The Castle: Prequel to the Guardian Angel Series

by Melissa Johnson

  ***

  “Where have you been?”

  When Heather appeared at the Castle, the worst possible person asked her that question. Thaddeus. In her room. He reclined on her bed, his long legs crossed at the ankles. Adding to the impression he presented of having every right to be there – besides his disconcerting physical resemblance to Eric – he held an open book, as if he’d been passing the time reading while he waited.

  He’d asked his question casually, with no hint of accusation. She, however, did not leave accusation out of her tone when she replied. “I may not have a teaching position, thanks to you, but I’m still on call as a Guardian. One of my Subjects became lost in a blizzard.”

  She brushed snowflakes from her coat and removed her hat and gloves. No one could doubt from her red nose and the color in her cheeks that she’d been out in the cold for some time. When she’d left Dragon’s Keep, she’d instinctively made a detour. She was glad now she had.

  Heather trembled with cold and the aftermath of her visit to Dragon’s Keep. She walked to her fireplace to warm her hands, pausing only to turn on some lights and dispel the intimacy. She wanted to rage at Thaddeus for invading her privacy, but refused to give him the satisfaction. “I didn’t know I had to check in with you before doing my job.”

  “Now you do.”

  She shot him a startled glance.

  “I have been very patient, Heather.” Thaddeus swung his legs off the bed and walked toward her, speaking softly. “I’ve given you time and let you huddle with your ridiculous friends. I’ve let you avoid me and glare at me from a distance. I’ve let the Guardians take their lead from you.”

  He stopped close to her. “But that is about to change.”

  “How so?” Her heart raced at the implications, but she angled her chin.

  “It is time to implement some rules for the Guardians.”

  “What kind of rules?”

  Thaddeus shrugged. “Guidelines for the selection of Subjects, additional procedures for logging assignments. Bookkeeping things.”

  Heather relaxed a little. That didn’t sound too bad. Inconvenient, but not ominous. She bit her lip. His rules might make it more difficult to cover her tracks, but somehow she would manage. If she had to account for her whereabouts, so be it. A detour to Dragon’s Keep would simply not be on the books.

  “There are a few more rules.” He handed her the book he’d been holding and smiled as she nearly dropped its unexpected weight. He’d compiled an entire book of Guardian Rules?

  “And you thought I needed my copy tonight? Fine. I will look this over tomorrow.”

  He shook his head at her less than subtle dismissal. “Tonight. You will read it carefully tonight because tomorrow you will present these rules to the Guardians.”

  “Me?” He wanted her to tell the Guardians, her friends and colleagues, about his new rules? Again, just as she’d so recently done with his brother she voiced her refusal. “I will not.”

  “You will.”

  He was so certain. Just as he’d been in the Archive Room. That certainty then had foreshadowed the creation of the Barrier and she dreaded what new revelation this would be.

  Thaddeus smiled and brushed back a loose tendril of her hair. She couldn’t prevent a flinch, but he didn’t seem to notice. “I can hardly wait to hear what you think. Please, Heather, read it now.”

  He said please, which frightened her much more than if he’d pulled her hair. Excitement hummed like an undercurrent through his voice, as though her opinion were…everything. Had everything he had done been for her benefit? She was the one he’d shown the Barrier to first. She was the one he wanted to know about the documents he’d left at Dragon’s Keep. It sickened her. The book she held weighed her down as if it were a physical symbol to confirm she was to blame.

  “I will read it n-now.” For the second time in her life she stuttered, both times in his presence, her tongue tripping over the one thing that would appease him. And make him leave. “But I would like privacy…please. I will let you know as soon as I’ve finished.”

  “I think I will stay.” He ran a finger along her cheek. “Your face is so beautifully expressive.”

  An urgent, rapid knock sounded on her door. “Heather! Are you in there?”

  Heather slumped in relief. Marigold.

  To her surprise, after only the slightest grimace of annoyance, Thaddeus turned away from her and opened the door. Marigold froze, her hand suspended in midair, about to knock again.

  “It appears our Heather is much in demand this night.” Thaddeus raked Marigold’s appearance with an insolent look. “The thought of you joining us does have a certain appeal, but I must decline.”

  He turned back to Heather. “Start with the page I marked. And Heather, think of your friends.”

  Marigold shrank back as Thaddeus brushed past her. She rushed inside and firmly shut the door behind him. “What is going on, Heather? Why was Thaddeus in your room? And where have you been? I’ve been looking for you for hours—”

  Heather held up her hand. “One moment.”

  She set the book on the table. Her fingers shaking, she flipped the pages to his bookmark. She read the first few words and sat down heavily in the nearest chair.

  Marigold read over her shoulder. “Banishment. The punishment for breaking the Rules is banishment? What does that mean?”

  “I don’t really know.” But she suspected this was what Thaddeus meant to hold over her head. Think of your friends.

  She shut the book as if it were a box containing a tangle of venomous snakes. And Thaddeus expected her to release them tomorrow.

  “Eric is right. This has to end quickly.”

  Marigold looked at her oddly. “You say that as if you have spoken to him.”

  Heather bit her lip. She hadn’t wanted to raise Marigold’s hopes if the locket didn’t work to get her to Dragon’s Keep. Now that it had, she desperately needed to confide. “I have spoken to him. I’ve seen him.”

  Comprehension dawned and Marigold looked at her with sympathy. “Oh, you poor thing. It’s worse than I thought. You’ve been so quiet and I know you’ve been grieving. This stress is not good for you. Come on, you should lie down.”

  Heather sighed as Marigold pulled her to her feet and led her to the bed. “I have not lost my mind.”

  “Of course not, sweet.” Marigold pulled back the covers. “Everything will seem better tomorrow. Somehow.”

  “Here, look.” She pulled out the chain of her locket and waited for Marigold to look up.

  When she did her eyes widened. “Heavens! Where did you get that?”

  “Eric gave it back to me.”

  “He’s here?” Her voice rose and she repeated her question in a whisper. “Eric is here?”

  “No.” She grimly recalled his dark expression when she’d left the Council Chambers. “But he wants to be.”

  Heather explained everything, pacing the room as she brought Marigold up to speed. The hardest part was repeating the consequences Thaddeus had laid out. Finally she came to the last moments at Dragon’s Keep.

  “And so I left,” she ended. She turned to Marigold, who had listened without interrupting once and now sat hugging a pillow to her chest. “You see why I couldn’t bring him across, don’t you?”

  “Yes. No.” Marigold laughed weakly. “It’s rather a lot to take in.”

  “It is. But the key to undoing this whole mess is in those journals. I know it is. The Council has had days but they hadn’t even looked at them!”

  “Do they need to? You just said a while ago that Eric was right – that this had to end quickly.”

  Heather let out a shuddering breath. “I know. I just contradicted myself. I was reacting to something Thaddeus said.”

  “What did he say?”

  “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change the fact I alr
eady made my choice. But did I do the right thing?”

  Marigold was silent for a moment. “Heather, do you remember when we use to play make-believe and act out what we’d be if we weren’t going to be Guardians?”

  Heather flung her hands in the air. “This is hardly the time to go down memory lane.”

  “Humor me.”

  “I don’t have any humor to spare.” She didn’t. She pivoted and walked over to the table, staring hard at Thaddeus’ hateful book. The urge was strong to throw it into the fire.

  “Well, let me remind you,” Marigold persisted behind her. “Your favorite game involved us dressing up in fancy hats and pearls while you served us tea. Your guests were me, Seymour Fenton and a collection of teddy bears. You were Lady Something-Or-Other. Remember?”

  “Lady Such-and-Such,” Heather corrected absently.

  “That was it,” Marigold agreed. “Our creativity didn’t extend to inventing clever names, did it?”

  “No, I guess not.” Heather chewed on her nail. Could she buy herself some time? If she read the blasted book and sang its praises could she persuade Thaddeus to put off presenting it to the Guardians?

  “You were always very good at persuasion.”

  “What?” Heather shot Marigold a startled look over her shoulder. Had she read her mind?

  Marigold let out a huff of annoyance. “Will you pay attention? I was just saying how you managed to persuade us to play that game over and over again.”

  Oh, their childhood game. Marigold was nothing if not persistent. Humor her, she’d said. Heather briefly closed her eyes before turning fully, leaning her hips against the table. She gave a very un-Lady-Such-and-Such-like snort. “As I remember it, there wasn’t much persuading involved. Most of the time I had to hunt you down.”

  “That’s right! Seymour and I would hide from you but he would always give us away.”

  In spite of herself, Heather found herself smiling at the memory. “Of course he would. All I had to do was call out ‘Seymour, where are you?’ and listen.”

  Marigold smiled back. “And he’d say…”

  They both said it in unison. “What to do? What to do? What to do?’”

  Marigold chuckled. “He could never handle the suspense. I’d forgotten how you terrorized that boy!”

  “Terrorized?” That smarted a bit. “You make me sound like a bully!”

  Marigold turned serious. “No, Heather. Never that. Once you’d assembled us at your tea party you’d say, ‘this is what we are going to do today and just like that,” she snapped her fingers, “you would soothe Seymour’s fears. Mine too.”

  Heather considered her words. She hadn’t thought of it the way Marigold remembered. “I don’t really think that is what I was doing,” she denied, almost gently. “We were just children playing a game.”

  “We were children who didn’t know what to expect from one day to the next. You could hardly call our childhood sheltered. We saw more choices out in the world then we knew what to do with. I’m glad you didn’t give up. We needed our tea parties.”

  She sighed, the wistfulness hanging in the room.

  Heather frowned. Was this a long version of “don’t give up?” “I appreciate what you’re trying to say…I think, but you forget one thing. After all that work getting you and Seymour to my party, you rarely did what I told you to do!”

  Apparently this was the wrong answer. Marigold threw a pillow at her. “That’s not the point!”

  “Then what is?”

  “For a smart child you grew into an incredibly dense adult.”

  “Then spell it out.”

  “I’m trying to say I’m proud of you for acting like the Heather I remember! When we were kids your persistence got us to the table so we didn’t blindly chase the first choice that came our way. And today was the same with the Council. You got them to the table.”

  “Oh.” So that’s what she was trying to say.

  “You might have been a little rusty, but I’m quite sure Lady-Such-and-Such told the Council what they were going to do today.”

  Heather winced. “That she did.”

  Marigold smiled widely. “Perfect. That’s good enough for me.”