by E. Archer
“Well, I guess that’s the point of it all,” Ralph said, out of dork solidarity.
Beatrice nodded, glared at her brother, and snorted a second time.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Cecil said, moving quickly from wounded sniff to impassioned rant as the little car chugged up a rise. “But I’m like, there are bigger issues out there, you know? Sure, yeah, she’s just seven” — Ralph surmised they were back to Daphne now — “but should we really be encouraging her to be all fake? There are real people suffering out there, who aren’t princesses worrying about snagging princes but working mums trying to buy formula for their sickly infants, and because we have money we can afford not to think about these things. It makes me so mad. She’s in a princess costume, and there are kids in, like, Bangladesh who don’t have any costumes! Don’t have any clothes at all, for that matter! I’m just trying to say that — oh, this is our vale, by the way.”
Their vale. The car finally crested the top of a sunny hill and began to putter across a bumpy bridge, which crossed a river into a radiant bowl of trees. Cecil sped up and zipped along the lane as it threaded between the trunks. The uneven road threw the car’s occupants against the doors and, on especially big bumps, the roof.
“I take it ‘our vale’ is home?” Ralph asked.
“Yeah. It’s an island of sorts.” Cecil turned off the radio.
The lane bent to follow a shelf of rock, and from this new vantage point Ralph could see a skyscraper of a tree at the center, throwing its great leafy umbrella over the glade. To one side of its circumference, a castle had been offhandedly placed. The castle would have been monumental in any other context; next to the tree it was a mere cake decoration.
The titan’s leaves permitted little sunlight, so Cecil had to turn on his headlights as they approached the center of the vale. The old car grumbled through the dim quiet, the only sound of their passage the squeaks the car’s tires made on the gravel, the pawfalls of small fleeing mammals, and periodic sniffles that might have been produced either by the radiator or by Beatrice.
“You live here?” Ralph asked.
It was on Beatrice’s third snort of the day that they pulled into the driveway before the huge, crumbling castle. Cecil wedged his car between two matching Mercedes. Beatrice threw herself out of the hatchback, then Cecil and Ralph eased over the gearshift and followed her. By the time Ralph got to his feet, Beatrice and Cecil were almost at the front door. “Hey!” Ralph called. “Wait a sec. I need to get my bag.”
Cecil looked back, startled. “I’m sure there’s a footman on duty, or something.”
“That’s okay. I want to get it,” Ralph said.
Cecil stood paralyzed until Beatrice plucked his keys from his hand and hurled them at Ralph. They landed on the gravel a few paces away. “You’re staying in the gatehouse. Silver key,” Cecil called. The last Ralph saw of him was a large finger silhouetted in a hallway window, pointing in the direction of the giant tree.
“Thanks!” Ralph yelled.
Ralph re-opened the hatchback. The tidy wheeze of the pneumatics was so like that of his parents’ little car that he suddenly missed them. But once he heaved his old duffel out of the back and heard it hit the pure white gravel of the driveway, once the movement of slinging it over his back made him look up and take in the oddly-shaped manor and the monumental tree and the vale around it, Ralph was charged by the adventure of his new situation. What was this side of the family about? Where did his own room lie? He would make this a grand adventure better than any MonoMyth had ever conceived.
Ralph’s duffel was heavy and unevenly stuffed; when he moved toward the tree, he staggered. His building was a stone-walled affair, only modestly immodest compared to the stained-glass excesses of the castle. Though it was a separate structure, with two stories and painted wooden shutters, he couldn’t determine why it would be called the gatehouse, as that would seem to imply it protected a boundary — but there was no gate or fence. The only thing the gatehouse could possibly defend the castle from was the tree itself.
The silver key slid in and the door swung open under Ralph’s hand. The interior was sparely furnished, sporting only a wide wool rug, a sleigh bed, a large mirror, and an expansive fireplace. The first thing Ralph did was to place his pet rock Jeremiah under his mattress (he befriended any rocks that he considered neat looking). He then proceeded to unpack the rest of his belongings, which speak quite well for themselves:
(1) Four-color Pen
(2) Rubik’s Cubes
(1) Sound Effects CD
(1) Petri Dish
(1) Dress Shirt
(1) Magnifying Glass
(8) Gaming Books
(1) Set of High Elf Figurines
(3) (!) Slinkys
(1) Universal Remote Control
(1) Laser Pointer
(1) Flashlight
(3) T-shirts with Computer Puns
(3) Identical Black T-shirts
(1) Pair of Stonewashed Jeans
(1) Pair of Loafers
(1) Set of Day-of-the-Week Underwear
(2) Laptops
(1) Novelization of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
As he finished unpacking and hung his shirts up in the closet, trying to shake out wrinkles as he did, he felt the gloom of the massive tree weighing on him. He soon fled its twilight and headed across a patio to the main castle. Gert was waiting in the foyer, staring at him through a warped glass window.
“Let me give you a tour,” she offered.
“Thank you.”
“I am so glad that you’ve come to stay with us,” she said as they processed down a hallway, her hard-soled shoes resounding on the stone floor. “We’re all going to have such a marvelous time. Usually we summer abroad, and the children were positively mutinous when we told them they would be cooped up in this musty old castle. Having you here will be such a nice diversion for them. Daphne is happy everywhere, Beatrice is unhappy everywhere, and Cecil’s in the middle. He’s fascinated by disadvantaged people like you, and having some male company will do him good. And of course, we’re helpless trying to set up our ‘internet connection,’ or what have you. As soon as the kids are able to ‘chat’ with their buddies, I imagine they’ll be at peace. Peaceful kids, that’s all a parent can hope for, isn’t it?”
Ralph nodded as if he, too, were a parent who had always hoped for nothing more.
“So, you’ve undoubtedly noticed that the castle — a manor, really, who are we kidding — is set up with three separate wings. The children like to think that they each have their own. Of course we’re just humoring them with that. They don’t seem to realize that the middle bit is only the entrance hall, which means that everything else — servants’ quarters, dining room, the studies, all the closets, master bedroom, the garage, all of it — is actually scattered throughout their wings. But it’s the Beatrice wing, the Cecil wing, and the Daphne wing. They’re tyrants about it. Just tyrants. You should see Cecil trying to come into Daphne’s wing. You can hear her protests throughout the castle. Very amusing. Do you have a ‘lady friend'?”
Ralph shook his head as he tried to keep up with Gert’s twisting monologue. “Not really.”
“Wonderful,” Gert said. “You’re too young to be tied down yet. Not that you’ll meet any available young ladies around here. We’re quite isolated. You could follow Cecil into town when he’s on the job, though. He’s got this thing about working. He hates the ‘aristocracy.’ But you know teenagers — they’ll always find an excuse to loathe themselves.”
Ralph nodded, wondering in what way he loathed himself.
Gert stopped up short and took Ralph’s hands in her own. He could see from the set of her eyes that she had grown weary of the castle tour, a full forty paces from where it had begun. They were on to deeper things. He felt afraid: Her impeccable kindness and charity made him certain of some inner wickedness. “Listen, Ralph, I want to be perfectly honest with you. I invited you over here because we could use your darling
expertise, to be sure, but I also want you to know that I consider this a full invite to be an honorary member of our family. We adore you, we really do —”
Ralph blinked. He wasn’t sure he had even learned everyone’s names yet. “— and I want you to know — we want you to know — that we all can imagine what it’s like to have parents who are controlling and try to isolate you from any other family! I suppose I’m saying that I want to be a mother to you, too, if you’ll let me. Like Mother Number Two, though I’d ask that you don’t call me that.”
“Actually, about that, Gert. My parents are great. I like them a lot. I didn’t come here to get away from them.”
“Oh!” Gert cradled Ralph’s cheek in her hand. “Oh, of course they’re great. I wouldn’t mean to imply that they’re holding you back from being special, or anything else like that.” She laid one long-fingered hand over her heart. “They live in here.” She moved the hand to Ralph’s chest. “And in here.”
“That, too, but they’re also living in New Jersey. They’re probably pretty worried.”
Gert put a hand over her mouth and wordlessly embraced Ralph. Then she backed away, beaming a curdling force of affection. “We’ll have someone give them a call,” she said, then backed around a corner and vanished.
CHAPTER VI
Gert left Ralph in a hallway dominated at one end by a massive window. He stared through the cloudy renaissance glass at a garden below and watched the bluebells bow before the first hints of rain. He did his best not to think about his parents.
Droplets began to strike the window. It was soon a deluge, turning the dust on the walkways to mud. Ralph took in the metal hooks set into the old brick walls, and the sky that was a different shade of blue everywhere he looked, though it never lost its substantial British grayness. He creaked open a small triangle of window and reached out a hand to feel the rain, the English rain, the lovely dreary water, bead over the back of his hand. He gazed at the wealth around him, a steerage passenger peering through a porthole.
“What are you doing?” came Cecil’s voice from down the hallway.
Ralph pulled back his head, bumping the window frame as he did and nearly knocking his glasses off his face. Maybe it was the vibration of that shock, but he thought he saw a shadowy figure disappear behind the tree. “Feeling the rain,” he said distractedly, scanning outside. The figure was gone.
“Does it feel like rain?”
“Yes.”
“Jolly good. I’ve been sent to show you your gatehouse.”
“I’ve already been.”
“You have? What else am I supposed to do with you, then?”
“I don’t know — ask your mom.”
“I guess I’ll show you my wing. I know more about it than your building, anyway.”
Cecil’s section of the castle was decorated in Che Guevara blankets, posters for arty bands whose names were whole sentences, and a suit of armor on which had been draped a camouflage helmet. At the far end was Cecil’s tur-reted bedroom. “You see those signs?” Cecil asked.
“Yeah.” On the wall were hung category divisions from a chain bookstore, suspended from rusty chains.
“I helped set up a new bookstore, because if you work just one job you can’t make ends meet, which means I’ve had to work two to make it more realistic. Anyway, my coworkers looked the other way when I lifted some massive signage. Check out where I put them all.”
TRUE CRIME was above the main door, SPECIAL NEEDS above the bathroom, SELF HELP over the bed.
“Cool, huh?” Cecil said.
“Yeah.”
“I’m going into town now, actually. Do you want a lift?”
“No, I think I’ll stick around here. Maybe take a nap or something. Thanks, though. Can I let myself out into the gardens?”
“Yeah. You should really check out the giant tree. It’s been around for like a gabillion years.”
By all traditional indicators of tree age, this specimen had indeed been around a gabillion years. Four people could stand at the compass points of its girth and not glimpse one another. Its network of thick leaves funneled the downpour into columns of water, leaving the rest of the area beneath its canopy in mist. Nothing grew under the wide circumference of its branches, besides toadstools and the occasional stand of wildflowers. Ralph dashed along a muddy path, past a vacant stable and through a stretch of dewy moss to reach the tree’s wide trunk. He appraised it as a possible video game background, judged it evocative but hard to render.
“It’s raining,” said a little girl’s voice.
Ralph turned and saw Daphne, holding her plastic scepter akimbo and staring quizzically at him. She was soaked through. “I was trying to find you,” Daphne continued, “and I looked all over the whole castle. I didn’t want to get wet, but now you’ve made me. Mummy’s going to be upset with us. She was supposed to take me into town to get some new shoes before dinner, and now I bet she won’t let me.”
“I’m sorry,” Ralph said.
“It’s okay. Even though the shoes were pink and really nice. What are you doing?”
“I’m looking at the tree.”
“It’s very big, isn’t it? It’s way older than me.”
“I’d say so,” Ralph said. He wondered how to talk to a child. “Are you a princess?”
“I’m seven,” Daphne said. “I know I’m not really a princess. It just gets so boring around here. My friends are all off in warm places for the summer where they can go swimming and stuff.”
“I figured you had a good reason for dressing up.”
“I’m seven,” Daphne repeated.
“Do you know any magic spells?” Ralph asked.
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Have you ever climbed this tree?” Ralph tried.
“It’s too old. It doesn’t have any low branches anymore.” She was right; the lower trunk bore only the scars of branches long since broken away. A person would have to be twelve feet high to begin a climb. Ralph reached a hand out and touched the rough bark.
“We’re both wet,” Daphne observed. Then she said, “Do you want to see something?”
Ralph nodded.
“You have to put me on your shoulders first,” she said.
Daphne outstretched her arms and waited for Ralph to approach. He crossed the clearing, the toadstools making cardboard protests beneath his feet. When his knees touched the ground he became a new wet, a muddy and wetter wet. He watched the brown of the soil penetrate the fabric of his pants, felt its chill direct on his skin. Then he sensed a light pressure on his shoulders, and Daphne was upon him. He crossed his arms over her shins, and when he stood up they were one fantastic beast. Daphne hooted and slashed her scepter through the air. “Onward!” she cried.
“Onward where?”
“I’ll direct you.” Daphne gripped Ralph’s ears and tugged them this way and that. She was agile with her fingers, and communicated to Ralph not only the direction she wished to go, but also the velocity. There was no delicacy to the impulses, however; he was directed by a jockey, not a dance partner. They left the tree’s canopy and crossed a glade at the far end.
They passed over the meadow at a jostling clip, Daphne’s hands slapped across Ralph’s forehead, her weight no more than that of a knapsack. Once the grass eventually gave way to dirt road, her fingers directed Ralph to turn, then to turn again when they came to a trail.
“How much farther are you taking us?” Ralph asked. He imagined them getting lost in the deluge, arriving back at the house stricken with pneumonia, Gert buying him a one-way ticket back to New Jersey.
“Hush, noble steed!” Daphne instructed.
Ralph awaited further instruction.
Eventually Daphne flattened her palms against Ralph’s ears, signaling him to slow down. When he twisted to peer up at her, she placed her finger mischievously to her lips and directed him toward a slatted fence. Ralph wiped the water from his eyebrows with the hem of her dress and approached.
> A knot of wood had fallen from one of the higher planks, leaving an eyehole to which Daphne directed Ralph. The soggy splinters of the planks pricked through his shirt as he pressed against the fence. Daphne put her face to the hole and, after a moment, started giggling.
“What do you see?” Ralph asked.
“Men,” Daphne responded.
“Men? What kind of men?”
“They’re guards. Mummy had them set up all around the vale.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t know. I heard her saying to the groundskeeper that we would need protection for a few weeks.”
“And you have no idea why?”
“Nope. Mummy’s crazy about stuff like that, though.”
“You always come here to watch over the vale?”
“Yes. Sometimes I make up stories about the brownies and things.”
“Let me see the guards.”
“You can’t. You’re not tall enough. It’s the same for Cecil, when he comes with me. I’m the only one who gets to see anything.”
“I think you’re making this up. There’s probably some boy out there you have a crush on,” Ralph said.
“Ugh, put me down. That’s so not right. I don’t like any boys. I’m not even eight yet.”
“Sounds like I struck a nerve.”
“You think you’re funny. Let’s go back.”
Ralph headed back to the castle, Daphne remaining on his shoulders.
“You’re as weird as all boys,” she said after a few moments’ silence, as they crossed beneath the canopy of the giant tree.
The burden on Ralph’s back suddenly disappeared. He turned to see Daphne clutching a branch, her pink-tighted legs kicking in the air.
“What are you doing?” Ralph asked, dumbstruck.
“Playing with the tree.”
“Come on down.”
“No, never.”
But her arms were tiring. Ralph stood beneath and caught her.
“What’s wrong?” Daphne asked.
The tree branch was a dozen feet above their heads — there was no way Daphne could have reached it on her own. Staring a moment at the long, thick-barked branches that sawed at the sky, Ralph choked down his panic, then carried Daphne inside as the rain resurged.