Hindsight
Perched one hundred forty feet above the sea on the battlement of Caledon Castle’s north turret, Holly O’Hannon chewed a sandwich and scanned the placid, blue expanse below her. Two hundred yards from shore, a massive reptilian head with a long, toothy snout broke the ocean’s surface. Dark scales glistened in the sunshine, and a serpentine form writhed through the quiet water like a giant wheel, stirring up white caps before plunging into the depths.
Holly set her lunch on the stone ledge and leaned forward, squinting at the disturbance. On that windless afternoon, gentle waves broke the monotony of cloudless sky and calm ocean, but where the apparition had risen, the water seethed.
A scaly body reappeared, driving the water away in white-tipped folds.
Holly’s hand raced to her nonexistent pocket, finding only the linen skirt of her costume. She cursed under her breath. Where was her phone when she needed it?
A gigantic marine animal surfaced, twisting and writhing, and Holly’s heart froze. A whale? The gray-brown back appeared too long and thin, and the beast had scales. Whales did not have scales.
A terrifying head reared, sporting rows of sharp teeth, and a ten-foot streak of fire shot from the creature’s mouth.
The monster scanned the sky, then shifted his golden gaze to the cliffs. He roared—an unearthly, primal sound—then blew another blast of flame into the air and dove. His long body sliced the waves and disappeared, leaving the ocean boiling in his wake.
A peculiar pattern of ripples revealed something big lurking out of sight. As Holly watched, it picked up speed, racing westward at a rate that would have challenged Caledon’s most powerful naval vessels to keep pace.
Within seconds, all evidence of the strange creature vanished.
Holly blinked and cast a dubious eye on her sandwich. Cautiously, she peeled away the upper slice of half-eaten bread to examine the contents. Herbed goat cheese spread, pickled radishes, red onion, and avocado—exactly what she had ordered.
Holly rubbed her eyes. A fire-breathing serpent, as big as a ship? She was hallucinating.
“Matt, what did you put in my lunch?”
Her appetite gone, Holly shoved her remaining food into the paper takeout bag it had come in and crushed the neck in her fist. She gathered her pale blue, ankle-length skirt and rose, dodging the 18th-century cannon lurking behind her. She darted into the winding turret stairwell and scampered on satin-slippered feet down the uneven spiral stairs to the castle’s second-floor hallway.
Holly deposited the remains of her lunch in a wastebasket outside the public washrooms, then hastened past a dozen chambers where patrons surveyed Caledon’s history on display. Children’s voices clamored from an interactive wall that explained the split of Caledon and the expansion of Langdon and Zandor.
She reached the grand staircase, where the corridor opened to expose the rooms below—the ballroom on one side, and the grand hall on the other. In the ballroom, an adult scolded a group of rambunctious teens who threatened to violate the velvet rope boundary protecting the stone thrones. In the grand hall, several museum staff members garbed in the uniform of the Royal Elite Guard manned the entrance and the admissions counter. Among them stood a tall, handsome man wearing a brown leather tunic, leggings, and knee-high boots. He bowed with a flourish of his sword to a cluster of middle-aged ladies near the front doors, making them titter in delight.
Holly hurried down the stairs, her hand trailing along the iron banister as her skirts assaulted the leering and playful gargoyles decorating the railings. Every eye followed her, drawn by her thirteenth-century gown and hairstyle: two slim braids that started at her temples and wreathed her thick chestnut tresses. With a token smile at her admirers, Holly hastened toward the man in the tunic.
“Ciara, my love!” He greeted her with another sweeping bow.
Holly’s lunch break was in effect for fifteen more minutes. Irritated that she had to play along, she took his proffered hand and curtseyed. “Lord Adrian.”
At that moment, a wandering minstrel armed with a crwth spotted the pair and commenced an energetic Caledonian folk tune. Holly swallowed her frustration. Her accusations would have to wait. If you were in costume outside the staff rooms, you were in character—no exceptions. She had a job to do.
Without missing a beat, Adrian drew Ciara into the dance, executing a series of complicated footfalls that she copied twice before they fell into step side by side, their feet drumming a quick rhythm on the polished floor. He captured her waist with one arm and spun her in a circle, eyes locked with hers, and then whirled her into a spinning pattern around the hall. People scrambled to make room for them, though Matt never led Holly within arm’s reach of anyone. Their choreographed performance met with the customary oohs and aahs, and finished with appreciative applause and a few cheers.
Holly curtseyed to the onlookers and spoke under her breath. “Matt, I need to talk to you!”
Matthew Bramston offered his arm. “Ciara, my lady, accompany me to the ballroom, where I shall try the throne on for size. The time is short until we wed.”
Holly outpaced him to the double doors. As she entered, the six-foot-tall animatronic Cythraul that inhabited the room’s northwest corner swung its head to glare at the intruders. Its menacing eye surveyed Holly with a hungry gleam, and its mouth opened in a roar, revealing a set of five-inch-long, serrated fangs. Its sickle-claw tapped a warning on the stone floor, and the group of teens heckled.
“Oh, shut up, Hector!” Holly muttered. The robot drew up taller, as though insulted, and reached toward her with sharp-clawed forelimbs. It roared again, then resumed its inanimate position. “I’m going to unplug you one day. Your infernal clamor every time anyone comes in here is driving me insane.”
She avoided the museum patrons scattered throughout the ballroom and headed straight for the balcony doors. The Dragon’s Fire replica began its light cycle, distracting the visitors.
Matt poked Holly’s shoulder as he trailed her across the floor, which had heaved in spots during the earthquakes two years ago. “Poor Hector. He’s just doing his job. Somebody’s lunch disagreed with them. And you stepped on my toes three times during that dance, which is most unlike you. What’s got you so uptight?”
Holly shoved the balcony doors open, relieved to find the famous space unoccupied. She whirled on Matt as the doors clamped shut behind them. “You tell me. You picked up lunch. What did you spike my sandwich with?”
“Boiled wombat tongue.” Matt lounged against the stone railing with a sober air.
Holly cringed. “I’m serious.”
“You mean your meal really set you off? Why would I mess with your food?” He frowned. “What would you do if I did?”
“I’d report you to the CEO.”
“Yeah, don’t do that. I’m terrified of the CEO.” A smirk played on Matt’s lips, softening Holly’s outrage.
“You’re married to the CEO,” she reminded him.
“I rest my case.” Matt’s striking blue eyes narrowed in concern. “I have little respect for your vegetarianism, but not so little that I would stick meat in your food, so relax. You’re pretty shaken. What’s the matter?”
Holly pointed at the ocean. “What do you see out there?”
Matt squinted at the sunlit water. “The sea. Unusually calm. Why?”
“What would you say if I told you I saw a huge, fire-breathing creature swimming near the castle?”
Matt burst out laughing. “I’d say, whatever you had for lunch, I want some too!”
“It was big and scaly, and I’d never seen anything like it.”
“When was your last vacation?” Matt placed his hand on her forehead. “Are you feverish? Maybe we should talk to Lauryn about giving you some extra time off.”
Holly slapped him away. “Don’t mock me. I know what I saw, but it would help if you saw it, too.”
Matt scanned the expanse of blue. “Sorry, Holly. Nothing out of the ordinary. Not even a fish. Perhaps you’re the exhausted victim of a trick of light. You’ve had a rough few months with your mom, and Jason, and everything. Blink a few times, and take a deep breath.”
He offered her an encouraging smile and headed inside.
Left alone, Holly leaned on the stone railing. Gentle waves beat a rhythmic tune on the rocks at the cliff’s base, but nothing roiled the water further out with the urgency she had noticed from the turret.
Had her eyes deceived her?
She blinked away stinging tears. Perhaps she should book a brief holiday—stay home, away from the people and the noise…
The animatronic dragon roared again. Holly gritted her teeth.
Away from Hector.
Away from the endless, repetitive scripts, and the predictable dances, sword fights, and historical interactions.
Only senior staff needed to provide two weeks’ notice for vacations. Understudies were always eager to fill a missing actor’s place. Holly could escape the castle for a few days.
The living history museum had presented as a dream job a few years ago, when she was fresh out of drama school. But experience soon taught her that historical reenactments were a poor substitute for the stages of London or New York.
Those grand stages had been her goal since childhood, when dance, gymnastics, voice, and theater classes had filled every waking hour outside school. After graduating from Caledon’s most prestigious college of dramatic arts, how long was Holly prepared to be a nobody at a dusty museum?
Holly shoved the dismal thought from her mind. Her lunch break was over, and she had a Dragon’s Fire battle skit with Matt scheduled for the outdoor stage at one o’clock. Cue the sparking swords and the awed children.
Holly was sick of it.
Holly set her lunch on the stone ledge and leaned forward, squinting at the disturbance. On that windless afternoon, gentle waves broke the monotony of cloudless sky and calm ocean, but where the apparition had risen, the water seethed.
A scaly body reappeared, driving the water away in white-tipped folds.
Holly’s hand raced to her nonexistent pocket, finding only the linen skirt of her costume. She cursed under her breath. Where was her phone when she needed it?
A gigantic marine animal surfaced, twisting and writhing, and Holly’s heart froze. A whale? The gray-brown back appeared too long and thin, and the beast had scales. Whales did not have scales.
A terrifying head reared, sporting rows of sharp teeth, and a ten-foot streak of fire shot from the creature’s mouth.
The monster scanned the sky, then shifted his golden gaze to the cliffs. He roared—an unearthly, primal sound—then blew another blast of flame into the air and dove. His long body sliced the waves and disappeared, leaving the ocean boiling in his wake.
A peculiar pattern of ripples revealed something big lurking out of sight. As Holly watched, it picked up speed, racing westward at a rate that would have challenged Caledon’s most powerful naval vessels to keep pace.
Within seconds, all evidence of the strange creature vanished.
Holly blinked and cast a dubious eye on her sandwich. Cautiously, she peeled away the upper slice of half-eaten bread to examine the contents. Herbed goat cheese spread, pickled radishes, red onion, and avocado—exactly what she had ordered.
Holly rubbed her eyes. A fire-breathing serpent, as big as a ship? She was hallucinating.
“Matt, what did you put in my lunch?”
Her appetite gone, Holly shoved her remaining food into the paper takeout bag it had come in and crushed the neck in her fist. She gathered her pale blue, ankle-length skirt and rose, dodging the 18th-century cannon lurking behind her. She darted into the winding turret stairwell and scampered on satin-slippered feet down the uneven spiral stairs to the castle’s second-floor hallway.
Holly deposited the remains of her lunch in a wastebasket outside the public washrooms, then hastened past a dozen chambers where patrons surveyed Caledon’s history on display. Children’s voices clamored from an interactive wall that explained the split of Caledon and the expansion of Langdon and Zandor.
She reached the grand staircase, where the corridor opened to expose the rooms below—the ballroom on one side, and the grand hall on the other. In the ballroom, an adult scolded a group of rambunctious teens who threatened to violate the velvet rope boundary protecting the stone thrones. In the grand hall, several museum staff members garbed in the uniform of the Royal Elite Guard manned the entrance and the admissions counter. Among them stood a tall, handsome man wearing a brown leather tunic, leggings, and knee-high boots. He bowed with a flourish of his sword to a cluster of middle-aged ladies near the front doors, making them titter in delight.
Holly hurried down the stairs, her hand trailing along the iron banister as her skirts assaulted the leering and playful gargoyles decorating the railings. Every eye followed her, drawn by her thirteenth-century gown and hairstyle: two slim braids that started at her temples and wreathed her thick chestnut tresses. With a token smile at her admirers, Holly hastened toward the man in the tunic.
“Ciara, my love!” He greeted her with another sweeping bow.
Holly’s lunch break was in effect for fifteen more minutes. Irritated that she had to play along, she took his proffered hand and curtseyed. “Lord Adrian.”
At that moment, a wandering minstrel armed with a crwth spotted the pair and commenced an energetic Caledonian folk tune. Holly swallowed her frustration. Her accusations would have to wait. If you were in costume outside the staff rooms, you were in character—no exceptions. She had a job to do.
Without missing a beat, Adrian drew Ciara into the dance, executing a series of complicated footfalls that she copied twice before they fell into step side by side, their feet drumming a quick rhythm on the polished floor. He captured her waist with one arm and spun her in a circle, eyes locked with hers, and then whirled her into a spinning pattern around the hall. People scrambled to make room for them, though Matt never led Holly within arm’s reach of anyone. Their choreographed performance met with the customary oohs and aahs, and finished with appreciative applause and a few cheers.
Holly curtseyed to the onlookers and spoke under her breath. “Matt, I need to talk to you!”
Matthew Bramston offered his arm. “Ciara, my lady, accompany me to the ballroom, where I shall try the throne on for size. The time is short until we wed.”
Holly outpaced him to the double doors. As she entered, the six-foot-tall animatronic Cythraul that inhabited the room’s northwest corner swung its head to glare at the intruders. Its menacing eye surveyed Holly with a hungry gleam, and its mouth opened in a roar, revealing a set of five-inch-long, serrated fangs. Its sickle-claw tapped a warning on the stone floor, and the group of teens heckled.
“Oh, shut up, Hector!” Holly muttered. The robot drew up taller, as though insulted, and reached toward her with sharp-clawed forelimbs. It roared again, then resumed its inanimate position. “I’m going to unplug you one day. Your infernal clamor every time anyone comes in here is driving me insane.”
She avoided the museum patrons scattered throughout the ballroom and headed straight for the balcony doors. The Dragon’s Fire replica began its light cycle, distracting the visitors.
Matt poked Holly’s shoulder as he trailed her across the floor, which had heaved in spots during the earthquakes two years ago. “Poor Hector. He’s just doing his job. Somebody’s lunch disagreed with them. And you stepped on my toes three times during that dance, which is most unlike you. What’s got you so uptight?”
Holly shoved the balcony doors open, relieved to find the famous space unoccupied. She whirled on Matt as the doors clamped shut behind them. “You tell me. You picked up lunch. What did you spike my sandwich with?”
“Boiled wombat tongue.” Matt lounged against the stone railing with a sober air.
Holly cringed. “I’m serious.”
“You mean your meal really set you off? Why would I mess with your food?” He frowned. “What would you do if I did?”
“I’d report you to the CEO.”
“Yeah, don’t do that. I’m terrified of the CEO.” A smirk played on Matt’s lips, softening Holly’s outrage.
“You’re married to the CEO,” she reminded him.
“I rest my case.” Matt’s striking blue eyes narrowed in concern. “I have little respect for your vegetarianism, but not so little that I would stick meat in your food, so relax. You’re pretty shaken. What’s the matter?”
Holly pointed at the ocean. “What do you see out there?”
Matt squinted at the sunlit water. “The sea. Unusually calm. Why?”
“What would you say if I told you I saw a huge, fire-breathing creature swimming near the castle?”
Matt burst out laughing. “I’d say, whatever you had for lunch, I want some too!”
“It was big and scaly, and I’d never seen anything like it.”
“When was your last vacation?” Matt placed his hand on her forehead. “Are you feverish? Maybe we should talk to Lauryn about giving you some extra time off.”
Holly slapped him away. “Don’t mock me. I know what I saw, but it would help if you saw it, too.”
Matt scanned the expanse of blue. “Sorry, Holly. Nothing out of the ordinary. Not even a fish. Perhaps you’re the exhausted victim of a trick of light. You’ve had a rough few months with your mom, and Jason, and everything. Blink a few times, and take a deep breath.”
He offered her an encouraging smile and headed inside.
Left alone, Holly leaned on the stone railing. Gentle waves beat a rhythmic tune on the rocks at the cliff’s base, but nothing roiled the water further out with the urgency she had noticed from the turret.
Had her eyes deceived her?
She blinked away stinging tears. Perhaps she should book a brief holiday—stay home, away from the people and the noise…
The animatronic dragon roared again. Holly gritted her teeth.
Away from Hector.
Away from the endless, repetitive scripts, and the predictable dances, sword fights, and historical interactions.
Only senior staff needed to provide two weeks’ notice for vacations. Understudies were always eager to fill a missing actor’s place. Holly could escape the castle for a few days.
The living history museum had presented as a dream job a few years ago, when she was fresh out of drama school. But experience soon taught her that historical reenactments were a poor substitute for the stages of London or New York.
Those grand stages had been her goal since childhood, when dance, gymnastics, voice, and theater classes had filled every waking hour outside school. After graduating from Caledon’s most prestigious college of dramatic arts, how long was Holly prepared to be a nobody at a dusty museum?
Holly shoved the dismal thought from her mind. Her lunch break was over, and she had a Dragon’s Fire battle skit with Matt scheduled for the outdoor stage at one o’clock. Cue the sparking swords and the awed children.
Holly was sick of it.
(c) 2025 Christine Stobbe
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