Twenty three days. Twenty three days ago, Rich received a cryptic note from his fiancée to “Find me down the garden path.” Twenty three days ago, he embarked on a quest to find out to where Jamie had disappeared. When they met, she had just appeared in town as mysteriously and they found an instant chemistry which progressed quickly and in just a few weeks, Rich had asked for her hand. That was twenty five days ago.

Now, he found himself cutting through the thick undergrowth in the southern woods as he searched for this so-called garden. A game trail opened up before him and he followed it, winding through the forest as it twisted and turned among the old trees.

Suddenly, as he blazed his trail, the forest disappeared and was replaced by rows of blooming pink dogwood trees and well manicured lawns. The contrast was staggering; all Rich had ever known was open field or dirt roads in the city. Lacking the technology to easily cut the grass nicely, he marveled at the meticulous care that must have gone into keeping the landscape clean. Though Rich did not know it, it had been five hundred years since anyone had owned a lawn mower.

“I knew you’d find me,” he heard from nearby as he walked down a path paved with crushed gravel and bordered with squarely cut hedges and under a canopy of tall sugar maples. Last year’s taps still jutted out from the trunks at about waist high.

“What is this place,” Rich asked.

Jamie approached and took his hands in hers “This is my father’s home,” she said, leading him to a large brick mansion which stood at the middle of the garden. Rich could see fields of farmland on the surrounding hills, all bordered by nearly impenetrable forests.

As they mounted the steps to the mansion, Rich perceived a man at the top dressed in the finest tailored clothes awaiting introduction to his daughter’s suitor.