The Other Side of the Wall Read online

  ALSO BY AMY EPHRON

  The Castle in the Mist

  Carnival Magic

  PHILOMEL BOOKS

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York

  First published in the United States of America by Philomel Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2019.

  Copyright © 2019 by Amy Ephron.

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  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Ephron, Amy, author.

  Title: The other side of the wall / Amy Ephron.

  Description: New York : Philomel Books, [2019] | Companion to: Castle in the mist and Carnival magic. | Summary: “Tess and Max encounter a new adventure through time, this time in London at Christmas”—Provided by publisher. | Identifiers: LCCN 2018056331| ISBN 9781984813275 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781984813282 (e-book) | Subjects: | CYAC: Spirit possession—Fiction. | Brothers and sisters—Fiction. | Christmas—Fiction. | London (England)—Fiction. | England—Fiction. | Classification: LCC PZ7.1.E62 Oth 2019 | DDC [Fic] —dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018056331

  Ebook ISBN 9781984813282

  Edited by Jill Santopolo.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  For Chloe, Roman,

  & the man in the bowler hat

  CONTENTS

  ALSO BY AMY EPHRON

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  ONE

  MAYBE IT’S THE WIND

  TWO

  SNOWFLAKES FALLING

  THREE

  A VISIT TO THE PARK

  FOUR

  AFTERNOON TEA

  FIVE

  HIDING AWAY

  SIX

  MAX CONFESSES

  SEVEN

  LONDON GRAFFITI &THE SKATEPARK

  EIGHT

  STAYING UP AFTER DINNER

  NINE

  GAMES IN THE LIBRARYAND AN INVITATION

  TEN

  PARTY ON THE 8TH FLOOR

  ELEVEN

  GLIDING THROUGH THE PARTY

  TWELVE

  READING THE CARDS

  THIRTEEN

  IN WHICH TESS HOPES THAT EVERYTHING IS NORMAL

  FOURTEEN

  AN INCIDENT IN THE GARDEN ROOM

  FIFTEEN

  IN WHICH MAX HAS NO IDEA WHAT’S HAPPENED TO HIM

  SIXTEEN

  MAX

  SEVENTEEN

  AN INSIDE-OUT AFTERNOON

  EIGHTEEN

  IN WHICH PRINCESS PAYS A VISIT

  NINETEEN

  TRYING TO GET TO THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER

  TWENTY

  IN WHICH TESS ATTEMPTS TO ASSESS THE SITUATION

  TWENTY-ONE

  TRYING TO PRETEND THAT EVERYTHING IS NORMAL

  TWENTY-TWO

  STRANGE BREATHS

  TWENTY-THREE

  STRANGE EXIT

  TWENTY-FOUR

  THE CAT’S EYE MARBLE

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TRYING TO GET BACK TO WHERE SHE STARTED

  TWENTY-SIX

  1926: THREE DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WALL

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  VENTURING INTO THE PARK

  TWENTY-NINE

  FLASHBACK/FLASH FORWARD

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ~ CHAPTER ONE ~

  maybe it’s the wind

  Did you see that?”

  “See what?” Max replied.

  “That . . . that shadow that went past the window,” said Tess, “out in the garden.” It was more than a shadow, a shape that had streaked by the window. She couldn’t explain what it was.

  Tess and Max were sharing a suite at a small, somewhat trendy hotel in London called THE SANBORN HOUSE. They had gone to meet their mom and dad and Aunt Evie for Christmas break, although their parents hadn’t arrived yet.

  Tess would be sleeping in the bedroom. Max had a rollaway cot in the living room. At the moment, Tess was sitting on the antique carpet on the floor of the living room and Max was lying on his freshly made cot. They had checked in at the desk with Aunt Evie, found their hotel room, and obediently unpacked their suitcases.

  They were both a little tired from the trip to London. Tess was staring vacantly out the window to the garden. Except she’d noticed something. Or at least she thought she had. It looked like a shape that had streaked quickly past the window—not an animal, something else, shadowy, which had sneaked past, not blown by the wind.

  “I didn’t see anything,” said Max immediately, definitively, even though he was sitting up as if he had.

  “But,” he added, “there could be a number of explanations for it.” There was a bit of an edge to his voice, as if he was irritated at Tess. And Tess noticed she hadn’t told him, at all, what she’d seen and nonetheless he was rationalizing it for her. Ever logical, he explained, “For instance, a cloud passed across the sun, causing a shadow.”

  “We’re in London, there isn’t any sun,” said Tess, not meaning to be funny.

  Max hesitated, and then suggested gruffly, as if he wished this conversation would be over, “A large truck passed by in the alley then and altered the light.”

  “I don’t think there is an alley,” said Tess. “It looks like there’s just a garden that separates our hotel from the back of the house on the street behind us. I bet the garden’s pretty in the spring,” she added.

  “It’s pretty now,” said Max.

  It was unusually cold, and the branches of the trees were gilded with ice and an occasional dangling icicle that oddly reflected what little light there was into colored patterns, the way a glass prism would.

  “You’re right,” said Tess. “It is pretty. And the icicles are natural holiday tree decorations. I bet Mom would like them. And see those red berries dotting that bush? I wonder what kind of berry bush it is.”

  Max almost snapped at her, “Can we look it up before we test one? Or at least ask someone what it is?”

  “Promise,” said Tess who started laughing for a second until she realized Max hadn’t meant that to be funny. She hesitated. “You didn’t see anything? Really?!” she asked again. “But, what I saw was, umm”—she didn’t really want to use the word, but she couldn’t help it—“ghostly.”

  The wind was blowing, as if in punctuation, a cold and scary wind, rattling the windows.

  “Okay, shadowy, then,” said Tess modifying her thought so as not to frighten Max unnecessarily. “You didn’t see it?” she repeated.

  But before Max could answer, Aunt Evie burst in to their hotel room without knocking. “Oh my,” she said, “put on your hat and grab your mittens.”

  She prob
ably meant, put on your mittens and grab your hat, but neither one of them corrected her.

  “I think it’s going to snow,” Aunt Evie said. “It never snows in London. Well, hardly ever. And when it does,” she said, “it’s a very magical time to go out.”

  Aunt Evie was wearing a gray and white scarf tied around her neck and tucked stylishly into her gray wool coat.

  Max grabbed his hoodie. Aunt Evie shook her head. “Don’t you have something warmer?” she asked, and also nodded to his sneakers and suggested, “Boots?”

  Both Tess and Max had lots of warm clothes as they’d been sent back to school in Switzerland in September. Their mom and dad had rented out their apartment in New York City and their mother had moved to Germany to be with their dad who was stationed there, now, in Berlin as the head of the International News Desk.

  Tess didn’t really understand why they couldn’t go to the American School in Berlin. But it seemed like their parents needed a little time to try to sort things out.

  Tess hated the sound of that. “Sort things out.” She and Max had heard them have a fight one night during dinner, which was very unusual. It was the night their dad had said “family conference” and told them and their mom that he’d accepted the job in Berlin. Tess understood why her mom could get mad about her dad taking the job in Berlin, but she also understood why he took it. It was an amazing opportunity. But they started to have a fight. Tess and Max excused themselves from the dinner table. Shortly thereafter, their mom had left and closed the door to the apartment so loudly the walls seemed to shake, and she didn’t come back for at least four hours.

  After that, their parents had been civil with each other but somewhat distant, or at least Tess thought that was the case. Not as affectionate as they had always been.

  Their dad left for Berlin. And after some persuasion, which involved flowers arriving regularly, sometimes even twice a week, roses, peonies, lilies, orchids, and late night whispered conversations that Tess and Max only caught a word or two of, their mom decided to join him in Berlin in September.

  Tess and Max didn’t push their parents on the decision to send them back to boarding school in Switzerland. Although it did seem to Tess that their mom would spend a fair amount of time alone in Germany, as their dad was also reporting on camera from all points abroad, including Russia and the Middle East.

  Their father had become quite well-known. It wasn’t unusual for someone to ask one of them if they were related to Martin Barnes, the TV news guy. And Tess or Max would say, “Yes,” very proudly, “he’s my dad.”

  Tess had been told by a friend’s mother that seeing Tess’s father on television made her feel a bit more secure, especially since there was so much uncertainty in the world. “There’s something about your dad that makes me feel calmer,” she said.

  Tess was proud to hear this and didn’t add her own feeling, which was sometimes it made her anxious, especially when he was reporting from a country that was experiencing “unrest.” That’s what they called it—the preferred expression around their house “unrest”—which could mean a flood or a war-zone.

  Tess smiled and told the woman she was pretty proud of her dad, too.

  Tess did think both her dad and mom would be excited about the unusual possibility of a snowstorm in London, even if it was only an hour or two long.

  Tess buttoned her coat and pulled her collar up and put her mittens on, and as she did, she swore she saw something out the window again, but she didn’t say anything. She didn’t want Aunt Evie and Max to think she might be imagining things again.

  She was quite certain she’d seen it though. A strange shadow and a shape. It was probably just a snow flurry.

  ~ CHAPTER TWO ~

  snowflakes falling

  Max shut the hotel room door after them, carefully locking it with a gold key on a silver chain attached to a small wooden plaque that said GARDEN ROOM just in case they forgot what room they were in. The key itself was curious. It had a glass dome on the top, almost like a miniature crystal doorknob, with a spray of orange in the middle, as if it really was blown glass.

  Tess put her hand out for the key, but Max shook his head. He knew enough about Tess and keys in England to decide to keep this one himself. He put it in his fleece jacket pocket, which conveniently had a zipper, which he closed.

  They ran through the lobby, as Aunt Evie was walking so quickly it was hard to keep up. Tess practically bumped into an elegant Englishman wearing a bowler hat and a well-fitting pinstripe suit who was accompanied by a small white terrier on a leash who Tess also almost tripped over.

  “Sorry,” said Tess, first to the dog and then to the gentleman.

  “No harm done, was there, Princess?” he said to the dog, who seemed almost to nod at him. “No harm done at all,” the gentleman replied.

  The terrier nodded happily, but somewhat attitudinally, if a dog can have attitude, and waved her tail, not quite a wag, just a simple wave. Tess noticed there was a pink satin bow tied festively into a tiny bunch of hair on top of the terrier’s head, like a ponytail that stuck straight up.

  The dog’s eyes were fixed on Tess and were remarkably intelligent and dark brown, almost the color of hazelnuts. For a moment, the dog, whose name really was “Princess,” sidled up to Tess and brushed her body against Tess’s right leg.

  “No harm done, at all, Missy,” the gentleman insisted. “I think she likes you.” Tess noticed that the gentleman called her “Missy” which reminded her of what someone else had called her last summer, but sometimes people did that in England. Called people, “Missy,” almost as if it was a term of endearment or respect.

  Tess leaned down and patted the top of Princess’s head, being careful not to disturb the bow, smiled politely at the gentleman, and ran off to try to catch Max and Aunt Evie, who were halfway out the front door of the hotel. She joined them out on the sidewalk where the wind was blowing umbrellas upside down and a light snow was falling steadily.

  The doorman was in the street blowing his whistle, but no one was stopping, and it looked as if there were two couples and one family of five ahead of them. The wind was practically wailing, and the snow was falling rapidly, almost at an angle, but the snowflakes were so tiny, they were as soft as cotton powder puffs floating in the air. Tess thought it was oddly refreshing, and she imagined sparkles when the snowflakes landed daintily on her cheeks. She looked over at Aunt Evie and her cheeks were sparkly, too.

  Aunt Evie was tapping her foot impatiently. Aunt Evie didn’t like it when the trains didn’t run smoothly.

  That was an expression their mom sometimes used. It meant that everything was delayed, which in this case was actually true, as Aunt Evie had informed them, when she picked them up at Heathrow Airport, that their parents’ plane from Berlin had been delayed due to stormy weather—so delayed, they hadn’t even waited at the airport since nothing was taking off or landing. They had told Aunt Evie they would try to get another plane tomorrow. Tess and Max didn’t mind that much although they were looking forward to seeing their parents. It was always lovely to spend time with Aunt Evie.

  Aunt Evie wasn’t in the mood to wait. She saw an old-fashioned carriage parked at the curb with a white horse whose well-brushed mane also seemed to sparkle when the snowflakes landed on it.

  Aunt Evie smiled impishly at Tess and Max and took both their hands. “Be careful. It’s slippery,” she said as she walked quickly with them to the corner.

  The carriage driver just stared straight ahead.

  “Are you hired, Sir?” Aunt Evie asked, tipping her big hat with the flowers slightly to the side as if she was enticing him to look at her.

  The driver turned to look at Aunt Evie and at Tess and Max. “Of course, I am,” he said slyly, “I’ve been waiting for you for half an hour.”

  “You don’t mean us?” said Aunt Evie.

  “Of cours
e, I do,” he answered immediately. “You must be Aunt Evie. And you I suppose must be Tess and Max.”

  “Well, isn’t that a nice surprise,” she said. “Your dad must have hired him, don’t you think?” she asked Tess and Max.

  Tess and Max weren’t sure that was true.

  But before they could answer, the carriage driver tied the reins and jumped down from his seat. He ceremoniously, with a quiet bow, opened the carriage door, and Aunt Evie stepped delicately and elegantly in and sat in the seat facing backwards, and Max and Tess had no choice except to join her, step in, and sit on the opposite seat facing Aunt Evie.

  “Anthony Cortland, M’Lady,” the driver said, “at your service.” He must have been talking to Aunt Evie but oddly he was looking at Tess.

  Tess thought it was a funny coincidence, to be called Missy and M’Lady in the space of five minutes. Remembering her manners, Tess replied instantly, “Pleased to meet you.”

  Aunt Evie interrupted her and said, “I’m delighted to meet you, too, Mr. Cortland.”

  Tess realized it probably was Aunt Evie he had been speaking to. Except, he was wearing a herringbone cap. It reminded Tess of the herringbone cap that Barnaby always wore. Barnaby was the caretaker at their friend William’s house (actually it was more like a castle) next door to their aunt’s country house in Hampshire. Barnaby had always called her “M’Lady.”

  With another slight bow just for show, Anthony Cortland shut the door to the carriage and took his place in the driver’s seat.

  Tess could see him and the back of the white horse through an open window, cut into the front of the cab, she supposed for giving instructions. Mr. Cortland leaned down and said to Tess—she was sure he was speaking to her this time—“Her name’s ‘Comet,’ by the way, just in case you were wondering, and she quite knows her way around London.”

  Tess watched as Mr. Cortland picked up Comet’s reins and, without the use of any kind of riding crop or whip, Mr. Cortland clicked his tongue (or his cheek or something), making a surprisingly loud noise, which Comet responded to immediately. And, as if she was a trained trick pony used to dancing, Comet started to pull them quickly and merrily down the street, which was paved with cobblestones so that every hoof beat was like a rhythmic underpinning to the snow falling lightly all around them.