We paused at the folly, craning our necks to peer at the cannon jutting out from the top of the tower.
“Can we go up?” Joel asked, batting his long lashes at me. I looked at Alex, and he looked at Edwin.
“Do you want to, Edwin?” Alex asked, and Edwin nodded, skipping ahead into the stone circle and wrestling to turn the heavy iron handle on the door of the tower. Alex suggested that I climb the spiral staircase first, with Edwin and Joel following, and he would come last, to catch them if they fell. The steps were perforated iron, and our footsteps clanked and echoed as we climbed. It can’t have been more than six meters high, but my heart pounded as we wound our way up.
The wind whipped my breath away as I emerged onto the platform, and I was immensely thankful for the stone parapet that encircled the small space. There was a central stone dais, decorated with carved sea serpents, and on top of it a large sundial, and a contraption with a glass lens, and the black cannon I had glimpsed from down below. The barrel of the cannon pointed out toward the sea, and the four of us shuffled around in an arc between the dais and the parapet so that Alex could show us where the gunpowder went and how the sun shone through the lens onto the powder at the critical moment. Joel was entranced, but Edwin spent more time peering down at the cliff top below.
“Look for Theo,” he said suddenly, and Alex’s smile plummeted.
“Hey, let’s go down again, carefully, and see if there are any blackberries left,” Alex said.
Back on the ground, the boys went to search in the bushes, squealing when they found each blackberry, stuffing them into their mouths as if they hadn’t been fed for days. I gave Alex an inquiring look.
“This is where they were when Theo fell,” he said quietly. “Ruth helped Theo up first to see the cannon. Then she brought him down and strapped him into the double stroller before getting Edwin out and taking him up. It’s something they did every week, but Ruth couldn’t manage the staircase with both of them—it’s too dangerous.”
I stared at him, wide-eyed. I wanted to tell him to stop, to change the subject. But I also wanted to hear; I needed to know.
“Theo must have unstrapped himself. Ruth was at the top with Edwin when she spotted him toddling toward the edge of the cliff.”
I pressed my fingers over my mouth. Alex’s gaze was distant.
“They think he was aiming for the steps, but missed his footing. He fell and hit his head. No other major injuries, remarkably. But he never woke up.” Tears brimmed in his eyes.
“It’s awful,” I said. A surge of nausea made me turn away and shuffle to the stone wall, where I sat with my head hanging.
Alex went to help the boys reach a cluster of berries above their heads, and he carried some back for me. They burst in my mouth with a tangy sweetness.
“Sorry,” Alex said. I shook my head. At least now I knew what had happened. And I was practiced at keeping bad memories locked away.
There was a Latin inscription next to the tower door, surrounded by a design of waves and sea serpents. I peered at it.
“A fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi,” I read haltingly. “What does it mean?”
He perched next to me.
“A precipice in front, wolves behind,” he said. “It’s like—being caught between a rock and a hard place. Or between the devil and the deep blue sea. No way out.”
A strong gust of wind produced a tattered plastic bag out of nowhere, and sent it flapping across the stone circle. Under my coat sleeves, tiny hairs rose along my arms.
“Why? Was someone trapped here?”
Alex tipped his head back and rolled it left and right, stretching. “Dominic reckons the Summerbourne who built the house was involved in some dodgy moneymaking schemes. He made his fortune, and then lost it all again, promised some of the families in the village he’d help them get rich, but then made enemies of them when he couldn’t pay his bills. The villagers used to say Summerbourne was—I don’t know—not haunted, but unlucky in some way. Have you been into the village much?”
I shook my head.
“You should ask them,” he said. “Ask anyone in the village about Summerbourne. Their eyes light up—honestly. They were brought up on stories about this place. Not just the murky history of it, but fairy stories too. What do they call them here—sprites, is it?”
“Yeah.” I’d heard Michael blame sprites when his seeds got mixed up in the greenhouse. Edwin was fascinated with the idea of seeing one, catching one. I pictured them rather like the gremlins from the movie I’d loved when I was eleven or twelve. “But fairy stories? A bit weird for adults to talk about, isn’t it?”
“God knows what really happened here.” Alex grinned at me. “They never actually tell you that, of course—they probably don’t remember themselves anymore. My neighbor at the cottage told me to watch myself coming up here. I said, ‘I’m only going for a picnic.’ He virtually crossed himself.”
I hugged my arms around my chest. “They’re probably just jealous. In the village. The people who lived here would always have seemed...”
“More privileged?” Alex said. “You’re probably right.”
I frowned at the inscription. “Still, a strange saying for that Summerbourne ancestor to pick. It sounds like he regretted his behavior, if it made him feel that trapped.”
“I quite like it,” Alex said, leaning toward me a little as he dropped his voice. “It always strikes me as quite apt for the family. Don’t you think they’re a bit like wolves, our friends in the house there?”
