Excerpt
Once a Castle
Chapter 1The castle had appeared out of nowhere.
Jack Addison had hunted for geodes in this valley before, at least a hundred times. Normally the place contained only some scrubby underbrush and one small lake fed by a burbling stream, all encircled by stony bluffs. But today, at the far end of the lake, stood a castle.
And not just any castle. Boxy and unadorned, with sheer stone walls rising to high battlements, it had the same twelfth-century features as a fortress he’d visited on a class trip last term.
But this was no ruin. It was fully intact. In fact, it seemed to be inhabited. A wisp of smoke spiraled lazily from the highest battlement. A strange rumble echoed across the water, like someone rolling a cart across a stone courtyard. Back and forth, back and forth.
Jack began to edge around the lake toward the castle, following what looked like the familiar path. He felt slightly dizzy, like maybe he’d cracked his head harder while rock climbing yesterday than he’d realized. This couldn’t be the same valley. He’d taken a wrong turn somewhere.
But no. There was the scree of fallen rocks where he’d found that simply spectacular geode last summer. There was the boulder where he’d eaten leftover fish-and-chips on Sunday. He’d chucked the newspaper into the shrubs, he remembered now. If it was the same valley, wouldn’t it still be there?
It was. After a brief scramble, he found the newspaper balled up nearby. Another wave of dizziness swept over him. He glanced back and forth between the smoke curling from the battlement and the paper in his palm.
Same newspaper. Same valley. But castles didn’t just grow from the ground.
One lone arrow slit toward the topmost battlement seemed to stare at him like an unblinking reptilian eye. It made him feel small and vulnerable, which he didn’t often feel these days—a mighty growth spurt after his thirteenth birthday had taken care of that. But now he felt tiny as an insect, easily crushed.
The rumble grew louder for a moment, paused, then resumed, a little deeper now. Jack stayed put, watching warily, until curiosity drove him forward again.
Now he was in the castle’s very shadow, its grim exterior rising to an impossible height. As he drew nearer, a nauseating smell hit him: an organic sourness that reminded him of wet dog and sweaty PE clothes, but worse. The rumble shook the ground beneath him, with more pauses filled by a strange whooshing, like enormous bellows.
For about ten seconds he considered retreating up the path that had brought him here. He’d climb back to the ridgeline that connected the high summit of Giant’s Beacon to Table Mount and descend from there to Carrick Hall, his parents’ workplace. He’d enter the normal chaos of the estate’s kitchen, study his maps at the table, and regain his bearings over tea and scones.
But the castle wall was almost within reach now. Just a few more steps and he could confirm whether or not it was real. Plus, he was beyond range of the arrow slit, which gave him a sudden boldness. He reached out.
Real. He could feel the grit under his fingers, the clammy coolness. He could feel the rumble, too, vibrating through the rock, and smell the stench. The sound, at least, was coming from somewhere on the other side of the castle.
Jack stepped gingerly through the rubble at the base of the wall and made his way around the building, deep in shadow from the bluffs. As he turned the corner, he expected to find a portcullis or some other entrance, but instead, the route was blocked by what looked like massive lumpy earthworks, or like a section of bluff had crashed down against the castle wall. He could see no way around it either. The shadowed mound extended all the way to the bluff. He’d have to climb over it or take the long way around.
He decided to climb. But as he approached the mound, the stench grew so strong that he nearly retched. The rumble increased, like the earth itself was moving.
And then it was.
Right before his eyes, the top of the mound rose like an inflating zeppelin, with a thunderous rumble, and fell with a mighty whoosh. Then up and down again, up and down. For all the world as if the ground was snoring.
Jack froze. Heart racing, he scanned the mound from one end to the other. It couldn’t be.
But it was.
Stretched out full-length on the valley floor, next to a castle that had appeared out of nowhere, lay a sleeping giant.
Arash would’ve warned the kid if he could.
From behind a large boulder, Arash had been watching the sleeping demon for at least ten minutes before the other kid had appeared. It was Jack Addison, from school. The stocky redheaded loner who was too cool for everyone. The outdoorsman who Arash had often seen wandering the Wolverns, like himself, except without a metal detector.
Clearly, the kid had no idea what was lying there.
Arash watched, horrified, as Jack walked right up to the gigantic demon. As if he meant to climb over it. Stop. Run. But the words wouldn’t come. Not in English. Nor Farsi. Nor any other language he knew.
Plus, yelling would awaken the demon—and then what?
Jack suddenly backed away, realization dawning on his freckled face.
And that was when the demon stirred.
“Fee, fi, fo . . .” it mumbled, its voice like rocks tumbling over and over. “I smell . . .” The voice tapered off into a huge snore. Then the demon rolled over.
The entire valley shook. Boulders the size of postboxes careened down the cliffside. Dust filled the air, leaving a film on Arash’s glasses. Then a great section of scree slid past his hiding place near the crevasse and roared to the valley floor. The noise rumbled across the Wolverns like a thunderstorm, leaving a silence broken only by an extended snore. The demon slept on.
But Jack—where was he? Crushed, surely. The demon had rolled away from the kid, but the falling scree had filled the passage from the cliffside to the castle wall. If Jack had even survived, his path was now blocked.
Arash wiped his glasses and looked again. Still no sign of Jack. Trembling, Arash propped his metal detector against a nearby rock, adjusted his backpack, and made his way downward along a dry streambed toward the valley floor. It was slow going. The treacherous scree offered almost no solid footing. But before he’d gone more than a dozen steps, he heard muffled coughing. To Arash’s relief, Jack staggered out from behind a pile of rocks, covered from head to toe in fine dust. He looked like the walking dead.
Jack stopped short at the sight of Arash. As they stared at each other, Arash pointed back over his own shoulder, toward the crevasse, then turned and began retracing his steps. Jack followed. When Arash reached the opening of the crevasse and began scrambling up into the narrow cleft, he looked back.
Jack had paused. His breath was coming fast, in shallow gasps. Arash motioned him to keep going. Jack gaped at him hollowly, then shook his head.
Puzzled, Arash looked up. Was there a snake or something? All he could see was the narrow slash in the rocks with perfectly spaced boulders for climbing, as if some ancient inhabitant had carved it for just this purpose. Hundreds of feet above them, a ribbon of blue sky shimmered.
Arash beckoned again. The kid shook his head—belligerently, this time—then turned and began picking his way back down the scree. Back toward the castle and the sleeping demon.
“Stop at once!”
They were the very words Arash wanted to yell. But they hadn’t come from him. They’d come from another voice, cold and furious and female, somewhere high in the tower.
Both boys froze.
“Awake, worthless pile of filth!” bellowed the voice.
The huge demon stopped in mid-snore and rolled over again, grunting. The ground trembled, and more rocks clattered down the cliffside, whizzing past Arash’s head. Jack pitched forward to his knees, arms flailing.
“Smell that?” the enraged voice continued. “Children of Tellus, I’d wager my throne.”
Jack stared at Arash, panic in his eyes. Then he clambered to his feet and half ran, half stumbled toward the crevasse.
