by Becky Citra
Set into the walls were four deep narrow windows, open to the air with wooden shutters on either side. There was very little furniture – an old four-poster bed and a little round table and chair. His trunk was on the floor at the end of the bed.
He spotted a wooden trap door in the ceiling above the bed. He scrambled onto the bed and reached his hands up and pushed against the door. It lifted and fell backwards, and he pulled himself up and out, onto the roof of the tower.
Ke-ke-ke-ke. Two birds, perched on top of the parapet, flapped away into the night. The moonlight made everything almost as bright as day. Will could see the entire castle. It was built around a courtyard, filled with rubble and overgrown with weeds. At least half of the castle was in ruins.
He had read every book in the school library about medieval castles. He stared at the huge square tower at the opposite end of the courtyard. “That’s the keep,” he murmured.
Part of the keep had broken away, leaving a gaping black hole and heaps of smashed stone on the ground below. The entrance was buried. He knew from reading his books that inside the keep was a huge room called the great hall. He would love to see a real great hall, but it would take a bulldozer to get inside there.
Will tilted his head back and felt the wind on his face. And then, in the wind, he heard his mother’s soft voice.
“Towers and magic,” whispered Adrienna Poppy. “Anything can happen in a castle like this, William Poppy. Anything.”
Chapter Six
Tap Tap Tap!
Will crawled under the thin blanket on the bed. The moonlight made strange shadows on the stone walls. The carved birds seemed alive, watching him, wondering why he was in their tower. He felt the beginning of a story spinning in his head.
Suspicious, Will climbed out of bed and ran to a window. The Muses were standing in the long grass, the knight’s shiny armour glowing in the moonlight.
“LEAVE ME ALONE!” shouted Will. He was never going to write again. Never! He wanted nothing to do with the Muses. He climbed back into bed and, after a long time, fell asleep.
He woke up with freezing toes and fingers. Bits of a strange dream scrambled about in his head. I was in this tower, he thought. I was in this bed. Someone was in the room with me, holding a candle. Someone said, “The child is very ill.”
The dream had switched suddenly, like dreams do. He had heard the word traitor and boots pounding down the spiral stairs. He remembered staring at a dark pool in the middle of the stone floor. Blood! And then he had wakened.
Suddenly, a golden light shone from Adrienna’s pencil box on the little round table. Magic! Again! With his eyes fixed on the box, Will slid out of bed. But as he opened the box, the light faded away, and there was nothing inside except his grandparents’ photograph and the rolled-up cloth.
Will peeked through one of the deep windows. Low-lying fog hid the village and surrounding valleys. He dressed in his jeans and wool socks and set out to explore the castle. He scrambled down the tower stairs to the entrance hall with the swords and the suit of armour. From there he ventured through a maze of narrow stone passageways and up and down staircases. An occasional dim light bulb lit his way.
The castle was as cold as a tomb. The rooms were furnished with huge tables, stiff couches, cumbersome dressers and tall dark wardrobes. Portraits of gloomy-faced men and women in gilt frames glowered down from the walls. Heavy velvet curtains hung over the windows and fireplaces yawned like empty black mouths.
He peered through a doorway. The room beyond had crimson velvet curtains and a great canopy of crimson satiny cloth that hung over a high four-poster bed. The Red Chamber! Aunt Mauve’s suitcase lay open in the middle of the bed, spilling out stockings and scarves, but there was no sign of Aunt Mauve.
Will headed down a dark sloping passageway that felt like it led to the very back of the castle. A man with a round red face, dressed in a white coat and tall white chef’s hat, bustled past him.
“Hello,” said Will. He was sure Mrs. Cherry had said she did all the cooking.
The man didn’t answer. He muttered, “A brace of pheasants. We need a brace of pheasants.”
Will opened a door at the end of the passageway and stared in surprise.
It was the kitchen and it was deliciously warm. Crackling logs blazed in a huge stone fireplace. Mrs. Cherry rested in an armchair beside the hearth, her feet propped up on a footstool and a cup of tea beside her.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“Nothing.” Will spotted a huge stone sink and an ancient-looking stove, but he couldn’t see anything to eat.
“It’s a big castle for my husband and me to look after,” said Mrs. Cherry. “No one should begrudge me a few minutes of rest.”
“I don’t,” said Will.
Mrs. Cherry slurped her tea. “I suppose your aunt will be demanding breakfast.”
“I don’t know where she is.”
Mrs. Cherry closed her eyes.
“Are we having pheasant for dinner?” said Will.
“In your dreams,” said Mrs. Cherry. “Fish pie if you’re lucky.”
“Yuck,” said Will. He headed back along the sloping passageway.
Tap, tap, tap!
He stopped beside a heavy wooden door that was ajar and looked into a long narrow room. In the middle was the biggest dining-room table he had ever seen. At the far end of the room, Mr. Cherry was kneeling beside an enormous fireplace, tapping a hammer against a wall of dark wood paneling.
“What are you doing?” asked Will.
Mr. Cherry dropped the hammer. He whirled around and stood up. His eyes blazed. “How DARE you sneak up on me!”
“I didn’t! I was just looking around.” Will stared at the wall. “Is there something wrong?”
Mr. Cherry picked up the hammer and edged toward him. “Dry rot,” he muttered. “Are you interested in castles?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Follow me.”
Mr. Cherry led Will along dim passageways and up long flights of dark stairs. We must be going to the very top of the castle, Will thought. He glanced into some of the rooms as they went past. They were empty, the floors covered in a thick layer of dust. The back of his neck prickled. Was Mr. Cherry trying to get him alone? No one would ever hear him if he yelled for help.
Then Will said, “Wait a minute. What was that? It sounds like someone crying.”
“I don’t hear anything,” said Mr. Cherry. “That’s the trouble with boys. They have foul imaginations!”
Will checked back over his shoulder as he followed Mr. Cherry, but he saw no one.
“This is it,” Mr. Cherry said finally. “The guard’s walk.”
They were at one end of a long narrow corridor with peepholes in the thick stone wall. Will stood on tiptoe and peered through one of the openings. All he could see was grey sky.
“We’re very high up,” said Mr. Cherry. “You’ll have to come out here if you want to see the view.”
He opened a low door and had to stoop to go through. Will followed him onto a narrow balcony with a stone wall.
“Take a look,” snarled Mr. Cherry.
Will leaned over the wall. His stomach dropped. This side of the castle rose straight up from a high craggy cliff, almost as if it were growing right out of the rocks. Far, far below was the black river. Two sleek birds circled above the water. We’re even higher than the birds, thought Will. It made his head spin.
“It’s a long way down,” Mr. Cherry whispered close to his face. Garlicky fumes made Will feel sick.
“People would say ‘Such a terrible accident,’” Mr. Cherry breathed in his ear.
Will felt Mr. Cherry’s hand press between his shoulder blades. He gasped. The man was crazy! He yanked himself away, his heart pounding. He ducked through the door back into the hallway. Run! A voice screamed in his head. Run! Run!
Will’s feet pounded the stone floor. He whipped around corners. Behind him echoed Mr. Cherry’s maniacal laughter.<
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And then it was silent. Will slid into a doorway, sucking in gulps of air. He heard footsteps and Mr. Cherry strode by him, only an arm’s-length away. Will sagged against the wall, his legs like porridge.
Chapter Seven
Ex Libris
Will stood outside the archway at the front of the castle. He glanced up at the creepy stone gargoyle. Then he noticed something on the huge wooden door. Someone had sprayed the words GO AWAY in red paint.
“Go back to where you came from,” the bus driver had said. And the woman on the bus had said, “Don’t pay any attention to the others.” The glaring words on the door made him feel sick. Why were people so scared of him and his aunt? What had Purvis Sneed meant when he said there was too much death?
Will set out down the steep Black Penny Road to the village. The fog had lifted but it was a damp morning. A woman standing on the doorstep of the first stone house stared at him, unsmiling. As he continued down the road, he felt the woman’s eyes on his back.
People were out with their shopping bags in the square. They watched Will as he walked past. He went straight to the bookstore. When he opened the door, a bell under the EX LIBRIS sign jingled. With a yelp, a girl crashed into him and dropped a book. She was dressed all in black, with red hair that fell to her waist and big round glasses.
“Sorry,” said Will. He picked up the book and handed it to her. Without a sound, she scurried past him.
He went inside. Bookshelves reached right to the ceiling in every direction, so it was impossible to tell if it was a big shop or a small shop. There was an old-fashioned rolltop desk at the front, but nobody was there.
“Hey!” he called.
“Back here,” a voice said.
There were several ways Will could go. He eased between two towering bookshelves, turning sideways to squeeze past the places where books stuck out. The narrow aisle veered right and then left and then came to a dead end.
Wrong way, he thought, turning around and sliding between the books until he was back at the rolltop desk. He chose the second route, which ended at a saggy armchair, leaking stuffing, with books scattered around it on the floor.
The third route looked more promising; the books were tidier and not sticking out so much. After a few sharp turns he emerged into a small clearing somewhere in the middle of the shop. A man stood by a table, writing something on a sheet of cardboard. He was the tallest man Will had ever seen, with a long face like a horse and grey hair tied back in a neat ponytail.
“You made it!” he said. He smiled. “You must be the boy from the castle.”
“Right,” said Will.
The man stuck out his hand. “I’m Favian Longstaff. Welcome to Sparrowhawk.”
“I’m Will Poppy.” They shook hands.
“Did you see Madeleine de Luca?” said Favian. “She was just leaving.”
“She was in an awful hurry.” Will gazed around. “You could get lost in this shop!”
“Oh, yes,” said Favian. “A man did once. He was lost for weeks. He came in clean-shaven and went out with a beard!” He grinned. “Just kidding! Now, how do you like the castle?”
“Very cool,” said Will. “Except for the servants who look after the place. They are seriously awful.”
“I’ve had a few unpleasant encounters with them,” said Favian. “How is Mrs. Cherry’s cooking?”
“What cooking? There was nothing for breakfast. But I’m still hoping for pheasant for supper. It sounds more interesting than fish pie.”
Will told Favian about the chef he had seen in the passageway to the kitchen.
“Ah, you’ve met Cookie!”
“He acted like he didn’t see me.”
“I don’t suppose he did.” Favian’s eyes twinkled. “He’s one of Sparrowhawk Hall’s resident ghosts!”
“A ghost! Yeah, right. You’re kidding again.”
“Scout’s honour. He was the castle’s cook in the eighteenth century. The Lord Linley who owned the castle at that time was a difficult man to please. Cookie is always worrying about something. Often he’s hunting for his rolling pin!”
Will let this sink in. A haunted castle. “Are there any more ghosts?”
“Oh, yes. There’s a boy who can be heard sobbing. No one’s ever spotted him, but he cries like his heart is breaking. You’re not afraid, are you?”
“Who me? No way. I heard the boy! It was at the top of the castle. Mr. Cherry took me there to see the guard’s walk.”
For a second, he wondered if he should tell Favian that Mr. Cherry had almost pushed him over. It would sound crazy, like he was paranoid. Favian would think he was a total nutcase.
“Any chance you’re sleeping in the tower?” asked Favian.
“Yeah,” said Will. “It’s pretty awesome.”
“I had a friend called Hannah Linley. She slept in the tower too. It had been sealed for hundreds of years and Hannah’s father reopened it when he put electricity in the castle.”
“Why was it sealed?”
“I don’t know. The story is that there was a murder in the tower. Perhaps the tower was sealed then.”
“I had a dream about blood! Who was murdered?”
“Nobody knows. It was so long ago. It might have been a Linley. Linleys have always owned the castle. Blood! Some things are best left in the past. And now, young man, what can I do for you?”
“Fantasy,” said Will.
“You’ve come to the right place! Fantasy is the only thing you’ll find in here.”
A fantasy bookstore! Will couldn’t believe his luck.
“You can read right here in the shop. If you can’t afford to buy a book, I’ll lend you as many as you can carry.”
Will looked at the cardboard on the table. It was a poster that said:
Come to a Reading
at Ex Libris
Renowned poet Vespera Moonstone
will read her poems
7:00 p.m. May 9
“Is she, like, a real poet?’ he asked. “Has her stuff been published?”
“Absolutely.”
“Is everyone invited?”
“Of course,” said Favian.
“Even me?”
Favian looked at him quizzically. “Why not?”
“People haven’t been exactly friendly.” Will told Favian about the words GO AWAY sprayed on the door.
Favian frowned. “Unacceptable. But never mind.” He wrote Everyone Welcome on the bottom of the poster. “That means you too.”
Then he led the way to the front of the shop. He settled down to read at the rolltop desk, while Will drifted up and down the aisles, choosing books. He had accumulated a fair-sized pile when the bell over the front door jingled.
“I’ve come for my book,” said a familiar high-pitched voice.
Mr. Cherry! What would he want in a fantasy bookstore? Will watched him from behind a tower of books.
Favian pulled down the lid of the rolltop desk, and loose papers and pens and paper clips showered everywhere. “Not here,” he said cheerfully. “I know I ordered it. Now where the dickens did I put it?”
He rummaged through stacks of books on the floor, while Mr. Cherry scowled and tapped his foot. Then Favian turned to a wobbly wall of books and beamed. “Aha!” he shouted.
He grabbed a book from near the top, and the wall tipped and tilted and crashed to the floor. A fat six-hundred-page volume called An Encyclopedia of Little People landed on Mr. Cherry’s foot, and Mr. Cherry exploded with a very nasty word.
“Here it is.” Favian held up a book with a picture of a castle on the shiny cover. “Medieval Castle Construction and Design. I think you’ll find it –”
“It’s not for me, it’s for my nephew,” growled Mr. Cherry. He grabbed the book, threw some bills on the desk and left the shop, banging the door behind him.
A dog barked furiously, and Mr. Cherry cursed again. A girl’s voice shouted, “No, Peaches! Down boy! DOWN!”
Chapter Eight
Will dropped his books on the desk. He and Favian dashed outside. A brown-and-white dog with floppy ears hung on to Mr. Cherry’s pant leg.
“Get this beast off me!” he roared.
The dog growled and gripped harder. Mr. Cherry swung his castle book wildly in the air.
“Let go, Peaches!” a girl shouted. She was tall and slim with long fly-away brown hair. She grabbed the dog’s collar and dragged him away.
Mr. Cherry’s face was purple. “That dog’s a menace! A monster! I’ll shoot him next time I see him!”
He stormed off across the square.
“Peaches tries to bite that man every time he sees him,” said the girl. “I can’t stop him.”
“It’s not your fault,” said Favian. “I want to bite him too! Emma, this is Will Poppy.”
“Will Poppy! Everyone’s talking about you,” said Emma. “Do you think I could see inside the castle?”
“I guess so," said Will. He wasn’t sure he was ready to make friends with anyone yet. He wanted to check things out in the village a bit longer.
“When?” demanded Emma.
Will sighed. Persistent would be a good word to describe her. “Let me get my books and we can go now.”
They said good-bye to Favian and started the climb up Black Penny Road. “Are you going to read all those books?” asked Emma.
“Of course. I love reading.”
“I don’t. I’m glad you’ve come. It’s been deader than ever around here. Most of the kids are away for the spring holidays. You’ve heard of Barnum and Bailey, right?”
“What?”
“Barnum and Bailey.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Never heard of it? Everyone’s heard of Barnum and Bailey.”
“Not me.”
Emma stopped walking and stared at Will.
“Well, what is it?” said Will.
“It a circus. It’s famous. They have shows all over the world! I’m going to be an acrobat in a circus when I’m older.” She did a slick cartwheel on the cobblestones to demonstrate.
“The circus is my passion,” she said. “Everyone should have a passion. What’s yours?’