Delores laid there in the bed, watching Terry pace and occasionally look out the window, worried. She watched him check that his armor was where he had left it and exactly where it had been ten minutes before when he’d checked the last time.

  “Maybe I should sleep in my armor.” He mumbled.

  Delores sighed. She knew this sort of thing would happen. It had happened before on the road, but now it was more personal. She loved him.

  “Terry, I want you to come to bed.” She said calmly.

  “But, something is out there!” He said, gesturing at the window.

  Delores stood, then walked up to him. Seeing her in her sleep wear usually shut Terry up and this time was no exception. He still turned red in the face seeing her which, honestly, made her feel pretty.

  “Look,” she said, standing with her fist on her hips, “if something is out there, the protections I placed will keep them at bay for the night. They’ll also wake me up and I can wake you up.”

  He sighed. As distracting as she might be, he was trying to protect his family. She couldn’t really blame him.

  “I know,” he said, “but what if something happens and they get through?”

  Delores put her arms around him. He was so out of sorts tonight.

  “This is because it’s happening here, isn’t it?” She asked.

  “What if this is because of me, D? What if something happens to Ernest and Dottie because I’m here?” He looked lost. She bit her lip in frustration and put a palm on his cheek. She thought for a long time.

  “I know you’re scared.” She said. “You have every right to be. But if there’s anyone that can protect this farm it’s you and me.” She smiled at him. “And if something DOES happen, then you’re going to worry yourself sick. I won’t let you do that, then have to save your butt because you’re too stubborn to lay down.”

  She took his head in both hands and lightly shook it, which made him laugh.

  “Besides. Maybe I can distract you.” She smirked as she said it. “No idea how I’m meant to do that, though.” She knew how devious she must look right then.

  “I WANT you to distract me, Delores.” He said, leading her by the hand to sit with him on the bed. He held her hand tightly as she sat. “I have no idea what I’d do without you. These past months, you’ve given me so much. I wish I could do more for you.”

  Terry sat there looking at the floor, suddenly miles away. She turned his face to see her.

  “Look. Maybe I don't have everything I've ever wanted. Maybe you can’t get everything you want in life. But the biggest things I’ve wanted? I have them, Terry.” She squeezed his hand. “The only thing I want from you, is for you to stay with me. Can you do that?”

  Terry looked genuinely surprised.

  “Nothing in Heaven and Earth could keep me from you, D. I would fight creation for you if I had to.”

  If he says he’s not a poet one more time, I’m going to strangle him, Delores thought. She laid him down on the bed and laid next to him.

  Before she could do anything, he nervously raised a hand above him. She recognized the circular motion immediately. He mumbled what sounded like the word for “silence” in elven. He’d picked it up from her apparently. The dome slowly descended over them. She stared at him.

  “Did you just cast a fucking spell?!” She said loudly. They were private now after all. He looked embarrassed.

  “Maybe? You’ve done it so often now, and I remembered what you do, so I thought I’d try it? Maybe? For once?”

  She stared at him just long enough for him to look uncomfortable before kissing him.

  After that, she buried her face in his neck and pulled him close.

  “That’s it.” She said into his neck, grinning. “I’m going to make sure you can’t stay awake and worry. Besides, you people go to bed entirely too early for me.” That was not the last thing she did to his neck that night.

  That night Terry dreamed, and he knew he dreamed. He stood on a high mesa looking down on an infinite desert. In what he assumed was the center was a forest or jungle and it was shaped like the pictures of galaxies Terry had seen in books and on television. From the center of it, he could just make out a tall, thin spire of stone and crystal. A hot and bitter smelling wind blew in his face. He was too high to be effected by the sand below.

  The verdant spiral seemed to rise and Terry knew who it was. He hadn’t dreamed this dream in weeks. The shape was a foliate man with a cloak. It seemed like the forest made flesh.

  “I’VE BEEN EXPECTING YOU!” He shouted at the shape. “YOU’RE LATE!”

  “Your dreams have been too personal, but now my time is limited.” It said. “I can tell you one thing, Terry. The last thing you will hear from me like this. I wish I could do more but, YOU MUST GO TO THE CASTLE.”

  “THANK YOU! He shouted back. “I want you to know how much I appreciate you.”

  “Goodbye, son.” It said. The forest being fell apart and with it the dream.

  The next day, everyone sat around the table in the kitchen with biscuits and bacon as the sun rose. Nothing had happened. Delores was glad, but Terry had the feeling of someone still waiting for the other shoe to drop. David gave Terry dubious looks most of the meal. When Ernest saw him doing it, he popped the back of his head lightly.

  “If that boy says there was danger, David, then there was damned well danger. Best remember who that is.” Ernest said, thumbing toward Terry.

  “Sorry.” David said, rubbing the back of his head. “I didn’t think anything could be less comfortable than your old mattress, Terry, but that couch proved me wrong.”

  Terry smiled.

  “It’s ok." He said. His expression became serious. "I think maybe we should be leaving. I don’t know for sure, but I think something's after me.”

  Dottie looked up at that.

  “Terry, you said you’d stay a week.” She looked disappointed. Delores was disappointed too. She liked it here. If she was honest, she almost wanted to just stay and stop roaming. She’d never really felt like she'd had a real home before. The Lingals had treated her like family.

  “I know. I have one thing I want to check out with Elton and Delores and we’ll be gone, though.” He looked around at his family. His only family. Delores’s heart went out to him. “I’d stay if I could. I just-”

  Terry’s phone buzzed, which surprised everyone. It buzzed again as he was pulling it out to check. He managed to get his email open and scrolled, backed out, scrolled again, and Delores watched a series of emotions fight for dominance on his face.

  “What is it?” Delores asked.

  He looked up.

  “First, is an email from Takewell’s office asking where I am and to hold position. They have something for me.”

  “Something for this mission you’re on?” Elton asked.

  “That’s what I thought. Then I got this other one. I think it’s from a private email account, but it’s from Father Takewell.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “Can I see the address?” Delores asked, and he gave her the phone. The email was from “hotcock42091169@misslemail” which sounded like some early internet bullshit. She read the email and her eyes went wide. She gave Terry the phone back.

  “But that means. . .” She said.

  “WHAT?!?” Elton said. Delores couldn’t tell if he was excited or anxious or if he had to poop.

  “It's a private email from Takewell." Terry said. "He says to ignore all communications from the Order, trust no one from the Order besides him and his brother, and that he completely trusts my party and family.”

  “Your loophole.” Delores said quietly.

  “Something bad has happened.” Terry said, putting his phone up. “If they want me to hold position, we HAVE to leave.”

  “I think we should all know what this mission of yers is, first, boy.” Ernest said. “I ain’t never seen ya so turnt around on somethin’.”

  Terry nodded. Everyone just watched and Terry looked like someone had lifted a truck off of him.

  “I’m supposed to find and kill the Greenman.” He said. He looked at Delores and immediately took her hand. “I’m sorry, D. You know I wouldn’t have. You said it yourself. I couldn’t have done it. I KNOW it’s wrong.”

  Delores felt shaken. She remembered he’d said it would hurt people he cared about deeply. This would have done it. It would have hurt everyone everywhere.

  “Terry,” she said, “if you had done this? It would have destroyed the world. It would have been worse than the Sundering.”

  “I don’t understand.” He said.

  “The Sundering was when the world and the Everywhen were forcibly separated by the Greenman to atone for the Sin.”

  He looked confused. Elton was taking notes

  “Don’t ask. We don’t know what the Sin was, but it was done TO humanity. Not BY humanity. We were closed off from the Everywhen to protect both worlds.” She said. Terry nodded.

  “Ok. So the Awakening. . .” He said.

  “Was the fording of the gulfs between worlds again. Mana flowed back into the wide world in force. There had only been trickles before that. Just enough to maintain reality. If you killed the Greenman, the ways would snap shut. The worlds would be truly separated. Reality would unbind. Everything would just come apart and end here. There'd be no one to die because there would simply be no one. We'd all just stop existing.”

  There was dead silence at the table. That was the final secret of the Circle of the Greenman. It wasn’t forbidden to tell, but it was frowned upon. Elton had stopped typing and looked sick. Terry stood and walked out of the room. Delores stood to follow but before she could he was standing in the doorway to the kitchen with his sword. She sat back down to watch him.

  “What’re ya doin’, son?” Ernest asked. He looked sick with worry. He stood, ready to jump on Terry if needed. Terry looked angry, and then he looked at her. He stared into her eyes and his smile returned. It was bright and beautiful and reminded her of every good thing she'd ever seen him do. He walked to Delores, and knelt beside her chair. She turned to face him. David had leaped from his chair and was staring in confusion. Elton had jumped up and was recording. Dottie had her hands over her mouth.

  Terry placed his sword hilt against his chest at an angle. He didn’t seem to want to risk the kitchen floor with it. He took Delores’s right hand in his left hand and just kept looking at her. Delores didn’t think he’d ever looked so beautiful to her than at that moment.

  “That first night in New Orleans, I told myself that only one thing could make me renounce my vows. You, Delores. And if those vows could hurt you, then they aren’t any vows I want to keep.” Then he kissed her hand.

  Delores bit her lip. She was aware of Elton over her shoulder getting a good angle, but she didn’t care if he was a troll with goblins riding him. Terry lowered his head over her hand and began.

  “I, Terrance Lingal, having found the ways of the Order of St. George to be unjust and against the good of all life, renounce all vows and associations I have ever given them. I renounce all vows I have sworn, save one. I will continue to hold that vow as long as I live. I will always come back to you, Delores Cody. As long as you’ll have me.”

  Delores was blinking away tears by the end. She reached out with her left hand and tilted his face up to hers. She kissed him.

  “Always.” She said when she was done, and bit back a giggle. And just like that, he was free. Free from restrictions, free from obligations, and free from guilt over what he was doing. He was free, and he was hers. Terry laid his sword down and Delores dropped from the chair onto her knees in front of him and took him in her arms. He squeezed her so hard, she thought her ribs would crack. He slackened his grip as if he were going to let go.

  “Don’t you dare.” She said. She felt giddy. Well, she thought she did. Then he spoke again.

  “I. . . I'd like to marry you some day, Delores. Maybe it’s seems sudden. I don’t care, and I’m on my knees anyway.” He’d said it so softly she didn’t think anyone else could have heard. She buried her face in his shoulder. She didn’t trust herself to say anything. She just nodded, and Terry held her there, in the kitchen floor.

  “I love you, D.” He said quietly.

  When she finally looked up, she saw Elton watching them with tears on his cheeks. She knew one other person had heard.

  It had been a somber goodbye for Terry. He’d told Ernest and Dottie he’d be in touch and to tell no one he’d been there. They’d told him not to worry, but he was going to do that anyway.

  Before they’d left, Terry made sure Elton posted the video he’d taken of Terry renouncing his vows on all of his social media. His reasoning was, if the Order had done something to turn HIM against them, then maybe it was time to rethink the Order. He hoped that was what it did. There was no way to be sure until they checked the replies.

  Now, Terry brought Thunder to a stop outside of a large iron gate a few minutes drive from his home. He’d meant to show them this, then everything had happened the day before. But the voice had made this its last message, so here he was.

  “Terry,” Delores said, “Do we have time for this? Whatever this is?”

  He dismounted and started walking along a vine covered iron fence.

  “Time or not, I was told to come here.” He said as he searched for what he needed.

  Elton walked to the edge of the paved drive way that led to the gate and watched him.

  “The Voice?” He asked.

  Terry found what he needed and parted the vines.

  “Yes. I’ll be right back.”

  Terry ducked through a gap in the iron bars he knew would be hidden there. He’d made it, after all. Once inside, he walked over to the gate and cut the lock with his sword. He and Elton opened the gates. Terry walked to the center of the driveway and faced his friends.

  “Ernest always said I didn’t have much of an imagination. That was mostly true, but it was a matter of scope. It’s hard to want things when you don’t know they’re there to want. But this?”

  He gestured off to his left in the direction the drive curved.

  “This is the big thing I daydreamed about.”

  Elton pulled the Vespa in and hid it behind the foliage at the fence. Delores dismounted Thunder with a pat and the scooter followed her. As soon as they all rounded the bend, they stopped and Terry smiled. Delores gripped his arm and put her head on his shoulder.

  “Of course the little boy that wanted to be a knight would daydream about living in a castle.” She said.

  “What is this?” Elton asked, genuinely surprised.

  Across a large pond, on it’s own island, sat The Castle. It was of modern-ish build and looked like the owner had wanted to live in a Medieval Times restaurant. There were towers and siege equipment scattered around the grounds. The entire thing was abandoned and looked it.

  “Welcome,” Terry said, “to McGee Castle.” He began walking down the raised drive over the pond toward the Castle. His friends followed.

  “You’ve been here before, I’m guessing?” Delores asked. She’d been smiling almost nonstop since that morning.

  “Oh yeah.” He said. “I used to come out here and explore. It’s been abandoned for twenty years or more, I think. One summer, me and George got that trebuchet working.”

  Terry pointed at one that was in marginally better shape than the others.

  “Ernest told me you were into that kind of stuff.” Elton said.

  “Yeah. I used to have more time for it.” Terry missed that part of his life. “Anyway, Sean gave us firing coordinates and we’d gotten a bunch of watermelons on the verge of going bad. We spent two days chucking them across the lake. We set up some plywood targets. It was a lot of fun.”

  “Tell me about these day dreams you had.” Delores said, leaning into him.

  “Well, I always wanted to live here.” He shrugged. “I wanted to fix it up. Make it a REAL castle. Get rid of that glass box on top of the tower.” Terry sighed. “I didn’t have much beyond that. I didn’t see a lot in my future. After a while I’d settled on the idea of being a knight errant.”

  He looked into Delores’s eyes. That was over now.

  “Maybe now I can make other plans.”

  She blushed. He hadn’t directly asked her to marry him. At least, he didn't think he had. He didn’t feel right asking her. Not after just getting together. But he wanted to. She was his world. She had been for months. But she’d nodded. Terry still felt like his heart was going to burst.

  “You two are going to make me throw up.” Elton said. He was smiling as he said it.

  Delores just stuck her tongue out at Elton and Terry laughed. Thunder was running in circles and seemed to be watching the pond as they crossed.

  “So what would you do with it now?” Delores asked. “If you had your way?”

  Terry suddenly felt embarrassed. He’d given this more thought than he cared to admit lately. He’d started having hopes.

  “Well,” he began, “first, that tower there? Like I said, the glass box is coming off. I’d make that a mage’s tower for you. There’s be bookshelves everywhere. I could help you copy spells into journals instead of notebooks.”

  She stared at him. He colored.

  “You’d help me copy spells?” She asked softly.

  “Well, yeah. You’ve got a lot of notebooks. Why wouldn’t I?”

  She squeezed his arm.

  “And you wonder why I think you’re going to disappear. You’re like a fairy tale sometimes.” She said.

  Terry just turned more red and looked away, trying to hide his grin. He scratched the back of his head.

  “What about you, though?” She asked. “You can’t just do whatever it is your job would be all the time, can you?” He had no idea what that would be now that she mentioned it. “You need hobbies. I WANT you to have hobbies.” She continued.

  Terry smiled.

  “I kinda thought the garage around the side needed some attention. I don’t think I’d ever want to work on machines professionally. Not as a job, but I’d love to have a shop or something.”

  God, that would be the perfect life, wouldn’t it? Between helping people? Just living with Delores and doing something he enjoyed. He had never thought life could be remotely like that.

  “And what about Elton?” Delores asked, grinning. Elton looked at them.

  “Yeah, Terry. What ABOUT Elton?” The bard said with a smirk.

  “We could keep him in the tool shed.”

  Delores and Elton both laughed.

  “Seriously though, there is so much room in there. You’d have a study, man. An office. Whatever you wanted to call it.” Terry realized there was a tear running down his cheek. Delores wiped it away with her finger.

  “You ok?” She asked.

  “I never dreamed of, well, having dreams before. It might not be here, but I want this, Delores. I’ve never wanted something more in my life. Even more than being a knight. I just have to figure out how to make it work.”

  They approached the front of the Castle, and Terry was so caught up in his day dreams, he almost missed the double doors opening, and a minotaur stepping out surrounded by robed figures in masks.

  So a word about the Castle. That is a real thing. It's a building out in Raymond, Mississippi that was built back in 1979. You used to could drive out there at Christmas and see it lit up for the holidays. I believe a private investment firm from Europe owns it now and has allowed it to rot and start falling apart. It is EXTREMELY depressing.

  I'd honestly forgotten the Castle was even out there. Maybe I had that in mind when I had Terry be from Raymond all those years ago, but somewhere along the way I'd forgotten. Well, I remembered, and there will be more Castle. Thanks for reading, everyone. See you next time.

  - K.