Keeping the Castle - By Patrice Kindl Page 0,23

to me as I passed her room, “Oh Althea, what dreadful thing can have happened?”

“I do not know. Remain in your room and I will ascertain what the trouble is. I do believe . . . why, yes, I believe the cries came from the west wing, where Prudence and Charity are.”

Not content to wait to hear what was causing the uproar, which was increasing in volume every moment that passed, my mother insisted on following me down the hall. As we came closer and the screams grew louder and more strident, the servants began to appear in the hallways, rubbing their eyes and yawning. I noted with interest that Greengages’s nightshirt was of a virulent green color, patterned with pink flowers. Could it have belonged to his deceased wife?

I found myself murmuring a paraphrase of some lines from Shakespeare, in tribute to this awe-inspiring din:

Methought I heard a voice cry “Sleep no more!

The Misses Winthrop do murder sleep,” the innocent sleep,

Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care.

We paused in the doorway of Prudence and Charity’s bedroom, the servitors peeping over our shoulders.

“Charity, what are you doing? Prudence, it is Althea. Pray do not strike me with that broom.”

“Mice! Hordes of them!” Charity paused in beating at the floor and walls with a pillow in order to answer me. Fido began barking and then pounced at a small moving shape.

Prudence said, “Our pillows are infested with their nests! They creep between our sheets and swarm over the floor and up the draperies!”

“How remarkable!” I said. “I wonder why there should be such a sudden infestation. Fido, please be quiet. At any rate, you had best shift to another room to finish out the night. Perhaps . . . let me think . . . ah! This room at the end of the corridor—not too close to your old room, but in the same wing—I believe it has a large and relatively comfortable bed. May I assist you in moving?”

“No . . . no, we can manage, Althea,” said Prudence. “Please go away, all of you.”

“Are you certain?” I enquired. “I could bring your bedclothes, for instance. The bed coverings in the new room are sure to be cold and clammy.”

“Ugh, no!” cried Charity. “I never want to so much as look at those bedclothes again. Disgusting!”

“But perhaps Annie could bring you a bedwarmer? No? Very well, if you are sure.” Mama, Fido and I escorted them to their new domicile and, once they had inspected the bed for evidence of rodents and found none, we said goodnight and left them.

I did not lie down again. I feared it might take somewhat longer this time, and I preferred not to doze off. The nest of mice was under the wardrobe, in this room.

At least an hour must have passed before the screams began anew. This time they more resembled wails than squeals; my stepsisters were grown tired and petulant.

“More vermin?” I asked at the doorway to their new room.

“They are everywhere! All the rooms are teeming with them!”

“Not quite,” I said. “Mama and I have not been bothered in the east wing.”

Prudence turned a suspicious gaze on me. “Oh? Not at all? That seems strange.”

Charity, alerted by the tone of her sister’s voice, looked around at that, and they both regarded me with narrowed eyes and scowling faces.

“Indeed, it seems odd to me also,” I said. “I cannot think of an explanation—but wait! Perhaps I have it. Have you been eating, or storing, any food in your room?” Their hostile stares faltered, and they darted glances at one another out of the corners of their eyes.

“Oh, but what am I saying?” I went on, shaking my head at my own foolishness. “If you had bought any sweets or cakes or anything of that nature, you would have taken them to the kitchen, so that they could be served up to the entire household, rather than hiding them away. Forgive me for making such a suggestion. No, it must remain a mystery, I fear. However, there is a furnished room in our wing where you can sleep. Please allow me to show you.”

They followed me in sulky silence to the preordained chamber in the east wing.

This time Fido and I climbed into bed and closed our eyes in well-deserved slumber. We slept so heavily that we almost missed the third disruption of the night when a fresh squall blew in across the sea from Norway and, lying as they were