for Baby Richard sleeping soundly in his crib. I lowered my candle and pointed to the floor—the various tracks and prints we left earlier were gone but the dirt remained, spread smoothly over the surface once again. Her bed was made. Matilda nodded silently and crossed the hallway to the stairs, motioning for me to follow. I gently closed Nanna Ellen’s door and caught up.
The hour was late, nearly eleven, and Ma and Pa had retired to their bedroom. If Thornley and Thomas had not yet found sleep, they made no sound to reveal that fact; their room was silent, and no light pooled from under the door. Our house was utterly quiet, and every sound we made seemed amplified—from the creak of the boards underfoot to the click of the front door’s lock disengaging the front door. I was sure someone would hear us and come to investigate, but they did not, and within moments the two of us stood outside.
“If that was her,” Matilda said, “she has gained a few minutes on us. Where do you think she would be heading?”
As I stood before our house, anxiety washed over me, and I leaned back against the door. I hadn’t been outside in years—I remember how Ma held me tight as she carried me to the side of the house on a beautiful spring day to lie in the grass—I couldn’t have been more than four years old at the time. I remember the vivid color of that April day, the bright scents, the warm breeze. I also remember how terrified I had been when she went back into the house to fetch a pitcher of water. She had been gone only a minute or so, but in that brief time the earth around me seemed to grow wider, the house looked as if it was moving farther and farther away until it was barely visible, and the sky hovering above seemed ready to fall. I wanted nothing more than to go back inside to the safety of my little refuge, to escape this endlessly empty place before it devoured me. When Ma came back, I told her my illness had returned and the aches and pains were too much. The truth, though, was that I simply couldn’t stay out there. She only stared at me, a defeated look in her eyes. When I had begun to cry, she relented and picked me back up and carried me into the house. Until the episode with Thornley at the chicken coop, I would not venture outside again.
Even in the heavy darkness of this late hour the open space grew around me, much too big for a little boy to wander. A vast wilderness that could swallow me whole and leave nothing behind. I wanted to turn back, but I knew I could not.
I drew in a deep breath as Matilda reached for my hand. “We will do this together,” she told me.
I wrapped my fingers around hers and felt her warmth drift through me, bringing with it a sense of calm. I summoned my strength. “We mustn’t let her slip away.”
My eyes drifted to the walls of Artane Castle in the distance. All but the tower was gone, the rest nothing but ruins. The tall monolith reached for the glowering sky and scratched at the clouds, imposing a shadow, long and wide, over the surrounding fields. I knew it had been built by the Hollywood family but knew little else of its history. Much of the stone had been carted away and picked clean over the years. Aside from the tower, only a handful of crumbling walls remained with a small cemetery nestled in the back.
We had been forbidden to enter the castle.
Matilda must have sensed my thoughts, for she squeezed my hand. “She went to the castle, didn’t she?”
“I think so.”
“But how could you know?”
I didn’t answer her. I didn’t have an answer. Much like I knew Nanna Ellen somehow left the house and stole outside, so, too, I simply knew she’d gone to the castle. I did not know her purpose, but I was certain she had gone there. I was dead certain she was there right now.