Chateau of Secrets: A Novel

by Melanie Dobson

  But it seemed my destiny wasn’t going to involve much simplicity. As long as I could continue to carve out chunks of time like this to savor, I would enjoy the more public ride with Austin.

  A branch draped low over the cove, and I ducked under it before sinking my paddle into the water again. The edge trailed in the water, the ripples blending with the light. Mesmerized, I watched as the light danced along the top of the brackish pool.

  I hadn’t planned to be on the water today, but when I arrived at my parents’ summer home, neither of them was here yet. Instead of waiting inside, I hauled my kayak out of the boathouse and paddled across the small lake to an overgrown cove that seemed a million miles away.

  And as I paddled, I mulled over my family’s stories.

  Mémé was usually confused these days, but this afternoon she’d seemed lucid when she begged me to find Adeline. Who was this girl who seemed to haunt her? And what happened to my great-grandfather during the war?

  My grandmother had seemed afraid until the sadness overtook her. Something terrible must have happened to her father. If only she had told me years before, when she told me my grandfather had fought the Germans.

  Unlike my father’s side of the family, the history on my mother’s side flowed like a rapid river current. My mother’s parents—Lionel and Grace Bishop—had seemingly endless tales from their year of courting. Every payday in the winter of 1954, Lionel had shown up at the bakery to buy a dozen of Grace’s coconut macaroons. It took him a solid six months to muster enough courage to ask her for a date, but after another six months, he proposed and they married in an old church in Bethesda. To celebrate every anniversary, Grace still made him macaroons.

  My grandparents on my father’s side loved each other deeply, but all I knew about their courtship was that they’d met in a café. They’d told me no stories about their wedding day.

  I remembered a little about my grandpa—the cinnamon candies he’d kept in his pockets and his fascination for anything that flew. He had a remote-control plane and during the summer, I spent hours at the park with him, flying it above the trees. His knowledge of history inspired me to love education, but somehow the history he discussed never encompassed his own story and I was too young at the time to think about asking for more. It was my grandmother who told me about his service in the military and resistance.

  One specific memory from the years before Grandpa passed on rose to the top. It was my grandparents, holding hands as I joined them for a walk along the Atlantic coast. Mémé swatted Grandpa away playfully when he tried to steal a kiss. Then they’d escaped around a dune, ahead of me. When Mémé thought no one was looking, she kissed him back.

  I smiled at my treasure of a memory—a simple, stolen kiss that sealed their enduring love, a love that lasted almost sixty years.

  Near the shore, I saw the flat head of a snake and then the black sheen of its body trailing behind it. With swift strokes, I paddled away. While I loved the water, I wasn’t thrilled about sharing it with a moccasin. Few things above the water scared me, but I was scared of what swam underneath it. Especially snakes looking for trouble.

  Perhaps that was why I had a deep appreciation for the kayak. I could play on the water without diving in.

  As I neared the dock, my mom waved from the patio of the house.

  “Ahoy!” she shouted as she descended the path down to the water, a cooler in her hand. Her ash-blond hair was twisted back into a knot, and she wore a sleeveless blouse that showed off the bronze color on her plump arms. My mom was sixty-four, but she believed that age was relative. A state of mind. Oddly enough, her mind insisted that she hadn’t yet hit the big 4-0.

  After I beached my kayak, she greeted me with a giant hug. I pulled a chair under a yellow umbrella and kicked off my flip-flops. “I’m glad to see you’re pretending to retire.”

  “We are retired,” she said. “On the second Sunday of every month.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I guess that’s progress.”

  My parents were supposed to be easing their way into retirement, though the pace of their professional lives didn’t seem to be letting up. I couldn’t envision either of them fully retired.

  A catamaran sailed toward our side of the lake, and I could see the chalky outline of a sailor leaning into the wind. Her eyes on the sailboat, Mom reached into the cooler and pulled out a Perrier for me. “Are you excited about France?”

  “I’m excited to return to the château,” I said. “But I don’t know what I’m going to say in an interview about World War II.”

  Mom pulled a Tupperware container from her cooler and propped it on her lap. “Just tell Mr. Holtz the stories you remember about your grandfather.”

  She opened the container and took a strawberry from the pile of fresh fruit. It seemed ironic to me that she—the owner of Bliss Bakery—abstained from all refined sugar and artificial colors. Most of her cakes and cookies were chock-full of the processed stuff, but these days she let others bake while she met with brides who wanted one of her prized cakes.

  Except for my wedding cake. She was planning to bake it herself. I wasn’t sure how I was going to tell her that Austin’s mother had asked Patty Wilson to bake one as well.

  My mom held out the container, and I popped several blueberries into my mouth. “Perhaps Grandpa has family I can visit while I’m in France.”

  She shook her head. “He was estranged from them long ago.”

  The catamaran drew close, and I realized the man sailing the boat in long board shorts was my father. “What is Dad doing?”

  “He decided to take up a new hobby.”

  I understood my dad’s love of the water, but he was much too old to be out sailing by himself. “Can’t he take up golfing or—I don’t know—bunco?”

  She laughed. “He’d be bored out of his mind.”

  Dad lassoed a post on the dock and pulled in his catamaran before retrieving a towel and T-shirt from the dock. He wiped his tanned face with his towel. “I’d give you a hug, but . . .”

  I waved both hands. “There’s no need.”

  Mom scooted the cooler toward him with her toes. “Drink something, Michael.”

  “When did you get a sailboat?” I asked.

  “Two weeks ago.” He plucked a vitamin-infused water out of the cooler and then he winked at me. “I’m planning to go pro.”

  Mom rolled her eyes. “He thinks the catamaran scouts are coming for him.”

  Dad pulled over a chair to sit beside me. His silver hair glistened in the sunlight, but besides his hair, few people would probably have guessed he was pushing seventy-six. He was in better physical condition than half the guys my age, and he worked harder than any other man I knew. “Thank you for doing this interview.”

  I leaned into the shade of the umbrella. “I wish you could go with me.”

  He took a long drink and then put the bottle back down on the glass table. “Not this time, I’m afraid.” He always seemed to have an excuse as to why he couldn’t return to France, but he never explained it to me. “Perhaps someday we’ll all go back again for a visit together.”

  “I saw Mémé this morning.” I slowly twirled my toes. “I told her I was going to Normandy.”

  Dad twisted the water bottle. “What did she say?”

  “She talked about the château and her father and then she asked me about a little girl named Adeline.”

  My parents shared a glance, and I looked between them.

  “What are you keeping from me?”

  “We’re not keeping anything,” Mom said. “It’s just that Gisèle has mentioned this Adeline a few times recently.”

  “So you were keeping it from me.”

  Dad shook his head. “She says a lot of things that don’t mean anything. We thought she was confused.”

  “She seemed quite intent on it today.”

  “I’ve never heard of anyone named Adeline,” Dad said.

  I sipped the bubbly water. “She was afrai
d for her father as well.”

  Dad glanced back out at the lake. “My grandfather died at the beginning of the war.”

  “Do you know how he died?”

  After Dad shook his head, Mom slipped off her sunglasses and placed them on the table. “Tell her what Mr. Holtz said.”

  Dad leaned toward me, his eyes intent. “He seems to think something significant happened at the château.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “He didn’t expound.”

  I sighed. “I wish he could have given us a little lead time to gather material.”

  “Apparently he was just able to track us down,” Mom said.

  “Maybe Stéphane could tell me some stories—”

  “That man is not to be trusted,” Dad said.

  “Why not?”

  “His father lost their family’s home in Lyon and then he spent a lifetime trying to steal the château from my mother, even as she allowed him to live there without paying a dime of rent.” Tears welled in his eyes, and I loved how much he still loved Mémé. Her mind might be slipping, but Dad remembered everything good about her. “Philippe despised her, but she didn’t turn him away.”

  “What was it like growing up in a château?” It was the same question I’d asked when I was younger, but this time I hoped for a better answer.

  “I don’t remember much,” he said, his voice quiet. “I was barely six when we moved to the States.”

  I had so many memories from my early years of life—coloring with my friends in kindergarten, playing in the ocean in Virginia Beach, my dog who died when I was five. “Surely you remember something,” I said, pressing him.

  “My mother tells the grandest stories of my childhood there, but all I recall are the tall stone walls.” His gaze wandered toward the water. “And a room filled with children, dozens of them . . .”

  I glanced up at the contrails of a plane in the sky. “I suppose it’s hard to tell the difference between a childhood dream and a memory.”

  He looked back at me. “Dreams and blurry memories should never be trusted. And neither should the Bordes.”

  Chapter 13

  The spicy scent of incense lingered in the chapelle, and the stained-glass windows gleamed from the setting sunlight, warming the blond wood of the benches. Near the altar was a statue of Mother Mary holding her baby, and pictures lined the walls—scenes of Saint Francis holding a lamb, Saint Michel defeating the dragon, Jesus carrying his cross to Calvary.

  With the handles of the picnic hamper strung over her arm, Gisèle unlocked the gate across the sacristy and then relocked it behind her. A cabinet to the right stored linens and beside it was a locked closet for vestments. Usually she came to the sacristy after dark, when those who prayed couldn’t see what she was doing, but she couldn’t wait until nightfall to find Michel. She needed his help to find Papa.

  The skeleton key that hung on her rosary also unlocked the large closet in the sacristy, and she pushed aside the tunics, stoles, and robes until she felt the wooden panel in the back. When she pressed on it, the wood swung inward.

  Turning on her flashlight, she shone it onto the ledge and saw the food she’d left last night in the picnic hamper was still there, along with her letter. She stepped inside and closed the panel behind her before picking up the hamper.

  Steps led downward from the ledge, into the darkness, and her skin bristled as she shined her light below.

  Her father used to tell them legends about a tunnel under the property, a place where their ancestors hid during the French Revolution, but she had never known where the entrance was until Michel returned last month from England and begged for her help. Her brother made her swear not to tell anyone, especially their father, that he’d found the tunnel.

  Breathing in the cool air, she began her descent. The dirt walls circled around her. She much preferred the open lands around her home to dark, tight spaces like this, but she forced her mind to wander away from its panic, to wonder at those who had come down here long before her. Perhaps the Vikings had built the tunnel after they raided this land, or maybe the Romans built it in the earlier centuries after Christ’s birth. Perhaps it had been used as a catacomb.

  She shouldn’t let her mind wander.

  The passage tapered, the cold air chilling her skin, but even with the drop in temperature, her hands were clammy. The sooner she found her brother, the sooner she could get back to the warmth on the surface.

  “Michel?” she called out.

  There was no answer.

  The tunnel diverged into two passages, and she shone her light down both sides. On both sides, the darkness swallowed up her ray of light.

  She chose the left passage at first, but it dead-ended into a dozen stone steps, a small pocket door at the top. Curiosity spurred her forward and she tugged on the metal pull. The door cracked open, but it was the tiniest sliver. On the other side was some sort of barrier.

  Her breathing grew faster now. What if she was trapped under the earth? What if she lost her way and couldn’t get back to the chapelle?

  What if someone locked the closet door from the outside and she couldn’t open it?

  What if her brother was gone—and someone else was here instead?

  She had to find him quickly and get back up the stairs.

  The tunnel sloped downward as she crept forward, and she wondered if she was descending in the direction of the forest or the river. She knew every step of their property aboveground, but it felt so strange to be far below all that she knew.

  When the path flattened again, she paused by a small room cut out of the dirt. Blankets and cigarette butts littered the ground. She passed by the room, but voices echoed farther up the tunnel, and she froze, listening to the sound. Then she turned off her flashlight.

  Light continued to illuminate the walls in front of her, and she prayed her brother was with the light.

  “Michel?” she called again.

  The voices stopped, and for a moment, all she heard was her breathing.

  “Is that you, Gigi?”

  At the sound of her brother’s voice, her heart returned to a steady pace. Only Michel was allowed to call her that name. “It’s me.”

  “It’s not safe for you to be here.” The sternness in his voice frightened her.

  She squinted into the light but couldn’t see him or anyone else, so she stepped toward the lantern. “I’ve brought your food.”

  “Leave it where you are,” he said.

  “But I need to speak with you.”

  The shadow of a man emerged in front of her, and she flashed her light on him. Her brother, dark and swarthy, walked toward her as if he were Clark Gable or another one of America’s stars who dominated the silver screen. Many of the young women in Normandy pined over Michel Duchant, but he’d always been more enamored of his motorcycle than the idea of marriage—at least until he met Lisette.

  He’d been conscripted into the Armée de Terre before he graduated from lycée and reported to duty on his eighteenth birthday, ready to slay the dragons like the saint Mother named him after. Sometimes Gisèle wondered if anything ever frightened her brother.

  “You can’t see the other men who are with me,” he said.

  She set the picnic hamper on the ground. “I wouldn’t tell anyone who they are.”

  “We’re in a war,” he said, his voice sad. “None of us can be certain what we will or will not do.”

  As he drew closer in the tunnels, she could smell sweat and brandy and cigarette smoke, but she didn’t care. She hugged him.

  When he released her, he clamped his hands on her shoulders. “What is it, Gigi?”

  “Émilie and I baked you bread.” She nudged the picnic hamper toward him. “You must check the ledge, Michel. I left you a letter last night.”

  “I thought you’d fled,” he said. “We heard the bombs two nights ago. One of our men went out—” His voice cracked with emotion. “He hasn’t returned.”

  She
took a deep breath. “The Germans have taken Paris.”

  His fist shot out, hitting the wall. “This is what we feared,” he said as he pulled his fist back into his chest. “The worst of our fears.”

  “I am afraid for you, Michel.”

  “Where are the French soldiers?” he asked, rubbing his hand.

  “The wireless said they were running south.”

  “Our government—they are all cowards.”

  “No one wants the Germans here,” she said.

  He shook his head. “Some do. They think it will bring peace.”

  “How can bombs bring peace?” she asked.

  “It all depends on who is dropping the bombs.” His voice grew stronger. “If our army can’t stop them, then we will have to.”

  His declaration made her shiver, and she trembled. His fervor, she feared, might get him killed. “You must leave here too. Papa said we could get to Switzerland.”

  “I will not run away.” He paused. “Why are you still here?”

  She forced a smile. “I promised Mother that I’d take care of you.”

  “That was ten years ago,” he said. “You must leave, Gigi. We will find food another way.”

  “How many are down here?” she asked.

  “Four right now, but with this news . . .” He unclenched his hand. “There will be more.”

  “Then you will need more food.” When they found Papa, he would agree with her.

  “I can’t put you into harm’s way. If something happened to you, Papa would never forgive me, and I—I would never forgive myself.” He paused again. “Why hasn’t Papa made you leave?”

  Tears began to well in her eyes. “He’s gone, Michel, and I don’t know where he went.”

  “He left without you?”

  “He stayed behind to hide the silver and Mother’s jewelry. Philippe came to get me—”

  “Where is Philippe now?” he demanded.

  “We got separated in the bombing,” she explained. “But he called today, from Lyon.”

  “He is just waiting . . . ,” Michel muttered.