Oaken Read online

  Slinging her bag over her shoulder, Autumn left the shade of the willow tree and rushed up the dirt path to Blarney Castle, where she and Luke had been working all summer. Autumn ran the little merchandise shop full of Blarney Castle postcards, coffee mugs, and cheesy t-shirts that said things like “Kiss My Blarney Stone.”

  Luke worked at the top of the castle where the tourists kiss the stone. It was his job to hold them as they laid on their backs and were maneuvered upside down to press their lips against the supposedly magical stone that promised to give the kisser a lifetime of eloquence—a word Autumn had had to explain to her brilliant brother.

  But the twins’ mental lexicons were not the only things that differed between them. Physically, they looked more like distant cousins than anything. Luke was tall and thin, while Autumn was a whole head shorter and had curves that she had finally given up hiding under sweatshirts last year. Luke’s hair was flaming red and Autumn’s was closer to auburn. The only features they shared were their hazel eyes—a speckled mix of brown, green, and gold—and a strangely shaped birthmark on their wrists. An inherited mark. Their father had it too.

  After work, Autumn and Luke decided to stop by the local pub—a popular haunt of the high school age kids—next door to the cottage in which they now lived.

  The pub was dimly lit and the heavy smell of ale and spirits hung in the air along with the greasy scent of pub food. A game of hurling flashed on the television screen and the bartender laughed at a patron’s joke as he expertly poured a pint of Guinness. The bartender had a head full of blonde hair, reminding Autumn of the golden-haired boy in her dreams. If only she could reach him…

  “Earth to Autumn,” Luke said, breaking through her reverie.

  “Huh?” Autumn said, in a daze.

  “I said I’m going to go get us a table.”

  Autumn nodded and approached the bar, ordering two sodas. When she went looking for her brother, she found him talking the ear off of an attractive brunette who looked like she would rather be undergoing a root canal than talking to him.

  Not wanting to make things any more awkward for him than they clearly already were, Autumn took a seat at a different table and pulled a book out of her bag, something she rarely left the house without.

  Luke liked to think of himself as a ladies’ man, but girls never seemed able to get past his red hair and nervous chatter. Autumn tried to read her book, but her brother’s constant rambling proved to be increasingly difficult to block out.

  “So you’ve lived in Ireland all of your life?” he asked the girl. Autumn glanced sideways to see the brunette nod warily at him. “That’s cool. I’ve lived in Texas most of my life, but I think I already said that. Then my parents were killed and my sister and I had to come live here. It’s not so bad, I guess, but I do miss Texas. The people were a lot nicer there—not that Irish people aren’t nice, just not as nice as Texans. Y’all have really cool accents, though. My dad was actually from Ireland, but his accent didn’t really sound all that Irish. It was a little different, like a mix of Irish and English and American and…stuff.”

  The brunette, looking slightly overwhelmed, spoke for the first time. “Oh.”

  “So, do you have a boyfriend?” Luke continued, going in for the kill.

  The girl’s eyes widened slightly at this, as if she knew where this was going. “Er… no.”

  Luke lit up. “Really? That’s crazy cause I don’t have a girlfriend either. Weird, huh?”

  “Yeah, weird. I—er—really have to be going now. See you.” She stood and rushed out the door.

  Luke’s face fell dejectedly as he came to sit beside Autumn.

  “Nice,” she said, suppressing a laugh.

  “Do you think it was something I said?” Luke asked, looking genuinely confused.

  “Maybe you should talk a little less next time…”

  “But she wasn’t talking at all. I had to fill the silence.”

  That night Autumn returned to the familiar scene of her dream. The pure, slightly musky scent of nature filled her like smoke, evoking long-repressed memories. Memories of her father. It smelled just like him. Like he used to.

  Suddenly she stopped walking. The young man had materialized behind the waterfall. A vision of gold and gray and ivory.

  Autumn skipped nimbly across the flat stones, landing lightly on the last. The boy was still there, untouched by the surrounding water, his angular features distorted by the shimmering waterfall. Somehow he seemed more solid than before. More real.

  His lips parted and he uttered one sentence. “Go to the castle.”

  Autumn’s heart skipped a beat. This was the first time the gray-eyed boy had spoken to her.

  “What castle?” Autumn asked in earnest. “Blarney?”

  But the boy vanished before she could get an answer. As he disappeared Autumn thought she saw his head dip in a nod.

  With a start, she awakened.

  Blarney Castle

  CHAPTER TWO

  Autumn rushed through getting ready, skipping makeup and breakfast as she clomped down the stairs.

  “Where are you going?” Luke asked from the living room where he was playing one of his war video games that Autumn hated so much.

  “Blarney,” Autumn said in passing.

  “But we don’t work today,” he called as Autumn dashed out the door.

  “Bye, Mrs. King!” Autumn called to the old woman who was pulling weeds out of the flower beds.

  Mrs. King waved cheerfully at her, wearing a peculiar expression that Autumn recognized as someone who knew something they weren’t letting on. She’s so strange, Autumn thought.

  She was halfway down the street when she heard Luke call, “Hey, wait up!”

  Reluctantly, she slowed her pace enough for him to catch up to her.

  “What’re you doing?” he said.

  “You don’t have to be with me all the time, you know.”

  “Yeah, I do,” Luke said in a serious tone.

  He hadn’t admitted it, but Autumn knew that he felt a sense of responsibility for her now that he was essentially the man of the family

  “Fine,” she said. “Just…walk faster.”

  “Why are you going to Blarney on our day off?”

  Autumn opened her mouth to answer, but stopped when she thought of how crazy she would sound. “I—I just want to explore the grounds.”

  “Explore the grounds? We’ve done that thousands of times. Will you just tell me what’s going on?”

  She sighed in defeat. “ Okay… You know that dream I’ve been having?”

  “The waterfall one?” Luke asked. Autumn nodded. “What about it?”

  “Well, he told me to go to the castle. This is the closest castle, so this is where I’m going. I know this dream has to mean something.”

  “Wait, who told you to go to the castle?”

  “This guy…”

  “So, first you’re obsessed with the men in your books and now you’re chasing guys you meet in your dreams? Come on, Autumn. This isn’t healthy.”

  “You can leave anytime you want. I didn’t exactly beg you to join me.”

  Luke simply shook his head in exasperation, but stayed by Autumn’s side.

  When they reached Blarney, Autumn headed straight for the gardens near the castle. She assumed that, if there was a waterfall that she had not seen, she would find it there. After all, there couldn’t be a waterfall inside the actual castle. But after searching every tree, every path, every rock in the gardens, Autumn was forced to accept the fact that her dream waterfall was not there.

  “Can we go home now?” Luke asked after an hour of following her around the grounds.

  Turning in a slow circle for the hundredth time, Autumn sighed and nodded. She had been so sure that the gray-eyed boy’s message had been real. Maybe Luke was right…maybe these dreams were making her crazy.

  As they walked back past the castle, Autumn’s eyes were drawn to a gaping hole in the crumblin
g stone wall. She had seen it before, but had never thought to venture into it. “I wonder where that goes,” she said out loud.

  “Probably nowhere,” Luke grumbled.

  “Let’s find out,” Autumn said, pulling her brother towards the dark hole.

  The tunnel was located next to a dilapidated stone staircase that was blocked off by a barred iron door. They had to hunch over to enter the passage, which was pitch black. Luke pulled his cell phone out to light the way. In her hurry to get to the castle, Autumn had left hers lying on her bedside table. Sharp stones littered the ground and the farther they went, the colder the air became. They walked like this until they reached the end of the passage.

  “It’s a dead end,” Autumn said in disappointment.

  Luke frowned. “Well, this seems pointless.”

  Approaching the wall, Autumn pressed her hand against the rough stone, looking for a crack or fissure. Or maybe a rock jutting out of the wall that doubled as a handle. A vibration tickled her hand and she leaped back, frowning at the wall in confusion. Suddenly the rock shuddered and crumbled away, light pouring into the pitch-black passage.

  Before them was a dense forest full of colossal trees and flowers of every color. And a path leading beyond Autumn’s field of vision. Ireland was full of forests and flowers and other greenery, but not like this. This forest was different. Ethereal. Yet Autumn felt like she had been here before.

  “Whoa…” Luke said. “Okay, what’s going on? This shouldn’t be here. It can’t be.”

  “Come on,” Autumn said, stepping forward.

  “But—”

  “Are you scared?”

  “Of what? Some trees?” He laughed, but Autumn could hear the apprehension in her brother’s voice.

  “Then come on,” she said.

  They walked cautiously forward. Autumn glanced off to her right and stopped dead in her tracks. Luke walked into the back of her, almost knocking both of them to the ground.

  “What the—?”

  “Luke, I’ve been here before! This is where I go in my dream.”

  Autumn dashed off the path, weaving through a group of closely spaced trees with Luke following close behind her. “Watch, there’s about to be a waterfall up ahead.”

  “If there was a waterfall nearby, we’d be able to hear it.”

  Her heart pounded in her chest when she saw the arch of vines and branches she had been searching for. She ran under this and slammed to a stop once again. This time Luke was going too fast and they both went crashing to the ground.

  “Autumn, what the—?”

  Before them was the very waterfall Autumn had dreamed about every night for weeks. It was all the same down to the last rock. But the gray-eyed boy was nowhere to be found. For a moment she wondered whether or not this was a dream…

  “Autumn! What are you doing?”

  Glancing down, she realized that she had started walking across the flat stones that led to the waterfall simply out of habit. She continued to skip from rock to rock ignoring her brother’s attempts to coax her back to the safe ground.

  “Rose!” Luke said, a note of panic in his voice.

  “It’s okay! I’m just going to try to touch the waterfall.”

  “What? Why?” Luke began edging toward the first rock.

  Autumn blocked his voice out. She had to concentrate. This was it, the moment she had been obsessing over for so long. Excitement and anticipation filled her like a tide pool. She was now at the edge of the waterfall, her breathing coming in quick gasps.

  Holding her breath, she slowly reached out her hand.

  Revelations

  CHAPTER THREE

  The moment Autumn’s fingertips touched the water, her world turned upside down. Quite literally, in fact. She was falling. Falling up, or down, or nowhere in particular. Colors flashed around her like a prism in the sunlight.

  Just as she was beginning to fear that she would never stop falling, she landed, sprawled out on a soft bed of moss in front of the waterfall she had been standing before not seconds ago—or perhaps it had been longer. But this could not be the same waterfall because this was definitely not the same forest.

  As she sat up, her breath caught in her chest. She was sitting on top of a raised hill overlooking a strange city made up of…tree houses? Surely that was the only way to describe them. But they were not average tree houses made from scrap wood with a rope ladder and a tire swing. They were actual homes.

  It looked as though someone had hollowed out each individual tree, cut holes for the windows and doors, and moved in. Only, these trees were larger and grander than any Autumn had ever seen, dwarfing even the California Redwoods.

  But more remarkable than the tree homes was what could only be described as a tree castle, towering over the tree town like a lone skyscraper.

  “Wow,” Autumn breathed, shaking her head in disbelief.

  A strong breeze blew through Autumn’s hair and seconds later Luke landed beside her on the bed of moss. He sat up and looked around wildly, his eyes landing on his sister.

  “What the hell just happened? You just disappeared! And then I—I just started falling and—” He stopped, taking in the sight before them. “Whoa. Where…are we?”

  “I don’t know, but I think it’s safe to say that we aren’t in Ireland anymore.”

  “Hello?” A lilting voice emerged from the shadowy foliage. “Is everything all right?”

  Autumn and Luke jumped in surprise and whipped around to see a tall, slender girl with sparkling blue eyes and flowing platinum hair. In her hands was a woven basket full of an assortment of different colored flowers. There was something odd about her. Something Autumn couldn’t quite put her finger on.

  As the girl moved closer, the twins scrambled up from their seated positions. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you two here before. Are you from Rose Valley?”

  “Uh, no. I’m Autumn, and this is my brother—”

  “Luke,” he said, smiling smoothly.

  Autumn rolled her eyes. They had just fallen through a magical waterfall, landing in the middle of some tree town and he still had it in him to flirt. Typical.

  “I’m Crystal,” the girl said warmly. “Where are you off to?”

  “Actually, we aren’t even sure where we are,” Autumn said. “We were just in front of this waterfall and—I don’t know what happened—but I touched the water and I just started falling and—”

  Luke cut in. “—and then I went after her. I just thought she’d slipped or something, but now that I think about it, she looked like she just disappeared into thin air. Then I landed next to her over there.” He pointed at the spongy moss in front of the waterfall.

  Crystal regarded them carefully now, her eyebrows knitting together. “So…where are you from?”

  “We’re from Texas, originally,” Luke answered.

  “Then our parents were killed and we were sent to live in Ireland with this woman we didn’t even know,” Autumn said.

  Crystal’s mind seemed to be whirring as she looked from the twins, to the waterfall, and back. “If you don’t mind me asking, what is your surname?”

  “Oaken,” Autumn and Luke said at the same time.

  Crystal’s eyes widened. “Seriously? Oh my goodness! I can’t believe—wait,” she said, sounding suddenly suspicious again. “May I see your wrist?”

  “Our wrist? Why do you want to see our wrist?” Luke said, now sounding suspicious himself.

  “It’s okay,” Autumn said, offering her right hand. “Here.”

  Crystal turned Autumn’s hand palm up, gaping at what she saw. What before had only been a thin faded birthmark was now a dark image—as if branded into her skin like a tattoo. At first it just looked like a bunch of thick, jumbled lines. Then she realized that it was a rose.

  Crystal’s face broke, once again, into a wide smile. “You have the Royal Mark. That means you really are Oaken,” she said, looking at them in wonder. “I can’t believe it.”
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  “How do you know who we are?” Autumn asked, reclaiming her shaking hand. Luke was examining his own wrist with a bewildered expression.

  “Everyone knows who you are here, of course! No one knew you would be returning so soon. Well, the king did hint at it, but we thought surely—I’m rambling, aren’t I? I’m sure you already know all of this, anyhow.” Autumn and Luke shook their heads, wearing dazed expressions. “You mean your parents never told you?”

  “Told us what?” Luke said.

  “Oh, gosh, I don’t know if I should say… Well, you deserve to know. But if no one told you—”

  “Told us what?” Luke said more forcefully.

  Crystal sighed. “That you aren’t exactly human. Not full human, anyway.”

  Luke laughed and looked at Autumn, rolling his eyes at Crystal.

  Autumn wasn’t as amused. “If we aren’t human, what are we?”

  “You’re elves. Royals. Your grandfather is actually the king of—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Luke said, holding up both hands. “Royal what?”

  “Elves. I know it must sound crazy to you right now, but it’s true. We exist. You exist.”

  An incredulous look passed between the twins.

  Elves, Autumn thought in disbelief. This was ridiculous. Elves didn’t exist. Autumn may have been an avid reader and a hopeless dreamer, but she had enough sense not to believe in the fairytales she read. As much as she wished magic could exist, she knew it couldn’t—could it?

  Taking a closer look at Crystal, Autumn noticed that she didn’t exactly look “normal.” In fact, the more Autumn looked at her, the less human she appeared. Hair as smooth as silk, teeth unnaturally white, eyelashes so thick they could be false, and skin with an ethereal glow. Then she noticed Crystal’s ears. They were pointed, though not the size Autumn would have assumed an elf might have. She shook her head clear. She shouldn’t be assuming anything about elves because that was crazy. As crazy as following the orders of a boy she met in her dreams.