See ya’.”

Then Mr. Robson left, too, striding past with his teacher mask firmly in place.

Sonnet said, “I heard they went to the replica Globe yesterday to see Twelfth Night. The only spots they could get were as groundlings. Out in the open, you know? And then that rain poured down.”

“That would put a damper on things,” Alan said, and everyone groaned.

In the next few minutes, the table cleared. The guy making the toast took so long that Lindsey was last to leave the breakfast room and, outside, she was so late that everyone was closer to the bus than she was, so she ended up at the back of the crowd with Sonnet and that boy with the crazy hair and a few other nerds. Not good positioning, she realized.

Then, when the tour bus pulled up in front of the hotel, everyone presumed they’d be boarding from the front where the driver’s door was. Some had even started a line, hoping for first choice of seats. But once the luggage was all stowed into the caverns underneath, the driver popped open a surprise door in the middle of the side so they wouldn’t have to go out into the traffic to board.

In the random milling toward the door, Lindsey found herself even farther back, and the bus was almost full when she got on. Lily shot her a sour smile as she walked up the aisle and plunked her backpack on the empty seat beside her to show that it was taken.

Where had Sienna gone? Had she found a pair of seats for them? Would she?

It was so awkward, walking up the aisle, passing filled rows and empty seats reserved with token bags or books. Could she possibly end up the last, mortified, outcast person standing?

Then, rescue.

“Sit here, kid.” It was Josh, who pulled his stuff out of the way for her. “Want the window seat?” he offered. This was the next level, she realized. He’d gotten rid of Tim so she (Suck it up, Lily!) could sit with him, and Lindsey was in heaven.

Too bad about Sienna. But someone would take her in.

When Sienna swung into the seat beside her, Carly was nervous at first. Would she start in again, needling about the cost of things and what was free and what wasn’t? But she didn’t, just smiled and opened her Guide Book, and started reading about Warwick Castle.

Taking peeks across at the book, she could see that the castle had been built in parts, starting in the eleventh century. Held by dozens of earls over the centuries. Now owned by Madame Tussauds as a tourist site. The present earl now living in Australia. (Poor Earl of Warwick ... Carly had a soft spot for everyone who fell on hard times.) I wonder how different it will be from Windsor Castle, she wondered. Then smiled; my second castle in three days! A few more and I’ll be an expert.

She was doing a good job of managing without money, answering to the name of Ashley, keeping her chin up, looking at the bright side—all the glass-half-full proverbs Mom recited when she was at her best. All the same, it wasn’t always easy. Eating what you didn’t like (that gross bangers and mash last night!), pretending you weren’t hungry when the others went out to get a pizza, sliding out of the picture when everyone else was buying lunch or shopping. No fair! an inner voice whined, and the inner voice was getting louder.

Another voice in her head replied, No, it’s not fair. It’s hard. Call it what it is and you’ll deal with it better. Mom’s voice. Mom at her best. Call it what it is—I miss her. I never thought I would, but I do.

When the bus pulled up at Warwick and they all climbed out, there was the usual milling about, waiting for Nigel to deal with the entry desk for group excursions. Carly stood near Kristen, hoping Sienna would get back to Lindsey and the noisy group. But when they walked through the entrance and down toward the castle gate, the cluster included both Sonnet and Sienna, as well as three boys from the other school, that boy with the blond Afro, Alan, hovering near Kristen, and Tim the sunglasses boy, who had somehow detached himself from Josh.

Oh well, in a crowd she’d be able to keep her distance from Sienna.

Right away you could see that Warwick was going to be different from Windsor. There were men in medieval costume setting up archery targets. Falconry demonstrations. Jousting every afternoon.

The boys loved it. “This is what a castle should be like!” said Alan, reading the brochure. “They have a siege machine they shoot off every day. Trebuchet,” he pronounced slowly. “A huge catapult.”

“Boys and their toys,” teased Kristen.

“Hey!” Sonnet said, “they have a Ghost Tower, and you can go on a ghost walk. Come on, it’s only three pounds!”

The lineup started twenty feet ahead, and Josh and Devon and that crew were already in it. Lily, Lindsey, and the rest looked really excited but, even from this far away, they could hear Tim arguing with Josh.

“This isn’t a good idea, man. Not right now.”

“Come on, Timbo! It’ll be a laugh,” said Josh.

“Can’t be a sad sack all the time,” laughed Devon, which really got a glare from Tim.

Three pounds, thought Carly. Her spirits sank as everyone around her charged across the lawn and joined the queue for Ghosts Alive.

Except Sienna, who said, “I can’t stand that stuff. Like, I hate horror movies. They give me nightmares. Let’s go check out the wax people, Ash.”

It was weird, hearing the nickname. It’s what she called Ashley when they were goofing around. What was Sienna up to?

And then Tim rejoined them. Was it just the hot sun or was he paler than usual? “That ghost thing’s not for me,” he said, and Carly was relieved. At least Hawkeye will have someone to distract her, she thought. She can try to figure out what the big deal was between Tim and Josh.

So they were a trio—Carly, Sienna, and Tim. She’d never have thought it would work, but the morning at Warwick Castle turned out to be the best few hours of the trip so far. Tim, separated from Josh, revealed himself to be a history buff, truly intrigued by the pictures of the past, portrayed with Tussauds wax people in different parts of the castle.

“My granddad is named after him,” he said, pointing to the young Winston Churchill, just returned from the Boer War, coming with his mother a hundred years ago to visit the Earl of Warwick for a weekend among the rich, titled, and famous.

Sienna seemed focused on the luxury of life in a castle. The furniture. The clothes. The indulgence. For a long time, she studied the figures of the butler in his black suit, leaning forward with a letter on a silver plate, so lifelike you’d think he could start talking the next second, and the maid, pouring water into a funny bath you had to sit in. “Imagine,” she said. “Servants to cook and clean and fill your bathtub and do your hair.”

She sounded so like a pampered princess, and then, out of the blue, “I wonder what life was like for them?” Was it really possible for the pampered princess to think about a servant’s life?

Carly’s favorite part was the medieval household in the cellar of the castle, complete with wax horses, the illusion of reality completed by the rich stable odor of horse manure. They could bottle that and sell it as a perfume called, “Home,” she thought, surprised by the brief flicker of longing and the smile that came so fast. All in all, they were so busy with the exhibits and the jousting and the falconry that they never went near the gift shop, and the time to re-board the bus came too soon.

And still Sienna took the seat beside Carly. About 1:00 o’clock, the bus pulled off the motorway at a “Welcome Station” and everyone rushed off to the burger / sandwich / sub shops.

Oh, God, thought Carly. Lunch avoidance and here we go again. She headed for the washroom. Took her time washing, drying her hands. Wandered to the far side of the car park. Sat down on a stone wall to watch a young couple and their baby share a picnic on a blanket across the garden. It gave her a pang to wonder if there had ever been a time when she and her mom and dad had formed that perfect loving circle. If they had ever been that happy just because they were together and with her, their little daughter with pudgy hands, reaching for a cookie.

Then suddenly, Sienna appeared, sat beside her on the wall, and carefully unwrapped a foot-long submarine sandwich.

That’s rich, thought Carly. She knows and she’s going to eat that thing right in front of me. How artful: grinding someone down without saying a word.

But Sienna did speak: “I can’t possibly eat this whole thing,” she said. Her voice was as sharp as ever as she put half of the sandwich in Carly’s lap. “I hope you don’t mind chicken and cheese.”

Ambushed! Carly was so surprised that she couldn’t protest or pretend she wasn’t hungry, plus her stomach suddenly played a symphonic growl. “Thanks,” she said.

Sienna quietly passed her a can of Sprite.

Further rearrangements took place when they got back on the bus. Alan asked Kristen if he could sit with her. Christian moved into the empty seat beside Sonnet. Lily had paired up with the high-spirited Devon and they made a comical couple: the shortest girl and the tallest boy on the trip. Tim, marooned, took the seat across the aisle from Carly and Sienna. Of course, Josh and Lindsey were still together.

Still together, thought Carly. There’s a couple that’s lasted two whole days. She felt old and experienced and cynical, watching the others circle and hover, the flickers of interest, the hesitations, the shy first move. Right now, she felt like she was watching it all from the moon, and the only feeling that mattered was relief to be free of heartache about Dominic.

In fact, Dom wasn’t looking so perfect anymore. She wasn’t going to rewrite her memories to make him a villain, she assured herself. But when she saw Lily mooning after Josh, who had now attached himself to another girl, a shiver of sympathy went through her.

I’m sure they had something started before Lindsey moved in on him. Maybe it wasn’t official, maybe just a hint, but a hint they both understood, and then the jerk hooks up with someone else right in front of her.

A high burst of laughter from the back of the bus rang out with Lily’s voice in the mix. Carly was sure she heard bravado hiding a sad heart. She wanted to shake the girl and tell her she was worth more than any boy.

You’re so cool, she telepathed Lily. You have a great sense of style (who else would wear those leopard red flats?) and the guts to go with it. What do you need that creep for? He doesn’t even know when to shave. Think your own thoughts, plan your own future ...

Her own thoughts drifted into the amazing space left in your mind when you stopped fretting about how someone else will react or think or judge or decide. She’d be in Grade 12 this year. Soon, as soon as November, everyone around her would be applying to university. Since the fiasco with Dad and her savings, she’d given up on those dreams, but maybe she didn’t have to.

This trip’s really happening had taught her to look at the impossible differently. Maybe there could be scholarships and part-time jobs, and she could make it happen and, if so, where would she go? For what program?

The rolling hills and low farm barns passed beyond the window as she pondered. Her best subject was Bio. Sciences, then? But she loved Music and Band. Performance? Education? And then there was that course in Law. It wasn’t her best mark because she had to put so many hours into the barn and miss all those days when Dad headed south and Mom fell apart, but the cases had fascinated her.

Waterloo? U of T? Queens? Scholarship? Residence? The magic words danced in her head like unwrapped presents. What dream could she dream?

“What was all that about, in the Ghost Tower?” Kristen asked Alan as the bus rolled toward Bath.

“You mean with Josh?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t really know what happened. I just heard your friend Lindsey yell his name. She sounded scared.”

“Right. I was ahead of you, so I saw more.” In a hushed voice, Kristen tried to describe what happened. Ghosts Alive had been an elaborate spook show, real actors staging the murder of Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, stabbed in his bed by a servant who was cheesed at being left out of Greville’s will. Or so he thought. Then the servant killed himself in horror at his own deed. The House of Horrors part was when the murderer turned to attack the audience and they’d all jumped with fear.

“We all yelled then,” said Alan. “You’d have thought Devon was a hyena. That guy seriously needs a therapist.”

“Josh didn’t yell. It was before that, in that scene with the guy lying on the bed, all sick and stuff. He made a weird noise, half-leaning on Lindsey. He looked like he was going to faint or something. And he came out looking white as any ghost in the show.”

“Oh. Well. He’s been drinking enough to explain that.”

Somehow Kristen knew there was more to it than that. Was Alan holding something back? “Is he, like, normal? There’s not something screwy about him, is there? Like he’s the one that needs the shrink?” she asked.

“You’re still worrying about Lindsey, aren’t you?”

“A little,” Kristen admitted. “Old habits die hard.”

“Well, I wouldn’t. I’m not the guy’s best friend, but I know him enough to know he’s a survivor, and Lindsey looks like another. Now, if she’d taken up with Devon ...” He grinned. “Then I’d be really concerned.”

He was right. Lindsey was making her choices. She’d have to live with them.

But still, Kristen worried.

The grace of Westminster Abbey floated Sonnet right out of London so, when Warwick Castle unnerved her by looking like Tourist Land All Over Again, she was able to give it a second chance. On a Monday morning, it didn’t swarm with as many people as Windsor had and, with the wax people to set the scene, it was actually easier to imagine the castle and its grounds as a place where people lived and ate dinner and went to sleep in the huge curtained beds.

Yes, it is easier, Dad, she told the internal whisper of her father’s genteel judgment, her mother’s disdain: Madame Tussaud has her paws on Warwick Castle! How awful! Disney might as well be running the show!

In the state rooms, her eye fell on the beautiful portrait of a man dressed like Ralph Fiennes in Shakespeare in Love. Fulke Greville, the label read. She knew that name; he got a lot of attention in that book Dad gave her to read about how maybe William Shakespeare wasn’t Shakespeare, just the assumed identity of a man who loved the theater but couldn’t descend from his high public position as Queen Elizabeth’s minister to the lowly stage.

Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, 1554–1628. The dates worked. The education he’d received worked. His talent as a recreational poet worked. The rank and social position worked. Sonnet considered the long, handsome face. He had bright eyes, the look of intelligence, a mouth that liked a good laugh.

Were you Shakespeare? she asked him. And even if you weren’t, what was it like to be you? He’d been a poet, like her. Unlike her, a man and wealthy and of another time. What was it like to be you, Fulke Greville?

In one of the display cases, an old book lay open to a page of his poetry:

The mind of man is this world’s dimension

And knowledge is the measure of the mind;

And as the mind, in her vast comprehension

Contains more worlds than all the world can find:

So knowledge doth itself far more extend

Than all the minds of man can comprehend.

Hmm. It was wordy. No passion. No nature in it. Didn’t Shakespeare usually use a lot of flowers and animals in his description (imagery, Dad whispered)? A rose by any other name. How sharper than a serpent’s tooth. How full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife.

But still, Fulke Greville had been a poet!

So Ghosts Alive was a shock: the man with the fine face and intelligent eyes who wrote poetry had been murdered in his bed by a servant grubbing for money. She had to brush up on this guy. But Dad’s whisper didn’t approve of Ghosts Alive: Fulke Greville, friend of Sir Phillip Sydney, turning him into a ghost show, a freak show, a cheap show!

Oh, hush, Sonnet told the voice. It’s getting me interested in something I never knew about. And anyway, Dad, why does everything have to be so serious? “Dost thou think that, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?”

The idea of stepping up to debate her strongly opinionated parents with a quiver full of her own quotations made her giggle. Was Sir Toby Belch replacing Dad as her moral compass?

Across the aisle, Christian smiled at her. “What’s so funny?”

“Just telling myself a joke.”

Carly loved Bath. They came down the hill into the town in the early afternoon and emerged from the bus into the sunshine in front of a building that stretched in a long arc above a green hill: the Royal Crescent. Once again, a local guide met them and the spiel started: Built in the 1700’s. Thirty terraced houses. Spa town needs housing for wealthy tourists. Finest example of Georgian architecture. Housing for the wealthy visitors needed.

It was so different from London and its eclectic, endless streets, now this, now that, new and old jumbled together in endless variation. Bath had been built of the same stone at the same time and it all sat together in this valley, like a town in a teacup.

Instinct propelled Carly to stand beside Sonnet. She listened intently to the facts pouring out of the enthusiastic elderly gentleman with the blue badge. That alone set her apart from his jumpy cluster of constantly moving listeners. He had to throw in a violent death or a dramatic divorce in his history to keep them interested.

But Sonnet, Carly saw, was gripped by something different. Her eyes took in the whole scene, but also considered the stones under her feet. Like Mrs. Robson, she backed off a little from the group and stood apart, as if listening to a different travelogue, spoken by different voices. Who? Carly wondered. She watched as Sonnet and the teacher looked at each other and reached out to hold the iron railings, smiling as their eyes met.

“Persuasion,” said Sonnet.

“Northanger Abbey,” said Mrs. Robson.

It was like listening to people who spoke in code, a code that clearly made eyes sparkle and laughter hard to suppress.

“What are you talking about?” asked Christian, who hovered near Sonnet all the time now.

“Jane Austen,” said Sonnet. “The best novels made into the best period movies. That scene in the last version of Persuasion … Anne Eliot and Captain Wentworth finally get together, walking along right here on the Crescent—right, Mrs. Robson?”

“Yes. She lived in Bath herself for a few years. It’s lovely to think of walking right where she lived and shopped and went visiting.”

After that, there was the big group with the city guide and the bonus group with Sonnet, who was totally in her element, and Mrs. Robson summarizing plots of novels and recounting the big scenes, especially the love scenes.

“Bunch of old-school chick flicks,” muttered Christian, but he hung in there anyway, and so did Tim and Alan and Mr. Robson, too, patiently listening as they visited the Upper Rooms and Mrs. Robson explained what an Assembly was, and Sonnet described how Mr. Darcy had refused to dance with Elizabeth Bennett. Careful to explain that Pride and Prejudice was not set in Bath.

The guide led them on the wall above the river, Sonnet providing a thumbnail plot summary of Persuasion. “They wanted to get married when they were young but they didn’t have enough money. He shows up again when he’s rich, but it takes him a while to realize she’s still the one he wants.”

“Typical guy,” said Carly, thinking of Dom.

“It’s about second chances,” Sonnet explained earnestly. “People who don’t think they’ll find love but do in the end.”

I need to read these books, thought Carly.

They walked back and forth across the river on Pulteney Street Bridge (the last bridge in England that still had shops on it), because Jane Austen had walked it many times: she had to cross the bridge to get from her lodgings into the town.

Finally, the guide took them to the Pump Room where, Sonnet told them, Catherine Morland admired Henry Tilney in Northanger Abbey. You could drink the water from the hot springs below, a glass for 50p.

Below the Pump Room, where the original Roman Baths had been restored, the boys melted away, excited to be back in a historical world that didn’t involve listening to descriptions of Regency fashion and fictional broken hearts.

“We have to try the water,” said Mrs. Robson to her husband eagerly. “It’s what the Victorians did; it’s what they did in the novels. Taking the waters at Bath! We have to toast together!”

It was a sweet gesture and Carly was glad to see that they’d gotten over their spat in the morning. Then the husband crushed the moment, saying, “Not at that price. Are you kidding?”

And all the light went out of Mrs. Robson’s eyes.

Mrs. Robson went straight to the attendant, handed over her coins, tossed the glass of smelly water down in one go and headed for the exhibits. Mr. Robson stood there like he couldn’t figure out what had just happened.

“Men really are that stupid,” said Sienna, standing at Carly’s elbow.

She shrugged. Maybe romance was just a story after all.

“But I want to drink this holy water anyway,” said Sienna. Before you could get a word in, she was handing coins to the attendant, who said, “The spa water contains forty-three minerals and any impurities have been removed. In the eighteenth century, drinking spa water was a recognized treatment for many conditions, including gout, lumbago, sciatica, and arthritis.

“My treat,” said Sienna, handing Carly a glass. “For good luck. And so we don’t get gout, whatever that is.”

Carly sniffed. It smelt like a lit match. Sienna drank and her face screwed up. Carly gamely took a sip. The water was warm. It tasted sour and bitter all at once, and she thought of history, Jane Austen, and the Roman Baths, and now, today, time and second chances, all jumbled up, and threw it all back. “For good luck,” she agreed.

Then they wandered down through the exhibits, reading displays and descriptions. The hot springs had been the focus of a Roman temple to Sulis Minerva. Sulis had been an ancient Celtic goddess associated with healing waters, the spirit and craft of medicine. The Romans borrowed her and attached it to their own cult of Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, medicine, and science.

They walked through the small baths where men and women might have bathed separately. Ahead of them, Mr. Robson had caught up with Mrs. Robson and was reading the display to his wife, who clearly didn’t want to hear him droning on.

At last they stepped onto the stone slabs around the large pool, open to the sky, surrounded by golden brown stone pillars. It was so hard to imagine, Carly thought, that real people walked here, chatted, told secrets, did their business two thousand years ago. Almost too big to imagine such a scope of time.

Especially, she thought, with Lily and Tim and Josh and Lindsey and that crowd running around, their loud voices echoing from room to room as they played some juvenile game. Poor Mrs. Robson, Carly thought, if this was what persuaded her to come on the trip. You could read the body language between new husband and new wife, the drooping shoulders, the stiff distance.

Mrs. Robson looked about to cry as she bent and dipped her hand into the warm water of the pool, just as the noisiest, Josh and Devon, burst out of the room with the east bath. As she rose to her feet, the boys rushed past and Devon bumped her and threw her off balance.

Josh, for once, saw how stupid they were being and yelled, “Devon! Sorry, Miss,” and reached out to steady her.

But Mrs. Robson had been caught off guard and Josh’s hand didn’t reach her, and then Mr. Robson moved toward her and grabbed her arm and, suddenly, the two of them, new husband, new wife, were falling, landing, splashing into the warm pool, and Carly thought, It’ll be all over now. It’ll be anger and yelling, and then bags packed in silence, and the swing of Dad’s duffle into a trunk, and the last sight of a horse trailer pulling out on the road, just done, no second chances.

And then it turned out just the opposite. Mr. and Mrs. Robson stood up in the shallow pool, drenched, dripping, and, “Oh, my God, I’m so sorry!” said Josh and Devon, looking stunned and scared.

But the man and the woman in the water just stood there, clinging to each other, laughing.

Howling, bent over with it, laughing so hard they had to hold on to each other to stand.

What do you know, thought Carly. It was healing water after all.