A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow - Laura Taylor Namey Page 0,67
brick tunnel bridge. This one for small boats.
“Is this the disgustingly pretty thing?”
“Just ahead.” Orion grabs my hand, leading me down the steep final steps. Greenery, more than I can take in, riots around the smell of moss and decaying leaves. We’re on a graveled towpath that stretches along a narrow canal of water the color of deep jade. “It’s downright hideous. Gross, even,” he says as we begin a lazy stroll. He tells me we’re at the Basingstoke Canal—hundreds of years old—that links this region with the River Thames in London.
I digest most of this, as well as the sprinkling of historical facts about the Hart region of Hampshire. Mostly, I’m just stunned that, except for a few stray tourists and bikers, we’re alone with the lull of water and disorganized foliage. Rows of trees bow before me, their canopies dipping into the canal surface. I remember I’m in a country with a monarchy. Why not pretend I’m a Latina princess in a court of prostrating trees? This, I admit to Orion, making him swear to never tell another soul.
As if this watery trail didn’t already seem straight out of a fairy tale, Orion spots a pair of swans floating along a half second before I do. “Look at those guys! But don’t get too close. They’re deceptively fierce buggers.”
“I like them already,” I say, pulling him to a stop. I just want to watch them circle around and fluff their feathers and swivel their curvy necks.
I watch for so long, Orion pokes at me. “You surely have swans in Miami?”
“Yeah but not these swans in this place.” And not him watching them with me in a life-worn leather jacket, so at home here it’s like he was born between the tree stumps. Spiced and woody and strong.
“True. But what awaits us here is better than swans. For those who are brave enough to press on through hours of, err, rough terrain.”
I fix him with an unwavering side-eye until I break and then we’re both laughing. After a heavy morning it tastes better than loaves of pan Cubano drenched in butter.
We start off around the next bend, but Orion suddenly jumps one pace ahead and urges me onto his back. “Milady, your chariot awaits.” A piggyback ride no one would refuse. “Just a little farther is your special surprise that’s older than old can be.”
He stoops lower and I grab onto his shoulders. He hooks the bends of my legs and hoists me up. I hold on as we move, but Orion starts to zigzag along the path like the British boy’s version of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. He ignores my mock distress and only slows when I start beating one fist on his back.
“Okay, okay, I’ll behave. We’re nearly there, anyway. You see, every Latina princess needs her castle. I’m afraid Odiham Castle has seen better days and won’t meet your specs. But it’s still very special.”
At the end of another winding curve, he sets me down and my mouth drops. Just ahead, a castle ruin rises up and out of the green along the path. “This is an honest-to-God real castle? Right here?”
He urges me toward a little footpath. “Honest to God and built by King John as a hunting lodge in the year twelve hundred and seven. Here, we’re halfway between Winchester and Windsor, so it was a practical location.”
A family of tourists passes as we ascend the narrow path. A wide, circular donut of grass surrounds the scraggly fort, and a tall arc of trees keeps watch from behind. Older than old is right. All that’s left of the structure are thick exterior walls, worn to resemble dark gray masses of sea coral, laid out in the shape of a letter C. It could be a sandcastle; no hard edges remain. We can walk straight through to the center, stopping and spinning a slow circle inside the ancient mass. Posted signs describe castle life and detail the way the building used to look, hundreds of years ago, with artist renderings and cross sections.
After the history lesson, I’m not quite ready to walk, not ready for the best fish and chips, just a few minutes’ ride away. We plunk down onto the grass next to Odiham. No one is here but us and small sounds—the wind through canal water, the lyrical gossip between birds.
But I hear more. If there are ghosts hanging around the battered castle walls, they speak things into my mind. Or maybe it’s