New York City, 1993
The Clemens family, Gerald, Nancy, and their daughters Megan and Lisa, walked unsteadily out onto the 7th Avenue sidewalk. They had just had some news — good news, to be sure, but huge, and completely unexpected. In the course of the past hour they had learned that they had a great uncle they’d never met or even heard of, that these uncle had lived in Europe, and had been extremely wealthy. The uncle, who had recently passed away, had evidently been well aware of the Clemens clan. Although he had never tried to contact them, Gerald was his closest living relative, and was specifically named in the old man’s will as the sole heir. They were suddenly, unexpectedly, rich.
The inheritance was large enough that they would not need to keep their current jobs. In fact they would have to quit them, as the attorney had made clear that the will required that they relocate to Europe, at least for a time, to deal with the businesses and properties they now owned entirely or in part. Over lunch in a midtown restaurant — an expensive one none of them had ever visited before — they began to plan.
Within two weeks the family was en route to Europe. The realization had begun to sink in that the ordinary problems of quitting jobs and moving went away when you could afford to keep your old co-op and didn’t need to care whether you’d get a bad job recommendation. They flew first class, a first for all of them except Nancy, who had once received a lucky upgrade on an overbooked flight. They landed in Geneva and made their way to the villa where Uncle Franz had lived. The Manhattan attorney — who in fact was at the moment their attorney, at least in the US, had slid the keys across his desk to Gerald, as well as details about a number of accounts and safe deposit boxes in Swiss banks. They now owned other properties scattered around Europe, but Geneva had been the long-time home and headquarters of their benefactor. For the next few weeks Gerald busied himself with understanding just what it was they now owned. Nancy fell in love with Geneva and spent most days exploring the city and surrounding areas. Megan and Lisa, after the first week, were bored.
The girls complained one evening about nothing to do, and Gerald suggested that at 20 and 18 were old enough to do something about it for themselves. He had discovered family roots farther east in Europe, where they owned an old castle, or mansion, or something like it. it was located in a remote village in the foothills of the Carpathian mountains. He suggested they go check it out. Nancy nodded agreement and Megan and Lisa agreed with only glance between them. If nothing else, it would be an adventure.
The next day Gerald handed the girls a ring of old, heavy keys he had found in a safe. The girls immediately shouldered their backpacks and set out for the train station.
It took Megan and Lisa two days to reach Gorka, the town where their family property was located. As they exited the taxi in front of the mansion — its age and stone construction led them to call it a castle — Lisa paused to snap photos with her new camera. The place was surrounded by a high stone wall with a wrought iron gate chained shut — they theoretically had the key. Although neglected, everything looked intact, and wasn’t even tagged by graffiti. The grounds, though — at least what they could see through the gate — had become wild and overgrown. Megan looked through the keys on the ring and picked one that seemed to be about the right size for the padlock. It fit, and turned with some effort. It took both of them to unwrap the chain and push open the gate. Then they walked up the drive to the entryway.
The front doors also yielded to one of their keys, and the girls spent the next hour exploring the place. It was still fully furnished with everything carefully draped against dust. Remarkably, they saw no evidence of leaks, nor was there any obvious damage from birds, rodents, or, really anything. Except for thick layers of dust, whoever had last lived here might have left only weeks ago. At some point in the past — decades past, judging by the exposed wiring — the castle had been electrified. Either the wiring had failed, though, or the power wasn’t turned on. Lisa, rummaging through various drawers, found candles and matches.
The girls decided to stay for a while and try to clean the place up. They had a whole castle all to themselves, after all. They picked out bedrooms on the second floor. The mattresses were comfortable enough, and the cabinets even contained linens that were clean, if quite old.
In the afternoon they realized they were starving, and decided to find a cafe somewhere in town. They guessed that the railroad station would be a good place to start their search, and lacking any way to call a cab (there was an old black telephone in the kitchen, but it had no connection — and as Megan said, “who’s going to speak English around here anyway?” So they walked.
The town wasn’t terribly large, and they easily found their way back to the train station. They purchased a phrase book and bilingual dictionary at the newsstand, and used them to inquire about a place to eat. In the cafe, which was just down the road, they found that the proprietor, whose name was Ludo, spoke passable English. The place wasn’t busy, and he sat with them for a while after they ate. They explained their presence, and their plans, and Ludo made several suggestions for how they might get their electricity and telephone services turned on, and who in town they might contact to help with cleaning and work on restoring some order to the castle grounds. He suggested they stay in the small hotel a few doors down from his cafe, but they wouldn’t be dissuaded from spending their first night in the castle itself. He gestured to his phone and Megan successfully used the phrasebook to call a taxi to take them back to the mansion. “We should buy a car,” suggested Lisa. “Maybe there’s already one in our garage,” replied Megan. But Megan’s guess was wrong. When they found the stable the next day, it contained four cars. All classics, but they clearly hadn’t been used in years.
Over the next two weeks Megan and Lisa started transforming the old mansion. They hired four women from the town to help with the interior and found the Gorski brothers, who ran a landscaping business and had the tools, workers, and a truck, to start taming the grounds. The electricity was restored (although the wiring was dubious) and the old black telephone in the kitchen worked perfectly once connected. They were able to keep in contact with Gerald and Nancy back in Geneva. There was a pharmacy in town where they were able to get their photos developed, and they mailed sets of “before and after” photos back to Switzerland.
Of the two sisters, Lisa was more interested in the history of the castle and the family. She discovered the family papers and journals in the library and began spending every afternoon looking thru them. Picking a volume at random from a long shelf of thin diaries bound in cracked black leather, she settled into one of the armchairs and started reading. By dusk, Megan had to fetch her from the library. Lisa could talk about nothing else.
“Our great great — some number of greats — grandmother wrote these diaries I found. Her name was Agneta. There’s a lot of them; probably from her whole life. And wait til you hear this, Meg… she says she made a magic mirror!”
“Yeah right Liss, what’s it do , tell you you’re the fairest of them all?”
“Come on Meg. She really thought it was magic. She worked on it for years! And get this, i think it might still be here. Is that cool or what?”
“Yeah, yeah, really cool. Look, Mom says she wants to see the castle, she’s coming for a visit next week. We’ve got a lot to do before that.”
“It’s too late to start anything tonight anyway; come help me look for the mirror. I think I know where to start.”
Megan rolled her eyes, but went along. She hated to admit it to Lisa, but it really was exciting.
Agneta’s diaries had mentioned working on the mirror in a tower. There were two of them, and it didn’t take long to find the door — still locked — that led to the stairway to the south tower. The tower workshop was much dustier than the rest of the place had been, and thanks to the open windows, narrow though they were, a few birds had taken up residence. But it was intact, looking more like a filthy, cluttered old attic than a workshop. Lisa loved it. and started poking around at the various trunks and tables and miscellaneous piles. In a few minutes Megan heard a loud squeal.
“Meg, look at this! A mirror! This might be the one!”
