The Autumn Castle Read Free Page A

.”
    Gerda scoffed. “Three years? It’s nothing. He’s twenty-eight, not eighteen. But don’t worry . . . if I ever see another woman
     making a move on him, I’ll do everything in my power to keep her away. Lie, cheat, steal, whatever.”
    “That’s very sweet,” Christine said, giving her a squeeze.
    Gerda lit another cigarette. “So, what’s up with you lately, Miss Starlight? You seem a bit blue. It’s not just the pain in
     your back, is it?”
    Christine shook her head, her eyes darting off to locate Jude. He was on the other side of the room, a cigarette jammed between
     his lips, drawing a shape in the air with his hands for Sparky, who laughed enormously.
    “What’s it all about? Not Jude?”
    “No, not Jude.” Christine shrugged. “Autumn, I guess. Gray skies, winter coming.”
    “Bullshit. It’s more than that.”
    She tore her eyes away from Jude and met Gerda’s gaze. “It’s weird, Gerda. Just the last few days I’ve been feeling on edge.
     Like something’s about to happen. And I keep having these flashes of old memories, things I haven’t thought about in years.”
    “Like what? Stuff to do with your parents?”
    “No, actually. You know we lived here in the seventies, but not here, not in the East. Berlin was still divided. We had a
     big house out at Zehlendorf. My best friend was the English girl who lived next door. A cute little redhead. I keep thinking
     about her, and then the memory gets all caught up with something else which I can’t put my finger on. Something to do with
     a crow I saw once . . .” She trailed off, realizing what she said made no sense.
    “A crow?”
    “Yeah, I know it sounds nuts.”
    “No, not at all. What was her name? The little girl?”
    “Miranda. Her father was an English soldier, Colonel Frith. But nobody ever called her Miranda; we always called her Little
     May.”
    “What else?” Gerda prompted. “Just these memories, this feeling of anxiety?”
    Christine reached for her near-empty beer bottle, and swished the contents around halfheartedly. “She was murdered,” she said.
    “Really?”
    “Abducted from her bedroom one night. God knows what awful things she . . . They never found her.”
    “That’s sad.”
    “Yeah.”
    “So it’s no wonder it gives you a bad feeling to think of her.”
    “I guess so.” She drained her glass. “Only, it’s not just an ordinary bad feeling. It’s dread, and it’s half-remembrance,
     and it’s a weird foreboding about that bird and trying to remember where I saw it.”
    Gerda snapped her fingers, her eyes round and bright. “A ghost!” she said. “Christine, maybe Little May is haunting you.”
    “Huh?” Christine adjusted her frame of reference quickly. Gerda had a strong interest in spirits and crystals and psychic
     powers, and conversations with her often took this turn.
    “Yes, it makes sense. She died all those years ago, when you were here as a child. Maybe she’s been wandering on the earthly
     plane all this time, and now you’re back she’s attached herself to you.”
    “I don’t know, Gerda. I’m more likely to think it’s a change-of- seasons melancholy.”
    Gerda shrugged. “Believe what you like. Do you want another drink?”
    Christine looked at her empty beer, then nodded. “Yeah, a big one.”
    She watched Gerda go to the bar. The band was still playing, Jude was still talking in the corner, the air was blue and thick
     with smoke and conversation. But she felt lonely and isolated and strangely afraid, and it had something to do with a twenty-five-year-old
     blurred memory of black wings.

CHAPTER TWO
    —from the Memoirs of Mandy Z.
    I first conceived of the Bone Wife as a child of eight in Bremen. My mother had taken me to a traveling exhibit of puppets,
     dolls, and automatons in the town square. I had always been, and continue to be, overly interested in contraptions, inventions,
     gadgets with wheels and cogs. The exhibit was set up in the shadow of the