The Ghosts of the Blauschloss

by Margo Ryor | Jun 15, 2016

  August 1635   Mikayla Barnes squinted against the late morning sun bringing the town of Plötzkau into focus. Set well back from the lazy loops of the Saale, it looked exactly like an illustration out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales—just like all the other German...

Pen Pals

by Margo Ryor | Aug 8, 2015

“Princess?” Johanna of Anhalt stopped with one foot on the lowest step of the main staircase and turned her head to see a lay sister in the regulation black dress, white cap, and apron offering her a large folded sheet of good quality paper sealed with red wax. “A...

A Beautiful Friendship: The Beginning

by Margo Ryor | May 19, 2015

  Grantville, Thuringia September 11 1634   Dear Pen-Pal, My name is Mikayla Margot Barnes I am twelve years old and in seventh grade at Grantville Middle School. Ms. Mastroianni, our teacher, asked how many of us would be pen-pals with a girl at Quedlinburg and...