No one believes me when I tell them about the castles in the water. But it was long ago, and who can blame them? Not me. Not ever.
But I am still going to tell the story. I have to. Pretend it is fiction if you want, but the story burns inside me with a reality I can almost touch.
I was 10. My name is Jason, and the apartments were called The Ivy Mansions, even though they were nothing like mansions, and I never saw any ivy. For reasons unknown the complex had been shut down and neglected for several years. The paint of the apartments, which resembled townhouses, was peeling, leaving grey bald streaks where the pink or green paint used to be.
But the Mansions were a perfect place to ride our scooters or skateboards, me and my friends, and it had a large pond which was big enough for everyone to call it a lake, and flat broad sidewalks that swept all around it. There were No Trespassing signs scattered around, but no one was ever there to enforce them.
It became our habit to meet there after school and ride on our scooters around the big pond, and talk. We felt like a band of criminals on that forbidden lot, me and my friends Jamie, “Pat the Rat,” and Joey. I loved how when we first got there, the air was always filled with a haunting silence.
The place had a weird, cemetery-like feel to it, and our voices echoed like voices from the past in the big empty spaces. But it was Joey who noticed the quality that makes the place famous in the world of my memory. Joey was small for his age, quiet, and he struggled to be accepted, but he noticed things. One day I noticed him sitting on one of the wooden benches and gazing at the water.
Who did that, stared at water? I thought he was crazy. What was he, sixty?
But on that autumn day, almost at sundown, the apartment buildings, which looked like townhouses, had cast long reflections across the green water. I sat down beside Joey and followed his line of sight. “What do you see?” I asked.
He turned and looked at me. “I see castles,” he said.
I let out a half laugh. “Bullshit,” I said.
But he did not smile. “What do you see?” he asked. I looked at the water more carefully and was startled. How had I missed it? I saw on the water reflections that did not match at all the buildings around us. My eyes opened wide as I beheld majestic turrets, stately gates, balconies, multiple domed roofs, and magnificent gardens.
But the apartments casting the reflections remained boring, flat topped functional buildings, green, pink, and blue, with peeling paint and broken windows.
”Holy crap,” I said, and stood. “We have to get a closer look, Joey. Come on.” Joey rose with astonishing calm and followed me. At that moment I felt like Joey was my best friend in the world, even though he was younger and we almost never spoke. Now I was witnessing a miracle with him. And there was no better feeling in the world.
Together we knelt on the slope of sandy shore and gazed into the water at a place that might have been another world, a golden, sparkling place that at the moment seemed even clearer than the world I knew. I was too dumbfounded to even think of calling my other friends, but it was not long before Jamie and Pat the Rat began to wonder what we were looking at and joined us.
“Wow,” Jamie said, and Pat the Rat only stared. “This is like, a miracle.” Jamie looked even more fascinated than Joey or I had been as he knelt and swirled the water with his fingers, and watched the castles shimmy on the surface.
We all spent the next hour imagining why the castles were there until the sky darkened and the only reflection was of a wavering crescent moon. Pat said, “Someone is playing a trick on us,” he said. “An optical illusion. Or a projector operating from one of the rooms.” We all glared at him like he had just killed Bambi, until he shrank inside himself and hushed.
Adding to that buzz kill, I was disappointed to have the exciting vision go away as darkness fell. For an hour after sunset we stayed and studied the moon wavering on the water, thinking that the castles might come back somehow.
We knew we had to see them again, so we returned to the apartments the next day, and the next, to see if they would appear. They always did. Looking back, the reflections themselves were not nearly as interesting as the things we made up about them. The castles themselves did not move except when the water did. They would not reveal their secrets, yet for the next three weeks they set fire to our imaginations.
I remember those weeks as the autumn of “maybe.” Maybe the “reflections” were a hint that somewhere inside the apartments was a magical porthole to another world. Or maybe if you dived down deeply enough, you would emerge in another place and time.
There was a beauty in the mystery that was perhaps even more beautiful than the castles themselves. As long as there were unknowns, the magic of infinity held us spell-bound. There was nothing more exciting than wondering about the infinite. But the one person not enjoying the mystery was Jamie.
What you have to know about Jamie was that he had to be right about everything. He was always blurting out answers in class. Even though he was only right about half the time, he came across as equally confident every time he spoke. He was known as being smart, but I saw him as a puffed-up bragger. If you were ever uncertain about anything, he was quick to step in and clear things up in that assertive, reassuring tone of his that left no room for argument or doubt.
It was the same with the castles. We would go to Ivy Mansions every day after school to study and talk about them, and, more and more, I noticed him fidgeting and frowning. After several weeks of this, Jamie sighed, shook his head, then slid into a calm and reassuring posture that said he knew exactly what was going on, to the point it was hard not to look to him for guidance. He shrugged, “The castles are real, I know they are. If you dive in and go down deep enough, you will come out in the other world, where the castles are.”
Pat the Rat stared critically at him. \”How can you know that?”
Jamie squared his shoulders. “I just know. The day we found the castles was right after I made a wish on a star. I wished my dad would get rich again so we could move back into the house where we used to live. Next day, here it was.” He knelt at the shoreline and swept his hand over the water. “A real miracle. This is my answer. What are castles known for? Wealth. They are full of gold and precious stones. There are riches down there for the taking. This castle is here for me.”
“Are you nuts?” The words shot from my mouth. Jamie looked sharply at me, but I knew a stupid comment when I heard one. “Wishes on stars, only kindergarteners believe that kind of crap. Even really superstitious people never make wishes on stars, at least they never expect it to work.”
\”How do you know, dummy?\” He glared at me. “You ever made one?\”
\”Well no, but…”
“Then shut the hell up.” He clamped his lips together, which had turned pale, but his eyes still challenged me.
I had an idea where all of the insanity was coming from. Jamie had been ridiculously wealthy at one time, and popular, but his father had lost his job due to a series of bad decisions. The clothes Jamie wore had gone downhill quickly as he grew out of his old ones.
He now wore ill-fitting trousers that had probably been purchased in a thrift shop. His formerly peachy complexion had darkened, become sallow and bitter, and he started to cuss more and even bully some of the smaller kids, probably in some desperate attempt to regain a feeling of status.
He went on dreamily, “If I could go down far enough, I would get there. Could grab the gold and jewelry an get out before anyone knew. Maybe, if you all helped me, we could split it, divide it among ourselves.” I knew why he was trying to include us. Jamie could not swim.
“I wish I could do it,” Jamie said, “see another world, but my swimming is, well, I’m all out of practice.” He looked at Joey. “But you, my friend, swim like… like an octopus.”
“An octopus?”
\”Well, fish if you\’d rather be boring. My point is, you can do it.”
Joey had seemed to shrink inside himself, the more Jamie talked. “Me?” he asked in a small voice.
Jamie laughed. “Yeah, you.” He clapped Joey on the back. “Stop being modest. You are a swimming ninja.” It was true. In swimming pools most of us only pretended to swim. Mostly we just jumped into the pool, only to get out of it and jump again. Joey was different. He could really swim, and he was fast, arm-stroking his way from one end of the pool to the other like an Olympic athlete.
\”Look Joey,” Jamie went on, “you gotta do it. This could change our lives, change everything. If you do it, you can have most of whatever you find. And you get to see another world. You will be the only one of us who can say that.”
\”Yeah, I can swim, but how far does the water go down? 50 feet? A hundred? I have to breathe. I would need expensive SCUBA gear.”
Jamie huffed like he had just heard the stupidest thing ever uttered. “SCUBA gear? This is not the Coral Reef. This is magic. After you go down a little bit, the water will clear, and you can breathe.”
Joey looked at him with a cautious glimmer of hope. “How do you know?” I was startled to see that there was no mockery in the question. It was like Joey was asking, “What answer did you put for question 9?” For the moment, at least, Joey had been taken in. He was really interested in the source of the divination powers Jamie claimed to have.
Jamie smiled confidently. “I just know things,” he shrugged. “Always have. Things like this,” he gestured to the stretch of palatial beauty on the watery surface, “they happen for a reason. But to get anything out of it, you gotta believe. Can you do that?”
For a long moment everyone looked at Joey, who still appeared uncertain, his eyes darting back and forth. Even though I mistrusted Jamie, my own imagination had started to go wild with fantasies of wealth, fame, and power. There was something hypnotic about the way Jamie spoke and held himself that could spin you into his dream, a place where anything seemed possible.
I imagined living in a mansion with a pool and an arcade and a private movie theater. I could buy an amusement park, or even have one in my backyard if I wanted. I could speed down the highway in a La Ferrari, and not even have to graduate high school. The freedom. The power. The euphoria.
Besides, Jamie did have a point. What we were witnessing did appear to be a miracle. There had to be a reason for it. What if it really was here for us? And what if all that stood between us and magnificent wealth was a little water?
Joey stared into the water with an almost mystical expression. Maybe he was having some of the same thoughts I was. If so, he snapped out of it and looked at Jamie. “What if I go down too far? What if I die? What if the water pressure…”
Jamie huffed. “Try going down a little ways at first. You can always swim back up if it seems unsafe. Just try.”
By this time we were all hoping Joey would dive and take a look. Even though I had big doubts, what harm was there in trying? I actually felt a little irritated with Joey for hesitating. How dare he deprive us of a thrill? How could he choose the boring status quo over a magnificent adventure? How could he refuse to turn down a chance at wealth? Or at least the dream of it?
Joey was looking around like a trapped animal searching for rescue. But no one, including me, came to his aid.
“Do it,” Jamie said. “You can trust me.”
Night was falling. There was not much time left. The castles would soon be gone. Joey shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “But if it starts to seem unsafe, I’m coming right back up.”
“Sure, okay, fine,” Jamie grinned broadly. “But dive as deep as you can, okay? Or you might not reach the castle.”
With a sigh Joey stripped down to his underpants, revealing pale, thin legs. The water at the shoreline was too deep to wade into it, breaking off abruptly at land, so Joey splashed into the water, warping the image of majestic buildings on the surface, the high walls, the towers, and the shining domes.
“Okay, good,” Jamie said, “now dive, swim like the octopus you are, swim like the Joey I know you can be. Stay down for at least two minutes, or I’ll know you didn’t try.”
I remember how Joey looked at us, a look that said he was afraid to disappoint, and the pallor of his face in the waning light, before he took a deep breath and went down, leaving an impression of concentric waves to show he had been there.
I could see his pale body wavering beneath the rippling water, and I remember how the castles shimmied on the surface.
The water stilled for a few minute or two. I was starting to worry when Joey came up, gasping for breath. “I went down as far as I could, but my ears started to pop and my chest hurt.” He was shaking his head, his wet bangs plastered to it. “I tried, I went as far as I could. Anyway, all I saw down there was sand and a whole bunch of fish, no castles.”
Jamie was looking at him in contemptuous disbelief. “People went to the moon, you coward. You didn’t go down far enough. For magic to work, you gotta believe, you gotta take a leap.” Jamie stood over Joey and folded his arms across his chest like an army commander. “Try again.”
“I’ll drown,” Joey shook his head. “I’m not taking the risk for you, I’m not stupid. You don’t know there are castles down there, and I sure didn’t see any.” Jame began stroking his way toward the shore.
But just as he reached the edge, Jamie blocked his path and stepped on his hand. “Ow, stop,” Joey said, “what your you doing, you freak?”
“Building your character, you lazy bastard. My basket ball coach says never be a quitter.” Jamie bent over and shoved Joey’s head – hard – under the water. I could not believe what I was seeing. Joey was thrashing hard, and all I could see of him at first was his flailing arms. Bubbles gurgled up amid all the splashing. Jamie was going too far. I knew I should do something, intervene, but I was too stunned.
To my relief, Jamie finally removed his hand and let Joey come up for air. Joey was panting and gasping and coughing. “You have a choice,” Jamie said. “I can let you take a good deep breath, which means you might live until you reach the castles. Or I can keep pushing your head under the water like I just did. Either way you are going down. Make your choice.”
Joey looked at Jamie in disbelief. “You said I could come up if I needed to.” Jamie turned to me, his eyes pleading with me to take his side, shifting his gaze between me and Pat the Rat, but neither of us moved or spoke. Jamie was in charge. Even the air, sky, and trees all seemed to know it.
“You can’t do that,” Joey said.
“Can’t I?” Jamie looked imposing next to Joey even when they were standing side by side. But here, on the shore, Jamie towered over Joey and had a clear advantage.
Joey shot a pleading look at me, but I only shrugged. To be honest, I was afraid of Jamie at that moment, I am ashamed to say.
“Okay,” Joey said.
“Think of me as your coach,” Jamie grinned. “You’re gonna thank me so much when you see all the treasure, you’re gonna be so rich, we all are.” Joey looked at me in one last desperate plea for rescue, and when I said nothing, I could see a look of something like hurt betrayal in his eyes. Joey shook his head a little, took a deep, tremulous breath, and took a decisive dive beneath the surface.
About two minutes later I looked at my watch. No Joey. It suddenly hit me what a bad plan this was. Even if there were castles in the water, it would take hours to infiltrate a castle, steal carefully guarded treasures, and return them to whatever portal opened into our world. Even if he could do all that, how would he get the heavy gold to the surface?
I had the thought, which I had had many times, that Jamie was an idiot. Which meant I must have been too, for letting him rule over us that day.
I never saw Joey bob to the surface. The feeling his absence created was sickening. The stillness of the water seemed like the stillness of death. Jamie only shrugged. “Good sign. He must have made it. We have to give this time. I bet this time tomorrow he will be here, easy street from here on, for all of us.”
Pat the Rat was glaring at Jamie in a way that expressed my sentiments perfectly. Whatever hypnosis Jamie had pulled off earlier had been broken. “We should probably call an ambulance,” Pat the Rat said in a nervous tone. “What if he drowns?”
“And ruin everything?” Jamie said. “Look, this is going just the way I planned. Did you really think he would be back in a few seconds? Stealing treasure from a heavily guarded palace takes time, you dummy, trust me.” How he won that argument is still a mystery to me, but I do know that we were both terrified. We wanted to believe him. And knew we could be in serious trouble if Joey had died.
“My only worry,” Jamie said, “is that the bastard will betray us. What if he likes there better than here and wants to stay and roll around in all the gold?”
We all went home, although I did not sleep that night. I was anxiously hoping to wake up and discover that the night before had been a bad dream. Maybe, I thought, I would see Joey at school. But he was absent, as I had known he would be.
The school day dragged on with excruciating slowness. That night we all returned to the lake and waited for the castles to reappear. Just as the shadows of twilight claimed the sky, the castles came, stretching out long and clear along the surface. But Joey did not emerge.
I was beside myself. I knew with sickening clarity that Joey was dead. I hated myself for being taken in by a stupid bastard like Jamie. I had known all along he was more air than substance. Why had I gone along? I knew I had to tell someone. What would his parents think if he never came home? But I knew it could mean big trouble for me. For all of us.
Back at home, I felt so queasy, I walked around for half an hour with a lined plastic mop bucket. I felt the dread of someone being lowered into hell by a slow elevator.
With a dry mouth and a trembling hand, I sat down with a pen and a sheet of notebook paper. I wrote a garbled letter of confession apologizing, which I considered delivering to his parents after school. What would happen? Would I go to jail? I felt like I was writing a suicide note.
I went to school in body only, prepared to be miserable the whole day because of memories from the night before. I had never come closer to wanting to die, and have not since that day. I literally felt sick, and I was on the way to the office to call my mom to pick me up when I saw him, a vision as bright and as startling as a unicorn, Joey standing next to his locker. He was either alive or he was a very convincing ghost.
For someone recently resurrected, he was dressed casually in his old, faded denim jacket. The relief I felt was more like a tidal wave than a spring shower on a hot day. “Joey!” I called his name. And again, “Joey!”
He barely turned. As soon as he saw me, he looked away. I rushed toward him. I wanted him to tell me everything was okay, that there was no harm done, and that he forgave me for going along with stupid Jamie. But he never looked at me, never spoke.
I am not sure why I returned to the Ivy Mansions that night. Maybe it was because of a small – and ridiculous – hope that everything could seem normal again. Or because I needed to be with people who knew what had happened, or I would be alone. But I regretted my visit the minute I got there.
Jamie kicked a rock into the lake. “Bastard,” he said. “I bet he kept all the loot to himself. Betrayed us. But there has to be more down there. Maybe one of us can go see.” He looked at Pat with a hopeful glimmer. When Pat shrugged, Jamie looked at me with raised eyebrows.
At that moment I saw a white-hot flash, and something inside me came undone. I swung a fist at Jamie, felt the solid impact of his jawbone against my knuckles. I cannot remember what all happened next, but I know he struck back. My memory after that is just a chaos of hitting and kicking. I think even Pat the Rat entered the fray, on my side, at one point.
That was the last day I ever saw the castles. It was tragic because they were so beautiful and rare, and it was not their fault that Jamie was a bastard. But I was not a fan of them anymore. Still, they never went away in my memory, even after a couple of years later when the lake was drained and the empty space was filled for more apartments, a low income government housing project.
I never learned exactly how Joey escaped, but he was a skilled swimmer. He must have swam to another part of the lake without any of us seeing him and crawled out. But it is hard to imagine because he would have had to walk home in his underwear.
Even though Joey lived, the betrayed look on his face has always haunted me, and worse, the fact that I had only watched. He could have died, and his drowning would have been partly my fault. Sometimes I like to imagine that he really did find a castle entrance; that he strolled triumphantly through its gardens and corridors, infiltrated the treasury, and came away with magnificent wealth.
I still wish I knew why the castles were there. Like so many things, they are still a mystery. And because the lake is gone, I have no evidence that they ever existed.
Instead of cracking the mystery, I learned about the kinds of things people do when they discover one. There were people like Jamie who could not stand a mystery even for a moment and needed an answer right away, even if he had to make one up. And there were people like me who knew better but stepped aside and said nothing.
Provable or unprovable, the castles made a lasting impression on me. All my life, since seeing them, I have viewed the universe as a place of infinite castles. Uncertainty is a tender state, and there is infinite beauty inside that tenderness.
But like all tender things, it is fragile. A question mark can be steamrolled into something flat, unless someone is willing to say that sometimes the mystery is enough, and that, until we can do better, we should let it be what it is.