Northwood

by Brian Falkner

  “We made it all the way to the chimney stack rock piles,” Avery said proudly, including Evan in the “we” with a sideways shift of her eyes. “Nobody had ever made it as far as that before.”

  “Yeah,” Evan said, shaking his head. “And then we spent three days hiding in a tree and had to be rescued by Sergeant Lee. I’m not trying that again.”

  “I’ll do it without you,” Avery said defiantly, and Cecilia believed she probably would.

  Most of the people in the room, including Mrs. Proctor, were either staring at the floor or slowly shaking their heads.

  They had given up, Cecilia realized. They had been lost in the forest for so long that they had given up any hope of rescue or thought of escape.

  A middle-aged woman whose name Cecilia had forgotten started to tell her something about the eating arrangements at the castle, but Cecilia really wasn’t taking much of it in.

  In the back of her mind, she was already forming a plan.

  ***

  That night Cecilia slept in her very own bedroom with Rocky curled up at the foot of the bed. Mrs. Proctor had said Rocky could stay with her to keep her company.

  “But he’s your dog,” Cecilia had said.

  “That’s okay,” Mrs. Proctor said. “I can see how much he likes you. He can stay with you for a while.”

  Cecilia lay down on her bed, a mattress made of some kind of rough cloth and filled with straw, and stared at the dark rock ceiling of the room.

  She had left the shutters open and starlight drifted in, bringing a little magic with it and filling the room with the laughter and the tears of people who had been gone for hundreds of years.

  This room might have once belonged to a princess, she thought, a beautiful little girl with diamonds in her hair and fresh flowers sewn into her gowns. Maybe even Princess Annachanel, when she was little.

  Evan said that there were exactly ninety-nine rooms in the castle — not counting the King’s quarters. (He was not allowed in there to count.)

  So there were plenty of rooms for everybody, although some people, like Avery and Evan and their parents, preferred to live in one of the old stone cottages that lined the stream running through the gorge.

  Cecilia loved the idea of living in the castle, even if it was quite cool and dim inside.

  It was grand and old and, besides, how many ten-year-old girls actually got to live in a real castle? None that she knew!

  Despite being exhausted from all her adventures that day, Cecilia still found it hard to sleep.

  First, she was worried about her mother and father, because she knew they would be worried about her.

  But finding her was not going to be easy.

  Then she was worried about their house.

  Had it collapsed after the bulldozer attack, or was it still standing? It had still been upright the last she had seen it, but it was very badly damaged.

  And if she wasn’t thinking about those things, then she was thinking about her plan for getting out of the forest. And that plan centered on the big attic balloon that was stuck in a tree not far from the castle.

  She lay awake for a long time, listening to people walking through the corridors, talking, laughing, just living their lives.

  For Cecilia, everything was brand-new . . . every experience was something she had not experienced before.So, anxious as she was, she couldn’t help but be fascinated and excited at the same time.

  Eventually, the corridors and the halls quieted down as people prepared for bed.

  It was only after they were completely silent that she became aware of the noise.

  It was a low, humming, buzzing noise and it seemed out of place in this ancient castle. It sounded like a modern kind of a noise to Cecilia.

  As she finally drifted toward sleep, she resolved to ask Avery and Evan about it in the morning.

  “Rocky,” she asked sleepily, “how did you know the right way to come? How did you find your way here through the maze?”

  Rocky rolled over on his back and itched it by rubbing it against the mattress, before answering. “I could smell people. And when we got closer, I could smell her.”

  Cecilia knew he meant Mrs. Proctor.

  “You’re very clever,” she said.

  “Good night,” Rocky barked, which was his way of telling her to be quiet and go to sleep.

  So she did, with that strange noise still humming in her ears.

  14

  STRAWBUBBLES

  EARLY NEXT MORNING morning, Cecilia heard another new sound that seemed completely out of place in this ancient castle. Like a spoonful of mashed potatoes in a bowl of ice cream, it just didn’t seem to belong.

  She was still in bed, thinking happy thoughts, which was what she always did when she was worried about something. What was worrying her was the thought of spending weeks or months trapped in this forest-prison. So she had stopped thinking about that and instead was thinking about the lovely flower gardens that Jana kept in front of the balloon house. She hoped they hadn’t been damaged when the house was attacked.

  Those pretty, pretty flowers got happy, happy smiles, Jana always said.

  Cecilia really missed Jana.

  Cecilia was lying on her bed, thinking these thoughts, when the sound intruded. Not the buzzing/humming noise, but something completely different.

  It started so faintly, she could just barely hear it. She thought at first that she must have gone back to sleep and that it was part of a dream. But the sound grew louder, and after touching herself on the nose to assure that she was wide awake, she lifted her head up so she could hear it more clearly.

  It was a regular beating sound. A quiet, distant whop whop whop. It got louder. WHOP WHOP WHOP. Whatever it was, it was moving closer. And then suddenly her brain clicked into first gear and she realized what the sound was.

  She rushed to the window. All she could really see was the slope of black trees on the other side of the clearing, but she could hear the sound distinctly through the mist, and it sounded very close.

  Rocky jumped up with her and put his front paws on the windowsill, his ears perking up.

  “It’s a helicopter!” Cecilia cried. “They must be looking for us!”

  She turned from the window and ran down the stairs, even as a tinny voice sounded through loudspeakers, high above the forest, echoing even over the sound of the helicopter. It was a man’s voice, maybe even her father’s, although it was too crackly and distant to tell.

  “Cecilia.”

  The voice chased her down the stairs. “Cecilia Undergarment, where are you?”

  By the time she burst out into the courtyard behind the castle, the sound of the helicopter was just a murmur in the distance.

  Several other people were peering up at the few patches of blue sky that peeked in through the mist and the heavy branches of the trees that towered overhead from the steep sides of the gorge.

  They all stayed there for a while, in case the helicopter came back, but it didn’t, and they all gradually drifted back to their tasks.

  ***

  Today, according to Mrs. Proctor, was a day of relaxation and discovery for Cecilia.

  It was always the same for new arrivals. She could go anywhere (well, except the royal quarters, of course), talk to anyone, and find her way around the castle and the gorge.

  Tonight would be her official welcome ceremony and her introduction to the King. After tonight she would be expected to work.

  She wasn’t quite sure what her work was going to be, but she knew that everybody was expected to work hard to keep the small community running.

  It might be tending to the animals (and she quite hoped it was, because she was sure they would have a lot to tell her), or it might be grinding flour or corn on the big grinding stone in the mill room.

  But the thing that e
xcited her the most was meeting the King. A real live king!

  Avery and Evan were her official guides. The first three things that Cecilia learned that morning were that Avery rolled her eyes a lot, that Evan used a lot of big words but didn’t really know what they meant, and that Avery and Evan argued incessantly. About anything. About everything. They argued about who was stronger (Avery) and who was smarter (Evan). About what day it was and what food was nicest and whether the sky was really blue and why water was wet and why you fell back down when you jumped in the air.

  As far as Cecilia could tell, the only reason they had both volunteered to show her around was because they each didn’t want the other one to be the one to do it.

  They started in the courtyard. It was at the rear of the castle, cut out of the rocky plain on that side. Rocky came with them, but spent most of his time running around sniffing at things. Cecilia thought that his sensitive nose must be painting a different picture than the one she was seeing.

  “From here you can see the whole valley,” Evan said. “It’s really esoteric.”

  “No you can’t,” Avery said.

  “Well, everything except the rapids and the waterhole at the end,” Evan said.

  “It’s not a valley,” Avery said.

  Avery was right. It wasn’t really a valley at all. This was a gorge, or a canyon, with steep cliffs on either side that disappeared upward into the mist.

  It was a deep channel across the countryside, cut millions of years ago by the river that spouted out of Storm Mountain behind them. It was not long and straight, but winding and random, zigging and zagging in odd directions as if a child had marked out the route by scrawling a jagged line on a piece of paper.

  The forest of tarblood trees that now completely surrounded the gorge hid it from view, and there was only one way in or out: Storm Castle.

  “That’s my house,” Avery said, pointing.

  Scattered in groups along the banks of the river were stone cottages. Some were in quite good condition, with all four walls still standing. Others had crumbled or sunk into the earth, leaning this way and that. A number of the better-looking ones had been fixed up with doors, shutters, and roofs.

  The one that Avery was pointing to was larger than the rest. It wasn’t far from the castle, and it sat beside a sharp bend in the river.

  Gray clothing hung from a line that went from the back of the cottage to a nearby tree, and long rows of low plants covered the ground on either side. The plants were fenced off, possibly against the goats that Cecilia could see roaming along the riverbank.

  “That’s our house,” Evan said. “Not your house.”

  “It’s still my house, even if it’s also our house,” Avery said. “What I said was correct.”

  “But that made it sound like it was only your house, and nobody else’s,” Evan said.

  “I never said it wasn’t your house too,” Avery said.

  “You implied it,” Evan said.

  Cecilia was feeling like telling them both to put a lid on it, but just for fun, she decided to join in instead.

  “It’s not a house,” she said. “It’s a cottage.”

  That immediately started off a whole new argument about whether a cottage was a type of house, or a house was a type of cottage, and what size a cottage could be before it was no longer a cottage, and whether a hut was a cottage, and what the difference between a house and a home was. On it went, and Cecilia was starting to wish she hadn’t said anything.

  When she could get a word in she said, “This is a lovely courtyard.”

  The twins stopped arguing and looked around, as if seeing the courtyard for the very first time.

  There was a raised round circle with a roof at one end. Cecilia thought it was a place where minstrels might have played once, while citizens, wearing fine robes and elegant gowns, waltzed joyfully around the courtyard.

  A small stream, diverted from the main river, gurgled its way across the courtyard through a channel made of stones.

  The stream ran into a water feature in the middle of the courtyard: a rock-lined waterfall that flowed in a constant sheet of water into a large open bowl on a lower level.

  In the middle of the bowl, on a raised pedestal, was a birdbath. In the center of the birdbath was a little golden statue of a bird.

  A blue bird was taking a bath. “Hello, pretty little bird,” Cecilia said, keeping one hand on Rocky’s collar in case he should take off and try to chase it.

  “It’s okay,” Rocky woofed. “I’m not hungry.”

  Cecilia kept her hand on his collar anyway, because she knew that dogs did not always tell the truth, especially when it came to chasing cats and birds.

  “Hello, blue bird,” she said again.

  The bird turned its head each way, as birds do to get a good look at you.

  Cecilia didn’t expect the bird to say anything back. She had found that birds didn’t talk very much and what they did say was usually not worth saying.

  This blue bird gave a quick chirp that might have meant, Do you mind? I’m taking a bath.

  Looking back to the gorge, she saw why her eyes had been drawn straightaway to the blue bird.

  The constant mist that covered the narrow gorge, from the tarblood trees on top of the cliffs on either side, sucked all the color out of everything.

  It was all quite dull and lifeless: the lazy water of the river, the grass and reeds along the riverbanks, the simple smocks the people wore, the stone houses, even the gold of the little bird statue. Everything looked gray.

  The trees themselves were black, and the mist was white. It seemed that everything else was some shade in between. It was as if she had gone from a color-TV world to a black-and-white one. Except for the blue bird — its vibrant feathers were the single splash of color in this dull, overcast place.

  The twins showed her many of the important rooms in the castle. There was the pottery room, where they made clay pots for water and smaller, flatter pots for what Avery called “night water.” (Cecilia knew they were actually little toilets.) The potter, Mrs. Armishaw (a former astronomer), also made mugs and plates and vases.

  In another room, the weaver, Mr. Herald (the former accountant), made cloth out of wool and some coarse threads they took from one of the bushes in the gorge. She met the furrier (the former hairdresser), Mr. Kent, who had rabbit skins stretched on frames, and the baker (also an astronomer), his face red and sweaty.

  She tried to remember all the names, and what they did, but she knew it would take a couple of days before it all sank in.

  She and the twins ended up back in the courtyard.

  “Come and see our farm,” Evan said.

  “Farmlet,” Avery said.

  “Whatever,” Evan said.

  They started walking down the huge steps.

  “Last night I heard a strange sound,” Cecilia said. “It was like a buzz or a hum, and it seemed to go on all night. What was that?”

  “The castle ghost,” Evan said immediately.

  “There are no such things as ghosts,” Avery said.

  “Just because you’ve never seen one doesn’t mean they aren’t there,” Evan said. “It’s a polterghost.”

  “Do you mean a poltergeist?” Cecilia asked.

  “No, it’s definitely a ghost,” Evan said.

  “He’s an idiot,” Avery said to Cecilia. “Nobody really knows what it is. Only kids can hear it, because our ears are better than grown-up ears.”

  “It’s the ghost of King Danyon, humming to himself,” Evan said.

  “It’s not a very catchy tune,” Cecilia said.

  “I think it’s an underground river,” Avery said. “It flows up inside the mountain and comes out at the riverhead spring. The humming is the noise of the water rushing through the rock.”

  “It does
n’t sound like water,” Evan said.

  “And you’re an expert on underground rivers?” asked Avery.

  “What do you grow on your farm?” Cecilia asked, hoping to change the subject.

  “Farmlet,” Avery said.

  “Strawbubbles,” Evan said.

  Cecilia frowned.

  “Do you mean strawberries?” she asked.

  “No, they’re much better than strawberries,” Evan said.

  “How would you know? You’ve never eaten a strawberry,” Avery said.

  “Mom says they’re better,” Evan said.

  “What are they?” Cecilia asked.

  “They’re like strawberries,” Evan said.

  Seeing his sister’s expression, he added, “Mom says. But they’re sweeter and full of little pockets of air, so they’re really fun to eat.”

  “They only grow here in Storm Gorge, Mom says,” Evan continued. “There are lots of plants that have grown here for thousands of years, but they don’t grow anywhere else in the world.”

  “Wow.” Cecilia’s eyes sparkled at the thought of all these new things to learn.

  “What kinds of things grow here?”

  “Well,” Avery said, “there are burgerberries, applets, crawling beans, catichokes —”

  Evan jumped in. “Gobbage, oilives, graperoot, and giant sneezeweed.”

  “Eww,” Cecilia said. “That doesn’t sound very good.”

  “Sneezeweed?” Evan said, looking a little surprised. “It’s yummy! You stew it and serve it with cream. Ordinary sneezeweed can be a little bitter, but giant sneezeweed is delicious.”

  “I don’t like it,” Avery muttered.

  By this time they had reached the twins’ cottage. Evan insisted Cecilia try a strawbubble.

  “They’re perfect,” he said. “Just ripe. Tomorrow we start the harvest.”

  Cecilia took the strawbubble that Evan picked off the low vine.

  She tentatively nibbled at one end.

  “No, no,” Avery said. “You have to put the whole thing in, like this.”

  She picked another one off the vine, pulled out the green stalk, and put the berry into her mouth.