Protection from the Past

I sit.

I watch.

I wait.

I wait for the return of the girl. The one I am sworn to protect. Six hundred years I have waited. But soon I will wait no more. For I feel her. She is coming.

* * * * *

The driver of the car stopped it at the gate to the drive. She and the passenger looked up the hill and then up to the top turret. “A castle,” the passenger said. “Your ancestral home is an honest to god castle.”

The driver closed her gaping mouth and then answered. “I know the lawyer said it was a manor but I thought he meant like a house. Not a castle.”

Her passenger laughed. “Well let’s not sit here gaping. Press the button, open the gate, and let’s check out this castle!”

The girls laughed, somewhat giddy and slightly hysterical. Both were nervous about what they were going to find. Gabrielle, the driver, pressed the button on the remote the lawyer had given her and they watched in awe as the gate in front of them swung slowly open.

Adrienne, her best friend, was the passenger. When Gabrielle had gotten the letter from the lawyer four days ago, she had asked her best friend and business partner to accompany her. The two girls shared the top floor of an apartment building that had originally been two studio apartments. They also co-owned a website design and research company, that was based out of their home. They had brought their laptops with them and the lawyer had assured them that the castle had been updated although no one had actually lived in the building for twenty-five years. Part of the estate had gone to upkeep and modernization over the years. "So explain to me how you ended up with this monstrosity," Adrienne said as Gabrielle pulled slowly up the drive. Both girls were studying the castle, although Gabrielle had to pay attention to the drive. Rising up from the hill, the stone castle was in remarkably good repair. The front portcullis was open, apparently the security trusted the gate at the bottom of the hill to keep people out. There was no moat but since the castle was at the top of a hill, there probably wasn’t much call for it. The rear of the castle looked out over the gardens that ended in an abrupt drop off a cliff. The fence wrapped around the outskirts of the castle but ended at the cliff edge which was too steep for anyone to comfortably climb.

* * * * *

She is here.

Her vehicle is approaching the castle, my home. But I cannot see her, she is hidden by the vehicle.

I want to shift, to move, to try to see her but the sun beats down on me and I am frozen in my daytime pose.

I will have to wait until the sun goes down to meet my charge. I stretch out my hearing to try to catch the sound of her voice. There are two girls there but I know which one is mine.

* * * * *

"Six hundred years ago, the castle was attacked by a bunch of knights. The only two family members to escape were the Lady Brianna and her younger brother, the Lord Alexander. Lady Brianna was thirteen or fourteen. The attacking knights were led by her intended fiancé, whom she had refused. Her brother, the heir to the castle, was a baby of two. Apparently when he was grown, he returned and claimed Lheeah Cloch, but by then Brianna was married and she decided not to return with him. The last person to own Lheeah Cloch was descended from him. I'm the last to descend from Brianna."

"So you're it? There's no one else to inherit Lheeah Cloch?" Adrienne stumbled over the pronunciation of the name. "What does that mean anyway?"

"Yes. I'm it. Oh there's a distant cousin or something but I'm the last in the direct line from Brianna or Alexander. And the name means Grey Stone. Sounds much better in Gaelic, doesn't it?"

“Yes it definitely sounds better in Gaelic. So are we going to explore your castle tonight?”

“Let’s unload the car first and then we can explore after lunch.”

The girls made quick work of emptying out the car and carted their bags upstairs. Gabrielle put her suitcase and laptop case in the lord’s suite and looked around. The bedroom alone was bigger than her half of the apartment she shared with Adrienne and the suite also had a sitting room, which was divided into an office area and an entertainment area, and a dressing room. Adrienne took the lady’s suite that connected to the lord’s suite through an ornate door. Once Gabrielle had set her bags down, she opened the door between the two suites and was amused to discover that it could only be opened on her side.

Adrienne was emptying her bags into the wardrobe in the lady’s dressing room when Gabrielle entered the room. “Leave that for later,” she called to Adrienne. “We’ll eat and explore and unpack right before dinner or bed.”

Adrienne, the more practical of the two, looked up as she put her last sweater in the drawer. “If you leave it till then, you won’t ever unpack. Go pull your clothes out of your bag and put them in a wardrobe. Everything else can stay as it is.” She turned to look at her friend. “Elle, you know you won’t unpack if you don’t do it now. Go unpack and then we can explore.”

Gabrielle sighed. “I know, Adri, but I don’t want to unpack now. I just want to explore.” She knew her protest was in vain. Adrienne was right, she would go and unpack as her friend instructed and then they would explore together.

She made quick work of unpacking her clothes, throwing them haphazardly into her wardrobe and then scampered eagerly back into Adrienne’s room. “Let’s go! I’m unpacked all of my clothes. I left my laptop on the desk. We can do some work tomorrow.”

Adrienne laughed, well knowing how her friend had unpacked. “All right. All right. Let’s go.”

The two friends found the winter kitchen fully stocked and quickly put together sandwiches that they could carry with them as they explored. By mutual consent, they went outside and looked around the grounds first. The gardens were neat but not very imaginative although quite colorful. Both girls were amused to find a hedge maze but decided not the chance it yet. Adrienne was sure that Gabrielle would manage to get them lost in the maze and didn’t feel like having to find their way back out. There was a summer kitchen that had been overgrown with ivy and was now useless but it could easily be cleaned away and the kitchen put back into shape.

Finished with the outside the girls went back inside the castle. The inside was cool and they discussed the problems with heating it. Cooling it didn’t appear to be a problem. Gabrielle hadn’t yet decided if she was going to live in the castle or turn it back over to the estate. The good news was they wouldn’t have to pay much for upkeep since the estate took care of much of it. The bad news was that the castle was pretty far into the countryside and although they did most of their work on-line, some days it would be a long trip in for meetings. The castle was also quite big for just the two of them.

* * * * *

My charge has come outside!

I am thankful that my daytime pose is on the top turret and allows me to clearly see the gardens and the front of the house. She explores the grounds with her friend and I am mesmerized by how the sun glints off her reddish hair. From this angle, she looks so much like my lost Brianna. Alexander had told me that she was happy when he returned to the castle. He believed that I was alive just as she had told him and that I had helped them escape, but without her or someone of her blood here with me, I was unable to move or reply to him.

I watched as she paused by the maze with her friend and was overcome with memories of playing there in the moonlight with Brianna.

* * * * *

The girls explored the inside slowly. They spent some time discussing what they could use the various parlors for. Apparently the last owner was big on entertaining since many of the rooms were set up that way. The two rooms that drew the most attention from the friends were the armour and weaponry room and the library. They both agreed that if they decided to live in the castle, they would hire someone to come in and clean all of the armour and weapons. They had tarnished in the forgotten air. There was no discussion that Adrienne would live in the castle with Gabrielle. The two friends were too close not to live together.

It was when they reached the library that the girls became smitten with the castle. The huge room, at least as big as both suites upstairs, held floor to ceiling bookshelves that towered above both girls. Ladders were spread around the room so that people could reach the higher shelves. The floor of the room was covered in throw rugs with nooks made out of chairs, low tables, couches, and both floor and table lamps.

The two split up so they could cover more of the library at once. As they made their ways around the room, they called out finds to each other. After a few minutes Gabrielle began pulling interesting books off the shelves for them to look at later.

Adrienne laughed when she saw the pile of books Gabrielle had made. “Elle, I don’t think you’ll have time to read all those this weekend.”

Gabrielle looked at her pile and laughed, agreeing with her friend. She motioned to one of the nooks and the two girls settled into opposite chairs so they were facing each other. “Well, I’ve been thinking, Adri.”

“That’s a scary prospect.”

Gabrielle threw a pillow at her friend, smacking her unexpectedly in the face. She hadn’t even had time to put her arms up to protect herself. They giggled at the thwack it made as it connected. “I’m serious here. I want to know what you think about living here. I like it. I think we could even eventually use some of the parlors and expand the business.”

Adrienne pursed her lips, seriously considering her best friend’s ideas. They had been talking about expanding the business but their loft didn’t have room for anyone else to work. This would definitely assist in their plans. Then she studied her friend’s face. It was awash with hope and a touch of fear, fear that Adrienne would deny her idea. “All right, Elle. I think it’s a good idea. We can put up a message that we’re away for a week on site and move in. Shall we keep the suites as our bedrooms?”

That question sparked a debate on to how best set up the castle to work best for them. They worked into the evening, making sketches, discussing plans, and running out of the library to get food or to check something in another room.

* * * * *

I watched my charge go into the castle. I couldn’t see her now but I could hear her and her friend. I could follow them around the interior of the castle as they explored.

I could hardly wait for sun to go down so I could meet her face to face. I knew she was in the lord’s chambers and I would easily be able to get to her there.

* * * * *

Darkness had fallen by the time the two partners had ironed out their plans and they made their way up to their suites in a happy frame of mind. The plans were set, all they would have to do is implement them starting Monday.

Gabrielle left the door open between their rooms as they got ready for bed. They called comments back and forth to each other as they changed. When she was ready, Adrienne called out, “Good night, Elle. I’m turning out my light now.”

“I’m going to read for a little bit. Should I shut the door?”

“Nah go ahead and leave it open. The light by your bed shouldn’t bother me.”

Gabrielle settled into bed with a book she had brought up from the library. It was an old favorite, one she owned but not in hardcover like the one she was reading now. It probably wasn’t the best choice for her first night in a new place, since it was rather spooky but it was one of her favorite books. She snuggled down in the blankets on the bed and immersed herself in the story.

* * * * *

She is in the room now and darkness has fallen so I am free. I stretch, freed for the first time in six hundred years. I am not stiff from holding still for so long but I am stone and do not stiffen as my charges do. To me the last six hundred years have been a blur, a sort of waking sleep while I waited for my charge to return and awaken me.

Now I moved around the turret, making sure I remembered how my limbs worked after all this time. Once I was certain that I could move and not risk falling from the heights, I began the climb down to my charge.

I sank my claws into the stone of the tower, reveling in the freedom I had. I peeked through the window when I reached her room and saw her in the bed, propped up with pillows and reading a book.

Carefully, as quietly as I could, I slipped into the room and padded across the carpet to her bed. Apparently I was quiet enough that she didn’t hear me because she never looked up from the book she was reading. “My Lady,” I greeted her in my rumbling voice. I hadn’t heard my own voice for six hundred years but it was just as I remembered.

I wasn’t expecting the reaction I got. My charge dropped the book into her lap, took one look at me, and screamed.

* * * * *

Gabrielle had just gotten to the point in the story where the heroine creeps up the dark stairway to meet the ghost when a rumbling voice came from beside her. Her reaction, since she had been immersed in the book, was a typical one. Startled by the voice, she dropped her book and screamed.

Adrienne, who had been dozing in her bed, heard the scream, and leaped out of bed. Grabbing the first thing that came to hand, she rushed through the door between the two rooms ready to defend her friend. She skidded to a stop once inside the bedroom, her laptop raised high ready to do damage and gaped at the sight before her.

Gabrielle was sitting in her bed, book in her lap. Beside her bed, seated on the floor was a stone gargoyle. To complete her shock, as soon as she entered the room, he turned around and placed himself between the two girls, growling at Adrienne.

Gabrielle threw herself out of bed, grabbing the neck of the gargoyle and shouting to Adrienne at the same time, “Adri, stop. Put your laptop down. I know what or maybe I should say who this is.”

Willing to trust her friend, Adrienne did lower her laptop, but she kept it clutched in her hands anyway. “This had better be a very good explanation,” she told Gabrielle.

“This is the heart of Lheeah Cloch. He is, for lack of a better word, my protector.”

The gargoyle had settled as soon as Gabrielle touched him and now he sat on the floor, watching the two interact. “I would not harm My Lady,” he told Adrienne.

Adrienne stumbled backwards when he spoke. “It speaks.”

“I am a he,” the gargoyle replied. “You may call me Lheeah Cloch. My Lady Brianna called me Cloch when she needed me quickly.”

Gabrielle patted his head. “Let me explain it to her. Sit down, Adri.” She waited until her friend had perched tentatively on the edge of the bed, carefully watching the gargoyle. “Two hundred years before Brianna escaped from here with Alexander, the Lady of the castle was worried for her daughters. It was not an easy time for women and the Lady wanted a protector for her daughters. When her first daughter was born, she contacted a local carver and had the gargoyle made. Then she met secretly with a witch and had a spell placed on the stone. The gargoyle would come alive at night to protect her daughter and watch over her during the day. Unless she was in danger, he would not be able to move during the day, but he would be freed if she was ever in danger. When Brianna escaped that night, Cloch helped her. Before sunrise, she sent him back to the castle to wait for her. I guess my presence woke him from his vigil.”

“Lord Alexander told me that Lady Brianna would not return,” Cloch broke into her story, “but that some day, her daughter would return and I would protect her.”

“Well it took a few more years than Brianna intended but once again her blood will inhabit the castle,” Gabrielle said, watching Adrienne for her reaction.

“Well I have to admit that this is something I never intended but I think I can live with a gargoyle protector.” Adrienne smiled at him. “Although I will admit it may take a little getting used to.”

Cloch looked at Gabrielle. “This is your friend?”

“Yes, Cloch. Adrienne is my friend.”

“Then I will protect you both for as long as you live at Lheeah Cloch.”