The Castle in the Attic

William walks quickly across the countryside. It’s dried out, and the few people he sees stare at him. An old, oddly shaped man sitting on a rock under a tree asks for his help. William doesn’t want distractions, but he remembers that knights are compassionate, so he walks over. The old man points up at an apple high in the otherwise barren tree and asks that William fetch it. As William begins to climb, the old man warns him not to look down and not to bite the apple.

The tree is very tall. In the distance, William sees what looks like a castle, but it’s partly obscured by smoke. He reaches the apple and plucks it: It’s as perfect an apple as he’s ever seen. Thirsty, he wants to bite into it, but two birds swoop at him and drive him back down the tree.

He gives the apple to the old man, who bites into it and transforms into a tall young man. The man hugs William and thanks him: “You have broken the wizard’s spell for me” (125). William wants a bite, but the young man throws the apple away, saying it’s bespelled. Instead, he sets out some food for the boy, who eats hungrily. The young man explains that, years earlier, he’d stolen a bag of apples from the wizard’s storehouse to feed his sick baby, and Alastor hexed him.

He says the wizard lately has grown bored and simply turns people to lead, keeping the interesting victims in a room in the castle. Recently, Alastor has been looking for an entertainer. William says he must get to the castle. The young man says it’s too dangerous: A dragon guards it, and no one may enter without Alastor’s consent. William says maybe he can get in: He’s good at gymnastics and music, and can apply for the job of court fool.

The young man says his name is Dick, and his mother-in-law was Sir Simon’s nurse, Calendar. Once, after Alastor took over, she visited him briefly—she looked old and bent-over, like Dick before William got him the magic apple—and told Dick that the dragon is a transformed version of her cat. It can’t kill him if he looks it directly in the eye and maintains that stare no matter what horrors he sees in the dragon’s eyes. Plunging a dagger into its right thigh will put it under the boy’s control.

William says he met Dick’s son at the forest’s edge. The son is well, and he mentioned Calendar and the Silver Knight. Stunned, Dick mumbles something about a prophecy that a boy who knows the Silver Knight will arrive in the land.

William continues his journey toward Alastor’s lair. The road is crowded with people headed the other way, many of whom urge him to turn back. He overhears one group talking about how a hoped-for rescuer had instead been turned into lead. William fears they might be talking about Sir Simon, but he pushes the thought from his head.

The land near the castle is barren and burnt. William sees the castle ahead on a hill. He hides and observes it through his binoculars. Soldiers guard the ramparts while a dragon paces back and forth at the gate, breathing flame on anything—even a passing bird—that gets too close. Most ground cover is burned away, but William finds some low bushes where he can curl up for sleep. He wishes for help, but none is forthcoming.

At dawn, he awakes, takes a few bites of food, and walks toward the castle. Heat from the dragon grows stronger as he approaches until he’s sweating. He turns and walks away in fear, then stops, pulls out his recorder, and begins to play The Battle Hymn of the Republic. He resumes his walk toward the dragon, staring it in the eyes and playing. The dragon’s fire hurtles toward him but separates around him. The beast’s eyes contain horrifying images, including Mrs. Phillips on fire, but a voice tells him to keep playing.

He walks up to the dragon and, with his dagger, strikes at the dragon’s thigh. The creature collapses. In its eyes, all William sees is a scared cat. He helps the dragon stand up and he tells it to pretend to guard the castle, so the wizard won’t suspect it’s now on his side. The dragon complies.

Castle soldiers stare at him in fear. He retrieves his dagger, and, gambling that the soldiers are on his side, signals them to be silent. He walks up to the front door and knocks loudly.

The doors open and a guard cautiously asks William’s business. The boy says he’s there to apply for the position of court “fool.” The guard leads him down a very long, torch-lit spiral staircase, where lies a great hall. Sitting on a throne is Alastor in a silver robe and hood. His eyes dart everywhere and he twitches nervously.

William says he’s Muggins, an acrobat, musician, and teller of riddles. Impatiently, Alastor growls, “That will do, won’t it, Calendar?” (142) The old lady agrees and suggests the boy perform for them. William does his gym routine perfectly, but his dagger clatters to the floor. A guard retrieves it. Alastor asks how he got past the dragon and the guard claims the soldiers took the boy through a side entrance.

Alastor and Calendar take William to a gallery that contains the leaden bodies of the wizard’s victims. One of them is Dick’s son; another is Sir Simon. William suppresses a scream. Alastor says, “It was rumored that he would return one day with a boy, and so he has” (145). The wizard wears silver in honor of his victory over the knight. William notices the medallions around Alastor’s neck but refrains from grabbing them. Alastor says he’s bored of Calendar, and, if the boy performs well, he’ll put the crone in his gallery. If not, the boy shall become one of the leaden statues.

William is taken to his new quarters, a small room where he’ll await the wizard’s pleasure. A guard locks William in; the guard seems gruff but his eyes are kind. The room contains a straw mattress on the floor and a table and stool. William feels alone and he hopes Mrs. Phillips can see where he is.

Alastor makes William listen to his tales of turning people into toads and “crones.” He devises difficult and exhausting gymnastic routines for the boy to complete. If William protests, Alastor screams at him to do as he’s told.

Both the guard, Brian, and Calendar seem to hate Alastor. William asks Brian why they don’t simply overthrow the wizard; Brian says Alastor has them spying on one another and reporting back to him. With Sir Simon captured, they’ve given up all hope. The guard lets William roam the corridors, though.

William is forced to watch as one of Alastor’s recent captives is turned to lead. Later, Calendar finds William in the gallery staring at Sir Simon, and she says she watched when Alastor surprised the knight and turned him and a boy to lead. William says the boy is her grandson. She decides to tell William how to defeat Alastor: Steal his necklace and then face “the mirror,” which reflects all the bad things inside people. “But nobody has ever defeated the mirror” (154).

Alastor enters the gallery and demands that William put on a performance for the audience of leaden people. William does a spectacular routine that ends with Mrs. Phillips’s front somersault and a kick that knocks down the wizard. William grabs the necklace. Alastor stands and pulls from his robe a mirror. He thrusts it at William.

The boy remembers Mrs. Phillips telling him that he has the soul of a knight. He stares into the mirror and sees himself with Mrs. Phillips imprisoned in his heart. He already knows this is the most terrible thing about himself: “It showed him only what he already knew” (158). He grabs the mirror and aims it at Alastor. The wizard backs away in horror and calls himself “the locust.”

Calendar grabs the necklace from William, points a medallion at Alastor, and intones, “Saturn.” Alastor begins to turn into lead. William shouts at her to stop, but she turns the disk around, aims it again at the wizard, mumbles a second word, and Alastor disappears.

William throws down the mirror. It smashes on the floor.

William takes the necklace from Calendar. He turns to the guards, who stare back. Brian says they’re at his service. William points to Sir Simon and says, “Not mine, Brian, but this man’s” (160). He goes to the knight’s statue and embraces it. The statue hugs him back: William’s touch has revived him.

William takes the hands of the young boy, who comes alive, too, and thanks him for bringing Sir Simon to him. The young boy’s name is Tolliver. William walks down the line of frozen people, touching each and bringing them back to life. They learn of the defeat of the wizard and shake William’s hand gratefully.

He brings Sir Simon and Tolliver to Calendar, but she turns away, ashamed of failing the knight and of what she has become. Sir Simon hugs her, and she’s transformed to her former self. She hugs Tolliver. William gives the lead medallion to Sir Simon for safekeeping, but he retains both Janus tokens: On one, the god frowns, and on the other he smiles. Brian appears holding a large black cat: It’s the dragon, converted back to its real self. Brain says, “The spells are all broken” (165).

A great feast is prepared, and everyone repairs to an upstairs banquet hall. Sir Simon tells William that, back in the forest, he was fooled by a mirage of his favorite horse and became lost until he found a stream that led him out. He met Tolliver, who told him that William had gone ahead, and he hurried after him. Sir Simon and Dick agree that he must have walked right past William when the boy was fetching the apple for Dick.

Sir Simon stands and offers a toast to William, their rescuer. William, in turn, toasts “Lady Elinore.” Rich foods are piled onto the tables; Dick explains that, once William had defeated Alastor, the land became free of the wizard’s evil spell and sprang back to life (167).

The next morning, William asks Sir Simon how to get through the forest on the way back to Mrs. Phillips. The knight says the forest is no longer under a spell, and Tolliver can accompany him back to the toy castle. Sir Simon tells William to send his “kindest regards” to Mrs. Phillips, and that he’ll miss her greatly. William and the knight embrace and promise to remember each other forever. William sheds tears proudly.

On horseback, William and Tolliver travel for two days. Everywhere, they meet grateful people returning to their homes. On the final morning, William hands over his horse to Tolliver to take back to Sir Simon’s castle, where the young boy will become a page to one of the squires. William travels alone on foot through the forest, which now has none of its old terrors.

He reaches his castle at sunset. The drawbridge drops, and he hurries inside, where Mrs. Phillips awaits.

Mrs. Phillips calls him “My warrior.” William asks if he looks stronger for having defeated the wizard. She says he was strong already but didn’t know it. He gives her Sir Simon’s regards. She says that, like her husband, Sir Simon is bull-headed but “lacks imagination.” She completed her tapestry of his and William’s adventure, but she has the boy fill in the details.

She takes him upstairs and shows him a surprise: Alastor, now made of lead, stands in her bedroom, his face contorted by the horror of seeing himself in the truth mirror. Like Sir Simon, the wizard was exiled to William’s attic castle. William reaches up to touch the man’s face, but Mrs. Phillips warns him off by reminding him that his hand can free leaden people.

In the morning, they wear their regular clothes, open the gate, and step out of the castle. They snap together the two parts of the Janus medallion. William aims it at Mrs. Phillips, and suddenly he’s staring at the toe of her shoe. She reaches down and puts him at the top of the attic stairs, then grabs Alastor from the castle and pockets him, lest William accidentally revive him. William asks if she wants to keep him small and bring him with her to England, too. Gruffly, she says, “Oh, William, don’t tempt me” (178). Instead, she points the Janus tokens at him, and he’s back to his normal size.

The kitchen clock and marked-off wall calendar show it’s the same day and time when William first became miniaturized. He apologizes for taking a week from her life, but Mrs. Phillips says it merely makes her feel younger.

They walk to the bus stop. She promises that, when she’s on the boat to England, she’ll drop overboard Alastor and the Janus tokens. As they wait, William performs the routine he did that knocked down the wizard. They hug for a long time, but it’s William who pulls away first. She boards the bus, and he waves until it’s gone.

Back in the kitchen, he sees a note from his dad saying he’ll be bringing home ingredients for a meal of chicken and cashew nuts that they’ll enjoy for dinner.