When the World was Flat (and we were in love) by Ingrid Jonach

balaclava.
    He caught me watching and grinned. “Got you now, Lillie.”
    My armpits prickled with sweat. Had I misheard him? “What?”
    â€œYou thought you knew Green Grove. What did you say? Oh yeah. Like the back of your hand.” He laughed and then looked through the windshield with a smug smile. His tone was bright though as he added, “Jackson: One. Lillie: Zero.” He was like a ray of sunshine compared to Tom. If one of them was my killer it would be the latter.
    I allowed myself to sag into the seat again.
    Jackson eased off the gas as the woods ended and we passed through open gates. My stomach stirred, as if with homesickness, as I looked at the ornate wrought iron. The stone pillars that supported the gates bore a well-polished plaque.
    â€œRose Hill,” I read, my lips wrapping around the words as if embracing a long lost friend. I had this sudden sensation that I was coming home. The words stuck in my mind, like corn in my teeth. What did I mean by coming home?
    I consulted the filing cabinet of my mind, looking for a reason for the familiarity, but found locked drawer after locked drawer, until a memory from when I was about five or six years old opened.
    Deb had brought me here. We had dressed up as if we were going to a wedding or an expensive restaurant. I had worn a yellow sundress, and Deb had worn a red dress and white sandals, instead of her uniform of happy pants and peace beads. Her hair had ended at her shoulders back then and I remember her spending half an hour or so in the bathroom, blow-drying it into shape while I sat as stiff as a board on the couch.
    As Jackson drove down the avenue of trees, I caught glimpses of freshly mown grass and a man-made lake, rectangular like the Reflecting Pool in DC, but deep and dark. I wound down the window to breathe in the fresh air and listen to the trill of birds as they flitted through the branches. Red birds. Like in my dream, I realized with a start.
    The tires crunched on the white gravel, sounding like someone shushing us – or shushing Jackson, who was commenting on the size of the lake and wondering about catfish.
    â€œI should have brought my rod.”
    Shhh. Shhh. Shhh.
    The driveway curved and I drew in a deep breath as a white building came into view. I exhaled, as another drawer unlocked in my mind. I remembered Deb holding my hand as we had walked up the front steps. I had been complaining about a piece of gravel in my shoe.
    â€œOw. Ow. Oooow!”
    Deb had crouched to pull off my shoe, giving it a shake. I must have been younger than five or six, maybe four, because she had also wiped my nose with a tissue and combed her fingers though my hair, before rocking back on her heels to study me, giving me a nod of approval.
    â€œâ€¦a hotel,” Jackson was saying as I tuned back in to his channel. “It has, like, fifty rooms. How much do you think it costs a night?”
    I shook my head.
    â€œGo on. Guess.”
    â€œA lot?”
    He laughed, but before he could answer his own question, a man dressed in old-fashioned coat-tails met us in the circular drive. He looked at the hatchback like a cow had ambled into Rose Hill, but he told us we could view the gardens, provided we minded the out-of-bounds signage.
    As we walked towards the front entrance I was overcome by my connection to the estate. “I am in love,” I breathed.
    Jackson grinned. “Good. Because I was thinking we could call our major work ‘From Green Grove with Love.’”
    I wrinkled my nose. “James Bond?”
    â€œBingo.”
    â€œFrom Green Grove with Love,” I repeated dubiously. Boys.
    I stopped a few feet from the steps that led to the front entrance and raised my camera to take a photo. The shutter clicked as a figure descended and my heart rate suddenly went through the roof. Tom.
    I tried to remain cool, calm and collected, but I knew I was gawking. I have to say, he looked like he