“Alexander, wake up!” I ran into the room and yelled at him. “Your rose! It’s blooming again!”
“What?” Alexander sat up and rubbed his eyes. “It is?”
I hardly slept during the days that the rose sat in the dirt and withered. Watching a petal fall was like hell manifesting in my heart. I had only known the men in the castle for a short period of time, but I felt like they were all bonded to me in some way. I didn’t know how long I dozed when I finally did close my eyes. I had the same dreams I always had since arriving in the castle, but they were not as vivid as they had been in the past. I woke up to the sight of color in Alexander’s rose and my heart practically overflowed with emotion. It had worked—or at least it was working. We could save Alexander and if we could recreate what we had done with his rose, we could save the rest of them as well. Alexander followed behind me in a hurried pace as we ventured into the greenhouse Randall had built next to the castle. The first was still roaring and it was warm inside. Alexander ran past me to his rose and fell to his knees as he stared at the green in the vine. He stood and I ran towards him as he wrapped his arms around me. The rest of the men had heard the commotion and followed us outside, where they stared in awe.
“It worked!” Randall’s eyes lit up with joy.
“Fucking hell...” Gill’s mouth fell open in shock.
We decided to test the theory before we tried to cut any more roses from the vine. Alexander took the pot that held his rose and started walking from the gate. He kept giving us the signal that he was okay until he nearly disappeared out of sight. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he kept going. For the first time in two hundred years, he was a free man. He started walking back towards the castle and I could see excitement building in everyone else. He hadn’t been affected by leaving the castle. The rose was the source of his life and what kept him trapped in the castle.
We hugged again and returned to the inside of the castle. The rose was placed back in the greenhouse where we believed it would continue to flourish. The next step was to see if we could duplicate it, but that came with a tremendous risk. Each rose that we cut from the vine could potentially kill the person it represented if we were not able to succeed. Part of me wanted to just leave with Alexander and try to find the witch before we attempted to put anyone else in jeopardy, but it didn’t seem fair to leave any of them behind.
“I can’t wait to see the world again.” Gill looked down at his place at Randall served up his latest meal.
“I can’t wait to do cocaine again—I’m going to do the biggest pile you’ve ever seen.” Shane grinned from ear to ear.
“Brother...” Braden shook his head and looked at his twin. “Do you really think we should even consider that again?”
“We’re immortal!” Shane’s eyes lit up. “It won’t hurt us. All the high without the heart attack—what could be better?”
“Yeah?” I looked at him and narrowed my eyes. “What about when the police eventually catch you and toss your rose in the garbage? We can’t do anything to call attention to ourselves once we are out of this castle.”
“Fine...” Shane grumbled and looked down at his plate.
“What about you, Randall?” Shane looked over to our chef. “What are you going to do?”
“Me?” He smiled. “I’m going to find my daughter—and then I’m going to cook her the best meal she’s ever had.”
“I don’t know what I’ll do...” Boone stabbed his fork into his food aimlessly. “If what the rest of of you have told me is true about the world out there, everything I knew is gone. I can’t saddle up, ride until the sun goes down, and spend a night under the stars without a care in the world.”
“Maybe not like you could in your day, but the world is fun—imagine being able to go faster than your fastest horse—with cool air in the summer and warmth in the winter.” Braden looked at Boone. “It’ll be fun, trust me.”
“Why do you think there are more roses on the vine than there are people here?” I broke their fun discussion with a question I had been contemplating. “Alexander, do you remember how many were there when you arrived?”
“I don’t.” He shook his head. “I didn’t even realize it was what kept me tied to the castle until others came and a new rose bloomed.”
“Maybe one of them belongs to the witch...” Boone picked up a piece of bread and stuffed it in his mouth.
Randall decided to start with his rose before he tried to cut any of the others free. We discussed trying to uproot the whole vine, but we weren’t sure what the repercussions of that would be. It would also have been difficult to pull the vines from the gate they had been wrapped around and frozen to for longer than any of us really knew. Randall cut much more of the vine away than my father did when he picked Alexander’s rose. He believed it would make the rooting process better and after a few passionate nights together with the six of them, we found that his rose had rooted. That gave us the motivation to continue and we decided to speed the process along, cutting the remaining four free and replanting them. I was worried about the conjoined rose that represented the twins, but Randall seemed convinced he could get it to grow. After a week passed, we were ready to put our escape plan into motion.
“The real world awaits, gentleman.” I stepped out onto the front steps of the castle and stared out at the snow. “It will be a long walk. I’m sure they’ve had my car towed by now.”
“There were some men that came looking in the area a couple of days after your father left, but we didn’t open the way to them.” Alexander pulled his cloak tight around his shoulders.
“Is there a way we can leave the way open in case we need to return?” I looked around the group.
“The way is always open for the cursed. For the rest, we simply have to want them to enter.” Alexander put an arm around me. “We’ll definitely want you to enter.”
“Okay. Let’s go.” I let out a sigh and the seven of us started walking towards the gate, pulling an old wagon we had found behind us that contained the roses.
“This is really happening...” Gill practically glowed with excitement.
We left the gate behind and ventured into the snow. I started getting nervous as we put more steps between us and the castle. As much as the castle represented a prison to them, it represented safety to me. They were not going to have an easy life in the real world, but even if they didn’t like it, I fully intended to figure out who the witch was and what we had to do to stop her. I needed a modern library, a computer, and some time to do research. If there was a magical creature in the real world that could do the things she could do, I was sure she could be found. All it would take was one report of a strange event, a woman with a green aura, or a mention of her emerald eyes.
Our steps got harder as we pushed through the blinding snow. I knew it would end once we got near Lake Vaughn—at least if there wasn’t a blizzard going on. Alexander was the first to notice that something wasn’t right as we continued our journey. He put his hand on my shoulder and stopped walking. The others did as well. The snow was still falling, but an eerie silence seemed to creep along the powdered ground. A few seconds later, the edge of the tree line erupted with life and I saw wolves coming our way.
“Wolves!” Alexander took a fighting stance and pulled a knife from his belt.