and sugar or lemon and honey.”
“I guess milk and sugar, then,” I say.
“And this is clotted cream,” he says, putting a jar of lumpy white stuff in front of me. “I highly recommend the cream with jam on those scones. Better than any whipped cream back in the States.”
I tentatively poke the pale mass with my knife. “Maybe just some jam,” I say, taking a scone from the plate.
“I insist.” He grabs my scone and smears it with the white cream and jam before putting it back on my plate. His hands are strong and smooth, and I find myself staring at them as he prepares the food. “You’re not one of those girls who doesn’t eat, are you?”
“No,” I say, offended that he would even think that. “I eat plenty. It’s just that I don’t usually eat things that start with the word ‘clotted.’” I take a bite, and it’s as good and rich as he promised, like thick whipped cream without too much sugar. So much for not being able to eat; I devour half of it before coming up for air. I try to regain some sort of dignity by sipping the tea, wondering if English people really drink it with their pinky out like they do on that PBS show Mom likes. Griffon just sits with his arms folded, watching me, so he’s no help.
I put the cup down on the table after a sip of the watery tea, realizing through my swirling thoughts that neither of us has said a word in the past several minutes.
“Sorry about Kat,” I say. “And all of her questions. She’s not much for history, but she loves a good ghost story.”
“Most people do,” he says. “I get asked things like that all the time.”
“But you don’t, right?” I ask. “Believe in them, I mean.”
“No. Not ghosts. Although other people claim to see them here. Maybe the ghosts know I don’t believe in them and don’t bother showing up,” he says.
“What about all of the people who died such violent deaths right here in the Tower? You don’t think there’s some sort of leftover energy floating around? Some sort of spirit activity trying to right the wrongs that were done to them?” I can’t believe I’m asking that, but there has to be some sort of rational explanation for what just happened out there. At this point, ghosts are the most rational thing I can think of.
“No,” he says, looking at me strangely, stalling for just a beat too long. “I don’t.”
I’m a little disappointed in his finality. Restless spirits are a much friendlier explanation than the fact that I might be losing it. Except I don’t
“I just realized,” he says, sitting forward in his seat, “that we haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Griffon Hall.”
“I know. Owen said.”
He looks at me. “And you are?”
“Oh!” I say. Of course. What an idiot. “Cole Ryan. Nicole really, but only my mother calls me that. It’s Cole to everyone else.”
“Cole,” he repeats. “That’s nice. I’m guessing you’re not from around here.”
“No,” I say. “My dad’s on a business trip and brought us along. We live in San Francisco.”
Griffon nods slowly. He must meet people from all over the world here.
“Have you ever been there?”
“San Francisco?” he asks. “A few times. Where do you live in the city?”
“Upper Haight. Just at the panhandle before Golden Gate Park.”
“Is there still a Ben & Jerry’s there?”
I smile. “Right around the corner from our house.”
Griffon holds my gaze for a split second, then looks around at all of the other people in the cafe. “Are you enjoying your trip so far?”
I search for something interesting to say. Pretty soon he’s going to notice that I’ve got the conversational skills of a first-semester foreign exchange student. “It’s been great.”
“What else have you done?”
I open my mouth to tell him about the master class I took with the London Symphony Orchestra and how I got to sit backstage at the concert earlier in the week, about meeting some of the cellists I’d been worshiping for years and having the chance to play privately with them. But Griffon doesn’t know me as the cello prodigy. He only knows the awkward girl who talks about ghosts and falls into total strangers, and suddenly I wanted to keep it that way. “You know, the usual stuff,” I finally say. “Buckingham Palace, the Tate Gallery, museums.”
“How about the Eye?” He nods his head across the river toward the towering Ferris wheel.
Right. The only way I’d get into a small glass box suspended hundreds of feet in the air for half an hour is at gunpoint. And maybe not even then. “Um, no. Not yet.”
“I usually hate tourist things like that, but it has the best view in the city.”
“Maybe tomorrow,” I say, knowing it’ll never happen. “It feels like we don’t have enough time to do it all, but it’s been great so far. I’ve always been fascinated by this city. By all of England.”
“Tell me you didn’t get up in the middle of the night to watch the royal wedding.”
“I didn’t,” I answer honestly. Kat had recorded it. “It’s just that I love history, and I really wanted to see the places I’ve read about.” I’m tempted to tell him about the vision, about the girl on the scaffold. Something about the way he looks at me makes me feel safe and grounded. Like I can say anything and he’ll believe me. “In some ways, London feels like home. It’s almost like everything is familiar. Except it’s not.”
Griffon’s eyes scan my face intently. “Like deja vu?”
“Exactly,” I say. “It’s weird. I’ll be walking by a house and all of a sudden I’ll feel homesick. Or I’ll know exactly what the next street looks like even though I’ve never been on it.”
He nods, listening to me intently. “It’s weird feeling that you’ve been someplace before, or seen something before.” Griffon looks thoughtful. “But that doesn’t seem to cover it most of the time.”
“It doesn’t,” I agree. “It’s more than that. It’s not like I’ve just seen it already. It’s like I’ve…” I suddenly realize that I’m sitting here spilling my guts to a total stranger. A total stranger who feels really familiar.
“Like you’ve lived it before?” Griffon finishes for me.
“Right,” I say. I’m surprisingly calm. “Like I’m seeing things that already happened through the eyes of the people they happened to. Things that happened a long time ago. I don’t know if it’s spirits, or some kind of supernatural energy.” I pause, and it’s as if the thread that momentarily connected us has snapped. “Or if I’m going crazy.”
Griffon smiles. “You’re not crazy,” he says. “Far from it.”
“So if I’m not slowly going insane, what is it, then?”
He hesitates, and I can see indecision play across his face. “I guess people sometimes try to bury the things that they most need to see.”
“And for some reason I need to see these glimpses of other people’s lives? That makes no sense.”
“Maybe it will someday,” he says cryptically.
I look at our hands on the wooden table. Our fingers are only inches apart, and I have a sudden urge to reach out and touch him. I want the feel of his skin on mine, a physical connection, even if it’s only for a second. As if he can read my mind, Griffon pulls his hands from the table and sits back in his chair. I feel as embarrassed as if I had actually reached for him.
Griffon looks out toward the Green, where the other tourists are wandering around. “So what do you think of the new marker for the scaffold site?” he asks, nodding toward the Chapel.
I follow his gaze, thrown by the rapid change in topic. “That glass thing? It’s interesting.”
Griffon’s face clouds over a little. His emotions seem to be just under the surface, and I can already see the dislike in his expression. “I think it’s awful. Like a big glass coffee table right in the middle of the square.”
I smile. “I kind of thought the same thing.”
“The worst part is that they didn’t even put it in the right spot,” he says.
“They didn’t? I thought that’s where all the executions happened. That’s what the guidebook says.”
“No,” he says. “Don’t believe everything you read. Years ago some Warder just pointed to that spot when Queen Victoria came for a visit and asked where the beheadings took place. Poor old guy didn’t have a clue. The Yeoman Warders just go along with it so the tourists don’t get confused. It’s tradition.”
“So where did they really happen?” I ask, glad that we seemed to be having a normal conversation again.
