But it was not to see a grave that Lieselotte had brought her friend. She forged ahead, across the courtyard with the well and the catalpa tree.
“Oh, I hope they’re there,” she said. Then she nodded with relief and stepped aside to let Ellen see.
And there indeed they were-the strange medieval birds standing sentinel on the monstrously overbuilt nest they had made on Marek’s wheel.
“They came the very week we decided to do the pageant again! You said they blessed a place, didn’t you? I think things are going to be good for us once more.”
“I know they are,” said Ellen quietly.
As she stood looking up at the birds, so outré yet so universally loved, she heard footsteps and turned to find Marek, his hand on the shoulder of their son, coming over the cobbles towards them.
“Well, you did it,” said Marek as Lieselotte tactfully melted away.
She shook her head. “It was your wheel.”
“But your vision.”
They stood with the boy between them to pay their respects to the birds which, for a while at least, would have to be the sole keepers of the castle. Perhaps they’re your storks, Ellen wanted to say, perhaps they’re the ones from Pettelsdorf, but did not. The peace and freedom which the Czechs had so richly earned had been theirs for only three years before the communists, under Moscow’s direction, had once again turned the country into a police state. Pettelsdorf had been confiscated as being the property of a capitalist oppressor; Marek had not been back since the war. He had tried to explain to his son that there had been a demesne, now lost, which should have been his, but Lucas had not been interested.
“I didn’t think anyone owned trees,” he said, looking at the miles of virgin forest behind their house.
Now-though continuing to gaze respectfully at the storks-he said: “Do you think we could go home soon?”’
Ellen and Marek exchanged glances. Both of them had been so lost in the past that they were for a moment at a loss. Did he mean home to the little house which Steiner, dying peacefully a year after the war, had left to them and where they were staying? Or had he picked up their thoughts about Pettelsdorf… or was he referring to Gowan Terrace, where he had been ludicrously spoilt on the way over?
But of course he meant none of those things. He meant home to the light-filled house on Vancouver Island with its big windows overlooking the Pacific. He meant home to his Newfoundland puppy and his sailing dinghy and his young sister who was frequently a nuisance but had many uses. For to Lucas, the castle and its storks, the lost domain in the forest of Bohemia, the palace they had shown him in London where lived a king and queen, belonged to the stuff of fairy tales. He liked the stories but what he yearned for now was his real and proper life.
“Maybe even tomorrow?”’ he suggested, his head on one side.
Marek and Ellen looked at each other. Then: “I don’t see why not,” said Marek, and the three of them linked hands and went to find the boat.