by Amy Ephron
“What sort of architecture is that?” asked Tess.
“Definitely Gothic,” said Aunt Evie. The castle was almost black and the metalwork extraordinarily ornate. “I don’t see the bell,” said Aunt Evie. “I mean, there should be a call box or something.”
Max got out of the car. “I see a bell,” he said, pointing to the top of the gate.
In fact, there was an old-fashioned bell. It seemed to be made of bronze, although it too had blackened. It was hanging at the top of the gate with a long braided rope cord trailing down from it.
Max shrugged at them, like what the heck, pulled on it, and the bell swung from right to left and back again, from right to left and back again . . . It sounded almost like church bells echoing against the moors. It sounded almost like the beginning of a symphony . . .
Tess didn’t know a lot about music, but she recognized that whatever these chords were, they must be in minor, discordant and oddly inviting at the same time. Then, suddenly, there was a tap-tap-tapping, as if someone was knocking on a door or there was a bass line to the bells. Tess was starting to think William’s father had a strange sense of humor.
As the bells began to ring, with that funny underlying drumbeat, the lights in the lampposts on the gates came on. Well, were they lights? They looked like candles in glass boxes and, almost as if it were on a timer sequence, the exterior of the castle lit up, as did the interior, so that it no longer looked quite so foreboding. Especially since that strange soundtrack was still emanating from the bell.
A moment later, Tess could just make out the figure of Barnaby in the shadow of the lamppost on the left side of the gate. He was wearing his gardener’s gear, but he’d put on a top hat and a black silk vest over his shirt in an effort to be elegant or festive.
He walked over to the car. “You must be Aunt Evie. Pleased to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m Barnaby. Keeper of the grounds. I promise I’ll take good care of them, deliver them home by ten. I’d invite you in,” he said, “but I don’t think your car would make it over the drawbridge. It needs a bit of repair. The drawbridge, I mean, not your car. I keep my buggy outside,” he added.
“Is there water under the drawbridge?” Aunt Evie asked.
“Of course there is,” was the reply.
“Hmm,” said Aunt Evie. “I thought the water dried up some years ago,” she said almost to herself. It had rained a bit this last winter, but she did think that the creek bed had gone dry.
“William’s father’s still in London,” said Barnaby, “or I would ask you in to meet him.”
Aunt Evie was dying to see the inside of the castle, but she thought it would be rude to insist. Tess had scrambled out of the car already. She and Max were standing at Barnaby’s side. In her mind, Aunt Evie calculated how long her own evening might last.
“It’s okay,” she said, after a bit of a pause, “if you drop them at eleven. Going out to . . .”—she hesitated—“dinner myself. After all, it is Saturday night.”
Barnaby agreed. “Saturday night, indeed,” he said. “The moon’s full tonight. Think it’s a blue one and—”
Max interrupted without letting Barnaby finish. “It is a blue moon. A blue moon is when there are two full moons in a month.” Max was proud of himself for knowing this fact.
“Yes,” said Barnaby, “but it’s also a blood moon, a total lunar eclipse. And a blood moon is something that doesn’t happen very often. It’s strange to have a blue moon and a blood moon on the same night.”
Max butted in, “It’s also a super moon tonight, that’s when the moon is at its closest point to the earth.”
“It’s very rare to have them all on the same night,” said Barnaby sounding a little bit spooky. “It’s a very special night indeed,” he declared.
Before Tess could even consider whether this was ominous or not, Aunt Evie started to hum the melody to the classic old song “Blue Moon,” totally embarrassing Max and Tess. But Barnaby just grinned. And Tess thought she even saw him wink at Aunt Evie.
As Aunt Evie backed out of the driveway, Barnaby waved good-bye. He put his hand on the gatepost, and almost the moment he touched it, the gate to the castle swung open from the center, both sides, slowly and grandly. Curiously though, when Tess looked at the gatepost, she didn’t see any button he could’ve pushed. William’s father sure was a stickler for security.
“Are there fish?” Tess asked. She thought she saw something silver and shimmery glide through the water underneath the drawbridge.
“Mmm, silver fish,” said Barnaby. “Lots of them. There’s no fishing allowed on the property.”
That didn’t surprise Tess. She knew they were eco-freaks. Although she didn’t quite know what a silver fish was, she thought it was some kind of a bug . . . maybe he was just referring to their color.
“There are probably snakes,” said Max, in a spooky voice as if he was trying to frighten her.
“If I find a python, I’ll bring it to you,” said Tess. She was sort of annoyed. He’d been so nice for most of the week. Tess wasn’t surprised that he chose that moment to be “disruptive,” to use one of his favorite expressions. Max really did like to be the center of attention and that wasn’t likely this evening. Also, it occurred to her, her brother might be a little nervous, too. The castle was sort of daunting.
Barnaby shook his head. “I’ve been here for years,” he said. “I’ve never seen a snake on the property. It isn’t the snakes we worry about.”
Tess was just about to ask what he was worried about when the front door swung open, revealing a kind of grandeur she’d never seen before.
There was a knight in the entryway. Tess was startled as she almost bumped into it. He was holding a dark axe, double sided, double-edged, that looked as if it could do some damage.
“Don’t worry,” said Barnaby. “It’s not a real knight,” as he lifted up the helmet mask to show her it was empty. “It’s not a knight, really,” he said. “It’s just a knight’s armor. And, of course, his weapon.” A knight was never dressed without his sword or axe. Tess remembered that from Middle Ages class. She was awfully glad they weren’t in the Middle Ages any more.
William was standing on the landing of the stairs. He was wearing trousers and suspenders, but on him they looked sort of hip.
Tess realized she might have a crush on William. She felt her cheeks turn pink, which Max, of course, noticed, as William walked down the stairs to join them.
She hoped Max wasn’t going to do anything tonight to embarrass her. He could be completely oblivious to other people’s feelings.
Max didn’t even realize that all the girls at school had a crush on him—even the older girls. He was completely unaware of the way they looked at him. He lived in his own world, fascinated by facts, occasionally kind and sometimes awful. Their mom said he was only mean when he was insecure. Tess reckoned the grandeur of the castle itself might be enough to make anyone insecure. Partly to manipulate Max and partly because she, too, was a little in awe of the castle, she whispered to him, “If you see a real knight, will you protect me?”
Max held his right pinkie up, which was their public version of a pinkie swear. Tess held hers up back at him.
~ CHAPTER SIXTEEN ~
the porcelain doll, the car collection, and table hockey
William invited them upstairs in his room to “idle” before dinner. That’s the word he used. “It’s cosier there,” he said as he led them up what Tess instantly dubbed, the extremely, incredibly, big, long staircase. The stairs themselves were carpeted with a rug that was so ornate and lush and intricately patterned that Tess thought it must be Chinese or French, definitely museum quality. Max, meanwhile, counted the stairs as they walked up them—the staircase angled twice—42 steps. He tried to calculate how high the ceiling was.
On the second floor (or was it the third floor), there was
an exceptionally long hallway that went in both directions.
William made a right turn towards his room. Tess wondered if there was an attic as well as a dungeon. She imagined it might be easy to get lost in the castle and that it could be difficult to be found.
“How many bedrooms are there?” asked Tess.
William hesitated. “I’m not sure,” he said shyly. That was one of the nice things about William. He didn’t brag about what he had . . . not like some of the kids she’d met at school in Switzerland.
“I bet you wish it had room numbers sometimes,” she said.
Tess bit her lip. It had probably been a rude remark. It was an attempt at a joke but nobody laughed. Note to self: think before you speak, especially when you’re nervous.
“No,” he said quite frankly. “I wish we had more guests. When my grandfather was alive, more people came to visit us.”
His bedroom was at the very end of the hallway, with windows on three sides. It was more like a suite than a bedroom. It had a sitting room/playroom and then a very large bedroom with a fireplace and a double bed. There were French doors which opened out onto a balcony on which was an ornate metal table and four chairs. There was a view of the garden and the countryside beyond. There was a crimson comforter on the bed, an embroidered headboard, and an enormous amount of pillows. It was very grand. She noticed that he didn’t have a television. There was, however, a very beautiful bookshelf. Everything on it looked like it was a first edition. She wondered if he had a first edition of The Boy’s King Arthur. It probably had beautiful color illustrations.
There was a porcelain doll on a shelf. She was very beautiful, in a white dress, with a perfectly painted face and the most delicate hands that also seemed to have polish on the nails. “My grandfather gave her to me,” William explained. “She was my mother’s doll when she was little. She has a trick. Do you want to see it?”
William didn’t wait for them to answer. He took down a circular brown stand on the shelf next to the doll. There was a metal spike sticking up from the center and William carefully slipped her down so that the metal piece attached to the porcelain doll’s back. He held it up and turned it sideways and Tess and Max could see there was a tiny screw on the bottom of the round wood saucer like the winding key of a music box. William wound it and carefully set the doll down on the table. Tchaikovsky’s music to Swan Lake started to play and the porcelain doll seemed almost to come to alive, as it moved the moment the music started, and began to perform twirls and arabesques and, at the very end, an excellent plié to the “floor” with a bow.
“Wow. I didn’t expect her to do that,” said Tess. “That was lovely.” Tess did a little spin of her own while William disengaged the doll from the base and put her carefully back up on the shelf.
Max was already distracted by William’s very cool collection of antique cars, including a 1932 Ford with real leather seats. “Is it okay to touch them?” asked Max, who for a change was being more polite than his sister.
“Of course,” said William. “This is my favorite.” He pointed to a silver Aston Martin, which he then casually handed to Max.
But Max’s eye was on the table hockey. Max loved table hockey. He’d become quite skilled at it at boarding school. Tess had long given up being any good at it, so, she watched while Max beat William the first game. And then William surprised Max and turned out to be a terror on his own.
The score was one–one when Barnaby bellowed up the stairs that dinner was served. His voice seemed to echo, almost as if it came through a loudspeaker in the walls. “There’s an intercom, right?” said Max.
William looked at him puzzled, as if he hadn’t understood the question, as Max unsuccessfully scanned the room for any evidence of speakers in the walls.
“Come on, then,” Barnaby bellowed again, and the three of them half ran down the long hallway and down the stairs.
~ CHAPTER SEVENTEEN ~
a dance before dinner
Tess hesitated in the door of the dining room. Stars strung on garlands hung, like upside-down rainbows, from the tops of the window frames. They were prisms, carefully carved, multi-faceted, almost like diamonds, in varying sizes of five-point stars. Reflected through their glass, patches of multicolored light in geometric patterns seemed to sparkle on the parquet floor. Tess had an impulse to do a dance on one of them but resisted. Well, she thought she resisted. But then the strangest thing happened . . .
She saw an image of herself doing a dance on one of them. She reached down and pinched her thigh to make sure she was still there. She was still there. Standing in the doorway of the dining room. But there was also a perfect image of her dancing on the parquet floor, seemingly surrounded in a halo of multi-colored light. And she could hear music. The music stopped and then she heard applause.
Oh dear, she thought, I really am imagining things. But William had the most curious smile on his face, as if he had seen it, too.
She’d heard about things like this, that you could step in some place and maybe never return. No, no, it had just been her imagination. And everything looked right again. The dining room looked very formal, despite its festive star-like decorations. There were heavy floral drapes pulled back, tucked into sconces, and tied with golden rope. The dining room table, with wood-carved high-backed chairs, looked as if it seated 20 or maybe more. There was the crest again, carved into the back of each chair. The table was covered in a white tablecloth with lace edging. There was a bowl of peaches and nectarines as a centerpiece, artfully arranged with another star prism set into it for effect.
Max had already stepped into the dining room and was just about to take a bite of a peach. Tess appreciated it that her brother was acting normally and behaving as if he felt comfortable in the castle. Tess followed his lead and walked into the dining room, as well.
There were three places set at the end of the table—one at the head and one on each side. Tess didn’t know much about china except she could tell it was fancy. One plate rested on a larger plate. The underneath plate had a gold rim. She was certain the silverware was real silver. She picked up a fork and wasn’t surprised that it had the same symbol in it as the key she remembered was safely in her boot, and the back of the chair she was sitting in.
Tess couldn’t imagine what it would be like to live in such a big house alone. No wonder William wished he had more company. Of course there were all the people who took care of him, Marie, Barnaby, and Clarissa, who, it turned out, also had a daughter named Clara. Clara was six feet tall, plain-faced, with dark hair that was pulled back in an unruly bun. Clara was somewhat awkward herself in the formal black uniform with a white apron she was wearing while she served them dinner.
After Clara went back into the kitchen, Max, as usual, broke the ice. “Don’t you think it’s funny,” Max whispered, “that she named her daughter after herself?”
Tess smiled. William looked baffled.
“Clara, Clarissa—she just dropped the ‘iss’,” said Max.
Tess had known exactly what he was talking about. It was so like Max to figure something like that out. Clara, Clarissa, you just drop the “iss.”
“I think it’s sort of great,” Tess said. She hesitated. “Don’t you think it’s weird,” she added, “that only boys can be juniors or seconds or thirds? I’ve never thought that was fair. Although I don’t think it would be fair if I named my daughter Tess Barnes II, to my daughter or my husband, since her last name probably wouldn’t be Barnes, right?”
Max started laughing. “If you named your daughter Tess Barnes II, I would call her ‘deuce.’”
“Thanks, Max.”
William marvelled at the way they communicated with one another. “I’m a third,” he said shyly. “William Bramsfield III. Although I never use it. Well, that’s not true—it’s on my stationery.”
He was a third and he had engraved stationery. It occurre
d to Tess that her dad was right about very rich people. They were sort of different from the rest of us.
The dinner itself wasn’t particularly fancy except for the presentation. There were fresh vegetables cut into the shape of flowers, radishes and turnips, and curlicues of carrots and celery served with a fresh onion dip that wasn’t nearly as zippy as Lipton’s.
There were delicious shepherd’s pies made with pheasant—okay, it was a little fancy—and fresh peas.
William suggested they have dessert and tea in the garden. “The moon is full,” he said.
“We heard that,” Tess answered. “And it’s a blue moon.”
“I think it might be a red one, too,” William replied.
“A blood moon, y’mean,” said Barnaby, who was standing in the doorway of the kitchen waiting to take them outside.
“What time is the eclipse tonight?” asked Max. He wished he had his iPhone so he could check. “Will we be able to see the eclipse from here?” he added before anyone could even answer his first question, since he remembered eclipses could only be seen from certain geographic spots depending on the time of year.
“You’ll definitely be able to see the eclipse from here,” said Barnaby. And then he added, his voice dropping almost an octave, “Sometimes objects have to pass each other in order for the world to be right.”
Tess thought there was something menacing in the way he’d said this. She wished she had her iPhone. She wanted to see what time the eclipse was. She sort of hoped they’d be home before it happened.