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who
could possibly say anything unpleasant about him. She regretted it
instantly when he beamed at her. What an infuriating ability!
    ‘ So ... how
does it work?’ she asked. ‘I mean, can you tell if
someone is thinking about you even if they’re far away?’
    ‘ Yes,’
replied Ralph. ‘It is quite hard to explain. When someone
thinks about me, I can hear their voice in my head. I can sense
their location too. The more they think about me, the more accurate
I can be.’
    ‘ Can you see
what they’re doing as well?’
    ‘ No! I can
only tell the town or area that they happen to be in at that moment.’
He laughed at Alice’s obvious sense of relief. ‘Perhaps
we could fly together sometime?’
    ‘ Perhaps,’
said Alice, trying not to sound too keen. ‘Where do you fly?’
    ‘ In the forest
near the lake,’ said Ralph. ‘It would be nice to have
company.’
    ‘ Wonderful!’
beamed Christina. ‘Another Finwip who can fly, of a similar
age too! I am so pleased.’
    ‘ Another freak
with too many abilities you mean,’ said Thomas under his
breath. ‘Just what we need!’
    Ralph glared at him.
Alice smiled as Thomas realised his error and bit his lip.
    ‘ Why don’t
you tell Ralph about your abilities?’
suggested Thomas.
    ‘ I think
Grandad already has.’
    ‘ Please,
remind me,’ said Ralph.
    ‘ Oh, I don’t
like to boast. Apart from super-intelligence and flying, I can
communicate with animals, swim very fast and I have an acute sense of
smell.’
    ‘ That all
sounds quite normal to me,’ replied Ralph kindly.
    ‘ Does it?
Well, I can also speak to dead people.’
    ‘ Finwips and
Sinwips specifically,’ added Thomas, delighted that his sister
had outdone Ralph in the abilities department.
    Ralph’s eyes
widened. He looked impressed but slightly unnerved. ‘That is
... er ... an unusual ability, Alice,’ he admitted.
    ‘ Our village
is quite unusual, I am told,’ said Christina, tactfully
changing the subject.
    ‘ Quite
decadent, I would say!’ replied Thomas, running his fingers
over a tapestry hanging on the wall.
    ‘ Unfortunately
these things do not really belong to us. When this village was
created many years ago, all these objects were discovered. Many of
these rooms were already here. We believe that one of the residents
of Schloss Charlottenburg in the early eighteenth century was a
Finwip, and built their own secret palace underground. We have
simply extended it.’
    ‘ That’s
incredible!’ exclaimed Alice. ‘I’d love to know
who it was!’
    ‘ Me too,’
agreed Ralph. ‘I look at the portraits in the palace and try
to guess who was the Finwip!’
    ‘ I might try
that!’
    ‘ Come, let me
give you a tour. Will you join us for coffee and cake?’ asked
Christina.
    ‘ Yes please,’
replied Alice without hesitation, already trying to imagine how
extravagant the dining room would be.
    ‘ I will catch
up with you in a few minutes, if you don’t mind,’ said
Ralph. ‘I want to change my clothes and release my wings.’

Chapter 5

    Family
Frustrations

    Christina guided
them through elegant drawing rooms, luxurious bedrooms with
four-poster beds and a library that Alice would have killed to have
at home. It boasted a vaulted ceiling, hand-painted to mimic the
night sky. Every bookcase was carved from solid oak and decorated
with intricate engravings of leaves and flowers. She climbed a spiral
staircase to a balcony where she found a matching desk and a green
leather chair. From there she looked down on the room and admired
thousands of books stored carefully behind fine gilded trellis ...
until something distracted her. Ralph. He slipped in to the room
and looked all around for her, his wings clipping the top of the
enormous doorway. His Finwip robes were exactly the same shade of
blue as her own, and she had never seen wings of such proportions.
They were so huge, they were quite frightening. But Alice couldn’t
deny they looked amazing.
    Thomas looked