The Castle in the Mist

by Amy Ephron

  • • •

  Tess fell asleep in the car on the way back to Aunt Evie’s.

  Half awake, she barely made it up the stairs and into her pajamas.

  As her head hit the pillow, she remembered the key. She’d thrown her shorts on the blue-and-white striped velvet chair by the dresser.

  Please let it be there. Please let it be there. She said silently to herself, wondering how she could have been so careless. It was. The rusty old skeleton key was right in her pocket where she’d left it. She got an envelope from her stationery box, dropped the key in, and sealed the envelope. She wrote the words The Castle in the Mist on it in her best cursive, which would turn out to be one of the stupider things she’d done in the last six months. She hid it in her sweater drawer, the third one down in the dresser, underneath a pale beige button-down sweater her mother had given her for her last birthday.

  She got back into bed, turned the bedside light off again, and within moments fell fast asleep. Not surprisingly, she dreamt about swans.

  ~ CHAPTER FIVE ~

  keeping secrets

  It was after ten when Tess went down for breakfast. One of the nice things about Aunt Evie was that she didn’t believe in schedules. Evie thought it was perfectly okay to stay up all night reading, particularly if the book was good. The only thing she insisted on was that they all have dinner together.

  Every morning, Aunt Evie made oatmeal, which she left on in the slow cooker for Max and Tess. The truth is, Tess was getting a little sick of oatmeal, but this morning it had apples and raisins in it, even though it had sat for so long, it was sort of the consistency of mashed potatoes. It was a little chilly still in the kitchen, so Tess ran upstairs to get a sweater.

  When she opened her bedroom door, there was Max holding an envelope, staring at it curiously. She realized in an instant it was the envelope she’d written on so foolishly last night.

  “You know you’re not supposed to go through my things,” Tess yelled at him.

  “I wasn’t going through your things! Aunt Evie always mixes up our laundry. I was looking for my blue jacket.”

  “You’re supposed to ask me before you do that! Give it to me!” She grabbed for the envelope.

  Max smiled his most impish smile and held the envelope up above his head. Tess was relieved to see he hadn’t opened it. It was sort of laughable that he was holding it over his head because she was just as tall as he was, actually an inch taller. She grabbed it from him easily—but he was fast and he grabbed it back.

  “Give it to me. Give it to me, right now!”

  Max had jumped behind the blue-and-white striped chair and he was opening the envelope.

  “Don’t.”

  He opened it and peered in. He reached his hand into the envelope, picked up the key, and instantly screamed, “Oh!! Jeez!” He tossed it up in the air. Then caught it. “Oh, it’s so hot,” he said, kicking the blue-and-white chair, which flipped over sideways as he dropped the key onto the hardwood floor. As it hit, it seemed to set off sparks, like tiny laser beams, all the colors of the rainbow. For a fraction of a second, to Tess, it seemed to turn the bright brass color it had when it neared the gate, but then, as it fell to rest on the floor, it was once again a rusty skeleton key.

  Max was stunned into silence. His index finger was bright red where the key had burned him.

  “Who—Whose key is that?” he asked.

  “Well,” said Tess, leaning over to pick it up—she was half afraid she, too, would be burned but knew she needed to put on a show—“it’s obviously not yours.” Her hand folded around it. No, just a little bit warm. She picked up the envelope from the floor where Max had dropped it, dropped the key back into it, and folded it up.

  “Where did you get that?” Max asked. “Did you find it in the attic?”

  Tess didn’t answer him.

  “Tell me right now or I’ll tell Aunt Ev.” He ran for the door.

  She threw her body in front of his, blocking the door. She heard her father’s voice, “Please try not to be violent with each other. I know it’s hard.” It was something he always said to them. She summoned all her strength and self-control and stared Max down.

  Now, she had another dilemma. If someone knew a secret could you trust them not to tell? If someone didn’t know the answer to a secret, could you trust them not to try to find out?

  The answer to the second question was obviously No.

  “I know you didn’t go bike riding Saturday,” Max said. “I went to look for you and your bike was by the garage.”

  Tess had to admit, he had her there.

  Also, she reasoned, if she was going to see William again this summer, she might need Max’s help. Aunt Evie was going to think it was strange if she disappeared for hours at a time. Aunt Evie would not believe that she’d taken up poetry full-time and was sitting on the moors.

  “Max, I can’t . . . Set the chair upright, please, and come sit down on the bed,” she said.

  After they were seated, she placed the envelope like a sacred object in between them. “I can’t really explain it. And if I told you the story, you might not believe it. Umm . . . but . . . see”—this was an expression she used all the time when she was little; in fact, her dad sometimes called her Miss Umbutsy. “Umm . . . but . . . see,” she said again, “I think the only thing I can do is show you.

  “We can’t go today,” she said. “Aunt Evie says it’s rude to drop in on someone too often when you’ve only just met. But I promise, we’ll go tomorrow and, when we get there, I’ll ask if it’s okay for you to be there, too.”

  “But where are we going?” asked Max.

  “To my friend’s house. Okay?”

  There was something about the seriousness with which she said it that made Max not want to question her more.

  “Pinkie swear,” she said. “It’s just our secret.”

  They linked pinkies the way they’d done when they were little, and made a solemn oath.

  “Do you want to play Monopoly?” Max asked. “I promise, I won’t throw the board.”

  “Okay,” said Tess. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

  Max left. She shut the door. She sat down on the bed for a moment to collect herself. She needed a new hiding place for the key.

  ~ CHAPTER SIX ~

  an electrical storm

  Tess woke up that night to a bright flash of light outside her bedroom window followed by the sound of thunder. Lightning always made her think of her dad. She knew she had too big an imagination. She could imagine what it might be like to see an explosion in the distance in the desert. She’d told him this once—that she was afraid of lightning. He understood that it wasn’t the lightning she was afraid of. “Don’t go there,” he said. “Don’t try to imagine me over there. Just think of me as right here on your shoulder. Always.” She put her right hand on her own left shoulder, which is what he always did when he said it, and tried to roll over and go back to sleep.

  There was another strike of lightning and another crack of thunder. Then she heard a timid knock at her door, and Max poked his head in.

  “Can I—umm—hang out with you for a while?” he asked. “I can’t sleep.”

  “Sure. I can’t sleep, either.”

  Max lay down on top of the covers next to her.

  There was another crack of lightning and then the room was plunged into darkness. Tess had carefully set the candles into the candlesticks from the antique store and put them out on top of her dresser. For a moment, she thought they were lit and that she saw a soft glow coming off of the top of the wicks.

  There was another crack of lightning, this one more terrifying than the last.

  “Do you do it, too?” she asked Max.

  “When I hear lightning and thunder,” he answered, “do I worry about Dad? Yeah.” Sometimes she and Max had almost psychic comm
unication.

  “He’s okay,” said Tess with some confidence, taking the soft glow of the candles as a sign.

  “I know,” said Max. “I think we’d know it if he wasn’t.”

  He put his head down on her pillow, shut his eyes, and fell fast asleep. Tess put her hand on his left shoulder, the way their dad would have done it if he had been there.

  ~ CHAPTER SEVEN ~

  a visit to the castle garden

  Max woke Tess up the next morning, excitedly pointing to the window. The sun was peeking out behind the clouds.

  “Can we go today?” he asked without even saying, ‘good morning.’

  “If it’s not raining. I think so,” said Tess. She realized it was the first time she’d seen her brother happy in a long time. “But,” she said, “let me do the talking with Aunt Evie, okay?”

  As Tess was getting dressed, she noticed the candlesticks on top of her bureau and saw that the wicks of the candles were still pure-white . . . and that they’d never been lit at all. She must have imagined it. It must’ve been a reflection from the lightning outside.

  For once, they all came down for breakfast at the same time.

  “Let me make breakfast, Aunt Evie,” Max said. It was one of the things that was unusual and endearing about Max—he loved to cook. He’d talked their mom into letting him be her sous chef when he was six and had developed excellent basic cooking skills, which extended to pancakes, spaghetti, and roast chicken. “I’ll make pan-scrambled eggs,” he said. “Mom says they’re the best kind.”

  “Your grandma used to make them for us when we were little,” said Aunt Evie. She set a frying pan down on the stove and handed Max a stick of butter from the fridge and a bowl with six eggs in it.

  Max melted the butter over a medium flame and expertly cracked the eggs right into the sizzling butter and scrambled them up in the pan. They were a funny mixture of yellow and white and delicious.

  Tess had set the table and poured juice for each of them into the jam jars that Aunt Evie used as glasses. Aunt Evie had made toast and the three of them sat down to a breakfast that almost reminded Tess and Max of home.

  “That was quite a show last night,” said Aunt Evie. “Did you see it? The whole sky lit up.”

  “I know—it was really thrilling, wasn’t it?” said Max. Tess resisted the impulse to give him a dirty look.

  “I was hoping you would help me in the garden today,” Aunt Evie said, “but it’s too wet to garden!” Aunt Evie’s back garden was a mess. It was so overgrown, it was a tangle. It definitely needed a cleaning up.

  “Can we help tomorrow?” Tess asked. “We were thinking we might . . .” Tess hesitated, “. . . if it dries out a bit, take a bike ride and go on an adventure. I’ve never ridden due north.” She pulled her compass out of the pocket of her shorts to show Aunt Evie she was prepared.

  “My iPhone has GPS,” said Max somewhat grumpily. Once a day, Max would mention something his iPhone could do that he couldn’t do because there wasn’t any internet service.

  “It’s not my fault, Max,” said Aunt Evie, “that there isn’t any cell service up here. I wish we had internet, too. If we had internet, I would order some tulip bulbs online.”

  Max and Tess started laughing. It was just like Aunt Evie to announce she wanted to go online and then figure out the most old-fashioned thing she could buy on the internet, tulip bulbs. Tess did a Note to self: ask Mom to send Aunt Evie tulip bulbs for Christmas.

  “That sounds like fun,” Aunt Evie said, already distracted by the morning paper. “I think I might make apricot jam,” she announced, looking over at the counter where there was a huge basket of apricots. “Don’t stay out too late. Try to be home before dark, okay?”

  Victory! Tess and Max exchanged a look. “Of course, Aunt Evie,” Tess answered. “Promise.”

  They took their bikes but didn’t travel due north. They couldn’t really ride them. They had to walk them up the path. Halfway up the hill, they abandoned both bicycles under a bush. When they reached the orchard, Max was surprised.

  “I didn’t know there was an orchard up here,” he said. The orchard was pretty, some of the trees were still flowering, the others were ripe with fruit, plums, green apples, apricots. There was even a fig tree that Aunt Evie claimed she’d brought home from Greece.

  “Haven’t you ever been here?” Tess asked. “I come up with Aunt Evie and help her pick the fruit from the trees. Where did you think the plums and apricots came from?”

  “No, I’ve never been here,” Max answered. “And I never really thought about where the apricots came from. Is this Aunt Evie’s property?”

  “I think so,” said Tess. She laughed. “I’m sure of it. She said she planted the fig tree, and that isn’t something you’d do on someone else’s property!”

  Tess reached up and picked two plums from a tree. She handed a plum to Max.

  He waited until she took a bite of hers before he bit into his. He had new respect for his sister after that stunt with the key.

  Tess pointed to the path that stretched above the orchard and the steps cut into the rock face. Max realized his heart was beating a little quickly.

  “You sure you know where we’re going?”

  “I think so,” she said, although she thought to herself, if it’s really there. She half expected that she had imagined it, after all.

  It was quite a climb.

  “Are you sure we haven’t passed it?” Max asked. He was a little out of breath. Max sometimes got asthmatic when he ran outside. Tess realized they’d forgotten his inhaler. There wasn’t any reason to bring their cell phones (or even keep them charged, as there wasn’t any service) and no one had any idea where they were.

  “I’ll walk slower, then,” she said. “Stay right behind me.”

  “Okay . . .”

  They were at the rock face where the road seemed to change into steps cut into the cliff. “No, I remember this part,” Tess said with certainty. “It’s just up here a little way.” Then she channeled her father, which made Max smile. “Single file. March!” she said. “Come on.”

  She stopped at the top of the hill, and Max, who was standing a good foot below her on the steps, couldn’t see anything at all.

  “Just here,” she said, pointing to the gate that looked like a gingerbread cookie.

  He stepped up and looked. “It’s just a gate. There’s nothing on either side of it,” he said. “Why don’t we just walk around it?”

  Tess nodded. “Well . . .”

  She didn’t have to finish the sentence because Max tried to walk around it and his foot hit the invisible wall, then his nose touched, then his forehead, and he was thrown back onto the dirt.

  She held a hand out to pull her brother up. “That would be why,” said Tess. Max’s eyes were as wide as saucers.

  “William says his dad has ‘privacy issues,’” Tess explained. “I think it’s . . .” Tess hesitated. “It must be some kind of security fence.”

  Max tried to figure out whether that made sense or not . . . but Tess had already pulled the skeleton key out of her pocket.

  Tess turned to him and put her finger to her mouth in a gesture of ‘ssshhh,’ as the key once again began to spark and, as it had the first time, turned to a bright brass color as it neared the gate. The keyhole appeared out of nowhere. And as the key connected, the gate, too, transformed as if it were brand new and totally inviting.

  Max broke the silence. “Wow! That was sort of incredible.”

  Max was the first to peek his head in. The first thing he saw was the pond. But instead of swans, there were bullfrogs standing on the lily pads. They were big bullfrogs, practically bright green, making almost melodic, croaking noises, as if they were having a conversation with one another as they hopped from one lily pad to the next.

  Tess stepped in front o
f Max into the garden. She looked around to see if William was there. No sign of him. She saw a lone white dove perched on the branch of a silver birch tree. And then the yellow ball came whizzing towards her. She leaned down, without missing a beat, and picked it up goalie style. She set it down on the ground before her and folded her arms on her chest.

  “Good catch,” he shouted to her as she shouted back, almost in unison, “Good shot. But I’m too fast for you.”

  He walked across the garden to her. “Is it all right,” she asked, “that I brought my brother?”

  “Of course it is,” he answered.

  “William, this is Max. Max, this is William,” said Tess, making a formal introduction between them.

  “Hey,” said Max sheepishly.

  Tess was relieved he hadn’t added the word bro to the hey. Sometimes Max reverted to slang in an effort to be cool.

  ~ CHAPTER EIGHT ~

  closet talk

  If two people think something happened, did it happen?” Tess whispered even though they were sitting on the floor in the closet with the door shut.

  “Stop it. You sound like Dad.”

  “I can’t help it. I feel like Dad.” This was a feeling that was partly brought on by the fact that they were having a talk in the closet. This was something their parents did in their New York apartment, as it was sort of small and privacy was hard to find. In the middle of dinner (or in the middle of the living room) sometimes either their mom or their dad would say, “Closet talk.” It was like a code-word. Both of their parents would instantly retire to their bedroom, go into the closet, shut the door, and have a talk.

  Tess and Max had never gone into the closet with them, so they weren’t sure exactly what the procedure was. Did they talk standing up? Did they sit on the floor?

  Max was SO excited when they returned to Aunt Evie’s after the extraordinary afternoon at William’s that Tess thought Max needed a calming down, so they could get their stories straight. “Closet talk,” she said, the moment they walked in Aunt Evie’s front door. And Max and Tess retired to Tess’s room, went into the closet, and sat down on the floor to have a talk.