Chapter 3: Part 2: Five Years Later

Five years of returning home before sunset, and you’d think I would have learned my lesson. Nope. I still ran, thumping the forest floor with each rushed step, lungs pumping furiously. I cursed myself for arriving home late again.

Told you to not steal the book, but no…Now you’ll get beaten.

“Shut up. That’s not helping.” My heart pounded as I sprinted down the dirt track I used every night. Five years ago, I had messed up Vanore’s spell. Instead of eradicating the gargoyle, the incantation had turned him into an impenetrable statue during the night—he couldn’t see or move. But when the sun rose, he snapped back alive, and if he didn’t sense me inside the tower, he hunted me down.

The sky grew bluer. Once the first rays climbed over the horizon, the stone gargoyle would awaken and savagely attack me when he found me outside.

Of course, I had visited Vanore’s home two times and left her notes, but she hadn’t been home. Both times, her neighbors had explained she’d gotten injured and had taken an extended vacation by the sea. She’d never come for her payment either, and it worried me to know I’d caused her harm. Still, her home was too great a distance. After each of those escapes, I’d gotten beaten for arriving after dawn, so I’d given up on going to find her. One day I’d pay Vanore back and get her to give me a spell that fully worked.

So I’d been working my ass off helping other people solve their problems to make the money. I’d gotten to know many people, shifters, and fae. The trick was discovering what each offered. So when someone asked for help, I knew who to hire to help them. I ran a referral service and connected clients with people able to do their job.

And despite knowing so many people, I still struggled to make close friends. I ticked the reasons off on my fingers. Telling them where I lived wasn’t possible, I could only meet them during night. Oh, and I spoke to myself. But I didn’t care what anyone thought when all I craved was freedom. They could call me “insane” for eternity, but if it gained me freedom, I’d change my name to Crazy.

Bursting free from the dense woodland, I entered the open ruins. The breeze swooshed through my short, cropped hair. I loved the freedom, its heaviness gone, and the way it had overheated me. A benefit of the spell. Now I felt as light as a bird. If only I had wings.

The first glows appeared on the horizon with the pre-dawn orange gleam. My skin tingled, and dread filled my veins. I trampled over the knee-length weeds that swallowed everything in the clearing except the tower.

The granite structure stood in the middle of the area, vines curling upward around its base like a snake choking it, and the only way in and out was through the arched window three-quarters of the way up the building. An oversized flat roof of slate reminded me of a cage. A weathervane sticking out depicted a man on a horse slaying a dragon. The poor creature was hunted, just like me.

The monster that haunted my nightmares perched on a raised stone platform in the center of the roof, frozen in place, his granite eyes staring right though my soul. My skin crawled.

Hate him. Hate him. Hate him.

“You and me both.”

I stared out over the landscape. Most deemed the ruins haunted. But truth was, the gargoyle killed anyone who accidentally stumbled anywhere near the ruins during the daytime. Which was why I refused to ask for anyone’s help. I’d placed signs around the surrounding woods to scare people from the ruins and encourage the myths about deadly spirits living here.

I leaped over rubble and sprinted toward the tower. An orange hue glowed to my left through the trees. My pulse raced, and I rushed up the tower, gripping the grooves I’d chiseled into the stone for my hands and feet.

Halfway up, the sun’s ray speared upward from the horizon. My heart galloped, and already the spark of energy prickled over my scalp. Goddess, not yet.

You’re too late.

As I climbed the wall, I tried to go faster, but my toe slipped, and I gasped as I dug my fingers into the holes in the wall. Heavy footfalls boomed across the roof.

It’s coming for you.

My veins turned to ice. My head itched as if I’d fallen into poison ivy. My hair grew back in fast motion, the tresses already hitting my shoulders. Fuck!

Keeping my shit together, I scaled up like a spider, my breath wedged in my throat. The window was in sight, and my golden hair cascaded around me, growing at lightning speed like a waterfall. The weight pulled me backward. With every move it felt like I was carrying a mountain on my back.

The ledge was within reach.

There were thunderous steps overhead.

I seized the window frame.

A shadow loomed over me. I held back the strangled cry in my chest. I scrambled inside and threw myself in a forward roll. I landed on my back, heaps of blonde hair spreading around me.

The bag I lay on dug into my spine. I gasped for air, unable to move. My pulse drummed in my ears as I listened for the distinct flap of wings, the grating of stone.

After the longest moments of my life, nothing happened, so I exhaled loudly. “Hell, that was close.”

Really? You don’t say. Tonight’s heist wasn’t worth the risk. You were reckless.

“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong. It was completely worth it.” I pulled myself up to a sitting position, wrestling my arms out of the bag’s straps tangled in my hair.

Movement shifted in the shadows of my abode. Darkness flooded the place, but Gingernuts emerged from the kitchen. His golden fur dragged behind him like a cape, but it grew shorter, magically drawn into his body before my eyes, while my mane grew and slithered outward across the rug like dozens of snakes, wriggling for escape.

At dusk, every day, my long hair withered away and regrew at dawn. Yep, the damn spell from five years ago hadn’t worked entirely, but it had given me freedom during the night. And I embraced it because it offered me time to find a solution to get rid of the gargoyle for good.

Still don’t like the cat’s name. “Princess” suited him fine.

I laughed. “I disagree. He’s a boy with oversized nuts. I’m sure the female cats would love him for it.”

He meowed and spun on the spot, pawing at his long fur to keep it from vanishing. But within moments, he’d morphed back into the tabby cat I’d lured into my high prison five years ago. That same incantation not only put the gargoyle into sleep mode through the night but also transferred my long hair to the cat. It wasn’t as long as mine, but still ridiculously lengthy. I was left with a short-cropped hairstyle, which I loved. That must be why the witch had told me to get an animal for the spell. But if I knew the enchantment would have made the cat the gargoyle’s prisoner, I might have reconsidered, but then again, Gingernuts pranced about at night with his locks as if he were the lion of this castle.

But now, he was my pet, and I adored him.

More like hostage.

“Oh, you’re not a captive, are you, Gingernuts?” I used my baby voice as I always did around him.

He lifted his chin, staring away from me as he hobbled past me on his three legs. But at once, he pounced onto my hair and rolled himself under the mess and covered himself with the strands. He was used to concealing himself because he did it every time the gargoyle neared the window.

“Come here, you.” I snatched him into my arms and pressed him to my chest. “Oh, I missed you so much.” I kissed the top of his head, despite his paw pushing against my chin. “Feel like going outside to chase insects? Get some exercise?”

He stopped squirming and looked at me as if I’d declared bath time.

Stop teasing him; he hates the outdoors.

Gingernuts bounded out of my arms and kept meowing. This was quite unlike him, as his usual response was to give me a nasty look most mornings when I returned—probably for taking back my hair. The little guy adored the hair too much.

Except right now he lingered near my feet, looking from me to the left, where I had my bed set up. The morning light crept into the tower, lighting the kitchen to my right, a floor of cushions against the back wall. I’d painted a field of flowers there with dragons in the air, and a castle in the distance. I used to imagine I was a princess who’d been locked up and my Prince Charming would come to my rescue. That never happened of course.

Gingernuts prowled toward the free-standing wardrobe and kept glancing at me, then the cupboard.

“Did you catch another bird or lizard and put it in there for me?” It wouldn’t be the first time I’d come home to find my room drowning in feathers, and all I could imagine was he’d attacked any bird that had perched on the window, or some poor reptile that had scrambled up here looking for food. It must have happened a lot because it had become a common occurrence. Last week, I’d found five dead skunks. Yet I didn’t have it in me to close the wooden shutters and keep Gingernuts cooped up, as there were no other windows for fresh air.

Not ready for another cleanup, I got to my feet and shoved a hand into my bag. I grabbed a leather-bound book and took it out. Flipping through it, most pages were torn out, but that hadn’t mattered when I’d found a section on gargoyles.

You risked our lives by breaking into a lord’s house for a freakin’ book.

“Not just any book. This could save me.” The title read All Things Undead. I had no clue what the deal was with the gargoyle, but technically, he was an inanimate object walking around. I would have spent more time searching through the bookshelves because there were so many more texts, but the owner had returned home early. And I had no intention of getting tossed into prison to only have the gargoyle come and break me out before he beat me.

Though I might return later to see what else he had in his library.

Yeah, you help others but still can’t find a solution for your problem.

I sighed. “Give me a break. I’m trying.” I waved the book in the air. “Hello, exhibit A. We gain magical intelligence on the gargoyle and how to take it down for good.”

Gingernuts was standing on my hair and clawed at my pants. He kept glancing up at me and then the wardrobe.

“Geez, what’s with the wardrobe?” I marched across the room when the door to the tall wardrobe swung open.

I flinched and lurched backward, my hand falling to my waist for my knife. Legs planted apart, I was ready for something to pounce out.

Instead, a man with light brown hair falling to his waist stood in my wardrobe, shoving aside my hanging clothes.

“Whoa!” Who in the world was the strange man in my bedroom?