Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
ELLA
Is it weird to be obsessed with cellars?
Not that I am particularly into cellars in general, just the ones in Langford Castle.
According to family legend, my forebears were the ones who hunkered down in the age-old structure and invented some sort of local practice to keep everyone warm during the long Northandrian winter months without having to eat their weight in food, get drunk on a daily basis, or hibernate, or die.
The details on what sort of practice that is, and how much of it is superstition, are a little murky. But hey, historians make up half their stuff on a bad day. At least, one of my professors used to.
The bulk of the tourists who arrived with my bus wander towards the formal gardens, which are, objectively, drop-dead gorgeous.
But I take the road less traveled and pick my way towards the left side of the castle.
If the few Northandrian historical websites I’d researched were accurate, this was the North Wing where my great-great-grandparents used to live—and the cellars they used to wander.
Do ghosts recognize their relatives? Are ghosts even real?
I save the increasingly spooky thoughts for another time as I descend a few stone steps down into a sunken, less formal garden.
It’s nice here. The shadows make it cooler, and there’s no stiff, hedged pathways.
It’s not wild, per se. It’s civilized, with pockets of pretty, well-tended local flora tucked in between curved, cobblestone walkways.
The entire effect is enchanting, and also functional, as if it were a garden someone can actually hang out in, instead of having servants holding parasols behind you as you promenade around.
“Oh, drat,” a female voice mutters something in a foreign tongue a few yards away. I look up sharply, alarmed. I’m not in some sort of restricted area, am I? Then again, whoever owns that voice sounded like she should be here even less.
I decide to ignore whoever it is and cast a look up the North Wing. It’s as tall as the rest of the castle, which is more a large, square mansion than turrets and stuff. But somehow, calling something a castle instantly makes it five times more romantic than “very big house.”
My eyes count the windows. I don’t know which rooms my ancestors occupied, but there is something sacred and hallowed knowing that they might have looked out their windows and watched things happening right where I am standing.
I sniff. I may be sentimental, but I am not about to cry in public over the back view of a castle.
I take out my phone and snap a few photos for memories.
I smile when I check them. It pays to upgrade your phone before a vacation.
It leaves you less room in the budget for proper lodgings, but at least the pictures are pretty!
“Oh, sorry!” There’s that voice again.
I look up, and this time, there’s a face to go with the words. I blink.
The young lady is pretty—with dark brown waves framing well-defined features. She’s taller than I am, though not quite towering. She looks kind, if a bit panicked.
She’s also wearing a glistening blue ballgown.
In the middle of the day.
With no one else around.
In the middle of a sunken back garden of Langford Castle.
“May I—help you?” I hear myself saying. It’s not exactly a logical thing to say, given that I don’t know a thing about how to function in Northandria. But I guess, dressed as I am in my sweater and jeans, I feel more like the help than anything in front of Miss Ballgown.
Is she dressed up in character? I’ve heard of people dressing up in Regency clothes to visit all the filming sites for Pride and Prejudice before. Is that a thing for Langford Castle too?
She stares at me for a moment, as if she’s contemplating if I am the weird one in this situation.
Then something clicks over her face, and she says in a melodic, accented voice, “Actually, you can. I need to leave, and right away—and there’s something that needs to be brought back inside the castle. ”
“Inside—that castle?” I point at the huge expanse that is Langford Castle. It’s a stupid question, when I think about it. But I seem to be full of stupid questions this morning.
“Yes. Here.” Miss Ballgown grabs my hands and presses something small and hard into my palm.
She turns her head, but her body stays facing me.
She keeps her right hand on mine and uses her left hand to point near the base of the castle.
“Do you see that door there, under the stone arch? When you go in, there is a small dressing room the first door to the left. There is a letter on the coffee table in the middle of the room. Put this on top of the letter—please.”
My mind short-circuits. This woman, whoever she is, is telling me to actually enter the royal residence of Northandria, unaccompanied, and holding whatever contraband she has currently tucked into my fingers.
It is a horrendous nightmare and a dream come true all at the same time.
“I don’t know if I have the authorization to—”
“They’ll thank you, I promise,” she answers in her posh accent. She meets my eye like I’m some kind of fairytale savior. “Thank you.”
Then she lets my hand go, brushes past me, and runs into what I’d originally thought to just be a solid wall of shrubbery. She disappears so fast that she’s either well-acquainted with the palace grounds or a lunatic who’s done her research way in advance.
But thieves usually take stuff, right? Not ask American tourists to return them.
My curiosity burning, I twist my hand upwards and uncurl my fingers.
In the middle of my hand sparkles a humongous diamond ring.