The Castle in the Mist

by Amy Ephron

  Tess was good at soccer. It wasn’t her favorite sport. But AYSO was all the rage in New York. She had been on one team or another ever since she was five—until two years ago, when she’d finally become more serious about ballet and there was only so much time for extracurricular activities. She hadn’t quite lost her touch, though.

  “Whoa,” he called over his shoulder as he ran after the ball that whizzed right past him, “when you play with two people, it’s not supposed to be competitive. It’s just supposed to be practice.”

  She laughed again. She was competitive. She knew that.

  “I’ll never kick it away from you,” he said. “Look behind you.”

  She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to be looking at. Far away, there was a row of tall bushes at the edge of the garden with white flowers that looked wild, as if they’d sort of sprouted like a feather at the top of a leaf, a whole wall of them almost, like a hedge. She looked back at him and he nodded.

  “Hawthorn trees,” he said.

  “Hawthorn trees?”

  “Yes, that’s what those are.” He hesitated. “Stay away from the hawthorn trees,” he said.

  Before she could ask why, he kicked the ball back to her.

  He was awfully good. Sometimes when you play with someone very good, your game gets better. And she began to kick with a kind of aim and determination that she wished she’d used when she was in a league. She could hardly stop herself from playing with him. But it was getting chilly and she could tell the sun had moved considerably in the time that she’d been here.

  “I have to get back.” It occurred to her that Aunt Evie might be worried. “I didn’t realize how late it was.” She started to run for the gate. “Thank you for lunch,” she called out to him. “It was very nice to meet you.”

  “Please come back,” he called in return as she reached the gate, which was still ajar, and ran out of it. And she heard him say, “Remember—” his voice seemed to echo softly across the moors “—stay away from the hawthorn trees.”

  She turned back and shut the gate and wasn’t at all surprised that, as it closed, it went back to its musty state, like a petrified version of a gingerbread cookie. Quite a trick, she thought to herself. And the only possible explanation she could come up with was that it must be like a hologram. That made sense. She looked on both sides of the path, to make sure there weren’t any hawthorn trees growing along the side, but it seemed safe.

  She ran down the hill so quickly, she stumbled on a step of the rocky cliff. She fell, catching herself with her hands.

  She had to stop in the small orchard to take a breath. She was already working out in her head what she would tell her aunt. She’d gone for a bike ride. It was such a pretty day she kept on riding. She knew she couldn’t tell the real story. Her dad had once told her, “A version of the truth is the best lie.” So, she thought she’d just say she’d made a friend. She just didn’t think she could explain the whole adventure.

  She put her hand in her pocket to find the key. She wasn’t at all surprised when she pulled it out that it had gone back to its original rusted state. No, she didn’t see any way she could explain this.

  ~ CHAPTER THREE ~

  the hawthorn trees

  I thought I knew everyone around here,” said Aunt Evie. “I’m not coming up with an eleven-year-old boy, not from any family I know. They must be summer renters,” Aunt Evie declared. “What house did you say he lived in?”

  “I don’t know where he lives,” said Tess. “He was riding a bike, too.” That was the ninth lie she’d told in the space of an hour. Or maybe the tenth, as there were two lies in that last bit. She knew exactly where he lived. And he hadn’t been riding a bike.

  “He told you to be careful of the hawthorn trees,” said Aunt Evie, although this sounded more like a question. “I wonder why . . .” She was already out of her chair at the kitchen table and on her way to the parlor. She would return in a moment with The Big Encyclopedia of Plants and Herbs. Aunt Evie had a book for everything. If they were home, their mother would have just googled it. On the other hand, if they were home, there would have been wi-fi. This was a particularly sore spot for Max, so Tess didn’t mention it.

  “Here it is,” said Evie, opening the book triumphantly on the kitchen table. There was a black-and-white illustration after the word hawthorn, depicting a hedge of trees, tightly knitted together. There were thorns visible on the trunk and delicate flowers on the branches.

  Aunt Evie read to herself at first. “Oh, this is interesting,” she said aloud. “Hawthorn trees are thought to have medicinal powers and ward off evil spirits. That could be useful. Hmmm.” She read a bit more, then said aloud, “In Ireland they believe they’re the door to the land of the fairies. Well, we’re not in Ireland.” Evie read on, speaking a bit as she scanned the rest of the entry. “They can bring good luck or bad luck . . .” Then her face darkened as if she didn’t like the next part she’d read. “This is very complicated,” said Aunt Evie, shaking her head at the book as she shut it abruptly. “But I wonder why he told you to stay away from them. He sounds like an inciter.”

  “What’s an inciter?” asked Tess.

  “Oh, you know, a little boy who likes to make trouble, stir things up, give people the creeps. An inciter can be a grown-up, too.”

  “He seemed nice actually. I think it was my fault,” Tess said quickly. “I got tired and I was walking my bike by the hedge and I think he thought I’d get allergic.”

  “Are they like poison ivy?” Max asked, already having a vision of pushing his sister into a hawthorn tree the first chance he had. Not that he would do it, but the image was appealing.

  “No, the book didn’t say anything about that, Max,” said Aunt Evie.

  “He was very nice, Aunt Evie, and polite.” Tess was worried that she’d gotten the boy in trouble and that Evie might not let her play with him again. “He did tell me his name,” said Tess, remembering Aunt Evie had a rule that you should always know a person’s name if you were speaking to them. “His name is William. He told me his last name,” she added, even though this wasn’t true at all, “but I can’t remember it.”

  “Well, I wish you knew his last name,” said Aunt Evie, “then it would be easier to invite him for tea.” She so wanted the children to be happy this summer.

  Tess and Max’s year had been rocky. Aunt Evie could only imagine. Suddenly last December, they were told abruptly (sort of the way their dad would go off unexpectedly on assignment) that they were going to go to a boarding school in Switzerland.

  Switzerland, thought Tess. What’s wrong with Vermont? But before she could say anything, Max said, “Did we do something wrong?”

  “Oh, no, dear,” their mom said quickly. Tess couldn’t tell for sure but she thought her mom had been crying.

  “I think I’ll be sent on assignment soon,” their dad said. “And, your mom has a book due . . . I have a friend who’s the headmaster at the Academy in Montreux, Switzerland, and, well, just think of it as an adventure . . . you know, sort of the way college kids take a year abroad. If I’m in Europe or the Middle East, it’ll be easier to visit you on the weekends . . .”

  Tess didn’t want to tell her dad they were in middle school, not college. She couldn’t tell if this made sense or not, but there was something about the way he said it that made both her and Max realize it was a done deal.

  Tess and Max didn’t know that their mother was ill . . . She hadn’t told anyone but Evie and, of course, their father. Their mother’s chances of recovery were good, but the treatment was brutal.

  Their dad, Martin Barnes, was a well-known newscaster. He had taken part of the year off to take care of their mom, but now he was in Afghanistan. He was a foreign correspondent, which these days mostly meant war reporter. The children’s spring term had ended in Switzerland. And their mother still had another month of
medical treatments. The whole thing was a mess and there wasn’t anyone to send them to but Aunt Evie. It wasn’t that she wouldn’t have wanted them under normal circumstances, but there wasn’t any way to say no under the present ones.

  Aunt Evie had looked, but she hadn’t been able to find a proper summer camp anywhere in the neighborhood. The only thing she had found was a shooting range. She knew her sister Abby would never forgive her if she sent them off to a rifle range. She could understand why the children might be bored in the country with no one around who was their age except this mysterious William.

  “Can I, Aunt Evie, invite him to tea? May I?” Tess corrected herself instantly. “I would like that.”

  “Of course you can,” said Aunt Evie, “and you may. But I wonder why he told you to stay away from the hawthorn trees.”

  “I wonder that, too,” said Tess.

  Tess also wondered if she would be brave enough to try to find him again . . .

  ~ CHAPTER FOUR ~

  the curious antique store

  It was Sunday, so they would go into town to The White Horse Tavern for dinner, which was on North Hampton Road. Every other day, The White Horse Tavern was off-limits to Tess and Max. The patrons had to be over 21, which their aunt said was a good thing, as it could get a little rowdy in there—except on Sunday nights, when they served dinner or, as their aunt called it, Sunday Supper.

  Aunt Evie had an old Bentley that she took very good care of. It had leather seats that were soft and almost the color of caramel. Aunt Evie told Tess that it had been Uncle John’s car and that she was going to keep it always. Tess was pretty sure she would. Evie and Uncle John had had what their mom referred to as “a true” love. And when Uncle John died so unexpectedly in a skiing accident two years before, it had quite startled everyone. Aunt Evie was only 38, young to be a widow. She immediately sold the flat in London and moved to the house in Hampshire, which had been John’s family’s home. Her sister, Abby, worried that Evie would be lonely and isolated there. But Evie insisted she had friends in the country and that it was the place that reminded her of John the most. She said that was what she wanted for now. But Aunt Evie also had to admit that she liked having her niece and nephew there. She liked the sound of them laughing upstairs. She had been spending too much time on her own. She liked going out with them for Sunday Supper.

  The Bentley was always well polished. It was navy-blue and very big inside. Evie wore a red scarf around her neck and leather driving gloves and, if the weather was nice, put her hair up in a ponytail and put the top down. Tess thought Aunt Evie looked like a movie star when she drove it. Tess always sat in the back because Max got carsick, although Tess didn’t think he’d dare get sick in Aunt Evie’s Bentley. Tess liked to tilt her nose up in the air and pretend that there was a glass divider between her and the front seat (like a car she’d been in once with her father) and that she was really a princess.

  But on this particular Sunday night, the twilight hour was sparkly, still light, the dew on the grass seemed to shine with color, the cows dotting the nearby field looked like a picture, and strangely menacing—something Tess had never noticed before—a thick row of hawthorn trees, their white flowers waving like feathers, just before they reached the town. Note to self: be sure to ride your bicycle on the right side of the road on the way to town. That was something her mother always said: Note to self. But her mother kept a notebook with her and actually jotted it down. Tess just did it in her head.

  “Aunt Evie,” Tess shouted from the back seat, “look, the antique store’s open.” They were about to drive right past it. Evie had mentioned to Tess that she’d broken an antique wine glass and wanted to try to replace it the next time they passed an antique store.

  Aunt Evie turned the Bentley sharply into the driveway, almost without slowing down, kicking up a lot of dirt in the parking lot as she pulled to a stop just at the side of the shop.

  “Thanks for remembering,” Aunt Evie said. “Let’s see if they have anything like it. It’s just the sort of thing it’s impossible to match.”

  The bells on the shop door jingled slightly when they entered, but there was no one in the front of the store. There were hardly any lights on and the place was eerily quiet. “Why don’t we just look around,” said Aunt Evie, “and I’m sure someone will come up soon.”

  Max found a box of old postcards and sat down on the floor to look at them. Aunt Evie went to examine the china closets. Tess wandered off on her own, past glass display cases filled with jewelry, to the back of the store and found a wooden table with sign that said: SALE 50% OFF. She studied the items on the table. Tess thought she might find a present for her mom. There was a silver bracelet with purple stones, but it looked like it might be too small for her mother’s wrist, and possibly too expensive. There was a carved elephant with an upturned trunk that had a little attitude but seemed too delicate for shipping. And then, Tess’s eye was caught by something at the very back edge of the table. Two candlesticks, blackened from age, so she couldn’t tell if they were bronze or silver, very simply designed, almost straight up and down with a little square plate just where the candle would set in, a thin stem, and a similar square base. And, Tess noticed, just below the square where the candle would go was the same image that she’d seen the day before, the same symbol that was etched into the skeleton key and carved in the wooden gingerbread-like gate that opened to the garden of the castle in the mist. She carefully picked the candlesticks up off the table and brought them to the front of the store.

  The shopgirl, a pixie-like thing with red hair that was so curly it stood out on its own, had appeared and was standing behind the front counter. Tess set the candlesticks down.

  The shopgirl had a strong accent. “My mum,” the girl said, “when my mum put those out on the table this morning, she said that she was sure someone was going to come for them today. And here y’are.”

  Tess couldn’t tell if she was reading something more into this statement than she should have been—if it was just a cunning shopgirl trying to make a sale—but she felt a small shiver when the girl said it.

  “I thought they might be a good present for my mom,” Tess said. “Do you think she’d like them?”

  “Probably,” said Aunt Evie. “Your mom likes simple things.”

  And, Tess thought to herself, they have the same mark on them as the gate and the skeleton key . . . whatever that might mean . . . For a moment, Tess thought she saw them sparkle, a bright golden light, right at the place where the symbol was. No, it must’ve been a reflection from the lights on the ceiling.

  “I have money at home, Aunt Evie . . .” Tess said.

  “That’s okay, Tess. I think I can spring for them for you and your mom. I didn’t find a wine glass, anyway.”

  “Didn’t you?” the girl asked. “I thought that was y’rs.”

  Aunt Evie looked at the counter, and right next to the candlesticks was an antique crystal wine glass.

  “That’s curious,” said Aunt Evie. “It’s identical to the ones I have at home, I think, but I didn’t put it there . . .” Aunt Evie looked at the price tag and instantly said, “That’s a deal.”

  “Well, I guess that was meant to be, then, too,” the young woman said. And then she added, almost as if she were talking to herself, “Sometimes things really are just meant t’be.”

  Aunt Evie also bought Max five antique marbles that were pretty and, the shopgirl insisted, hand-blown glass. The girl threw in two long, fresh wax candles as a gift. “My mum makes these,” she said as she wrapped them and the candlesticks in brown paper, carefully wrapped the wine glass in tissue, put it in its own bag, and put Max’s marbles in another, smaller brown paper bag.

  Aunt Evie paid and the three of them left the antique store. Tess heard the shop bells jingle again slightly as the shop door closed. It was just beginning to rain.

  “Curious,” s
aid Aunt Evie as they all bundled back into the Bentley and headed toward The White Horse Tavern for dinner, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that shop open before.”

  Somehow, Tess was starting to think, that might not be curious, at all.

  They settled into the red booth in the back of the dining room after Aunt Evie said hello to practically everyone in the restaurant. The back booth was officially Aunt Evie’s table on Sunday nights and it had a sign on it that said RESERVED.

  They ordered the prime rib dinner. They always ordered the prime rib dinner. She and Max split one because it was enormous. Even the baked potato, filled with butter and sour cream and chives, could be split in half and neither of them could even finish it. There was Yorkshire pudding. Tess always asked for honey to drizzle on it. Even the spinach was good. Note to self: ask Aunt Evie to ask Mrs. McEvoy for her creamed spinach recipe.

  Tess had a notebook, too, that she wrote in sometimes. She kept it under her mattress. She didn’t want anyone to read what she said. It was sort of a diary, but sometimes she wrote poems, too. She knew Max would make fun of her if he found it. She decided she would not write about her adventure in her notebook. She also decided that she would write her mother a letter and tell her that she’d made a friend. She would leave out a lot of detail, but there were some secrets that it was fun to share—like the fact that she’d made a friend. She did wonder when the next time was that she would be able to go and visit him . . .