The World Above by Cameron Dokey Read Free Book Online

in the castle he’d killed for. He didn’t need to. He had one of his own. One he could inhabit without guilt. And it’s not as if he gave up Duke Roland’s lands. He still kept those.”
    “I think you’re right on all counts, Gen,” my mother put in quietly. “Not only that, the de Trabant castle is built like a fortress. I saw it once, as a child. It’s situated at the crest of a hill, if I remember correctly. No one can approach without being seen. Guy de Trabant would have felt, and been, well protected there.”
    “And in the meantime,” I filled in thoughtfully, “to make sure no other ambitious man would try to steal from him, he installed a giant in Duke Roland’s castle.”
    “I think that must be it,” Jack agreed.
    “But where did he find a giant in the first place?” I wondered. “Where did Clarence come from?”
    “I asked Sean and Shannon about that,” Jack said. “And they said their father never spoke about his origins. It was one of two topics that they were forbidden to mention. The other was their mother, who died when they were born. They didn’t come right out and say this, but I gathered things were kind of grim when Shannon and Sean were growing up. This only fed the stories about a ferocious giant living in the castle.”
    “Stories that Guy de Trabant had no doubt started himself, to discourage other potential usurpers,” I said.
    Jack nodded. “But something happened to Clarence as time went by,” he went on. “Shannon said she thought her father fell in love. Not with another person, but with many. He fell in love with Duke Roland’s former subjects. He saw the way they struggled to make ends meet, yet still kept their spirits strong. He discovered that he wanted to be more than just a tool to frighten others. He wanted to belong. He wanted his children to feel as if they had a true home.
    “So, slowly but surely, Clarence set to work to rebuild the land that Guy de Trabant had first stolen and then abandoned to neglect. As they grew old enough, Sean and Shannon helped him. Father and son traveled from village to village, helping with the harvest, or mending a broken roof or fence, whatever needed to be done. Shannon stayed on in the castle, where she tended an enormous vegetable garden.”
    Jack smiled at me. “You’d like that about her, Gen. In fact, I think you’d just plain like
her
. Shannon reminded me of you, right off. She’s no-nonsense, practical, and straightforward.”
    “Don’t forget the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen,” I teased.
    Jack colored.
    “Is Clarence still alive?” my mother asked.
    Jack shook his head. “No. He died about a year ago. All Duke Roland’s former subjects mourned him. Since then, Sean and Shannon have stayed on in the castle, carrying on in their father’s footsteps.”
    “It’s a lovely story,” I said. “Filled with hope. But why would total strangers tell you their life story, Jack? Why would they think you wanted to know it?”
    Jack winced, as if he’d known this question was coming. “You’re not going to like this,” he said. “They told me their story because I told them mine.”
    I sat bolt upright in horror.
“What?
The whole idea was to keep your identity a secret!”
    “I know,” Jack replied in a pleading tone. “But if you’d been there, you’d have done the same, Gen. I just know it. There was just something about them . . . it’s as if they already knew me somehow. And then, when I saw the goose and recognized her as one of the wizard’s gifts, that sort of settled things. I told them my story, and they told me theirs. Afterward they brought out the sack of coins. Guy de Trabant had left it behind too.”
    “It seems strange that he would leave the wizard’s gifts,” I said more calmly. “I wonder why.”
    “Perhaps they reminded him of the wrongs he had committed, the ones he is still committing,” my mother suggested in a hard voice. She gestured toward the goose in its