Protected by Stone (A Paranormal Romance Novel)

by Cynthia Brint

  Bobbing his head, he folded his wings back. The motion startled me. “Yes, I have extremely tough skin, even in human form. There are upsides and downsides to being a gargoyle.”

  “What are the downsides?” I asked, playing with the grooves of his horns.

  “Sunlight,” he sighed, “the rays of the sun will turn my body to stone.” He'd been holding the green chunk of glass. Now, he lifted it up between us. “Except, that is, when filtered through a special glass. Tessa made these windows just for me, so that I could enjoy the daytime. I loath being stone, but need the sunlight to live.”

  Plucking the glass from him, I stared at it in wonder. “Of course. That's why Junlit told me you'd be mad if I opened the windows, the sun would—oh, Grault. If I'd known, I wouldn't have gotten so mad the times you wouldn't come into town with me.”

  Shuffling in place, he shrugged to his pointed ears. “It's something I hate. I'd like nothing better than to walk with you, to help that way, and yet I cannot.”

  I knew all too well the frustration of failure, to feel like I was disappointing someone. And all along, he was the one feeling like a disappointment.

  I hadn't planned to kiss him. Placing my hands on his jaw, I didn't fight my urge. I tasted his shock, marveled at how much more rigid someone made of stone could feel when they froze.

  Nudging his nose, I leaned back enough to smile into his wavering eyes. “Sorry. You were getting too broody.”

  “You really aren't scared of me,” he whispered, “are you?”

  “No,” I said, pausing. “Not of you.” I didn't need to explain. I turned to stare at the busted window, snow piling on the floor below it.

  Grault lifted me up, sitting me on the counter. Then he crouched, beginning to pick up all the green glass, piece by piece. “We need to fix this. Luckily, the storm should keep the sun out for awhile until it's back together.”

  “That storm is why the lights don't work,” I mumbled. “No sun for the power-cells. Grault, what do we do? That sylph wasn't supposed to be able to leave that lake, right?”

  The glass clinked when he set it on the counter beside me. “I thought it couldn't, I don't understand how it did it.”

  Looking down at the wet floors, my heart shuddered. “I think I know how.”

  He stiffened, peering at me under hooded brows. “Tell me.”

  “The snow,” I said, holding my head tight. “That has to be it. I saw the path it made outside, it must go all the way to the lake. This snow helped it, allowing the sylph to come here... to come through that window.” A window I left unlocked the day I made marigold tea.

  My companion tucked his chin to his collar bone. “I'm so stupid. Of course, that sylph is causing the snow, that's why it hasn't stopped. It's been using all its power to build up a path made of water, to come here and get you.”

  “No.” Lifting the lantern, we stared at the warm glow. “It wanted this. You saw, right? I think it started out wanting me, but something about Tessa's lantern made it try to steal it. It wasn't pulling me out the window, it was pulling this.”

  Stepping close, he touched the beacon of light tenderly. “You're right. But why Tessa's lantern?”

  “There must be something about it.” Studying it closely, my brain worked through the entire attack. “Something that even the house itself wants to protect. You saw the window. It seemed to actually bite down, right? You were the one who told me it was alive.”

  “This house is special,” he said, eyeing the ceiling. “Ever since I've been here, Tessa acted like she loved this building. She hardly left it.”

  I shook my head, thoughts bouncing like moths trapped in a covered candle. “She loved a lot of things, it sounds like. That doesn't help us now. Grault, that sylph is going to come back, what do we do? How do we... how do we kill it?” Asking something so bluntly made it feel real. I understood that everyone in that house would never be safe as long as we stayed there.

  From the doorway, a flat voice spoke. “It cannot be killed, Farra Blooms.” Qui'nxious stood, ever still and straight. “Sylphs are nature itself, they cannot die.”

  Grault's throat rumbled. “Then what are we supposed to do?”

  I had the answer. “Give it what it wants.”

  “What?” The gargoyle whipped his head towards me.

  “We give it the lantern,” I said, my excitement growing. “Then I'll—we'll—all be safe! Right?” My attention was on Qui'nxious. I felt he would know, he'd seemed so informed so far.

  His tiny fingers came together, then spread apart in a wave. “Ah. If you give away the lantern, Farra Blooms, the house will lose its magic.”

  I went to speak, but it was Grault who was faster. The level of rage in his tone made my neck taut. “What!? What are you saying?”

  Qui'nxious tilted his beak down, like he was bowing, or being sympathetic. “I'm telling the truth. You saw how the house reacted when it realized what was going on. If the light leaves, the magic will go. You must have noticed, Grault, that Tessa never left the grounds with that lantern.”

  Wrinkling my brow, I glanced between them both. “So what? I'm not using magic, I can't use magic, we don't need it. I've got us electricity, we've got heat and food, and I'll make things better! I'm sure I can get a real plumber in here and then... well... Grault?”

  He wasn't looking at me, he hadn't blinked for some time. His target was the thin revenant. “If the magic leaves... I'll have failed to protect this place, protect it as Tessa bid me to. Is that what you're saying to me?”

  “What?” I asked, thinking I was missing a thread of the conversation. “What do you mean? Grault?”

  Qui'nxious swayed in the gentle breeze of the winter wind. “I only know there will be no magic to protect, not as it used to be. If the lantern leaves, things will change. Yes.”

  The gargoyle slammed his fist into the wall, sending snow crumbling from the window sill. The thunder of it shook the house, shook my core. “Grault?” I said softly, licking my lips. “I'm lost. Why does it matter if things... change?”

  His wide wings flexed, agitated. “Farra, I told you there were downsides to what I am. When Tessa brought me back into existence, it created a bond.”

  I didn't like the sound of that.

  “My duty, my oath,” he went on, not looking at anything but the floor, “is that I would always protect this house. If the house changes... if it is no longer a safe haven as Tessa wished it to be...” Clenching his fangs, he looked at me from the corner of one black eye. “I will become a statue again. It will be the end for me. I can't—I won't—endure that again.”

  Become a statue... again? I'd assumed, apparently wrongly, that Grault had just come to the house on his own. But was he saying he'd been trapped as a statue before, that Tessa had brought him back? I was finding more fragments of things he'd said, linking them with growing amazement. “How old are you? You told me you were thirty-one, but that was a lie, wasn't it?”

  “It was,” he said quickly, “I couldn't tell you then that I had been around for much longer. Tessa brought me back to life. She took my statue, a forgotten relic, and gave me something new to protect!”

  That was how he remembered my mother so well, how he was helping my own grandmother even back then. He wasn't a kid, or even a teenager, he was... just this. A gargoyle.

  But that wasn't what bothered me. I had forgiven the lies about what he was, sweeping his age into the equation seemed natural.

  “The house,” I whispered. “When Tessa died, you needed me to come here. To take over before everyone left, before it changed—as you put it—because you knew what it meant for you.”

  His horns melted, his wings crumbling into his back. He was a man again, the man I'd fallen for, with a face full of guilt. “Can you blame me for not wanting to face eternal oblivion?”

  I slid off the counter, stepping around the last of the glass. “You knew it was to your advantage that I stayed, is that it?”

  His hesitation
hurt the most. “Yes.”

  “Is that what you were trying to do with your picnics and—and making me—” I bit my tongue. I couldn't admit that he'd made me love him. “Did you do it all to keep me here?”

  “No!” he growled, and I had to look for his fangs to make sure they were still gone. “Not like that, I... I did want you to stay, but I never...”

  “Never what? Never lied?” We both knew that was pointless to try and claim. Inside, I felt like I'd swallowed the very glass from the floor. Had Grault been just tricking me, keeping me in the house for his own reasons? Not reasons of love, but of self-preservation?

  Qui'nxious leaned away so I could brush past him. I heard Grault call to me, but I kept walking. In the room of stairs, I found all the revenants. Were they waiting for me here this whole time?

  “Farra,” Vibbs squeaked nervously, “what are we to do?”

  “I—what?”

  “The sylph,” Koga (or was it Coga?) said. “This is supposed to be a safe place, but are we safe?”

  The back of my neck burned. Thinking of Grault, of how upset I was at his falseness, I inhaled deeply. I wouldn't lie. “No,” I admitted, “we aren't safe here any longer.”

  The uproar was immense.

  “What do we do?”

  “Where do we go?”

  “Farra? Farra!”

  I heard their cries, but I had no answers. Turning, I pulled myself up the stairs and towards my room. I didn't know if I could sleep, I just knew I couldn't be around anyone right then.

  I didn't want anyone to see me crying. I felt like I'd been hiding my tears an awful lot since I'd come to that house.

  ****

  I hadn't slept, not really.

  The snow covered up half the front door by morning. Sitting at my window, I stared outside and wondered where the sylph was. With no lights, just thick clouds above, the house was unwelcoming. Shadows lived there, nothing more. Maybe I'll become a shadow, too, I thought bitterly.

  In the kitchen, I was surprised to find that the window was glued back together. I imagined Grault, staying up until the late hours just to do it.

  The sight of the room unsettled me, I didn't spend long in there.

  Wandering around in a daze, it occurred to me that I hadn't seen anyone at all. My only company was the lantern, something I hadn't let out of my sight.

  Exhausted, I entered the one room that had provided me with answers. Tessa's painting looked back at me, my only company as I sat at her desk.

  For a while, I gazed at the cover of the photo book. I'd learned so much overnight, and now, that collection presented another world.

  A world with smiling faces and happy memories.

  What am I supposed to do? Flipping the pages, I hardly looked at them. Grault says he'll be doomed if I give up the lantern. If I keep it, the sylph is bound to come back and hurt us, hurt this place, again.

  And we can't kill that monster.

  What do I do?

  My eyes rolled over the photos, landing on some that made me slow down. There was a very young Tessa playing in the snow with her dog, with her mother, and what I imagined was her father. They were all wearing hats and gloves, the colors muted. Flipping the photo over, I saw the writing. 'We all got pretty blue winter clothes this year!'

  She looks so happy.

  Turning faster and faster, seeing photos of a girl who looked like me, looked so delighted, I felt a wave of jealousy.

  The next set of photos stopped me cold. My fingers shook, tracing over a picture that could have been me... and next to that girl was Grault. Grault, just as he looked today.

  The two of them were smiling, a look on Grault's face that had seemed so rare.

  My heart was heavy. Leaning back, I shut my eyes, feeling how my skull pounded. Did he use me? Was that all I was to him? A tool to help him keep an oath, to keep him going?

  Part of me didn't blame him. Would I do it, use someone if it was the only thing that could keep me alive?

  Wiping away hot tears, I stared back at the photos. Digging through them showed me some glimpses of a Tessa who was not so happy. I found a scrap of newspaper, an obituary for her father. Doing the math, I realized she was only twelve when he'd died. Heart attack. How awful!

  I knew what it was like to lose a parent that young. I was too painfully familiar. At least she still had her mother for awhile.

  My mind was in a morose place when I saw the glimmer of orange. Sitting up, I leaned sideways. “Vibbs? Is that you?”

  The tiny revenant floated into the study. “Farra,” he said sadly, “it's so dark everywhere.”

  “I know.” I motioned him closer to me. “Here, come by the lantern. I'm sorry about the lights.”

  “It's never been so dark for so long,” he whispered. The way he spoke, I could sense the fear wafting from him.

  I didn't know what to do. On reflex, I tried to curl my arm around him. Amazingly, he snuggled against my shoulder like a kitten. “Vibbs, it will be okay.”

  “I hate the dark,” he said quietly. “The dark is bad, it's scary and awful and bad.”

  “You mean that, don't you?” I asked, sliding the lantern closer. “You're really scared?”

  Vibbs shook, vibrating against me. “The dark does bad things, brings bad things. Scary stuff that's dangerous.”

  “No no,” I said soothingly. “The dark can't hurt you.”

  “It can,” he insisted, “it scares me, it can hurt me. Scary things are dangerous.”

  Glancing around, I tried to find something to say. How did I comfort something like a revenant? “Everyone is scared of things, but... I mean, being scared isn't dangerous.”

  He shifted, looking up at me. “What are you scared of, Farra?”

  Laughing gently, I gave him a half-smile. “A lot of things. My big fear is of tiny places.”

  “Tiny places?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “I hate tight passages, I always get sweaty and nervous inside them.”

  Vibbs was listening closely. “I like small places. They aren't dangerous.”

  My grin was indulgent. “No? That's funny, I just get really scared inside of them.”

  “Why?”

  It was a simple question. I debated giving the complicated answer. “It's not a nice story.”

  He felt warm against my skin. “I'll listen anyway.”

  “You will?” I asked, fighting down my growing unease. It was easier when someone was so fragile feeling, so much more afraid than me. “Alright. If it's too awful, just stop me.” He said nothing, so I took a slow breath. “When I was very little, my parents took us on a drive. It was supposed to be a quick trip, we were going to... to the aquarium,” I said, astounded I recalled that detail. “That's right. I wanted to see the jellyfish.”

  I'd forgotten that.

  “Go on,” he prompted me.

  Telling the story was making my heart pump faster. “My dad looked away for a minute, and when he did, we went off the road. The car flipped...” I paused, shutting my eyes. “Three times. Maybe four. When it was done, I was trapped, crushed inside this tiny corner of the car. I couldn't get out, I was just—”

  Vibbs snuggled me, his soft glow bringing me back from my dark thoughts. There was sweat coating my palms, I rubbed it on my pants. “Sorry,” I whispered. “That's the reason, though. Small places and me don't mix.”

  “What happened to your parents?” he asked, sounding as caught up as me.

  I brushed my hair back. “Dead.” The word stuck on my tongue, sour. “They died.”

  “That feels... familiar,” he mumbled.

  I sat up, blinking down at him. “What?”

  “It reminded me of—of something. Something I think I'd forgotten.” His cryptic words sent a shiver into my bones. It stayed there as he kept talking, almost to himself. “I was little... no. Bigger than I am now, but little.”

  What is he saying?

  Vibbs, too, looked like he was figuring it out as he went. “Yeah.
My parents and I, we were playing hide and seek. I wanted to win, I really did,” he said, his voice rising with ardent wonder. “I found the best spot. I hid in the trunk of the old garbage dump beater. It hadn't moved in years.”

  I swallowed, but my saliva had vanished.

  “That... that was a good spot,” he said to himself. “Yeah. They never found me.” His body, a thing that had been warm before, now grew hot enough to scald.

  I leaned back, but I felt entranced. Before my eyes, the revenant I'd known as Vibbs began to change. I caught a flicker of a human face, a childish smile and rosy cheeks. It wasn't how I'd seen him, but right then, it made the most sense. That was how he always should have looked.

  He smiled at me, but the light became too bright. Shielding my eyes, I heard him speak once more. It was a happy tone, gentle as a kiss. “I remember, now. That was why I was always so scared. I'm not now, I'm not scared anymore. Thank you, Farra. Thanks.”

  My eyelids still saw dots of white, but when I grabbed for him, stared at the place he'd been snuggling my shoulder, Vibbs was gone.

  My ears were ringing, muting the sound of my breathing. I'd witnessed something that was astounding, and I knew it. Something magical and splendid.

  So why was I so sad?

  Looking up, I found Qui'nxious staring at me in his silent fashion. Speaking felt strange, as if I were ruining the moment. “He's gone,” I said hoarsely.

  “Yes,” he nodded, “he is.”

  “Why?” Scrubbing my cheeks, erasing the lines of tears, I tried to calm down. “Why, where did he go? What just happened?”

  “You helped him remember why he was hanging on.” Moving closer, the bird-thing cast no shadow. It was the first time I'd noticed. “You helped him remember his meaning. Vibbs was a memory of someone else. Now, nothing remains.”

  “Hanging on,” I repeated. There was no satisfaction in my smile. “I was right all along, you guys are ghosts.”

  “Memories.”

  “Ghosts.”

  Qui'nxious wiggled his fingers by his head. “Perhaps 'ghosts' is a fair term. Revenants are shed from the magic of the person who came before. They're a fragment, existing for their own forgotten purpose.”