A Storm in the Making

Chapter 35--William Helm's Secret

If I hated my ghost guard, as I came to think of William Helm, I came to loathe Sundays, my supposed day off.  That was a joke.  Sunday was the day the Hermits gave me what they politely referred to as ‘private’ lessons. The rest of my family—the cowards—fled the castle for the monastery to have some free time with their new-found friends.  This routine went for a month and I was not making very much progress in my lessons. 

To say I woke up one particular Sunday morning on the wrong side of the bed would be putting it mildly.

 The last thing I wanted to see today is geriatric wizards, or William Helm. I was feeling sorry for myself as I came down the stairs.  My cat, Luther, trotted down the stairs right alongside of me as if he owned the place.  I could have sworn I had closed my bedroom door behind me when I left my room.  I would have to double check next time.  No use aggravating the Hermits unnecessarily. There had been a couple of unfortunate incidents over Luther marking his territory against the bedroom doors jambs of Natos, Vorst, and Varak.

   I darted a glance behind me.  Of course, William Helm was right behind me, too.  Could he have let the cat out?  Nah.         William Helm definitely did not look like the cat type, I concluded, turning away from the sight of that scowling visage.

    He didn’t look in any better mood than I did.  How he always knew when I woke up of a morning, I couldn’t figure out. Did he have some kind of magical alarm that went off whenever I woke up?

Uncle, Luke, and Andrew were talking excitedly, gobbling down First Meal like a rowdy bunch of tailgaters when we came into the dining room.  They were ready to get out of the castle for a few hours and were practically bouncing off the walls in their enthusiasm.  I sat down at the other end of the table from them and glared in their direction.  A warning, if they needed one (and they didn’t) that I was in a foul mood.  I felt Luther curl up around my feet under the table as I stab viciously at a roll.  His presence calmed me down.

I grabbed a small corn palm pod, and listlessly began picking off the tiny fruits, popping them into my mouth. Natos came in and sat down by me. He brought a cup of Farrow Fruit Tea with him to sip. 

He avoided eye contact with me. he was uncomfortable around me this morning and it was my fault.

I liked to climb up on the parapet in the evening, just to remind myself there was another whole world outside these barren castle walls. I hadn’t set out to interrupt Natos quiet time when I had followed him up onto the parapet the evening before. 

The many times I had been up there since our arrival, I had not noticed the blocks of wood sitting along the edge of the walls.  Apparently they were for the Hermits to stand upon.  They were too short to see over the walls, otherwise. 

Natos was standing on one of the blocks of wood, staring longingly over the wall towards Eurmica’s faint coastline.  I came up beside him without thinking a thing about it. 

William Helm came up the ladder behind me, but Natos gave him a signal, and he veered off in the other direction, heading towards the nearest guard tower.  He soon struck up a conversation with the two Nintuks on duty.  They spoke companionably in a language I had never heard.  Then the three of them disappeared into the tower.

“Do you miss it?” I had asked Natos kindly.  I never thought about any of the Hermits as real people until I saw the wistful yearning in Natos’s shoe-button eyes.  Loneliness was written in the lines of his wrinkled face.

“I suppose I do.”  He glanced my way.  “It’s mostly the people I miss.  Most of them have vanished into the mists of time.  Very few I can even recall by name, yet the memory of them still remains.  The memories bother me more than I wish.”