Protected by Stone (A Paranormal Romance Novel) (25 page)

“Did you know,” I whispered, “that everyone in the town is going to lose their homes over this?”

Grault leaned on the wall, peering out at the foggy glass. “Would you rather we lose our home?”

“
We?
” I asked, staring him down. “Are you worried about the house, or yourself?”

The fire in his eyes made them into liquid tar. “I am worried about
you
as well, Farra!”

“Only so far as it keeps you from turning into a statue again,” I spat.

“No!” he snarled, jumping at me so fast it left me breathless. His hands gripped my upper arms, trapping me. The lantern fell to the floor. “It was never so simple as that!”

I couldn't blink, couldn't move. He was strong enough, wild enough, that I knew he could tear me to shreds.

So why wasn't I afraid?

My throat was raw as I spoke. “Then what? What was your end goal, if not to keep me trapped here, to keep this place going so you could live?”

“I wanted to live with
you!
” His breath was hot on my face, welcome in the chill. That guttural voice made a mist between us. “I didn't simply want to live, Farra. I wanted you to
want
to stay with me. Yes, at first it was simply a relief that you would come here. Who yearns for death?”

Funnily, my mind thought of the revenants. I said nothing, I wanted to hear him.

“Farra,” he said, softer that time. “All I wanted was for you to love me, to want to stay here with me. The truth is that
I
cannot leave, I'm bound to protect the magic here. If things fail...”

Looking away, I hung my head. “Things have already failed. Everything is a mess, all because Tessa fell in love with that sylph.” My chuckle burned like acid. “We're suffering because of another person's choices.”

“Love isn't a choice.” He pulled me in, a roughness in his lips. He needed me,
needed
me to know how he felt.
He really does love me.
Distantly, I noticed I wasn't shocked.

A dam broke inside of me. Crumbling against his chest, I kissed him back harder than he ever had with me. I was hungrier, desperate for his touch.
The world is going to end for us. Buried in snow. Is this just how it was meant to be?

“No,” I said suddenly, pushing him back.

“What?” He blinked in confusion.

Brushing my hands up his jaw, I held him still. “No, we can't just accept this. There has to be something we can do! A way to save everyone.”

Grault pulled me back, cradling my head to his chest. “Everyone?”

His coat felt good on my cheek, scratchy like stubble. “Yes, a way to save you, this place, and the town.”

Those long fingers brushed through my hair. “Why didn't you mention yourself?”

I parted my lips, then closed them.

“Farra,” he said crisply, taking my chin in his grip. I had no option but to look at him. “Why didn't you name yourself?”

“Because... because it's obvious I mean myself, too,” I stammered.
Don't I?

His eyes said he didn't believe me. It was his slow understanding that gave me a chill. I knew the look of someone who'd come to a conclusion. “I know what to do,” he said.

“What?” I asked excitedly.

He moved to the bed, wrapping the blanket around me in a single motion. Swaddled tight, I gasped when he lifted me in his arms. “Grault! What are you doing?”

“The lantern has to stay here while I figure out how to fix this,” he said. His steps took us towards the window. I
felt
him shifting, heard the leathery sound of his wings appearing. “But you, Farra. You don't need to be here. You can be somewhere safe.”

Chilly wind hit me in the face. “No!” I shouted, flinching at the snowflakes. He hugged me close, my stomach free-falling when he jumped into the winter sky. “Grault, no! Stop!”

He wasn't listening. The noise of his wings mixed with the wind, I couldn't hear my own shouts, my plea for him to turn back.
He's serious, he's going to get me out of here.

He thinks he can fix this alone.

It was an exhilarating ride, but it didn't last long. The distance he could move was stunning, the clouds of snow breaking on the horizon line. That amazed me, seeing how the storm had a defined end point. It was too surreal.

I knew we'd flown over Barrow Village, but he was taking me further. The next village was miles away, only just touched on the edges by snow. It was safe from the danger of the sylph.

It was what Grault was looking for.

Gently, he swooped to a landing in the hills. The ground was white, but yards away, green existed. It was late, but it made me wonder how it would have looked to have the sun beaming down, rubbing elbows with a blizzard.

The instant he touched, placing me on my feet, I shrugged out of the blanket. “What do you think you're doing!?”

“Go, stay in that town,” he said, looking behind at the black sky. “I need to hurry back before the sylph tries to enter the house and get the lantern. It isn't safe alone—”

“
You're
not safe alone!
”
I shouted, fighting the urge to slap him. “Are you insane? You can't leave me here and handle this by yourself!”

His smile broke down my wall, left me vulnerable to his abrupt kiss. It was short, too short. “Stay here. I promise, I'll fix everything. I said I would protect you, I meant it.”

Opening my mouth, my argument died in the burst of air from his wings. Grault took off into the sky, flying as no creature should have been capable of. In seconds, he was a speck in the distant snow storm.

Clutching the blanket, I gave it a hard squeeze. “Dammit!”
How could he do this?
I was sure his heart was in the right place, but he was insane to think he needed to handle this alone.

Tightening my jaw, I looked at the nearby town. Grault was wrong, I wouldn't sit idly by while he put himself in danger. However, I knew that there was no way I was getting through miles of snow as I was.

I needed supplies.

****

“E
xcuse me,” I said, rolling my shopping cart up next to the clerk. “I'm looking for a few items.”

He looked me over, clearly spotting the blanket I'd draped over my back like a cape. Proper as a peach, he ignored what I was wearing. “What can I help you find?”

“I need something that will let me walk through...” I scrunched up my face. “Hm. Is there any chance the train is running from here to Barrow Village?”

“No, ma'am,” he said, shaking his head rapidly. “No trains are going anywhere in that direction until the storm clears.”

I figured as much.
“Alright,” I mused, “then I'm going to need gear to help me through, say, ten miles of snow?”

He didn't try to hide his disbelief. “Excuse me?”

“I need to get through the snow. I know, it sounds crazy, I get it. Can you just direct me to what I'll need?”

The clerk stared me on, full in the face. When I didn't flinch, he began walking down the aisle. “This way, ma'am. I believe you're going to want some snowshoes.”

That wasn't the only thing he suggested.

Checking out of the store, I toted new boots, new gloves, a face mask and a thicker coat.

When Grault had told me before, that I would never want for anything, I didn't think he'd imagined I'd be spending the money left for me like this. Layering everything on, I ignored the stares people gave me in the parking lot.

The town of Fog Water was bigger than Barrow Village, but only just. It was made smaller than usual, too, because it was packed with people. It didn't take me long to realize many of them were from Barrow Village.

They fled to here,
I thought sullenly, seeing all the stressed faces.
They've lost their homes, what will they do now?

I wouldn't let myself think about it. If I fixed everything, they'd have their town back.

With new determination, I headed for the train tracks. I didn't get far before I spotted a familiar face, the two of us mirroring our surprise.

“Farra,” Dirk said, pushing his hat high. “You won't find a train here, if that's what you're waiting for.”

I started to smile, but it faded away. “I'm—I'm so sorry about your town, Dirk. I'm going to fix it, don't worry.”

He stepped close, eyeing my outfit, then the snowshoes in my grip. “You're not going to walk all the way back to that house, are you?”

“I have to, it's the only way.”

“The only way to
what?”

Bending down, I started stringing on the shoes. “To stop the snow, to save Grault.”

The doctor hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. “I feel like I missed some important details. What are you saving someone like
him
from?”

Someone like him.
I lifted my eyes, pulling the knots tight. “You know what he is?”

“I don't,” he grunted, “just know the man hasn't aged a day since I first met him over thirty years ago.”

Standing straight, I peered at his face thoughtfully. “Why do you and him not get along? I don't get it, you both cared about Tessa, I'd think you'd have been friends.”

His laugh was harsh, it turned into a cough. I reached for him, but he brushed me off with a wave. “Friends. Well. I'd say the fact we both cared for her was the problem. I'm positive Grault knew what I felt for Tessa, my gut says he never liked that. Maybe he was scared of me taking her away, lord knows she'd have never done it.” He spoke with an empty smile, a joke that had no punchline.

It was a tender spot for him, I knew it. But I suspected he could answer something for me. “Dirk, why did she never give you a chance? Even after everything?”

His hat was tugged low, so low. I could see nothing but his hard frown. “Oh, Farra. Tessa was always holding out in her heart for the person she truly loved. I wished it was me, one sided love cuts like a razor, but it never was.”

I felt a hot flash of jealousy. “Who was it?” In my mind, the picture of Tessa and Grault smiling together rose up like indigestion.

Dirk squinted at me, speaking slow and steady. “You already know. Though she never went back in that lake, that woman always loved the sylph. I never understood, but what's in our hearts only need answer to us, no one else.”

A weight I hadn't known was there lifted away. Sliding on the face mask, I glanced at the tracks. “I think I understand. But, that makes me realize something sort of scary.”

“What's that?”

My hands toyed with the flashlight I'd bought, flicking it on. I felt naked without Tessa's lantern. “If it was always the sylph, that means that creature... and Tessa...”
Could that creature be my grandfather? How is it even possible?

He said nothing at first. Then, those watery eyes found mine. “Yes. We were all shocked when she turned out to be pregnant.”

Grault was scared of me calling him a monster, when all along, I'm part of one myself. Did my mother know who her dad was?
I chuckled, not bothering to explain why. “I wonder if creatures like that can love back, if they have hearts.”

“Every living thing has a heart.”

Dirk sounded so sure, it caught me off guard. “How can you say that, with how you felt for her?”

His shrug was quick, tight. “It would hurt
more
to imagine she loved something that
didn't
love her back.”

Shining the light on the tracks, I climbed down. “You might be right, I think. I hope you are. It would be a sad story otherwise.” Before I got far, he jumped down next to me. The hug crushed my air out, left me dizzy and smiling.

“Farra,” he said, holding me at arms length. “I told you before, you don't need to go to that house. You can always leave, wait for a train out of here, just go.”

I hugged him even harder than he had me. The storm was at my back, and Dirk was bathed in the warm light of the town. “Thanks, you've helped me so much.”

“Farra—”

“I have to do this,” I said, turning my light towards the blizzard. “I am the caretaker, after all.”

With the beacon guiding me, I walked off into the chilly night.

––––––––

I
t was a brutal trip.

I could not have said how long I walked. In the black hole of the storm, surrounded in the painful caress of ice, time had no meaning.

Starting out on the tracks had been a good decision. The snow didn't begin to slope into an amorphous blob until I glimpsed the shape of buildings.

Barrow Village was unrecognizable. The empty homes and businesses sank my stomach. Nothing lived there, just the song of the wind wavering between the structures.

Hunkering my head low, I climbed across the snow drifts and into the hills. It hadn't occurred to me that I would have trouble finding my house. But, the snow was so deep the path was invisible.

I walked on top, grateful for the snowshoes that carried me like a boat on water. My flashlight was useless. The beam extended a few feet in front of me, eaten by the confetti of white.

The extra layers I wore did nothing for me either. Frost cut through to my bone, moving me from cold, to stiff and numb.
I can't feel anything, will I lose my fingers and toes from this?

Shielding my eyes, I walked faster.

I can't see anything! I don't know if this is the right way. Everything looks the same out here.

Icy wind yanked at my face mask, threatening to steal the air from my lungs. Every sign was telling me to turn around. I wasn't positive that turning around wouldn't leave me even more lost.

Just keep going, just keep going...
My shoe caught against my ankle, sending me stumbling. The brief shout died, the storm eating the sound ravenously. My flashlight smashed hard, light sputtering into darkness.

On my knees, gloves buried in the snow, I felt the only heat inside of me. It came from behind my eyes.

I won't cry. I can't. There's no time, it's a useless gesture.
Who would cry for me if I died in the snow?
Grault,
I thought, hugging myself hard.
He'd think it was his fault. And Dirk, he would curse himself because he didn't try and stop me.