The Lost Castle

by Kristy Cambron

“You say you want to talk to the owner?”

  Ellie nodded, adding a touch of surly to her tone. “Just give me the chance.”

  “Fine. Grab your shades. Sun’s warmin’ things up outside.”

  Turned out Ellie needed the sunglasses.

  Sunlight drenched the vineyard rows in which they walked, she keeping a few steps behind Quinn.

  He walked slowly, with a laid-back air that would never fly in the faster-paced America, even in her small town. He could have been strolling through a park for how little he cared for the time. If they were headed to see the castle’s owner, she expected he had little interest in reaching the destination before dark.

  “So what is it?”

  Ellie paused, more than a little surprised to hear him engage in conversation at all. He seemed the keep-to-himself type. “What?”

  He looked back, didn’t miss a beat even while taking a few blind steps. “The story that brought you here.”

  “How do you know I have a story?”

  “Everyone does.” He smiled. Skeptical. “Said yourself you’re researchin’. What’s it for then? Let me guess—ya one of those idealistic writer types?”

  How funny that he’d nail that down. Grandma Vi had always pushed her to consider writing. But she’d let it go . . . a dream that was too far off to grasp.

  “No, actually. I have a normal job as an analyst at a pharmaceutical company. I have a desk. A home. Friends who have all grown up in the same small town. No idealistic anything here.”

  “But you still have a story, don’t ya?”

  Ellie did of course own a story, but she hadn’t a clue how to tell it.

  Hers was a photo. A brooch. A woman in lavender whose secret past had been cracked wide open by the fresh jabs of Alzheimer’s. And . . . loss. The story stirring in her heart at the moment—Ellie couldn’t speak of it, even if it was the truth.

  She couldn’t say how a funeral had shattered an eleven-year-old girl’s rose-colored glasses years ago, dispelling any illusion of childhood fairy tales. On a rainy day in November, her grandmother had become both father and mother, teacher and helper, confidante and friend for the years that would follow. She’d stepped in to create a sense of normal—making blueberry scones at midnight, staying with Ellie in the kitchen long after the funeral mourners had left the house that night. But now, recalling memories like that . . . Ellie didn’t have the faintest idea how to reconcile the fact that her grandmother had kept something from her, something buried so deep inside, and had only just shared the image of a woman whom Ellie now feared she might never truly know.

  How could she possibly say all that to a stranger? Death and loss and blueberry scones . . . they were heavy when they came as a package. She couldn’t even begin to work it out in her own mind, let alone try to explain it to an irked Irishman.

  “Some stories can only be told when they’re ready. I’m not even to the first chapter yet.”

  “So you’re lookin’ for the ideal France. The vineyard or castle photo from the desk calendar. Is that about the way of it?”

  “I think I had one of those calendars once. Is that so terrible?”

  “It is when tourists spend their time fantasizin’ about somethin’, and they’re let down when it’s never as good in real life.”

  “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a little dreaming. You know, France practically wrote the book on romance. Ever heard of a city called Paris?”

  Quinn stopped on a dime.

  He turned, staring back with a curious look in his eyes.

  The sun burned down on his shoulders, illuminating a faded maroon tee with an Irish pub logo splashed across his chest. Typical, Ellie thought. And she bit her tongue against saying out loud that he had a pretty cynical outlook too. The glare confirmed it two times over.

  “You’re lookin’ for romance, are ya?” His eyebrows edged in, creasing in humor. He looked to be teetering on the edge of bursting out in laughter.

  “Maybe I am. But certainly not the kind you’re referring to.” It would have felt a little too good to slug him in the shoulder of that faded pub tee. Ellie turned her attention to the sky. The landscape beyond the vineyard row. Anything so she wouldn’t have to see him laugh at her. “All the romance I need is in the castle.”

  He shrugged, walking on ahead of her again.

  “You and all the rest. They all think they’ll find it here. Runnin’ away from a breakup. Midlife crisis. Lost a job or relationship faded out . . .” Ellie perked up at that, felt the jabs that edged so close to her own life, tried to ignore them and keep walking. “You name it. And then there’s you. People like you show up, always alone, demandin’ to see a castle they know nothin’ about. And they’re shocked when someone dares to tell ’em no.”

  “Well, what would your grandfather say about it, if he knew what I’m looking for?”

  “He only talks of the grapes—and that’s in French. Good luck with anythin’ else gettin’ through.”

  Ellie sighed. Much like the sign at the round outside the vineyard, they weren’t getting anywhere.

  She guessed Quinn Foley was one of those guys—the slightly prideful in thinking he could figure her out at first glance. A psychologist in training, no doubt. With few if any entanglements to tie him down. Maybe he lumbered along through the vineyard rows with no clock to manage or schedule to keep. There were few responsibilities she could see, other than to drive his grandfather to town and watch as their employees brought in the grape harvest.

  Still, he’d turned his attention to the vines, inspecting the full-sized grapes as they walked on, bright green on the vine, and seizing an opportune time to show he was an expert craftsman nurturing the vines’ progress to greatness. Doing it all for her benefit? She wouldn’t have put it past him.

  “Why this castle, when there’s hundreds of others? Have you come here because of the name: The Sleeping Beauty?”

  “It sounds enchanting, but no. Not all of it, anyway.”

  “No knight in shinin’ armor?”

  She bristled at the intrusion into her private life. “No princesses or towers either. Just a regular person. Sorry to disappoint you, but I have a fairly normal life. I’m not looking for anything but a few answers to something you wouldn’t understand.”

  “And how’s it workin’ out for ya then?”

  “Not exactly as I imagined. But I’ll keep going. Roots don’t move unless you dig them up, right?”

  “You won’t be moving these.” Quinn pointed, then stood back. “There’s your castle—or at least, the road down to it. Shut up tight, just like I told ya.”

  They’d come to the end of the long arbor rows, in a clearing that met an old country road, grassed over, parting gangly trees in a line far down into the darkness of the forest. And what almost stopped her heart—a hopeless barrier in the form of a high stone wall. Iron gates brandished intricate scrollwork, with rust and scrub bushes growing up into the heart of where the two sides met, a heavy chain and lock . . . and a sign that screamed Passage Interdit and Propriété Privée in garish red letters.

  “It can’t be.” Ellie stepped up to the gate, wrapping her hands around the scrolls. “You can’t even see the ruins from here. How far back does the road go?”

  “Far enough to keep pryin’ eyes and curious minds out. Look.” He pointed at a near-invisible metal wire that cut from the sides of the gate and all the way down the tree line on both sides, as far as the eye could see. “Electric fence. And up there. See the top of the fox crest engraved in the stone wall?”

  A small camera had been wired there and stood watch, a light blinking plain as day, mocking any would-be tourist’s plight.

  “There’s another one every ten meters or so. Add that to random patrols around the castle itself, and you’re lookin’ for trouble if you try to go in there. Your passport won’t do ya much good if the authorities confiscate it.”

  “But why show me this if we can’t get in? I thought you were
taking me to speak to the owner. Where is he?”

  “Unavailable. Titus says he lives away—is owner in name only. But to every question you pose, this is what he’d say.”

  “How do you know what he’ll say unless you let me talk to him?”

  “Because countless have asked before you, and this is what we tell them—there’s no trespassing here. It’s private property. The owner does not want the grounds disturbed, and no manner of pushin’ will change his mind. That’s how it is.”

  Ellie stepped back, abhorred that he hadn’t mentioned it sooner. “You’re on the payroll to keep tourists away?”

  “No. I’m not. But to my grandfather, we’re a neighbor and so we honor the owner’s wishes.”

  “You’re his watchdog then.” Ellie shook her head, disappointment leveling a clean blow. “You might have said.”

  He sighed, kicked his heel into the earth, and looked up, though the sun was cutting high and threatened to blind him for it. “Look. I didn’t want to make ya angry. Just discourage you from tryin’ to go any further with this. You’re booked to stay here and that’s the way of it. St. Peter himself couldn’t change my grandfather’s mind once it’s set on somethin’. So you might as well accept the terms. Go tour the other castles. Drink wine. Snap photos for the desk frame and have a grand time. Then go back home to your life, and leave this place be.”

  He forced a smile, one of those gentle tips at the corners of the mouth that meant someone wanted to feel sorry but didn’t. Not enough for her to believe it, anyway.

  “The castle’s earned its peace, Miss Carver.” Quinn tipped his head in a nod, then left her alone there. “Let the past stay buried.”

  Strolling away to some other part of the vineyard, she guessed. Maybe so she could have some time to think about doing what he’d said. Snap some photos. Maybe post a selfie at the castle gate so she could at least tell her girlfriends she’d been there. And perhaps drown her sorrows in his family’s wine after. But that wasn’t her.

  “Whether you’ve earned it or not, you don’t want peace. Do you?” Ellie whispered out into the road’s long void beyond the gate. She wrapped her hand tighter around the iron scrollwork, feeling the roughness of rust and the coolness of metal against her palm. “You don’t want it or I wouldn’t be standing here right now. You have a story to tell.”

  Quinn’s warning had been valiant. And the No Trespassing sign did have a quaintness about it, printed in French she couldn’t read. But while Quinn’s revelation of his role as caretaker of the castle perimeter had come with a jolt, it only served to remind Ellie who she was in turn.

  She was Lady Vi’s granddaughter—and that meant she wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  TWELVE

  APRIL 25, 1944

  LES TROIS-MOUTIERS

  LOIRE VALLEY, FRANCE

  Vi shot up in bed, waking with a start.

  The fitful routine of sleeping like a stone and waking again had dogged her for more than two days. Beams of sunshine fought to break into every crack in the cottage’s walled façade. She scanned the room. All was quiet and still—as it should be in her hideaway.

  Hunger slammed her, the aching in her stomach finally demanding its fair attention now that her weary body had restored its sleep reserves.

  Julien had dropped provisions by sometime as she’d slept, leaving a crate of pears on the table. Vi swung her legs over the cot in a fluid motion and drifted to it, leaning the rifle against the tabletop. She took one, biting in, this pear too tasting heavenly as the fruit had in the chapel days before. But there was no savoring it. She ravaged through bite after bite, chewing and swallowing as if she no longer owned a sense of taste.

  “Alouette, gentille alouette . . .”

  The singsong melody of the French schoolyard song—and a little girl’s voice behind it—drifted, soft and seemingly unconcerned, from just outside the cottage door.

  “Alouette, je te plumerai . . .”

  Julien had left water and food, but she hadn’t spoken to him in days. He’d warned her to stay silent no matter what she might hear outside, but he hadn’t said a word about unexpected guests—certainly not a sprite singing her awake from the cottage doorstep.

  The sound of a key invading the lock on the door nearly stopped her heart. Jiggling first, then clanking in the heavy iron keyhole, the key fought to turn.

  Vi reached for the rifle. In her haste, it slid along the tabletop and slammed down in a great clap against the hardwood floor. An abrupt halt to the singing followed, and the key fell silent in the lock. And then the little singsong voice was replaced by foot stomps, quickly retreating. There could be minutes only before the little girl brought an adult to investigate the odd sounds in what was supposed to be an abandoned cottage.

  Panic flooded her mind.

  Clean up. Hide. Make it out as if you were never here.

  The habit of removing any trace of her presence was something Vi had picked up early on. She’d already folded the towel and emptied the washbasin into the rubbish bin the night before. Now she swept up pears from the table, dropping what remained of the core in her jacket pocket. Turning to the cot next, she rolled the blanket and stowed it under. The last and critical thing for her, Vi slid the strap of her canvas bag over her shoulder, making sure it fit snug behind her back.

  It wasn’t a few moments that the door jiggled again, with no singing to accompany the noise. The key turned in the lock with a precise click. The hands that turned it did not belong to a child this time.

  Vi raised the rifle, praying beyond hope that it was Julien.

  She swept up to the second-story shadows, keeping her shoulder pinned behind the stone fireplace with only a tiny fraction of her body and profile exposed.

  The door creaked on weary hinges. Daylight flooded in a stream across the floor, illuminating the table and chair in the center of the room. The end of a rifle extended past the open door first, then light was cast on the arms that held it: surprisingly enough, a woman—her body lithe under a beige dress and mustard cardigan, unbuttoned over a belly round with child.

  She was fearless, at least from every indication of her solid stance. An expert too, it seemed, as she scanned the space with her gaze leveled through the rifle’s sight.

  “Sortez!” she shouted, her voice even and strong as it echoed against the rafters.

  The woman paused, floorboards creaking ever so slightly as she shifted her weight to look over every corner of the ground floor.

  “I said come out—now! Or I swear I will set this cottage ablaze with you locked inside.”

  “That shall be very hard to do if you are dead.”

  The woman froze. She kept the rifle fully raised but did not turn. Didn’t look up. Just kept breathing, her shoulders rising and falling with even strides.

  “Drop it!” Vi’s voice matched the woman’s own brand of steady. “Slowly. No noise or I pull this trigger.”

  The woman obeyed, lowering the rifle. With effort that strained the small of her back, she set the weapon on the floorboards at her feet. She righted herself again, slowly, hands raised to the waist.

  “Now step back. Four paces. Keep those hands in the air.” Vi descended the stairs behind her, one by one, the aged wood creaking with each step. She kept the rifle raised, stepping down and around, stopping to face the woman.

  Vi stared back into wide fawn eyes, a pert nose, and a youthfulness that managed to soften even her most ardent stone-face. The woman was young—probably a couple of years under her own twenty-two. Lovely olive skin was haloed by the sunlight behind her, making the fabric of the skirt around her legs almost translucent. Her hair was fashioned in an intricate braid, rich and dark, tumbling over the front of her shoulder.

  They eyed each other, Vi’s rifle her sole companion for survival, and the woman in front of her staring back with an equally stern set to her jaw.

  “Step back. Toward the door.”

  The woman kept her hands raised waist-h
igh, taking slow, measured steps in the direction from which she’d come. Vi took one forward to each she took back, knowing the woman was in no condition to spring for it, and stopped when the other rifle grazed the tips of her oxfords. She bent and scooped it up, keeping her rifle trained as she swept the other’s strap over her shoulder.

  “Where is Julien?”

  The woman’s face changed, a twinge cut into her brow, then smoothed away again almost immediately.

  “You heard me,” Vi demanded, rifle raised and arm muscles tensed. She shifted her glance from the woman to the door. “And you obviously know who I’m talking about. So where is he?”

  “Marie!” A tiny girl, the pigtailed owner of the schoolyard song, swept into the cottage on tiny feet and wrapped her arm halfway round the woman’s middle. “Please don’t hurt her, lady. Can’t you see? She’s going to have a baby.” She clung to the woman, palms spread wide in a tiny protection of the woman’s belly. “This is my cousin.”

  “Go, Criquet.” The woman pushed the child behind her back, nudging in the direction of the open door. She pointed to the sun and the freedom beyond. “Fetch your brother.”

  “Marie, stop!” A tall form moved in through the door, blocking the sun.

  “It’s alright. This woman is with us. She won’t hurt anyone.” Julien stepped in, taking command of the woman and child, his hand raised in calm. He turned to Vi. “Lady, stand down. Please.”

  Vi nodded and immediately lowered the rifle to her side.

  “She won’t harm us, Marie.” He stepped over to Vi, holding his hand out palm to ceiling.

  He looked dead in her eyes. No words needed; she knew what he was asking.

  Hesitation still owned the better part of Vi’s judgment. She shifted her glance from the face she trusted, to the woman she didn’t, to the wide-eyed little girl, who couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old. All three souls looked to her, waiting while she calculated the risk.

  “You may keep the one I gave you last night, oui? Just give me that one.”

  Vi slipped the strap of the woman’s weapon down from her shoulder and, without a word, placed it in his outstretched hand.