The girl dancing with Frederick was none other than our good friend Hannah.
September 1794
My stay at Stolzenburg is nearing its end. Tomorrow I will begin my journey back to Hampshire. I am eager to see my home again, my friends and family, my dear sister. And yet I feel a certain sorrow: for all that I must leave behind, for all that has happened here. How I wish I could take this book and its wondrous powers back with me to England. But I have decided to leave it here, hidden in a safe place.
It is for the best.
This, then, is my last entry—these are the last words I will ever write in this chronicle. I will write new words on new pages, new stories on paper that is no more than paper. I will take my leave of this book and return without it to England, where I will live as an ordinary writer forever and always, without recourse to magic. The characters in my novels will do my bidding, but never again will I try to control real people and their real lives.
Farewell!
11
“You’re sure you’re not angry with me?” Hannah asked me in biology the next morning, for the third time. “I was so surprised when he asked me to dance that I wasn’t thinking straight. And it was kind of fun, and it distracted me from Sinan—I’ve realized he’s not really my type. But I didn’t want to come between you and Frederick—”
“It’s fine,” I assured her, and carried on rummaging through my schoolbag for my pencil case. For some reason, the fact that Hannah had spent half the night dancing with Frederick didn’t really bother me. Well—not much, anyway. Yes, I’d expected him to dance with me last night. And I’d been surprised that he hadn’t asked me, and that he’d suddenly seemed so interested in Hannah despite the fact that they’d barely said a word to each other before yesterday. But I still hadn’t felt jealous. Even I found that puzzling.
Because, for the past year and a half, I’d spent a considerable amount of my time pining after Frederick Larbach. He was good-looking, funny, and charming, and I’d genuinely thought I was in love with him. But this morning I suddenly wasn’t so sure. Why didn’t it bother me that he’d barely looked at me all evening? When had I last wondered what it would be like to kiss him? I’d been over the moon when he’d invited me out to the pub, but since then … Had things changed between us that night? Had I just not been aware of it until now? I suddenly realized that, for whatever reason, Frederick hadn’t been on my mind as much as usual. And I felt sure of one thing: I still liked Frederick, but I didn’t love him the way I’d thought I did.
All I could think about now was what Darcy had told me about Gina. Had she really believed Frederick was the faun? Might she even have been right? Was that why she’d disappeared? The very thought seemed absurd, and yet … only yesterday the book’s powers had caused my father to win a prestigious award and the Berkenbecks to receive an email from their niece. Perhaps the idea that the faun existed wasn’t so ridiculous after all? And if he did exist, because he’d been written about in the chronicle, then surely there must also be some truth in the story of the fairy who had given him human form? Perhaps Frederick’s limp wasn’t the result of an accident after all—perhaps that was what happened when cloven hooves turned into human feet?
Mrs. Bröder-Strauchhaus passed along the rows of tables handing out a test on the topic of photosynthesis, but I didn’t even attempt to concentrate on the questions. The pictures of leaves and stems just reminded me of the sketches of the faun, who always appeared in the chronicle surrounded by plants and insects. Could such a creature really be hiding in plain sight, passing for a human being? And what were those little silver leaves that kept appearing everywhere—including the lord of Stolzenburg’s laboratory?
Bent low over my test paper, I pretended to be working on the questions when really I was just doodling—little houses, trees, flowers, stars—and trying to get my head straight.
Okay. However crazy and surreal this whole thing was, I had to approach it logically if I was to have any hope of figuring out what was going on. Logically, and step by step. What did I know about Frederick, first of all?
Well, he’d grown up in the village. He came from a family that had lived here for generations and worked for the various earls of Stolzenburg. He’d been a student at the school and was now studying biology in Cologne. And he seemed to be involved somehow in what had happened four years ago. There’d been a connection between him and Gina, Darcy had said.… And now that I came to think of it, that night at the Golden Lion, Frederick had seemed very interested in Gina, and her ghost stories, and what Darcy had said about her disappearance. But that didn’t necessarily mean Frederick was the culprit, did it? And if Frederick wasn’t responsible for Gina going missing, then what had happened to her? Where was she? And who—or what—was the faun?
Damn it!
Something told me that the story about the faun and the fairy held the key to the whole mystery, but I didn’t know how or why. Perhaps it hadn’t been such a bad idea after all to write something in the chronicle about meeting the faun. I felt certain that once I came face-to-face with him, all my questions would be answered. Surely it was only a matter of time?
But time, unfortunately, was relative. As the hands of the clock crept around the dial and the biology lesson ticked by, I felt I was no closer to meeting the faun than I had ever been. I eventually managed to complete three of the ten test questions before the bell rang, but I dreaded to think what grade I was going to get in what was usually one of my favorite subjects.
And the rest of the day was no better. The hours passed completely without incident. Of course, everyone was still talking about the ball, and some people asked me about the few seconds I’d spent dancing with Darcy de Winter. But other than that, absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happened. Tuesday and Wednesday were just as bad. Lessons, homework, and studying for the upcoming tests took up almost all of our time. Charlotte, Hannah, and I spent our evenings bent over our books in the west wing library, now partially restored to its former glory thanks to Miss Whitfield’s furniture. My dad, meanwhile, was busy giving interviews to the press (who were keen to speak to the winner of this year’s International Educational Achievement Prize) and preparing for his trip to Brussels. The school had also been promised a large donation for the building of a riding stable (though not on Sunday evening as I’d planned; the call had come through on Tuesday morning). So the chronicle still appeared to be working just fine.
The only thing that hadn’t happened yet was my meeting with the faun, and the more time went on, the more paranoid I became. On Tuesday I pondered the theoretical question of what the faun would look like, and whether he might perhaps be a metaphor for something else. On Wednesday I looked long and hard at everybody I met, examining them from head to toe. And by Thursday afternoon I’d started getting jumpy, expecting to see a huge horned beast come lumbering around the corner at any moment. That evening I checked for the three-hundredth time exactly what I’d written in the chronicle. Perhaps I would find some hidden clue in my own words, something I’d previously overlooked? But however many times I read the few brief sentences I’d written, their meaning didn’t seem to change. All I got for my pains was a thumping headache.
On Friday night, I finally cracked.
I couldn’t sleep—the duvet was sticking to me and my mind was racing so fast I felt sick. If I didn’t find that stupid faun soon, I was going to have a nervous breakdown. Just lying here in bed tossing and turning wasn’t an option anymore. I had to do something.
I sat bolt upright.
It was stuffy in the room—we’d forgotten to open the window before going to bed—but that didn’t seem to bother Hannah, who was sound asleep. I swung my legs out of bed and pulled on my socks, sweatpants, jacket, and shoes. I urgently needed some fresh air. And I had a pretty good idea of where the faun might be hiding, didn’t I? Perhaps it was time to pay him a visit, instead of just waiting for something to happen of its own accord.
Yes, this was
a good plan: First I’d go and check the lord of Stolzenburg’s secret laboratory, and if I didn’t find him there I could always go down to the village, wake Frederick up, and confront him with my questions.
I tiptoed through the corridors of the castle and out into the darkness. It was refreshing to breathe in the cold night air as I hurried across the lawns. The grass deadened the sound of my footsteps, and its sharp, wet smell filled my nostrils.
The hulking ink-black silhouettes of shrubs and fountains loomed around me like sleeping monsters. The edge of the wood ahead of me was as black as the end of the world. For a moment I remembered the runaway circus lion. Then I entered the woods.
The uneasy feeling in my stomach grew stronger as I approached the ruins. Perhaps the faun was dangerous. Perhaps it was stupid to go looking for an ancient mythical creature alone and unarmed. But tonight my resolve was greater than my fear.
The ruined walls of the monastery were waiting for me, looking the same as they ever had. Could there really be a fairy queen’s palace somewhere around here? I stepped through one of the archways and walked slowly along the nave. A gentle wind caressed my skin and the pockmarked face of the statue, its features worn flat by hundreds of years of wind and rain.
Since Hannah, Toby, Darcy, and I had first dislodged the stone slab and cleaned decades’ worth of mud off it, it had become much easier to lift. But I still had to tug at it with all my strength to get it to move. I planted my feet on either side of it and leaned my whole weight backward. By the time I’d managed to shift it an inch or so, leaving an opening about two fingers wide, I was dripping with sweat. Panting heavily, I leaned back for a moment against the legs of the statue—and they gave way beneath me.
There was a grinding noise.
I leaped to my feet in alarm and watched as the slab slid sideways all by itself, revealing the entrance to the underground staircase. In the tunnels below, something else seemed to be moving: I heard the sound of rock grinding on rock and felt the ground vibrate beneath my feet. Then silence returned.
I turned around and stared at the statue. The faun’s right knee looked odd, as if it had rotated 180 degrees around its own axis. I put out a hand and carefully pushed the stone back into its original position. The hidden mechanism immediately sprang into life again, a barely perceptible shiver ran through the ruined walls, and the stone slab slid back into place. Cool!
Intrigued, I was about to open the secret tunnel again when I heard a voice—a woman’s voice—drifting toward me through the darkness. I flinched as if I’d been burned.
“Hello!” it called. “Is anybody there?”
My first instinct was to duck behind the nearest wall and hide. But before I could move a muscle, Miss Whitfield emerged from between the pillars. “Emma?” she asked in astonishment. She was wearing a dressing gown, with the hem of a very frilly nightie poking out from underneath it, and swinging a flashlight in one hand. “What are you doing here? It’s the middle of the night!”
“I couldn’t sleep,” I said. “So I thought I’d go for a little walk.”
Miss Whitfield eyed me disapprovingly. “You know that’s not allowed—”
“I know,” I said quickly. “I’m sorry. I’ll go straight back to bed. Did I wake you up?”
She shook her head. “No. I was having trouble sleeping myself. I don’t make a habit of wandering through the woods alone when I can’t sleep, you understand; I usually do a spot of knitting to help me drop off. It’s the dullest thing you can imagine, and it works a treat. It almost worked tonight, too, until I spotted that gardener lad climbing out of one of the castle windows and running off into the woods. And you seemed in rather a hurry to follow him, young lady!”
“Er…,” I stammered. “Frederick was here?”
Miss Whitfield gave me a meaningful look.
“I didn’t come here to meet him!” I cried. “I’ve got no idea where he … or why he … Which window did he climb out of?”
“I’d rather not talk about it here.” She turned away from me and started walking. “But what would you say to a cup of lemon balm tea?”
Dolly, Dolly II, and Miss Velvetnose bleated softly as we passed them. (Perhaps they were dreaming about the juicy leaves Hannah had brought them the day before.) I soon found myself sitting in Miss Whitfield’s chintz-filled living room holding a cup of steaming lemon balm tea, which apparently had a calming effect. As I sipped it, I tried to raise my little finger in the proper manner (even though it wasn’t strictly necessary: Miss Whitfield wasn’t an earl, after all).
“Wandering through the woods on your own at night!” chided Miss Whitfield, who’d seated herself in the armchair opposite me and was busy embroidering a handkerchief. “It’s dangerous! And you’d do best to put that gardener boy out of your mind, by the way.”
“I already have.”
“Good.”
The golden clock on the mantelpiece behind Miss Whitfield’s head ticked quietly. I stirred another spoonful of sugar into my tea and cleared my throat. “Might I ask why?”
Miss Whitfield blinked. “Well. From what I can see, he’s no gentleman.”
“Because … because he’s got no manners?” I pressed her. Or because he’s not a man at all?
“Because the window I saw him climb out of was on the girls’ corridor.”
“I see.” I took another sip of my tea. The hot drink was doing me good: The taste of lemon balm had calmed my nerves, warmed my throat, and caused my panic of the past few days to subside a little.
“Promise me you won’t ever go out on your own at night again,” said Miss Whitfield.
I would have liked to tell her what she wanted to hear, but I didn’t want to lie to her. And now that I’d discovered the hidden mechanism in the statue, and I knew it was connected to the underground tunnels (perhaps it opened up new rooms and passageways?), I was far too curious not to carry on investigating. “The woods aren’t that dangerous. It’s not like they’re full of wolves or ax murderers or anything,” I replied evasively.
“No,” said Miss Whitfield, looking at me intently. “But people have disappeared.” Her words seemed to hang in the air between us like a dark cloud.
Then she turned her attention back to a violet she was embroidering in light blue thread, while I sipped my tea again. “I know,” I said at last. “You … you were at the school when Gina de Winter went missing, weren’t you?”
“I was on holiday when it happened, but naturally I was told about it,” said Miss Whitfield, without looking up from her embroidery.
“Do you have any idea what could have happened?”
“No. All I know is that it was a terrible time for everybody. Particularly for her family.” She laid her embroidery frame aside. “I’ve known the de Winters a long time—our families have been friends for generations. Gina was such a sweet, quiet girl! She would never have run away, whatever the police might say. She loved her family and Stolzenburg more than anything in the world. As did her brother. Even when they were tiny children, four or five years old, they used to play games about Stolzenburg. They used to pretend they were going to Germany to live in their ancestors’ castle.” Miss Whitfield sighed. “When she went missing it broke poor Darcy’s heart. Gina meant the world to him. And to lose her like that, so suddenly … it changed him. Since she disappeared, he’s become … harder, somehow. Cynical, withdrawn. I suspect it’s because he can’t stand the thought of being hurt that way again.”
“Perhaps he feels guilty that he wasn’t there for Gina when she needed him,” I murmured.
Miss Whitfield shrugged. “Would he have been able to prevent it? Oh, if only we knew what had happened!”
“Hm.” The clock on the mantelpiece chimed softly, and suddenly I realized something. “You said people have disappeared. Plural. Is Gina not the only one? Has it happened before?”
“Well.” Miss Whitfield cleared her throat. “I couldn’t tell you for certain—but as I said, my family has had link
s to Stolzenburg and the de Winters for centuries, and there have always been rumors about the castle and its inhabitants. As is often the case with old houses. Anyway, in the early 1800s one of the village girls is said to have vanished without a trace in the woods. Of course, this was long before Gina went missing and I don’t believe the two cases are connected in any way. But clearly these woods are more dangerous than they seem. Which is why you, my dear, need to get yourself straight back to the castle and safely tucked up in bed. Agreed?”
The tea had made me pretty sleepy, and the thought of snuggling up in bed, pulling the duvet over my head, and closing my eyes was very tempting. But what I’d just discovered at the ruins was even more so.…
Feeling slightly guilty, I said good-bye to Miss Whitfield and set off back to the castle: But instead of going inside I looped around the edge of the south courtyard and headed back out into the woods. Taking a sheltered path that couldn’t be seen from Miss Whitfield’s window, I soon arrived back at the ruins. I marched straight over to the statue and twisted its knee again. I had to know what was down there, and I had to know now. I couldn’t wait until morning.
I heard stone grinding on stone, felt the ground tremble beneath my feet, and watched as the slab slid slowly to one side, revealing the dark pit beneath. It finally came to rest with a muffled clank that sounded like a latch clicking into place. Then I climbed down into the hole, and the light from my phone (fully charged this time, thank goodness) danced over the steps and cast bizarre shadows on the rough stone walls. An ancient, musty smell filled my nostrils, and I shivered in the subterranean cold.
This whole thing had been a lot less creepy when Darcy was here. But I wasn’t the type to be afraid of ghosts, or fauns. No: I felt cool, calm, and collected as I reached the bottom of the steps. I was ready for anything. This was basically just a moldy old cellar, wasn’t it? What was the worst that could happen?
“Is this a grave?” asked a voice from behind me. I jumped about a foot in the air and hit my head on the low ceiling. Ouch!
The Forgotten Book Page 16