The Castle in the Mist

by Amy Ephron

  Tess was a little confused, as she hadn’t realized it was a museum.

  “In any event,” their dad added, “it’s Monday, so they’re closed.”

  “Well, they’ll still be there, Papa,” said Tess. “I mean, they live here.”

  She pulled on the bell cord. She looked through the gate and saw the silver fish shimmering in the water underneath the drawbridge.

  After the longest time, nobody came. Tess pulled on the cord again. And so did Max.

  “Maybe they’ve gone out,” their father suggested.

  “No,” said Tess. “They don’t really go out very much.” She pulled on the cord again, even though she knew it was bordering on rude.

  “Hold yer horses,” they heard a voice calling. The thick Irish accent sounded awfully familiar.

  The gentleman who opened the door was older than Barnaby. He was a few inches shorter, too. He had a shock of white hair that was visible under the herringbone cap he wore (that looked a lot like the herringbone cap that Barnaby wore).

  “We were starting to think no one was here,” their dad said in his loud and booming voice. “Thanks for opening the door.”

  “Americans,” the gentleman said, in a thick Irish brogue. “Museum’s closed on Monday. How long will you be in town?”

  “I’m afraid we’re leaving today,” their father answered.

  “Really?” he replied. “Hmmm, seeing as you’re leaving today, I suppose I could break the rules and let you in. It won’t be an official tour, but at least you’ll get to see the place.”

  “We wanted to see William,” Tess added.

  “William? And what William would that be, M’Lady?”

  The M’Lady stopped her.

  “Umm,” she looked at Max and then back at the museum guard, “a-a,” she almost stammered, “a young boy about our age. William. We thought this was his house.”

  But the museum guard had walked ahead of them, briskly crossing the drawbridge toward the castle, and seemingly wasn’t paying attention to anything she said.

  They followed him across the drawbridge and into the house.

  Tess took a breath as she looked around. It was the same furniture that had been there before, the same staircase, the view into the dining room was just the same, except that there was a velvet rope enclosing the table and chairs so that no one would or could sit on them. The crystal prisms seemed to still be hanging in the window, refracting the light and making criss-cross rainbow patterns on the dining room floor.

  Tess repeated, “We were—we were looking for William.”

  “Nobody lives here,” the museum guard explained. “No one but me, and I live out in a small house by the stable.”

  Tess knew where the stable was, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Nobody’s lived here for almost fifty years,” the museum guard explained. “We’re thinking we should have a party for the bicentennial.”

  Tess wondered what that celebration would be like . . .

  “It’s a curious story,” he said. “But I suppose y’don’t have time for it . . .”

  Tess and Max looked at their father.

  “Could you tell the abbreviated version?” their father boomed, his voice sounding louder in the castle than it ever had anywhere, as if it were echoing through the halls.

  “It was war time,” said Barnaby. “The First World War. The young lord was a decorated soldier and he was sent to France. He fell in love with a beautiful French girl with no parentage at all. She’d been left on a church step and raised by nuns. She had no known history. The young lord believed his father would approve—if he just met her, he would see. But the old earl, enraged, cut him off before he could even bring his young bride home. He disinherited him, sent a courier to tell him never to come home. Shortly after that, the young lord disappeared in battle. Do you know what that means?” he asked the children. “‘Disappeared in battle’?”

  Tess and Max nodded. They both knew, too well, what it meant to disappear in battle. They lived with the fear of it almost every day. Especially when their father was reporting from the battlefield, embedded with the troops. But right now, he was right there, by their side, and there wasn’t anything to be afraid of. Tess slipped her hand into her father’s and held on tightly as she and Max nodded again and the museum guard continued to explain.

  “The Royal Guards came and told him. One day they rang the bell and walked across the drawbridge.

  “‘We’re so sorry, M’Lord,’ they said, ‘your son has been lost in battle.

  “‘No, we can’t confirm his death, just that he’s among the missing.’

  “It was a few months later,” he went on, “that there was another ring of the bell and a young, waifish woman with a young boy in her arms appeared at the castle door. She told ’im she was a governess. That’s what she told ’im and he believed her, why would he not? She knew if she told him the truth, he’d turn her away. She told him she was the governess and that she carried his four-year-old grandson in her arms. She told him that both his son and his son’s wife, the child’s mother, had disappeared and that they’d told her when she first came to work for them, that if anything ever happened to them, she should come here.

  “She set the boy down. He was the spitting image of his father, dressed in a blue suit of the day with short pants, an elegant air about him, and an impish smile, although if anyone had looked closely, they might’ve noticed that the blue pants were the same color as the cotton the peasants often wore in France and the suit was hand sewn. But there was no question, he was the young lord. No one could question that. He put his hand out to his grandfather and said, in a perfect English accent, ‘Pleased to meet you, Sir,’ as if he were a much older boy than he was. And he melted the old man’s heart.

  “The governess produced a sealed envelope. ‘Your son said I was to give this to you,’ she said and handed the old Lord a letter that had been sealed with the family crest.

  Dear Father,

  If you are receiving this letter something has happened to me and to Sophie. And I trust the bearer Marie Duchamp to bring you our son. It is my hope and wish that you will take him in and raise him as your own. And also, as your own health has been somewhat fragile, it is my wish that you will retain Marie and that you might make arrangements for her and William to live on at home, at the castle, with William under her care until he comes of age were anything to happen to you. Yes, we named him William. William III.

  “‘If I may, Sir,’ the governess went on, ‘it was their wish, if you were to take the boy in, that I might be allowed to stay on. I was a teacher at the American School in Alsace before your son and his wife hired me—I know you probably don’t think much of Americans or American education or French women, for that matter. For the record, I am French, but I was schooled in Switzerland.’

  “She was lying, of course, not about the fact that she was French. She was not the boy’s governess. She was his mother. She was his son’s wife. She was the old Earl’s daughter-in-law. But she knew, if she told him the truth, he would send her away.

  “The old Earl looked back to the letter, which went on:

  I had always hoped we would be reconciled and that you would know and love my wife, Sophie, as I do. But I know that you will not be able to turn your grandson away. He looks so much like the portrait of you when you were a boy, Papa, that I sometimes expect him to sound like you, too.

  If you do receive this letter and all is not lost, that we have only been detained or separated by the winds of war, Sophie and I have made a solemn promise that somehow, somehow, we will make our way back to the castle and be reunited, even if it takes a blue moon.

  with admiration, respect, and love,

  your son,

  William II ”

  The letter was framed in a glass case on display in the hallway. The handwriting clea
r and ornate, the crest visible at the top of the paper. Tess lingered and read the letter herself. She said out loud, “Even if it takes a blue moon . . .”

  Max started to say something . . . but Tess silenced him with a look as the museum guard led them into the garden and went on with his narration. “To the old Earl,” he continued, “the boy looked so much like his son that there was no way he could send him away.”

  They were out in the garden now. Tess could see the line of hawthorn trees forming a hedge on the other side of the garden. She and Max instinctively linked pinkies as they walked.

  “The grounds are beautifully kept,” their father said.

  “Yes,” said the guard, “there’s even a maze up there.”

  Tess realized that was one of the places they hadn’t been, the maze, and wondered what dangers possibly lurked there.

  “At first, the old Earl didn’t have much to do with his grandson, but eventually the two became inseparable. They would go for a horse ride most mornings, no matter how rainy the weather was. And on the boy’s eighth birthday, he shipped in a carousel from France.”

  “A carousel?” said Tess inquisitively. “A merry-go-round? A real one?” She couldn’t help it that there was an edge in her voice. The museum guard sounded so much like Barnaby that she was trying to figure how he could be three inches shorter than he was last night. Or why he would be telling a story like this, treating them like tourists, when it was so clear that they knew each other.

  “Could we see the merry-go-round?” The questions came on top of each other. “Is there time, Dad? Is it still here, Sir?” She didn’t know how to address the guard, so she called him Sir. She was overexcited now. She wanted something to make sense or to find something she could touch that would somehow make her understand. Or believe, believe she hadn’t imagined it all. But how could she have?

  “Yes, it’s still here. Afraid it doesn’t work any more. But y’can see it if you like, if your father says there’s time.”

  “There’s time,” their father said, “if we hurry.”

  The museum guard started to walk quickly across the lawn, their father quite in step with him, Max and Tess hurrying behind.

  “Do you ever rent it out?” asked Max. “Like a hotel? Where you let people spend the night? Do you ever rent it out for parties? Weddings. It would be a great place for a wedding. Don’t you think, Tess?”

  “Practically storybook,” said Tess with even more of an edge in her voice. Merry-go-round, indeed, of course there was. Did he think they were foolish?

  “Oh Lord, no. It’s never rented,” the museum guard replied. “The place has been left with clear instructions that everything is to be left as it is, forever, undisturbed, preserved, that everything is to be exactly where it was left, even the toys in young William’s bedroom, even the carousel.”

  They were walking through the sculpture garden now.

  Their father stopped in front of the fountain with the statue of Poseidon holding the sceptre in his right hand.

  “This is like a museum,” their father remarked, “somewhere you might wander into in Florence.” He turned his attention to the extraordinary white alabaster figure of Athena. “Remarkable. It’s like a hidden treasure, right behind the gates as you drive by, and who would know. On an English country lane. It isn’t in any of the tour books, is it? Bramsfield Castle? I read about this region when Aunt Evie first moved here. And then I researched it again, well, research is an over-statement, I googled it when the children were coming for summer. Things to do in Hampshire. Didn’t come up.”

  “Yes, we like to think we’re a well-kept secret,” the museum guard said, looking directly at Tess when he said it.

  “Some secrets are best if they’re kept,” he added, “don’t you think, M’Lady, that’s part of the fun of them. Don’t you think?” He addressed this to Tess, although he turned and looked at Max, too, after he’d said it the second time, but he didn’t wait for them to answer.

  “There it is up ahead,” he said, “the merry-go-round.”

  Tess wanted to run through the turnstile. She wanted to make a wish. There were the four horses. Sir Baldemare looking more noble than he ever had before and slightly mischievous, even though he was a bit dusty. She wondered, if they walked farther, if they’d find a black stallion up in the stable.

  The carousel existed. Was that the sign she was looking for? That she hadn’t imagined it, after all. Was the carousel itself a sign? Or just the fact of the castle?

  Did she need a sign, at all? The museum guard had winked at her when he’d said it and then he repeated himself, “Some secrets are best kept, don’t you think, M’Lady?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose that might be right.”

  Tess felt herself leaning on the turnstile, trying to resist the impulse to make a wish.

  “I’m afraid it’s jammed shut. It won’t turn any more.”

  “Won’t it?” said Tess as the turnstile swung around the moment she touched it with her hip—it didn’t even need the push of her hand.

  As she stepped in, the carousel came immediately to life, lit up in sparkles as if there were a hundred candles behind the tiny inset mirrors at the top. The music came on at full orchestral pitch, playing some kind of old-fashioned circus song. Oom Pah Pah Oom Pah Pah Oom Pah . . . with lots of bells and horns and violins behind it—the kind of song that might have been played by a sitting orchestra in the early 1900s.

  “Wow, that’s impressive,” said Max.

  “I’ve never seen it happen before,” the museum guard said quickly. As the lights continued to glow, the music blared, and the merry-go-round started to spin around, he added, looking at Tess, “I’ve heard there’s an automatic switch underneath the concrete that turns it on when you step on it.”

  “Is there?” said Tess. “Really? I thought it was magic.”

  The merry-go-round slowed to a stop but the lights continued to glow, sparkling softly, the dappled gray pony stopped beside her—Sir Baldemare, her knight—as if beckoning her to get on.

  “I’m sorry, M’Lady,” the museum guard said before she could even make a move toward the merry-go-round. “I’m not sure the carousel is safe to ride.”

  Tess could’ve seconded that one. But out loud, she only said, “Can I ask you something? Were they ever reunited? The boy’s father and mother? Did they ever find each other again?”

  “That they did, M’Lady. But it took a blue moon.”

  Somehow, she’d expected that would be the answer.

  She exited the turnstile. The merry-go-round went dark the moment she stepped outside.

  She turned to her father. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” she said. “We must have the wrong house. Don’t you think, Max? Surely if there’d been a carousel, someone would’ve shown it to us. Don’t you think, Max? And a sculpture garden? And an elaborate maze?”

  Max nodded back at her but didn’t say a word.

  “Thank you,” she said to the museum guard, “for giving us a tour. I hope maybe you’ll, ummm, let us come back some day.”

  “I would like that, M’Lady. Any time you can.” Tess wasn’t sure but she thought he winked slightly at her when he said this.

  She took one last look at the garden: the row of hawthorn trees, she knew what was on the other side; the pond that today had both frogs and swans; the bed of white roses splendidly in bloom. She reached down to her boot, as if she had an itch, and felt the key. She heard William’s voice in her head. Keep the key, he’d said, you never know when you might need it.

  acknowledgments

  When I was a kid, I thought of books as magical adventures, places I could get lost in, almost like an alternative universe. I believed (and still do) that the characters existed, the worlds they travelled in were real, even though they were sometimes fanciful and clearly invented. Sometimes I feel that
way also when I’m writing a book, and writing this book, for me, was a magical journey. As with all journeys, it had a couple of twists and turns before it found its way (magically) inside these covers and I’d like to thank a few people who were guideposts along the way.

  Maia, Anna, & Ethan, my children, who are always my inspiration, and Rachel, my step-daughter, whose love of horses and indomitable spirit also inspires; my sister Delia, whose defiant, unflagging support and extraordinary determination I carry with me every day; Jill Santopolo, my editor, who deserves more adjectives than this page allows, an amazing superb astonishing treasure who is an indulgent yet ever-so-meticulous editor who is quite simply a pleasure to work with and for, the brilliant, pitch-perfect, steady eye of publisher Michael Green, the brilliant uncanny eye of book designer Jennifer Chung, Talia Benamy, cover artist Jennifer Bricking and map artist Vartan Ter-Avanesyan, and everyone else at Philomel, whose enthusiasm, support, kindness, and love of whimsy are a delight; Nick Pileggi, Allison Thomas, and John Byers for their kind ears, humor, and advice; Kari Stuart and Amanda Urban for their watchful and careful agenting eyes; Bob Myman, my attorney, whose validation means more to me than he knows; and Alan Rader, my husband, my partner, whose support, love, and constant belief in me are a wonder to behold.

  And to everyone who believes that just down the road there might be a secret door to a castle if you only knew where to find the key and that wishes, especially well thought of ones, can sometimes come true.

  AMY EPHRON is the internationally bestselling author of several books written for adults, including the award-winning A Cup of Tea. She is also a film producer, an essayist, and a contributor to Vogue and Vogue.com. The Castle in the Mist is her first book for children. Amy lives in Los Angeles with her family.