Rachel and the Many-Splendored Dreamland

Chapter Three: A Day In The Life of an Ordinary Girl

Rachel flew her steeplechaser through the gatehouse, shivering with relief. The arched tunnel that ran through the twenty feet of the outer curtain wall was cool, but the cold mountain breeze did not blow here. She chafed her still-cold arms and urged her broom forward. Emerging into the light again, she found herself in the bailey. It was even warmer here, though still chilly. The sunlight was bright, and the outer walls provided protection against the bite of the wind.

Within the bailey were the formal gardens she remembered from the previous day. Or had it been only a few hours ago? In the bright glare of the sun, it was hard to remember that it was still the middle of the night back in New York.

With a second shiver, she realized that she was flying over the very spot where the ghost of her Uncle Myrddin—or Thunderfrost's Boy, as she thought of him—had been earlier in the evening. He had stood by this very wall and watched her speak his name to activate the spell his father had cast decades before—the spell to bind up the demon who had murdered the boy, turning him into a ghost.

Toward the middle of the gardens, Rachel halted and hovered Vroomie. Beneath her was the stone altar where Azrael had laid her family and friends while he tried to compel Rachel to sacrifice them. Beside the altar were the remains of the great bonfire the demon had used to call the tenebrous mundi. Her escape had been so close last night. One false step and she—and maybe the whole world—would have been destroyed. Rachel shivered again.

With a last glance at the site of her earlier adventures, Rachel flew onwards. Other than the presence of the altar and the burnt-out bonfire, the gardens were unexceptional: a pleasant vista with sprawling fig trees. Statues, half covered in ivy, stood next to yews that had been clipped into fanciful chess pieces. To either side, fountains gurgled.

Beyond the gardens loomed the gray, ivy-covered keep. This rectangular structure also had rounded towers at its four corners. Narrow, double-arched windows and t-shaped arrow slits breached its otherwise solid basalt walls. The structure reminded her of home. It was similar to the Old Castle—the oldest section of the massive, sprawling mansion that was her family's home. At Gryphon Park, however, one of the towers—the one that held her grandfather's library—was significantly taller than the rest. Here the corner towers were of a matching height.

Rachel arrived as the others entered into the inner keep. She darted after them, the wake of her broom rustling the branches of a nearby shrub. The sides of the keep were not as thick as the outer curtain wall, meant to protect the entire fortress, but the passage inside still went through a good twelve feet of stone.

Once within, she shot through a mottled yellow room into the great hall, where the others stood ooing and ahing, their voices echoing in the emptiness. It was a handsome chamber with rugged ceiling beams. Diamond-shaped medallions of burgundy and gold covered the walls. Stone benches lined the east and west side. The place was rather dim. Little sunlight made it down the four-yard long arched tunnels that allowed the outside light to pass through the thick castle walls.

Valerie snapped pictures, her camera whizzing. Her flash illuminated heraldic crests and the occasional pike axe. Joy and Xandra stood together in the middle of the chamber, gesturing up at the odd, triangular chandeliers dotted with small globes for will-o-wisps that provided the main lighting for the dim hall. Nearby, Zoë leaned against a wall with her arms crossed and a bored expression on her face. Toward the far end, Siggy poked around the giant hearth, urging Lucky to breathe fire into the grate. The dragon did, causing the whole chamber to smell of ozone and soot. But Rachel noticed that Sigfried's eyes were unfocused, his attention elsewhere. She guessed he was busily examining the rest of the keep with his magical, all-seeing amulet.