Ephraim’s mom had waited while Mallory ran across her lawn toward her mother. Ephraim watched them meet on the steps and embrace and he guessed that after a day like that, anyone could be forgiven.
As they drove away he kept watching Mallory. Would she miss him when he was gone, he wondered, or would this story just fold into the rest of the tale about the town, a little blip in the families’ intertwined legacies? He hoped that she would miss him. He felt pretty certain that he would miss her.
Driving back through town to get to the Water Castle, Ephraim watched the now-familiar sights go by. The white church that had bells that chimed on Sunday mornings, clear all the way up to the Water Castle. The town hall was open only a day and a half each week. There was the library, its lion seeming to cry with the mist that dripped down his face. The bench outside the Wylie Five and Dime was empty; Edward and Edwin must have gone home because of the weather.
When he’d arrived a few weeks before, Ephraim never would have thought he would have gotten used to this place. Now they were going to leave and it would be like they had never come, like nothing had changed.
“What’s happening with Dad?” he asked.
His mom lifted her hand and brushed at a stray hair. “It’s still up for discussion, but don’t worry about it now. One crisis at a time.” She gave a nervous laugh.
“Whatever you need to do for Dad,” Ephraim said, “we’ll help you out wherever we need to go.”
Price turned around in the front seat and looked back at Ephraim. He looked confused at first, but then he nodded. “That’s right, Mom. Whatever you need.”
“And I’m sorry about today. About adding to your stress.”
“Thanks, boys,” their mom said.
As they wound their way up the hill, Ephraim looked back over the town that still looked to him like something right off of a postcard. Now, though, he realized, it was the kind of postcard he would tack up on his wall, not shuffle to the bottom of a drawer.
There was nothing special about the town, nothing magical, and that was just fine. The funny thing was, if anyone had been transformed by Crystal Springs, it was him. Price had always been an athlete and Brynn had always been smart. He was neither of these things. He had never really been sure what he was. But now he was someone who’d been on a wild adventure. He had put himself on the line to try to save his father. Maybe he hadn’t succeeded, but he had tried.
He had come to this new town, and he had made friends, and they had done all sorts of things he never would have imagined before. No one back in Cambridge would believe that he’d been crawling around in dark tunnels, or climbing up stairs with no destination. Maybe, he decided, growing up meant letting go of the stories, letting go in general, letting yourself fall just to see if you could catch yourself. And he had.
They drove up the winding road and the Water Castle came into view. Steel gray against the paler gray sky. It looked regal, but you could also sense the years of memories inside of it. He peered up to the roof and caught a glimpse of something metallic. Maybe it was the water barrel Mallory had talked about. Maybe it was nothing.
His mom pulled the car right up in front of the house. Ephraim climbed out of the car and said, “I’m going for a little walk.”
“Ephraim, I really think you should head up to bed.”
“Just for a minute, Mom, I promise. I need some fresh air after being in that hospital.”
She hesitated but said, “Okay.”
He walked around back to the bottling house. He wanted a moment alone, and it was the most private place he could think of. After letting himself in the ivy-covered door, he sat down on the marble floor. The gray day and the ivy over the glass made it seem like he’d walked into an antique photo. He could almost imagine how it had been once, the workers in crisp white uniforms filling each bottle with water, rolling it down the line. It had been state-of-the-art at the time, that’s what Mallory had told him. This whole place had been alive once.
He leaned over with his head between his knees and saw a crack in the marble. He ran his hands along it: a whole chunk was loose. He pulled at it the way he and Price used to dislodge stones on the rocky beach they’d visited as children, wiggling it like a loose tooth until it popped out. Beneath it was a dark space, but something glinted.
Ephraim hesitated. He was tired of secrets. Tired of mysteries. Tired of hidden staircases and secret rooms. Someone had hidden whatever the glinting thing was, and maybe it was better that it just stayed a secret.
There was no denying, though, that he felt a familiar twinge. The twinge of hope. The twinge of possibility. So he stuck his hand down into the hole.
As soon as his fingers closed around it, he knew what it was. Still, he pulled it out: a water bottle marked with the same label as the others he had found:
Fountain of Youth
Crystal Springs, Maine
The cure for all that ales ye
Tied to the neck of the bottle was a small scrap of yellowing paper. After loosening the knot, he unrolled it. The letters were hard to read in the dim light and he had to hold it close to his eyes: For Harry, in case you change your mind.
The bottle was nearly empty.
He knew he should just put it back into the hole, cover it up, and forget about it, but he held on to it for a moment, reaching into his pocket to feel the watch he had taken from the wardrobe. He’d carried it around all this time, but never really given much thought to the inscription. Who was Harry and who had left the note? Who else had believed?
He pictured a man wearing the fur-lined hat Brynn had given him in the storage room. Maybe the woman who had left the bottle wore the peacock feather hat. They were gone now, but had been real and alive before. Maybe that was all that mattered. You had your time and you did the best you could with it.
Outside, a crow called and another answered. It was nearly dinnertime, and he knew he ought to go in and help. On his hands and knees, he placed the bottle back into the hole and slid the marble into place.
He walked across the lawn just like countless people had done before him. Appledores and Darlings and hotel guests and even Wylies—their footprints were gone but their spirits remained.
The setting sun was starting to peek through the clouds, making the whole sky like luscious ink. “Painter’s sky,” his dad had always called it. Against the backdrop of pink clouds, two eagles circled round and round. He had seen them before, as they had a nest in one of the trees that bordered the field. He had never seen them flying like this, though, circling up and up and up as if daring each other to go higher. He stopped on the edge of the lawn to watch them until they were little more than tiny brown dots against the fuchsia.
Ephraim wondered if his father could see them. Maybe he could set him up in a chair by the window. Would he really see them, or know what they were? It was worth a try. If they moved to New York, then he would take his father to museums and roll him in a wheelchair up to his favorite pictures.
Rounding the front of the house, Ephraim looked upstairs to his parents’ room on the second floor. He did it every time he came up to the house, and every time he expected to see his dad standing there. But he didn’t expect to see his dad this time. It was just force of habit.
The light was bad, and at first the window just seemed dark. Once his eyes adjusted he saw that the curtain of the window was pulled aside. Ephraim blinked, thinking the figure was only a trick of his eyes. But no, he was right about what he had seen: the silhouette of his father. He was looking out toward the eagles that rose and fell with the air currents.
Ephraim stood still for a moment. It couldn’t be. It had to be someone else, but Ephraim would recognize his father anywhere. Maybe they had found a way to prop him up. It was some new medical trick of Dr. Winters’s: Ephraim imagined his father’s body wedged into a stand as a mannequin, and it made him shudder. He wanted his father to be himself again, not forced into some fake version of it.
The pink sky softened the edges of the Water Castle and made it less imposing. He could feel its warmth. The house had sheltered generations, and now it was his home, at least for a little bit longer.
His father’s head turned toward him. Ephraim squinted again. It couldn’t be. It was impossible. Yet there his father was, looking down at him from the window. Ephraim held up his hand in a small wave.
And his father waved in return.