The Old Castle

 

        The late afternoon sun shone brilliantly down on to the old castle ruins. Jem smiled as he and his family walked up the magnificent sweeping lawn. This is what he had wanted to see so badly on their trip to Scotland. Not that he hadn’t enjoyed all of their other sightseeing, but this place was something that could just be explored. There were no stuffy tour guides telling him not to touch anything.

        The crumbling walls looked imposing as Jem got closer. He ran ahead through the main archway and looked around him. He was inside an immense grassy courtyard with several passages leading off of it. There was no ceiling, as it had disintegrated long ago, but the position of the sun cast long shadows that nearly covered the courtyard.

        “Hold on Jem!” Mom called, sounding slightly worried. “This is a pretty big place, so we need to stay together.”

        Jem heaved an exasperated sigh and said, “It’s not that big Mom. Please can I go exploring?”

        Mom looked down at Jem for a moment and then nodded. She rustled around in her backpack and pulled out a few maps of the castle. “At least take this, so you won’t get lost.” She handed a map to Jem, and gave one to each of his brothers. “Just make sure to meet back here in an hour.”

        Jem was the youngest, so he felt like he was always fussed over a little too much. His two older brothers took their maps and walked off, staring at their cell phones. They were too cool for this place apparently. They weren’t as excited as Jem was.

        Jem looked down at the map, and thought that it would be kind of hard to get lost. There weren’t that many different rooms here. He walked off confidently, tucking the map in his pocket. He didn’t need it. He was an explorer. He admired the old stones all around him and thought how cool it would have been to be actually living in this place back in the 1200s. He had no doubt that he would have been a knight, or at least a duke. He liked the thought of being called Sir Jem.

        Wandering deeper into the castle, Jem continued to imagine what it would have been like to live here. He would probably have had lots of servants, and he could have done whatever he wanted. He walked through another shadowy doorway and sneezed as he stumbled on to a dusty stone floor. He was pretty deep into the castle now. There probably weren’t as many visitors that ventured this far.

        It was growing darker, and Jem wished that he had thought to bring a flashlight. It was hard to see and he walked right into a wooden door. Rubbing his nose, Jem felt around for the doorknob. The wooden ridges on this door were worn and immensely old. Not finding any kind of doorknob, Jem leaned against the door and felt it give slightly. Trying not to damage anything, he continued to push on the door until he had created an opening that was just wide enough for him to get through.

        Jem squeezed himself through the opening and was surprised to come face to face with another boy his age. “Hello,” Jem said cheerily to the boy. “I thought I was the only one that would be back here.”

        The boy looked back at him with wide eyes and whispered, “Shhh, he’ll hear you!”

        Confused, Jem waited for his eyes to grow accustomed to the dimness. He realized that he was in some kind of storage room. There were two doors leading off of this room. There was the one that Jem had just come through, and another one that was on the opposite wall, which was slightly ajar. Seeing this, he whispered to the boy, “Who are you worried about? Is your dad looking for you? Are you guys playing hide and seek?” Jem’s face brightened at this thought. Of course, an old crumbling castle would be the perfect place to play hide and seek!

        The boy just looked with worry and fear back at Jem and said, “It’s the master. He’s looking for me because I accidentally spilled some of his wine at the dinner table. I ran before he could grab me, because I don’t want to be whipped again. That would be my fourth time today.”

        As Jem listened, he started to get worried. It sounded like this boy was in a bad family situation or something. “How about you come back with me?” he asked. “I’ll go find my dad and he’ll be able to help you.” He offered him his hand, and, after a few moments, the boy slowly took it.

        The two boys walked back through the old door that Jem had come through. They stumbled over some debris in the darkness, but finally came to an area with a little more light. Jem looked back at the boy following him and was surprised to discover that he was wearing some really old fashioned clothes. These were things that Jem would have sworn he saw in the old museum that he visited yesterday. The boy was wearing a long, cream-colored shirt with worn brown pants. He wasn’t wearing any shoes.

        The boy was looking around him in shock. “What happened to the castle?” he asked incredulously.

        Jem looked around, expecting to see something wrong, but it looked exactly the same as it had a few minutes before. “What’s wrong with it?” he asked the boy.

        The boy turned to look at Jem like he was mad. “The roof is missing, and all the master’s stuff is gone.”

        Jem studied the boy’s face to see if he was being sarcastic. He certainly didn’t look like he was joking. “When did you see it with the roof?”

        “Only a few minutes ago, before you found me hiding in the storage room.”

        Something started to click in Jem’s brain, but he couldn’t really believe it was happening. “Who is the master?” he asked curiously.

        “Lord Alexander MacDonald, of course.” The boy was now looking at Jem curiously. “Don’t you know him?”

        For answer, Jem pulled the map out of his pocket. At the very top it said, “MacDonald Castle.” On the back of the map, it talked about the history of the castle. It was built by a ruthless man named Alexander MacDonald, a wealthy clan chieftain. After reading the history, Jem looked back up at the boy and said seriously, “I think I might have just brought you hundred of years into the future.”

        That was the first day that Jem met Henry Cooper. No one could ever explain where he came from, including Henry himself. Jem and his family took Henry in and eventually adopted him. Jem tried to get back into the room where he had found Henry, but he could never find the old door. They became as close as brothers could be. Only they knew the truth of what had happened that day. They never tried to explain it to anyone, because they could hardly believe it themselves. Who would believe a story about a magical portal to the past that was no longer there?