by Saber Vale
“Oh, erm, yes,” the girl said in broken English, smiling, obviously charmed by Cormac’s easy smile and beautiful face.
“Two coffees, please, then,” he said, tossing down a ten Euro note, “we’re dying.”
We both plugged in our phones and sat drinking coffee as they charged.
We didn’t speak.
The night before had been so… bizarre. I didn’t want to continue our conversation about the castle, I was exhausted just thinking about it, and I especially didn’t want to talk about the disembodied screaming voice. Cormac, to his credit, didn’t seem to want to either.
“I think the public works office opens in a few minutes,” Cormac finally said, looking down at his phone, “and then, assuming everything gets squared away there, we’ll have light, maybe even some hot water?”
I shrugged.
“Maybe,” I said, “or maybe everything is just fucking broken.”
“Come on, Astrid, stay positive! We’ll pick up some supplies while we’re here. What kind of equipment is in that kitchen in the west tower? It seemed pretty updated…”
“I couldn’t really tell last night,” I said, “but I remember it being a pretty typical European kitchen, everything you need, nothing you don’t. The caretakers had a modern kitchen too, we could see if it’s in better shape. There are plenty of pots and pans and plates and things, if that’s what you mean.”
“Are the servant’s quarters in a separate building?”
“Over the garage, around the back of the East tower, also connected to the electricity,” I said, nodding, “I’ll give you a tour later.”
“Well, after last night I’m not even sure you know your way around very well,” he said, “you thought the pantry was the dungeon.”
“I’m glad we didn’t go in the dungeon,” I said shortly.
“Why, because it scares you?”
“No, because it’s disturbing,” I said, “people died down there.”
“The girl?”
“Yes, the girl, but also the castle was used in medieval wars… there was, like, actual torture…”
“Wow” Cormac said, eyes glittering, “I can’t wait to see it.”
“You’re not going to,” I snapped, “it’s locked.”
“Yes I am,” Cormac snapped right back, “I own it, after all, I can go anywhere I want…”
“We own it,” I corrected him.
“That’s right, partner, we do,” he said, flashing a wolf-like smile.
He could switch from charming and handsome to sarcastic and almost cruel in an instant. I remembered holding his hand as we walked down the stairs the night before, and wondered how that protective, comforting presence could come from the same person who sat taunting me in the coffee shop.
“Why don’t you go buy some food, shampoo, things like that, while I go work on the power company?”
I hesitated, trying to remember how much money I had. Twenty euro in my purse, a few hundred dollars in my bank account.
“Here’s a few hundred euro,” he said, pulling notes easily from his wallet as though he could read my mind, “get whatever you want.”
“Ok,” I said, nodding, embarrassed, but too broke to protest, “meet you back here in… an hour or two?”
I was glad to be alone for a little while, and walked by myself through the morning mist as the few shopkeepers opened up their storefronts for the day.
I went to a small grocer first and picked up a lovely woven basket, some beautiful ripe tomatoes, eggs, oil, coffee, creamer, a few decadent looking cheeses, fresh basil, a couple of cleaning supplies, and laundry detergent. I wandered to a bakery, and grabbed two loaves of bread and some cookies, then finally stopped at a tiny florist where I bought a dozen big, pink cabbage roses, luscious and full.
I felt strange buying a luxury, however small, with Cormac’s money, but the castle was so dank and depressing, I felt like I had to.
As I walked along with my basket, I felt quaint and European. On my flight over, I’d imagined shopping in town and strolling back up to my castle the whole summer, not a care in the world. Cormac’s arrival had really thrown a wrench in my plans, and I couldn’t help but stew and think, frustrated and disappointed. Maybe, I thought, my entire plan had been a fantasy, but I knew for certain I couldn’t turn the castle into my own private writer’s retreat if Cormac was there, especially if he developed it.
I had no idea how I was going to live with him, and didn’t see how we could really get along. I also didn’t see how I could win against him in a battle for the castle’s ownership, but he also couldn’t destroy the castle without my consent, so we were, at the very least, in a stalemate.
I walked back to the coffee shop thinking about Cormac. The truth was I’d been so relieved to see him, and glad I been alone in the castle the night before with those terrifying screams.
I would have been fine, I reminded myself, I would have managed, if he hadn’t come. I wasn’t like my mother, I didn’t need a man to solve my problems for me. I resented that he’d swooped in the way he had, never giving me the opportunity to take care of myself.
He pulled up in his SUV a few minutes after I arrived, and rolled down the window to smile his rakish smile at me, like he was happy to see me and he was certain that I was happy to see him. His confidence was mind-boggling.
“All the old utility bills are paid up, there were quite a few, and the power is back on in the west tower. What do you say we get home?”
I shook my head at him.
“It’s not your home,” I said, ducking into the passenger side with my basket.
“Flowers?” he said, gesturing at the pink blooms.
“I like them” I mumbled.
“You could buy as many as you’d like,” he said, chucking as he took off towards the castle “I just didn’t expect it.”
Chapter 4
“Still no phone signal,” Cormac complained as we walked up to the tower, “and they told me there was no way to get Internet up here. We have to get a satellite. I’ll order one next time we’re in town.”
“No, we don’t need a satellite,” I reminded him, “you don’t have to stay here, and Internet connections only distract me from writing.”
Cormac smiled his mocking smile.
“You’re really stubborn, aren’t you, Astrid?” he asked.
“Only when I’m right,” I said with a shrug.
In the daylight, I could see how much work the castle really needed.
The flower beds were wet from the rain covered in weeds. The stone facade had whole chunks missing. The top of the spires were missing bricks, and the windows that had been installed were cracked or covered in plywood.
Inside, really seeing the great hall for the first time, I felt overwhelmed by the nostalgia that it brought back.
The old, broken down furniture, the oil paintings, some ruined by exposure to the elements, the moth-eaten tapestries on the walls, all of it brought back bittersweet memories from my childhood.
When I’d been younger, things had been in somewhat better shape, and I’d been able to see them how they’d once been, regal and grand, emblems of nobility and majesty.
Coming to the castle, just knowing it existed, had made me feel like a princess, even when my shoes were worn out, or my mom and I had needed to leave apartments in the middle of the night because we could no longer afford the rent.
I helped carry supplies up to the west tower with Cormac, flipping light switches to see which bulbs needed to be replaced (most of them), and going into the kitchen to turn on the fridge, which miraculously worked and had been left clean.
“This kitchen is cute,” Cormac said, putting away groceries, pulling the cheese and bread out of the bag and tearing a hunk off from the loaf, “it’s very… 1950’s.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, annoyed that he didn’t use a knife to slice it, “not many updates since then.”
Attached, there was a large formal dining room, with pee
ling pink and gold floral wallpaper and a huge solid wood table with twelve velvet-upholstered chairs still in good shape, revealed when Cormac whipped off the heavy, dust covered canvas.
“You could throw a great dinner party here,” he said, “did your family ever do that?”
“Not really, when we came here we didn’t know anybody in town or anything…”
“You were nobility, right? Couldn’t you invite other nobles?”
“No, it wasn’t like that,” I said, “we’re really American, I was born in America, we didn’t know anybody here…”
On the walls were portraits of long-dead children, greatly distant relatives of mine from the turn of the century and earlier.
“This is great,” Cormac said, “I can’t believe this has all just been sitting here waiting.”
“We stayed entirely in the west tower when we visited,” I said, “it’s only a few rooms in this huge building, thousands of square feet and only a few hundred with updated amenities…”
“Yeah, it’s going to cost millions to restore the entire thing,” he said, “even just a few rooms to make it livable must have been expensive, even a fifty years ago, or whenever this was rebuilt…”
“Please stop talking about your imaginary hotel,” I insisted.
Cormac laughed.
“I’ll stop, but it’s not imaginary,” he said, “if you want to talk about it like adults I’d be happy to.”
Chapter 5
I had some bread and cheese with Cormac, standing up in the kitchen, and excused myself to go for a walk around the building. The sun was out, but there was still a chill in the air, likely wind blowing up from the lake. I pulled my hoodie tight around my body as I explored and tried to think straight. I walked outside, my feet squishing in the soft, wet earth, around the west tower, east towards the lake.
The west tower was in rough shape, mold crept along the floral wallpaper, much of the furniture had been left uncovered and was ruined. I could only imagine the older, even longer-abandoned east tower would be worse.
I had wanted to stay and start cleaning, but I was tired from the night before, and bothered by Cormac’s presence.
I thought I’d finally, for the first time in my life, check out the east tower, but when I walked through the hall towards it, I discovered it’s doors were sealed. I’d need bolt cutters (and likely someone much stronger than me) to get in.
I certainly didn’t feel like asking for Cormac’s help, so I kept walking.
I wandered around the outside of the castle, noticing that, for the second day in a row, dark clouds were forming on the horizon, and I imagined by the afternoon they’d be gathered over the top spires of the two enormous towers, enrobing it like a velvety woolen cape. I shuddered against the cold and the feeling, deeply present, that things were not as I remembered them at the castle. My mother’s stories took up so much space in my imagination that I couldn’t really see the castle accurately until, finally here, I realized what a dark, challenging behemoth it really was.
I walked down the ancient stone steps carved into the mountainside that lead to the sandy beach, and stood looking out over the deep, clear-blue water, listening to the hypnotizing lapping of the little waves.
Nearby there was a boathouse with a guest house attached.
I’d remembered it as airy and jolly, built from slatted wood, modern in the 1930’s when it was built, with large sea-facing windows on the bluff beside the water on the lake. It had been a fun little place to spend the day, my grandpa, uncle, and mother mixing gin and tonics as I played on the floor in between trips out in the little rowboat. I barely remembered my uncle, who’d died when I was young in an accident, and my grandpa I remembered so vaguely, smiling and bouncing me on his knee. I’d hoped a return to the castle could re-acquaint me with them somehow, bring back memories, but seeing the boat house in a decrepit condition, it was hard to believe I’d ever played there, and it felt like my memories slipped even further away.
I felt excited walking up to it, but as I approached I saw that it was boarded up and looked desolate and forbidding, a weathered wooden building that might collapse if you shut the door too hard.
When I got back it was after noon, and Cormac was waiting for me, holding a glass of wine in one hand as he sat in front of his laptop at the dining room table.
“Kind of early to be drinking, don’t you think?” I asked.
Cormac shrugged.
“I want you to take me down to the dungeon,” he said, “I want to see it.”
I gulped.
“I don't think anyone's been in there for seventy years,” I said.
“I can't imagine owning a house and not knowing what's in every room,” he said with a laugh, “come on, it’ll be fun, I'll get the bolt cutters.”
“There are a lot of rooms to explore,” I suggested, “the entire east tower, some of the rooms there were boarded up a century ago…”
“And we'll go in there eventually too, but come on, I know you're curious…”
“Of course I am,” I sighed, “I just think… you're not going to leave me alone until we go down down there, huh?”
“I wasn't planning to, no,” he said with a teasing laugh, “I'm afraid I'll get lost without you and I really want to see it.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
“Ok,” I said finally, “let's go.”
We grabbed two lanterns from the kitchen and filled them with oil, and then Cormac followed me down the stone steps into the dark passageways below the castle.
It was broad daylight outside, but beneath the castle it was as dark and cold as it would be in the middle of the night.
“Nervous?” Cormac asked, and I shook my head no.
I was, but I didn't want him to know it.
We followed the passage through the same twists and turns as the night before, and I shuddered thinking of the screams that had woken us, reminding myself that they had to be the wind, that we'd found nothing and there’d been no evidence of anyone in the castle.
When we finally, after some backtracking, got to the imposing wooden doors of the dungeon, with their heavy iron lock and chain, I stood far back, as though something might jump out from behind the doors once they were opened. I waited, gripped by anticipation as Cormac hoisted the heavy bolt cutters and got to work breaking the chain.
It was a challenge for him, and I saw his well defined muscles flexing and straining under his white t-shirt as he leaned in and pushed hard against the lock with a groan.
Finally, with a metallic snap, it gave way, and a piece of the chain and the lock fell with a clatter to the floor.
“Here we go,” Cormac whispered, and pushed the heavy doors open.
The first thing I saw were the ropes.
I gasped and put my hand over my mouth, stepping back so quickly I would have fallen in Cormac hadn’t looped an arm around my waist, propping me up.
There were a few still dangling, knotted and coiling, from the ceiling, as though the girl who’d died tangled in them had only just been pulled out that morning. I began to tremble as I looked up at them, some frayed as though they’d been cut quickly, urgently even, with a knife in order to pull her out. It was hard, then, not to feel the very realness of the death, the murder, whatever had happened below the castle in this dark, frightening room.
After I got over the shock of the still hanging ropes, I began to take in the rest of the room, which had far more surprises to offer yet.
I’d thought that the western tower was the only one that had been finished, updated, but aside from the actual dungeon cell with it’s iron bars on one far side of the huge, cavernous room, the dungeon looked almost modern, with finished walls, and a sleek, highly polished dark wood floor.
It was far, far better preserved than the east wing, as though it had been perfectly sealed and unused for almost a hundred years. To my shock, there was a gas lighting system, and Cormac flipped it on, illuminating a series of large Ed
ison style bulbs that hung from the ceiling.
There was black satin furniture, sofas, chairs, a table the center of the room with restraints, black leather, attached to all sides.
Off to the left side there was a wooden chest-of-drawers in highly polished dark wood, almost black, and nearly as long as the wall. Restraining equipment, leather, brass, and gold, hung from hooks all over the walls. There were also tools of punishment and torture, a cat o’ nine tails, whips, riding crops, displayed on brass hooks like trophies.
What shocked me most was the modern, contemporary look of it all. I’d known my great-grandfather had been considered a fastidious, fashionable person, even in his old age, but I hadn’t expected such a polished, sleek interior in any part of the castle. It felt like it could be in a dungeon in a New York S&M club, not beneath a Gothic castle in the middle of the Bavarian countryside.
Cormac and I walked silently through the room, clearly just as astonished as I was, his affable charm replaced with stunned curiosity.
“This is insane,” he whispered, picking a leather ankle cuff up from the table, left there unbuckled, as though someone would come at any moment to slip it back on.
“I can’t believe this is here, that no one has been in here…” I was breathless.
“Your great grandfather seems like he was a pretty interesting guy,” Cormac said, picking a leather crop up from the wall.
“I suppose so,” I said, running my hand over a smooth leather paddle hanging from a brass hook.
“This isn’t what I was expecting at all,” he said.
“Me neither, really, I had no idea,” I assure him.
“Do you think this stuff is… sexy?” Cormac asked, picking something up from a drawer
Yes, a voice inside of me, more in my belly than my mind, seemed to whisper.