It had taken us three airplane rides to get to Poitiers and I felt completely lost. When we got off this airplane, I felt even more lost. All the signs were in French and no one spoke any English. We wandered this way and that until we found our way to customs. An angry looking guard who barked at us in French, stamped our passports, and we collected our bags.

I hadn't seen Aunt Perrine in over three years. She hadn't been anyone's favorite aunt. My dad always said she lived too far away to visit when we went to France. Everyone else came up to see us in Brittany when we visited, but Aunt Perrine said she didn't like driving and that it was too far.

"Lazy old bag," my mother had complained.  "What else does she have to do? It's not like she works. She could come see her nephews. What does she do all day? Knit?"

As we exited the baggage claim, I thought that maybe Aunt Perrine did knit all day. She was wearing an old green sweater that looked like she had made it herself and she had another sweater over it. She had a knitted scarf and even her green, misshapen hat appeared to be made by her.

Aunt Perrine smiled broadly at us and ran towards us. Alex's eyes widened a little in terror as she kissed him on each cheek and exclaimed, "Oh, les enfants! C'estdomage!" And then in English, "Poor little babies!"

She backed away from Alex, leaving him disheveled and covered in red lipstick before she turned to me. "Gabriel," she said with a horrible French accent. "Oh la la, look how big?"  And she kissed my cheeks with equal gusto.

I smiled at Aunt Perrine and she took my hand. "Come now," she said and she dragged me away from the airport and into the parking lot where her miniature car sat in the shadows.

Alex grimaced and whispered in my ear, "Can we fit in that car?"

I don't think he was joking. For a minute, as I shoved our suitcases in the trunk of the car, I thought there was no way we would all fit, but we managed to all pile in and Aunt Perrine smiled brightly as she tuned the radio on.

The music was terrible. It was like country music, in French, but Aunt Perrine sang along to every word of the song.

It was a long drive with no stoplights. Instead of the stoplights, the roads had a bunch of circles that you spun around in. Alex and I sat quietly as Aunt Perrine drove and sang.

We watched the French countryside as we might have watched an alien landscape. Everything was so old and so different. Old houses, old churches, even the light seemed old and Aunt Perrine looked like she was the oldest thing of all. The journey was long and it was made longer still by the knowledge that we would never go home again.

We drove through long vineyards and sunflower fields until we came to a tiny town with roads so narrow, even Aunt Perrine's tiny car scraped the sides of the medieval houses as we drove through the road. The village was drawn tightly together and all the houses touched. They were made with old mortar, and even though the Middle Ages had ended five hundred years ago, I thought that maybe I had stepped backwards and fell into them.

Finally, Aunt Perrine took a hard right and the car fought its way up a steep hill and over a drawbridge into the gates of a decaying castle. Inside the walls of the castle, there was a crumbling stone church with demons and gargoyles engraved on the outside. The church was attached to a long wall that rose up into large, half-fallen towers and half a keep. On the other side of the wall, there were little houses built directly into the fortress wall. There were cats everywhere. They sat on the old walls and in the doorway to the church. They reclined lazily and watched us with sleepy eyes.

"Zey used to be for zee servants," Aunt Perrine explained. She pointed to the houses built into the walls. "Do I say zis right?"

I nodded.

"So, zis is us," she said and stopped the car.

Aunt Perrine went to close the castle gate and Alex and I were left staring upward at our new home.

"Why did Mom and Dad do this?" Alex asked suddenly.

"What?" I answered.

"Why didn't they leave us with someone at home? Why didn't they have plans? I hate this place. I hate this country and I hate this castle."

I didn't know what to do so I put my hand on his shoulder. Alex was only seventeen months younger than me, but he was as tall as me and twice as irritable. Sometimes people even thought we were twins. We both had the same dirty, blond hair and bright blue eyes. We both had similar features. Mom even used to try to dress us alike. But Alex and I were as different as steam and snow. I was neat and he was messy. I liked to read and play video games inside and he always wanted to be outside playing with friends or mucking around in the mud. He was loud and I was quiet.

Alex pushed my hand off his shoulder and stalked off in the direction of the castle keep. I realized, sadly, that my birthday was only a week away. I'd be twelve. Mom would have baked me a cake and Dad would've taken us camping.

"What do you zink?" Aunt Perrine asked.

"It's creepy," I answered coldly.

"Oh, yes. And it is very 'aunted."  Aunt Perrine winked.

My mouth fell open. "Haunted?"

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