It loomed on the hill like a Disneyland dream: Fair Castle.
He felt a dull ache of pleasure at the thought that it was still intact, still standing--despite the fact that it was standing a few thousand miles too far to the west. Grateful that its American owners hadn't broken it up for salvage or turned it into condos, he lifted his binoculars for a better look.
It seemed bigger than in the photographs, smaller than in the paintings. The word that sprang to mind was: pleasing. It had good bones. From its soaring facade to its small domed turrets, Fair Castle was a satisfying mix of harmony and oddity.
He swept his glasses in a broad arc to the south and then to the north. He had to admit that the Americans had chosen their site well: a high knoll with sweeping views of the mid-Hudson valley, itself on fire with early autumn colour. He could easily have been standing at the edge of a wood in England.
He focused his glasses on the main entrance, marked by a massive arched door. Centuries of ancestors--his ancestors--had passed through those doors. As always, the thought was bitter. He put it aside. He was about to get into his car and drive around to some other vantage point when the door of the castle swung open and a young girl burst through it, her laugh carried high on the wind.
She was ten or eleven years old, with auburn hair and a gait like an ostrich. Clutching something red--a plume?--she ran down a path that led to a side promenade, then hid behind a huge stone urn, waiting.
He swung his glasses back to the entrance. Out strolled a taller, older, calmer version of the girl. Mother? Sister? From that distance, it was hard to tell. One thing was certain: the two were related. He watched as the older one cupped her hands to her mouth and, in a voice that echoed through the valley, called out to the younger.
"Izzzz-a-belle ... Isabelle!"
She yelled something else, but he couldn't make it out.
It drew the girl out from the long shadow of the urn. After waving the red plume through the air like a victory banner, she handed it over to the woman, who smacked her on the head in return. Then the two went inside, clearly still friends.
A grim smile played on his lips, then died. The heirs, he thought. Pity.
Wrapping the strap of the binoculars around the hinge, he slipped the glasses back into their case and laid them on the rear seat of his car. He was about to drop behind the wheel when he drew out the glasses again for one last look. Fair Castle: there it was. Dramatic. Potent. Irresistible.
His. Whatever it took.
From the battlement they watched together as he threw the binocular telescope onto the front seat of his vehicle and then made away.
"Will he be up to the quest, my love?" she asked in a pale echo of her former voice.
"He is determined to have it. I see it in his face."
"Aye," she agreed. "There is a ruthlessness there that he would do well to disguise, or it will defeat his purpose, and ours."
"He will not be defeated."
"I believe you. He has come at last, the issue of our desire. Flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood, he has walked till now in darkness. We will make that darkness flare."
"It galls me that it must come to this. I should not have failed you the first time, my sweet."
"Shhh. Too late for that; too late. You loved me with all your heart. Eventually you gave up your soul. A woman cannot ask more than that."
"You deserved more than that. Much more."
"Shhh."
The cloud of dust raised by the wheels of the vehicle began to thin. Eventually it settled back into the dirt from which it rose.
"We have waited a small eternity," she mused, "for him to claim his birthright."
"And now," her mate said, "his time--our time--is come." © 1997
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