Home. Already the word felt so foreign.
The dress was made of the softest green satin, the neckline trimmed with a thousand tiny stars that gleamed in the candlelight and reminded her of the ones she admired from her castle tree house rooftop in the woods.
She wriggled out of her nightgown and tugged the dress over her shoulders. Her hair needed brushing, and she found a comb and a heavy, gold-gilded hand mirror on a nearby mattress, so out of place in the plain, dark room.
When she held it before her, a fresh mark on her left wrist made her drop the mirror onto the mattress and forget about her hair.
She ran her fingers over the raised black star, the size of a copper coin. It didn’t hurt, thank goodness, but neither could she rub it off.
Who put this here and when? How did I sleep through it?
Avery found that her muddy black boots had been replaced by beautiful red slippers with tiny, shiny beads, and someone had correctly guessed her unusually large shoe size.
The only other girl who wore slippers was Kate.
Everything about this place led to more questions than answers.
After breakfast, her first order of business would be to find out exactly where she was and who was holding her against her will.
After breakfast, she thought, as another wave of delicious smells hit her.
Avery retrieved her necklace from her pillow and slid it over her head, tucking the flower beneath the fabric of her dress, and followed the scent of the food.
Avery had never seen so many well-dressed kids in one place. Some stood in clusters talking excitedly. A dozen carried platters of fruit and meat, breads dripping with icing, and thick, silver mugs filled to the brim with milk.
This was not what Avery was accustomed to eating. At home, meals consisted of what she or her father caught while fishing, hunting, or trapping or what they had grown in their garden.
Kate appeared at her side with a chirpy, “Good morning,” and tugged her toward the table. “I saved you a seat.” She filled Avery’s plate with all kinds of wonderful things, saying, “We eat like this at every meal, so pace yourself.”
That’s when Avery saw the black star on Kate’s left wrist—matching her own.
“We all have one,” Kate mumbled.
“Why?”
“If you escape, the mark will identify you and they’ll bring you back.” Kate looked around before adding quietly, “Or they’ll send you to the Forbidden City.”
Avery had so many questions, but they would have to wait until she and Kate were alone.
Nothing is certain and no one is safe.
Meanwhile, she ate. Sweet gave way to salty, and cold gave way to warm. The grapes alone were bigger and better than any she had ever tasted. She had no idea how she would describe all this to Henry. He would ask her to retell the story a dozen times.
Her father would say she was exaggerating again, but she would deny it.
When a steaming mug of coffee was placed in front of her, Avery thought she might cry. Her father had always mixed a tiny bit with milk for her and Henry when business was good. This coffee was pure and undiluted, and she drank it like water, feeling renewed energy surge within her.
As she was finishing the last of what tasted like bread with cinnamon and a hint of orange, Avery spotted Ilsa at the center of the table and returned the unfinished bite to her plate, her appetite gone.
Ilsa stared at her smugly. “I’m watching you,” she mouthed.
Avery shrugged.
Next to Ilsa sat a boy who looked like her twin, with wheat-colored hair and a turned-up nose. Avery wondered if he was as hostile as his sister.
On Ilsa’s other side sat Tuck, his shaggy hair swept to one side this morning.
“Tuck is a good person,” Kate said quietly, and Avery realized she was staring.
“I don’t care. Any friend of Ilsa’s is no friend of mine.”
But suddenly she had a strong urge to get to know Tuck, if only to frustrate Ilsa. He looked happy and confident, talking kindly to everyone around him. Avery suspected he made everyone he spoke to feel important. She also thought he looked older than thirteen. He was tall, broad shouldered, and assertive. Suddenly, he locked eyes with her, and she found it impossible to look away. He lifted an eyebrow, and she felt her face flush.
What is wrong with me? I’ve never cared about boys, and I don’t need to start now.
From the far end of the table, shouts erupted and a pair of boys began throwing punches. Friends joined in, and handfuls of meat and fruit flew as insults were traded and chairs were knocked backward.
Tuck jumped to his feet and began peeling bodies off each other.
“What’s going on?” Avery asked Kate, who seemed unfazed.
“It happens almost every morning.” And then just as casually she said, “Would you like to look around? I could give you a tour that would answer many of your questions.”
Would I ever.
“Let’s go.”
Chapter 7
The Stairwell
Avery hugged her arms tight against her body, the thin material of her dress doing little to keep her warm as she and Kate stood at the top of a long flight of eerily dark limestone steps.
These are the steps I was carted up yesterday.
Avery could see the door at the bottom, only this morning a heavy chain hung across its center and a thick lock hung from the latch.
“Promise you’ll do what I say,” Kate said, the smile gone from her eyes. “What we’re about to do could get us in a lot of trouble if we’re caught. I need to trust you to do exactly as I tell you and not speak until I say you can.”
Avery nodded, but when a fat rat scurried over her slipper, she kicked and yelped until Kate clamped a hand over her mouth. “Rule number one: quiet in the stairwell!”
Only when Avery nodded again did Kate release her hand.
They took the stairs quickly, passing several girls moving up and down, their dresses whooshing as they went.
Kate whispered, “This one stairwell winds around the building’s four hundred forty rooms, designed so that the staff can work without being seen. There are eighty-four flights of stairs.”
Avery’s eyes widened. Was it possible the city she had seen from the raft was only one large building? But who could afford such a place?
They continued descending the stairs. At each landing they passed a thick wooden door with black metal latches. Some doors were painted with a giant red X; others were not.
“What’s inside?” Avery asked after they had passed half a dozen.
“Each door leads to another room. Rule number two: never open a door with an X on it.”
“Why?”
“Just don’t.”
Avery opened her mouth to ask something else, but the look on Kate’s face stopped her.
Finally, they paused on a landing where Kate pressed her ear against a door then grabbed Avery’s arm and led her inside to a pastry wonderland with shelves of tiny cakes and pots of candied peanuts. Loaves of bread baked in corner brick ovens emitting wisps of smoke in delicate curls.
A group of girls around a large table rolled dough and argued playfully about something Avery couldn’t decipher.
“Everything you will eat is made in here,” Kate said.
When Avery didn’t respond, Kate clutched her arm. “This is important.” She pointed to a brass bell in the corner of the ceiling. “There’s one of those in the corner of every room. Boys called scouts alert us when an adult comes anywhere near any of the rooms where we spend our time. When we hear the bell, we go directly to the stairwell, no matter what we’re doing. Nothing is as important as staying hidden from the adults in this building. Do you understand?”
Avery nodded. But, of course, she didn’t understand.
“You are never more than ten feet from a scout.”
Avery wondered how many people could see her at any given moment. She twirled slowly, waving nervously in case a
scout was watching.
In case Tuck is watching… Is he a scout?
Why was she complicating things by thinking about a boy?
And why were they hiding from adults?
Kate led her through the kitchen into a dark room full of long wooden shelves loaded with canned goods, wedges of cheese, and bags of flour and sugar. Kate tore open a bag and handed Avery two brown pieces of something that smelled good.
“Try it,” she said.
Avery snapped off a bite. She liked the way it sent a zing of flavor through her mouth.
“It’s called chocolate,” Kate said, smiling.
Avery would have asked for more if she hadn’t just eaten enough breakfast to feed her entire village back home. She wished she had pockets so she could hide a piece for Henry.
Kate pointed to the floor. “Circulation vents,” she whispered. “They allow air to travel throughout the building. The scouts use them to track the adults. It’s why I brought you here.”
Again, Avery wanted to ask why they were hiding from the adults, but Kate pressed a finger to her lips and motioned for Avery to join her as she knelt by the metal grate on the floor and quietly cranked open the slats with a heavy handle.
Avery peered through the vent.
A man with thick silver hair sat at a desk, his head in his hands. Avery felt like a bird looking down at a statue. She thought for a moment how fun it would be to drop a piece of chocolate on his head, and this made her giggle.
Kate glared at her.
The man seemed somehow large and small at the same time, hunched over piles of papers and open books.
A door burst open near the man’s desk, and a woman entered and began pacing in front of him. She was small with snow-white skin and fire-red ringlets piled on her head in the shape of an elaborate bees’ nest. Her hairdo was so big it made the rest of her body look unnaturally small.
Avery stifled a laugh.
Again, Kate narrowed her eyes.
The woman wore a midnight-blue dress with a cinched waist and a high collar. Its train whipped behind her as she paced, while heavy strands of pearls dripped from her neck and wrists.
She acts like she owns the place. Maybe she does.
Avery guessed the woman to be in her twenties, younger than the man but every bit as powerful, maybe more. Avery put her ear against the vent.
“What more do you want from me, Angelina? I’ve done everything you’ve asked, given you everything you’ve ever wanted.”
“Are you kidding?” the woman snapped, her voice climbing to a whine. “You keep promising we will be married, but how long do you want me to wait? How long do you expect me to keep your secrets?”
The man started coughing—loud, sputtering, watery coughs that made Avery want to take him a cup of water or at least clear her own throat.
The talking stopped, and Avery pulled her ear away and looked to make sure she wasn’t missing anything. At that moment, the man looked up as if searching for the right words, and Avery froze.
Could he see her? She moved away just in case, but as she did, she realized she recognized his face.
Chapter 8
Figuring It Out
Avery scrupulously ran the man’s features through the catalog of her memory.
Matching his thick silver hair was a short-cropped beard, tough olive skin, and bushy eyebrows. His cheekbones protruded, and deep wrinkles crisscrossed his face.
He was definitely much older than the woman he called Angelina, but younger than the old woman from the woods.
He is definitely important.
Avery had no memory of the red-haired woman, but even before the man cut Angelina off with an impatient wave, Avery knew he was wearing a large gold ring with a ruby stone. She had seen it in her mind’s eye even before he waved his hand and confirmed it.
Where have I seen him before?
He was saying something sternly about wanting to get married but not having time to plan a ceremony because of official business abroad due to shifting alliances.
Shifting alliances?
“Your lectures bore me,” Angelina said in a childish voice, sitting on the corner of his desk and dangling her legs over the side.
“I have a country!” he roared, but Avery wasn’t paying attention. She was plundering her past for the remnants of any story that would make this scenario make sense. At least two—maybe three—decades separated the man and woman in the room, and they didn’t appear to love each other. Yet they were discussing marriage.
And what does all of this have to do with my capture and imprisonment?
Kate had specifically said this tour would answer many of her questions.
Frustration gnawed at her.
Angelina was now pacing the marble floor, her heels clacking as she went. The familiar man was now standing.
Angelina turned and plunged a finger into his chest.
“If you think I’ve forgotten everything you said, you are even crazier than your people say you are. No one is as good for you as I am. Marry me and make it permanent in the next month.”
“Or what?”
“Or I will kill… All. Of. Them. And I will make sure everyone knows it is your fault.”
She added a trill of laughter as pinpricks traveled up Avery’s spine. This woman seemed capable of whatever she promised.
The man appeared about to respond when the slats clapped shut and Kate, agitated, stood and walked away. Avery trailed her to the stairwell, and as soon as the door closed behind them, she grabbed Kate’s arm. “It was just getting good! Why did you do that?”
“You’ve seen too much already.”
“But you’re wrong. I haven’t seen enough.”
“You promised to obey my rules on this tour. It’s time to go.”
Kate turned to take the stairs.
“I know who he is,” Avery blurted.
Kate stopped but did not turn around. “Okay, who is he?”
Avery bit her lip, still uncertain, but it was there on the edge of her memory.
Back in their bunk room, Kate said something about needing to get some work done and disappeared before Avery could follow. Just as well. Avery was tired, and Kate looked flustered after Angelina threatened to kill people. Why it mattered to Kate, Avery had no idea, unless Angelina was referring to killing them.
Avery flopped onto her mattress and stared at the ceiling, wondering what had happened. Kate didn’t seem the fearful type, though she did seem to be holding back a lot of information.
Avery traced the elaborate arches, caught up in the intricate detail of the slopes and trellises until sleep began calling her name.
Her body bruised from travel and her mind overloaded from mystery, her breathing slowed and her eyelids grew heavy. She was just about to surrender to sleep when something came to her so clearly it was like a slap in the face, and she sat up.
She had been with her mother at a museum in the theater district when they stopped to admire a portrait that stretched the entire length of a wall. The painting featured a handsome man—dark haired and richly dressed—wearing a ruby ring. When Avery turned to ask her mother about the man’s identity, she saw that her mom was crying.
“Mom?”
Avery’s mother had brushed away her tears impatiently. “You’ll understand someday,” she said. And then she had taken the ruby necklace she was wearing and placed it around Avery’s neck with one instruction: “Wear this every day. Never lose it. Do you understand?”
Avery nodded.
And now she knew with certainty.
The man she had seen through the grate was the man from the portrait in the museum.
She now understood this with confidence.
Suddenly, she heard her mother’s voice in her head—years of stories unwinding in slow motion. She thought her mother had only been inventing the stories as a distraction from the hunger they always felt. Now she knew better. She only needed to verify it.
She ran from the bu
nk room down the hall and into the stairwell, taking the stairs two at a time until she came to the door of her choice.
No red X.
She pressed her ear against it as she had seen Kate do and she flung it open.
The room on the other side of the door was exactly as she thought it would be.
As quickly as she had opened the door, she closed it and climbed more stairs. Again she pressed her ear to a door, pushed it open, and found what she expected.
She did this several times until her suspicions were proven correct.
And when she was sure of herself, she went in search of Kate.
Kate sat in a tight circle of thirteen-year-olds—which included Tuck—talking quietly near a crackling fire in a stone hearth. When Avery approached, they fell silent and looked uncomfortable.
“I know where we are,” Avery said, her heart hammering. She did not miss the look that passed between them.
Kate said softly, “We’re listening.”
“There’s a turret and stairs that wind through a trapdoor and stop in a secret chamber at the highest point,” Avery said in a rush. “I found the sky bridge, so I assume there is a tower prison, a tunnel, and a library. I haven’t found them yet, but I will.”
The kids sat like statues.
“We are prisoners in an evil king’s castle.”
Chapter 9
The Announcement
Avery expected laughter or sarcastic replies.
But the group just stared at her.
“I grew up hearing about this place,” she continued. “Songs and stories I thought my mother had made up to entertain me. Now that I think about it, I don’t know why my mother knew so much about this castle, but she did. She described the rooms perfectly.”
Still nothing.
“I can tell you anything you want to know. Except how long we’ll be stuck here and any details about the redhead.” Her voice cracked on the last word.
The Glass Castle Page 3