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turned, pulling his heavy sword from the ground and heaving it in an arc around to parry the other man’s strike. My mind immediately moved from the silly explanation I had come to-that this was some sort of Renaissance faire battle reenactment-to again attempt to absorb the truth.
    These men were fighting to the death. Why? Just what was going on?
    The question died in my mind as I caught sight of that castle in the distance, the one on the next hill that had been such a disaster when I’d first sighted it. It was no longer in ruins. The walls were erect, the tower intact. Crimson red flags waved from the battlements, in designs that matched the second knight’s coat of arms, visible on his shield as he raised it to deflect the first knight’s repeated blows.
    My eyes went back to the castle. It was as if I’d traveled back in time. Impossible. I was dreaming. I had to wake up.

    Wake up, Gabi! Wake up!
    I pinched myself and shook my head, slapped my cheeks, but the two small armies were still before me and that castle hadn’t changed a bit. Those two guys-princes from the castle or what?-fighting for what reason? My hand went to my head as I struggled to remember what little I knew of medieval history. We’d covered a bit last year in school, and my parents had always tried to plant kernels in our minds, hoping they’d somehow grow up into some harvest of historical knowledge, but what I really knew was Etruscan history, culture. Anything in the last couple of thousand years was still pretty fuzzy in my head.
    The crimson knight whistled and shouted at two men nearby, gesturing toward me. The hot knight glanced over his shoulder and frowned, then shouted at his own men.
    Suddenly six knights were in a dead run, all heading in my direction. But when they met, they began to fight one another. My heart pounded, and I turned, intending to escape into the forest behind me. But there was another knight-by the color of his tunic I could tell he was from the scarlet-flagged castle-steadily approaching me. He must have sneaked around the tomb, intending to surprise me. He rose from his crouch and smiled, as if this were some game, capturing me. I could hear the fighting continue behind me, a shout, a cry, as if another had been wounded.
    The knight was coming closer. I retreated until my back hit up against the curved wall. I fought for an idea, an escape route out of this terrible nightmare. Madly, I thought about dashing back into the tomb, but he’d be on me in a second.
    This was no dream; my attacker was real, leering, scanning my body as if he had never seen a girl in pants. I paused. Maybe he hadn’t. Suddenly I was aware of my skinny jeans and my cami top, barely covered by a thin cardigan that reached my elbows.

    He laughed, lowly, and was now close enough for me to see he had green eyes. And really bad teeth. He lifted his sword tip, studying me as it reached my throat. There was no rounded nub, as with the fencing swords my father and I used. This was broad and so sharp I feared he would actually cut me. I stayed as still as possible. But it was hard. I was shaking pretty badly.
    He asked me something in Italian, but in a dialect that made me pause for a moment. Slowly, my mind translated. “Are you a witch?”
    “A…a witch?” I returned in Italian, frowning.
    “A witch,” he repeated. “I saw you. Saw you come out of there. And your clothing…” He moved forward, changing the sword from tip to side at my throat in order to keep me in place, and allow him closer. He reached a hand up to my hair. “Your hair. No one allows their womenfolk to parade around as such. Are you a witch or are you a Norman?” He spit out Norman as if it were a foul word, referring to the French to the north.
    “I am no witch. I am from-” I clamped my lips shut. He wouldn’t believe me if I told him. “Look, you big jerk,” I said in English, finding strength in my frustration. “You don’t want to know where I’ve