“You think that hasn’t dogged the last four generations of Wynters, how to keep the castle running? Ever since your family lost all its money—”

“All its money?” I blurted out. “Were we rich?”

“Now, how do you think that castle got built in the first place?”

He had a point. At one time the Wynters must have been very rich, but like me, they had been foolish and lost their money. Seems it ran in the family. “You’re right. I guess I knew that. How did that come about? And how did we lose the money?”

He waved one hand. “You want the castle history, you go talk to that little gal who’s set up the library. She’s got all kinds of info there, some useful, most not. But I can tell you about Melvyn, if you like.”

And he did just that for the next hour. I heard about the hijinks back in the day; he and Melvyn were school buddies. They went off to university together, then served in “the big one,” as Doc called World War II. Doc came back to Autumn Vale, married, and had a bunch of kids, while Melvyn . . . well, he just started working on converting Wynter Castle into something that could make money rather than lose money. I was left with a sad sense that I would have liked Melvyn, if I had ever gotten to know him.

“But my dad, he was Melvyn’s brother’s kid, right?”

Doc slurped back the last of his cappuccino, smacked his lips, then burped. “Yup. Your daddy was the only son of Murgatroyd Wynter, Melvyn’s younger brother by about three years. Murg was a good kid. Married a local girl, had one kid—your pa—but his wife, your grandma, she died real young. Anyway, Murg and Mel started working on Wynter castle, and planting trees, with your daddy running after them on his short little legs. Mel always said there was money in trees.”

“What did that mean?”

“Damned if I know.” He yawned mightily, as a buzzer sounded somewhere. At once, the old folks all got up and headed out of the room. Doc got up, too, and picked up his empty cup.

“What’s going on?”

“Lunch, my girl, lunch. No old person misses a meal if they can help it. Never know when it’s your last, I guess. You should see some of these genteel old biddies scarf down their food. ’Specially dessert.”

I jumped to my feet. “But . . . but I want to find out so much . . . like, how did Murgatroyd, my grandfather, die? And when? And what about my grandmother, Murgatroyd’s wife? What was she like? And what did Uncle Melvyn plan for the castle? And my mom . . . what did she and Melvyn argue about? You said you might know.”

He shrugged and yawned again. “I’m gonna eat, then have a nap. Nothing like an after-lunch nap to get you through the day.”

Subtle but effective, that stopped me in my tracks. “Well, it was nice meeting you, Doc. May I come back?”

“Come back all you want! And next time I see you while I’m out for my walk, we’ll walk together.”

I picked up all the ingredients I’d need for the next day’s muffins, and headed back to the castle, to find that my handyman-slash-real estate agent had gotten another few holes filled, and Shilo had made him a lunch that was more fit for Magic than McGill. Rabbit food, in other words. He was picking away at his salad when I came in, and looked up at me with hope in his eyes. I shook my head, and he sighed, a sad man doomed to a veggie-heavy lunch. I took salad, too, and we chatted for a few moments, but he had to get going to show a house in another town for a fellow real estate agent.

I had phone calls to make, one inspired by the fact that I now knew, after talking to Doc, that I wanted to stay at Wynter Castle long enough to get a sense of my father’s side of the family. I missed out on time with Uncle Mel, but maybe I could learn a little and fill in the gaps in my family history. I’d never get a better chance. After I sold the castle, I didn’t imagine I’d be coming back to Autumn Vale. I called the storage facility where all my stuff was, and asked about a mover who could pack it up and bring it to Autumn Vale for me. They assured me they knew just the fellow, and could supervise it for me.

Over dinner, I told Shilo about my decision and she hopped up and down in her place, as Magic scoured the table for more carrots and lettuce. But a moment later, she got a pensive look on her face.

“What’s up, buttercup?” I asked as I finished the last of my soup.

She gave me her trademarked “underlash” look, gazing up at me from behind a fringe of bangs and eyelashes. When I was working on the open market—in other words, before I fell under the Leatrice Peugeot spell and ruined my life and career in New York City—I occasionally styled Shilo for shoots, and had taught her that her “look” was irresistible to the public in the same way that Princess Diana’s “Shy Di” look was. She was an eighteen-year-old model when I first met her, but she had not gotten a day older looking in the eleven years since.

Now she was using “the look” on me. “Tell me what’s wrong; you only use that look on me when something is worrying you.”

“Mer, what about me?”

Maybe I was having a dim moment, but I didn’t get it. “What do you mean?”

“Can I stay and help?”

“Stay . . . what, here? Why would you want to?” I saw in a flash that I had hurt her feelings. I reached across the table and took her hand, squeezing gently. “Shi, you know you can stay as long as you want. I just meant, I’m not sure if that is what you’d really want to do.”

She looked startled. “Don’t you know? You’re my best friend. You’re the one who makes me feel good about myself, even when I’m having a bad day. You’re my . . . my BFF.”

Yeah, I teared up. I squeezed her hand again and released. “If you and Magic want to stay, I’d love to have you. You’re free to hang out here as long as you want, or go whenever you want.”

“That’s why I love you,” she whispered. “I’ve never had anyone say that I’m free, before.”

I swallowed hard. To know why, you have to understand Shilo. There is much about her past that is a mystery to me, and I have never pressed her on it. She’ll tell me when she feels like it. When I met her she had no apparent family, and shared an apartment with six other skinny, frightened, teenage models. She had come so far since then that I didn’t realize, sometimes that the skinny, frightened girl was still inside her.

We went for a long walk after dinner. It was a beautiful evening. In the cavernous wilderness of Manhattan, one could forget (if you never made it to Central Park) that pavement and concrete were not natural walking surfaces. We wove between the holes, some filled, most not, and waded through the weeds. The ground had been warmed all day by the sun, and as a cooler breeze puffed to life, I could feel Mother Earth radiating back that warmth under me.

We walked the entire open portion of my property, and even explored some of the outbuildings, like little kids looking for a playhouse. There was a huge garage, which the lane that circled the castle led to. Its big, double doors were locked, but when I stood on a cinder block by a window and cupped my hands around my eyes, I could barely make out that there were a couple of vehicles inside, one that looked like a gangster car—you know those long, low-slung forties cars with a running board, the ones you see in gangster movies? It might even be the one I remembered Uncle Mel picking us up in, from the train station, on that long-ago day. Would it still work, I wondered?

There was a falling-down ramshackle shed; when I sidled up to it while Shilo picked wildflowers (aka weeds), it was clear that the shed had not only been broken into, but it looked like someone had been camping out in it. Could be kids from town, or transients, but either way, it was going to stop. I made a mental note to ask McGill where I could get a heavy-duty padlock. Even farther from the castle there was a big barn, almost on the edge of the woods. I was not going to explore that; not today.