“Yes, please,” I said. Frederick hobbled over to the bar to get our drinks just as a cheer went up among the men watching football—someone had obviously scored an important goal.
“Tell me about Gina. What was she like? Do you think she might still be alive?” I asked Frederick when he returned with our beers.
He gave me a strange look. “They never found a body,” he said, putting his head to one side. Had he realized I was staring at his lips? I blinked, suddenly feeling a bit dizzy, and took a large gulp of beer to try to shake off the fuzzy feeling in my head.
“Some people said she might have gone to America,” said Frederick. “But why would she do that?”
Why indeed? Had she been running away from something, or someone? I closed my eyes for a second, then asked: “Whawascheena afraid of?” Come on, Emma, focus. “What was Gina afraid of?” I repeated, crystal clear this time. Ha! I rewarded myself with more beer.
“Are you okay, Emma?” asked Frederick.
“I’m fine,” I said, nodding a little more energetically than usual. The room started spinning. Oh, man. The beer must have gone to my head. Perhaps because I’d missed dinner to go to the school council meeting, and I hadn’t eaten much at lunchtime, either. Or perhaps because I just wasn’t used to alcohol. I put my head in my hands, but the room carried on spinning and I realized that I was going to have to face facts: a) I was drunk and b) I’d just finished my second pint of beer. Damn it. How had that happened?! “I’ll be fine. Could I have a … a glass of water, please?” I asked, staring at Frederick’s lips.
“Of course.”
He was still grinning when he returned with the water a moment later.
Was he laughing at me?
No, he was laughing with me, I was sure of it. I liked Frederick so much. He was so caring, the way he came and sat down next to me and put his arm round me. I rested my head on his shoulder. And he smelled so good, of the woods and the soil and the rosebushes he’d been trimming that day.
“I don’t make a habit of getting girls drunk. But you’re definitely a little worse for wear!” he said, holding a bowl of nuts under my nose. “Here, have some peanuts.” But I shook my head, while Frederick smiled to himself.
“D’you blieve in ghosshtories?” I slurred, when the room stopped spinning for a moment.
“Ghost stories?”
“Yeah, he said shomething about ghost shtories.”
“Darcy believes in ghost stories?”
“No,” I said, “but Gina … he thinks she … Oh, crap, I think I’m going to be shick.”
Frederick dropped the bowl of peanuts back onto the table and hauled me to my feet. “Right,” he said. “Time to head home.”
“All right,” I said, and let him maneuver me outside into the cool night air. “But I’m not drunk, okay? Or jussa liiiittle bit.”
“You’re as drunk as a skunk,” said Frederick. “It’s gone straight to your head.”
“Whatchoo mean?” I protested. “I’m fine. Shall I shay a twongue tister?”
“What?”
“I shaid shall I shay … Oh, never mind,” I said, and promptly began reciting all the tongue twisters I knew as we climbed the hill to the castle. After a while I was so engrossed in Peeper Piper, sorry, Peter Piter, er, no, hang on … that I found it a bit rude when Frederick eventually changed the subject. “Emma, if you keep saying them till you get them right we’ll be here all night,” he said, dragging me up the hill. “Come on. Why don’t you tell me some more about those ghost stories? Does Darcy think there’s some kind of supernatural explanation for why Gina went missing?”
“Peeper Piter,” I muttered, and I barely noticed as Frederick heaved a sigh and started humming to himself, lost in thought. Then he began telling me a spooky story about his ancestors, the lord of Stolzenburg, and a statue he had commissioned shortly before his death. I was only half listening, probably because I was talking to myself the entire time. I babbled away about this and that and managed to come up with a few fairy stories of my own (which clearly weren’t all bad, since they made Frederick laugh out loud several times) as I tried valiantly to walk in a straight line. And then, quite suddenly, I found myself alone.
I felt as though one minute Frederick had been standing there beside me chuckling at something I’d said, and the next minute he was gone. It was as if he’d vanished in the blink of an eye, leaving me on my own in a castle courtyard that seemed to be spinning faster and faster with every second that passed. But in my alcohol-induced daze I probably just hadn’t noticed him saying good-bye.
I leaned back against the wall by the gate and took a deep breath. It was okay—I wasn’t far from my bed.
But despite the walk from the castle to the village having felt so short, the walk from the gate to the front door seemed to go on forever. I shuffled across the gravel at a snail’s pace, quite proud of myself for crossing the first half of the courtyard without falling over. It wasn’t until I was within a few yards of the front steps that I stumbled over a flowerpot (which seemed to have popped up out of nowhere) and fell face-first into the gravel. Once there, I decided to take a little nap.
I rolled over onto my back and lay with my arms and legs outstretched, gazing up at the sky. The wind murmured in the treetops. It whispered a lullaby that sounded just like the tune Frederick had been humming on our way up the hill. The stars twinkled at me in a friendly way, and I almost felt like waving to them. Unfortunately, I seemed to have forgotten how to use my arms, and before I could recall how to do it I was fast asleep.
* * *
“Emma?” said a voice from somewhere above me. “What happened?”
“Darcy?” called another voice from farther away. “Where are you?” I heard footsteps in the gravel, then the second voice again, directly above me. “That’s Charlotte’s friend. Wow, she’s completely wasted.”
“Give me a hand.”
I felt myself being hauled up into a sitting position, and blinked warily. It was dark and I was outdoors. In front of me I could see the blurred faces of Darcy de Winter and Toby Bell, and behind them the towers of Stolzenburg silhouetted against the night sky.
“Emma,” said Darcy again.
“Hi.” It was less than ideal that Darcy, of all people, should be the one to find me in this unfortunate state. And my head was still spinning and I was tired. So very tired. “Good night,” I murmured, closing my eyes and trying to lie down again—but there was an arm in the way. Never mind. I let my head flop to one side; that was the next best thing.
“Oh my God!” Darcy exclaimed. “Has she passed out?”
They were both silent for a moment.
“Toby?”
“Mm?”
“What’s up?”
“Nothing. I’m just waiting for you to begin your lecture,” said Toby.
“What lecture?”
“The one about the youth of today, how immature they are, how sad it is to see kids who don’t know their limits getting hammered.…”
“I hope she hasn’t gone into a coma.”
“Of course she hasn’t. She’s snoring like a trooper.”
“I don’t snore,” I grunted. “It must be Hannah.”
“What’s she doing out here? We have to get her back to bed,” said Darcy.
“Yes, obviously, but…”
Darcy sighed. “But what?”
“You’re seriously telling me you’re not even going to pass comment on this? You’re not going to take the piss even a tiny bit? Or are you saving it for later?”
Another arm slid under my knees and suddenly the ground fell away beneath me. I found my head resting on a chest that smelled of fresh laundry, and Darcy’s voice was much closer to my ear now as it said: “She’s freezing cold. God knows how long she’s been out here.”
“You liked going for that walk with her, didn’t you?” Toby mused. “Perhaps there’s actually something in these rumors I’ve been hearing all day.”
Darc
y snorted. “Please. She hates me.”
“Please just go away and let me sleep,” I said as if in confirmation of his remark, and snuggled deeper into the arms that held me.
Darcy didn’t say anything for a while, and at first I thought he’d done what I’d asked and made himself scarce. All I was aware of was a slight rocking motion and the crunching of the gravel beneath me.
“We’ll take her in through the old coal cellar. That way we won’t set off the alarm.” Darcy’s voice again, vibrating against my ear.
“Good idea. But watch out, the steps are very steep.”
“I know.”
The gravel stopped crunching and the rocking motion became more pronounced.
“You could try being a bit nicer to her. Then maybe she wouldn’t hate you anymore,” Toby suggested.
“What would be the point of that?”
“Just think about it.”
I felt the air around me getting warmer and I let out a contented sigh.
“Okay, this is the girls’ floor. Now we just have to find her bedroom,” whispered Toby.
“No problem,” Darcy murmured. “I happen to know which one it is.”
“Ah, that’s … handy.” Toby was silent for a moment. Then he changed the subject: “Do you still want to show me that ugly angel thing? Only it’s just started raining and I don’t really fancy going back out there.…”
“Fine, we’ll go tomorrow,” said Darcy. “And by the way, it’s not actually an angel. But for now just open this door for me, would you?”
* * *
In my dream the paper dragonfly fluttered in through the window of the Golden Lion, flew a lap of honor around the light above the table, and landed on the rim of my glass. Its translucent wings shimmered as it cleaned its front legs, one of which it had accidentally dipped into the foam on my beer. Then it took off again and started flying around in circles close to the ceiling. I tipped my head back and watched it.
“I’m dizzy,” I murmured after a while.
“That’s because you keep flying around in circles. Why don’t you come down?” said Frederick.
I wanted to reply that I wasn’t flying, I was sitting right there next to him, but I couldn’t: I realized I couldn’t speak and that I was in fact flying in circles around his head. I was also surprisingly small, and there was a rustling noise coming from behind me. When I looked over my shoulder, I saw that I had a pair of silky paper wings, rising and falling as if by magic. In front of me the dragonfly hung in the air, her eyes glowing like mysterious moons. She stretched out an antenna toward me and beckoned to me to follow her.
“Wait! Emma!” Frederick called after me. “Come back and tell me a ghost story!” But I couldn’t hear what he said next because we’d floated out into the cool night air and away, leaving the roofs of the village far behind us.
It was wonderful.
The little paper dragonfly guided me through the darkness. Together we soared higher and higher, closer and closer to the stars, which were out tonight in their thousands to watch us fly, while the treetops swayed far below us and the Rhine snaked away into the distance like a glittering ribbon.
And Stolzenburg seemed so tiny! It looked like a toy castle—it was hard to believe that up until now it had been pretty much my whole world. From way up here I could see how much more world there was beyond Stolzenburg’s walls—the forest stretching away for miles, the faraway lights of towns and highways, and beyond them, other towns, other countries, other continents.
One day I would see all these things for myself. The whole wide world would be my home—I’d known that for a while now. But for now, I belonged at Stolzenburg. For now, my life still revolved around the ancient building below me, and to be honest that was fine by me.
The dragonfly, too, seemed reluctant to stray far from Stolzenburg. It started to descend toward the castle, and I followed, so entranced by the feeling of the wind beneath my gossamer wings that I didn’t notice which part of the grounds we were heading for until I landed beside the dragonfly on a mossy stump of wall.
What now? I wanted to ask, but all that came out of my mouth was a soft buzzing noise. I cleaned my antennae while the dragonfly stared at me with its moon-shaped eyes. What are we doing here? I buzzed after a moment. It was impossible to tell whether the dragonfly had understood me or not. But at last it put its head to one side and blinked. Then it started to speak, in a voice that sounded like rustling leaves. Emma, it whispered. Emmaaa.
Who are you? I asked. What do you want with me?
Emma, repeated the dragonfly. Emmaaa!
Yes, I replied. That’s me. Was my name the only word it knew how to say?
It crawled toward me a little way, blinked again, and made a soft rustling sound that might have been the start of a new word.
But at that moment, a shadow loomed over us and the dragonfly fell silent. At first I thought it was just clouds drifting overhead, but then the shadow leaned forward and a huge hand appeared in between us. Gently, it scooped me up and lifted me into the air.
I flapped my wings frantically in an attempt to fly away, but I suddenly found I couldn’t move. Help! I buzzed. Help!
Then Darcy de Winter’s face appeared in front of me, gigantic, his nostrils gaping like dark caves. Every time he exhaled it was like a gust of wind that tugged at my antennae. “Emma,” he said. “Come with me.”
And he carried me away into the dark wood.
5th March 1927
The renovation work is almost complete. It looks as though the new teaching rooms will be ready for use, as planned, sometime before Easter. Some of the students, accompanied by their parents, are going today to view the newly refurbished east wing. The teaching staff have begun moving into their new lodgings on the castle grounds. All in all, we are confident that the day-to-day running of the school will continue as normal when the new term begins.
Fortunately, there have been no unpleasant surprises concerning the building’s structural integrity, but we did make one rather odd discovery in the cellars during an inspection of the sewer pipes. One of the workmen from the village happened to come across a concealed door, and when it was opened, thousands of little slivers of paper came wafting out. Nobody is able to explain where they might have come from. The sewer pipes were in perfect condition.
8
The next morning I didn’t feel at all well. I was very thirsty, but every time I drank from the bottle of water on my bedside table I wanted to throw up. And I had a splitting headache, and the daylight hurt my eyes. Damn it! When I sat up in bed, I realized I’d slept in my clothes. For a moment I couldn’t remember what had happened or how I’d gotten there. Then, bit by bit, it all came back to me, and I felt even worse than before.
What on earth had possessed me to drink that much beer? I knew how sensitive I was to alcohol—even half a glass of champagne was enough to tip me over the edge. So two pints of beer on an almost-empty stomach had been a disaster waiting to happen. Just the thought of Frederick seeing me in that state was enough to make me blush with shame. I’d recited tongue twisters on our first date! And that couldn’t have been the only stupid thing I’d done. Oh, man—perhaps it was better if I didn’t try to remember everything I’d said to Frederick. He’d had a bit to drink, too, so there was always a chance he didn’t remember much about last night, either, right? Right?
Hannah had been worrying about me all evening and had sent me several messages (until she’d heard from Louisa and Jenny in Year 8 that I was out with Frederick). Now she was impatient for details of our secret date. “So he walked you back to the castle. And then what?” she called through the bathroom door as I brushed my teeth, desperately trying to get rid of the stale taste in my mouth. “Did he kiss you?”
“Dunno. I don’ fink fo,” I called back through a mouthful of toothpaste. The end of the evening was even more of a blur than the rest of it. But I seemed to recall that I’d met Darcy de Winter and Toby Bell at some point, and that t
hey’d walked me back to my room. That was a bit unfortunate, too, now that I came to think of it. They’d probably look down their noses at me even more from now on. Well, let them. I didn’t care. I finished brushing my teeth and rinsed my mouth out, and as I got into the shower I resolved to stop dwelling on the weird evening I’d just had. And never to drink alcohol ever again.
* * *
“It’s nice that Frederick asked you out, though,” said Charlotte, as we sat together amid the wreckage of the west wing library a few hours later. It was Sunday, and we were having our Westbooks meeting. Today it consisted of perching on piles of old books and coming up with a plan of action.
“Definitely,” Hannah agreed.
“Mhm,” I said. My head was still pounding, despite the two aspirin I’d just taken.
I decided to change the subject. “Anyway, have either of you had any bright ideas about what we’re going to do with all this?” I gestured at the carnage around us.
“Er—tidy it up?” Charlotte suggested. “Also, I’ve thought of a book we could read next.…”
“I think we should write something in the chronicle about a couple of tradesmen who just happen to be in the area,” Hannah piped up eagerly, as if this was just the cue she’d been waiting for. “I was thinking two brothers, Karsten and Jochen. Jochen loves the great outdoors, and Karsten recently got divorced and needs something to take his mind off it. They’re hiking across Germany and they’ve pitched their tent near Stolzenburg. Oh, and they have a friend called Paul with them who happens to be an upholsterer. He’s going with them as far as Karlsruhe to visit his great-aunt. But one night, they get attacked by a pack of wolves. It’s terrifying—the animals are half-starved and they rip the tent to pieces and nearly bite Paul’s leg off.” Hannah had leaped up from her pile of books and was now embellishing her story with a series of melodramatic gestures. “The men run for their lives. They think they’re about to die, the wolves are so close behind them! But then, in the nick of time, they get to the castle, where Mrs. Berkenbeck serves them some hot chicken soup with croutons. They’re very grateful. It’s now past midnight, but the men have nowhere to sleep because the wolves are still lurking around outside and their tent is ripped to shreds. So your dad lets them stay the night in the west wing.
The Forgotten Book Page 10