Chapter 7
Seven
Georgie
The agency's black limousine stopped right in front of my little cottage.
It was the first time I'd ever been in a car like this, with dark tinted windows, a bar, speakers way better than any I possessed, and a chauffeur who'd barely even glanced at Cairn.
I supposed discretion was important if you worked for a dating agency that dealt with aliens on a daily basis.
“Is this your dwelling?” Cairn asked. His tail was drumming against the leather seats, maybe a sign of excitement.
Who was I to know. The fact that I was thinking about what his tail movements might mean was crazy enough.
And now I was about to let a gargoyle into my house.
This day was getting more ridiculous by the minute.
“Yes. I built it myself. It's not exactly big, but it's enough for me.”
“You built it yourself,” Cairn echoed. “I don't know why I'm surprised. You've clearly got a way with stone.”
I peered through the tinted window and tried to see my home with his eyes.
The cottage had been a ruin with only three walls and no roof when I'd bought it.
I'd rebuilt it from scratch, using as many of the original materials as possible while also adding modern insulation and double glazing.
A friend had helped me with the roof, so all I'd needed professionals for were the plumbing and electrics.
Some half-dead flowers stood in a vase, visible through the window.
I'd not been home much recently. My job meant travelling from one historic site to the next, quite often staying in bed and breakfasts rather than driving home at night.
When did I last hoover the floors? I hoped Cairn wasn't a clean-freak.
I carefully opened the limousine door and made sure none of the neighbours were watching. I was at the edge of the village, but in a place with just under a thousand souls, everyone knew everybody's business. Keeping an alien gargoyle hidden was going to be a challenge.
Pam had offered for us to stay in a house the agency owned, but I'd refused.
I wanted to be home. Annoyingly, that meant that Cairn was coming with me, too.
He'd found it uncomfortable when I went downstairs to the cash machine while he had to stay inside the agency's office.
We would have to experiment further to see just how much distance we could put between us without Cairn turning to stone.
But not now. I was tired. Confused. Exhausted. All I wanted was my sofa, a blanket and a cup of tea.
Instead, I'd have to play host to a gargoyle who kept calling me mate.
“I think we're good. Go straight inside. No dilly-dallying.”
Cairn cleared his throat. “I am sorry. I don't understand.”
“No lingering about. I don't want anyone to see you.”
The lock squeaked as I turned the key. I kept forgetting to oil it. I held the door open wide and motioned for Cairn to follow me. He had to bend his head to fit through the doorframe. My little cottage really wasn't made for someone as large as him.
My home consisted of one big open living space with a separate bathroom and a mezzanine bedroom on a platform I'd secured with thick iron chains to the roof beams. The platform was sturdy but it did swing slightly whenever I stepped on it from the wooden ladder leading up to it.
It was unlike any other house I'd ever lived in and it was entirely and utterly my own.
“You have a perch,” Cairn said, sounding amused.
“It's a bedroom. It just happens to lack walls. I wanted the open plan feeling without having a bed in the living room.”
He laughed. “I love it. Your dwelling is very different from my own, but it tells me much about you.”
“Like what?”
“You don't like to feel confined, yet you also want to be cosy and protected. You like to have guests, but you don't want them to stay overnight.” He pointed at the large wooden table in the centre of the room. It had six hand-carved chairs assembled around it, which was five too many most days.
“And you don't like to cook,” he added.
It was scary just how right he was about everything. I hadn't realised that if my cottage was alive, it would be the biggest gossip in the village. And that said a lot, considering Mrs Baker next door knew more about my schedule than I did myself.
“I rarely have the time to cook,” I defended myself. “And it's not as much fun if you cook just for yourself. I do quite like to do it for other people. But you saw how long it took us to get here from Glasgow. Most of my friends live in the city and don't want to come all the way out here.”
“I prefer this over the city. Too loud, too dirty there. And the buildings weren't tall enough.”
“If you want skyscrapers, you'll have to go to London. We don't have those here.”
“Sky-scrapers?” he repeated slowly. “Do they reach the edge of your atmosphere?”
I laughed. “No, their name makes them sound bigger than they are. They're tall, but not that tall.”
“Back home, our cities reach so high that they almost touch space,” he said, eyes turning dreamy. “Gharrgoils like to roost up high. We used to live in caves and mountains, but when we moved into cities, we built them as high as possible. The more money and power you have, the higher you live.”
“And how high did you live?” I asked before realising that maybe that was a little insensitive.
Cairn grinned. “High enough to see the curvature of the planet. I was not as rich as my neighbours, but I fought many battles that raised my standing.”
I noticed we were still standing by the door.
I motioned him to sit on my sofa, a restored Chesterfield that I had patched with tartan fabric.
It was a colourful mess and I loved it to bits.
Cairn pulled his wings tight against his back and cautiously sat down, as if he expected the sofa to collapse underneath his weight.
How heavy was he even? Were there still parts of him that were stone?
So many questions, yet I didn't know where to start.
“This world is so soft,” Cairn said quietly. “Soft fabrics. Soft beings. Even your language is soft. It is so very different from home.”
I wasn't sure whether to take that as an insult. I didn't like being called soft. I had spent all my adult life fighting stigma in a job where I was always the only woman. I'd grown harder than I'd thought possible. I'd become one of the guys, swearing, drinking, moving like them. I wasn't soft.
“What is your world like then?” I asked, then cringed. I sounded harsher than I'd intended.
Cairn stared into the distance. “Beautiful, in many ways.
We don't have many oceans and none as large as yours.
Our landscapes are tall mountains and high plateaus.
You have flowers in your gardens, we have gemstones, sparkling in all the colours you could imagine.
Our cities are modern, but you find remnants of our past everywhere.
We prefer to use stone for furniture rather than high-tech materials.
We use the heat of our planet's core to warm our dwellings. And when we find our mate, we promise to be as steadfast as diamonds until we return to the embrace of the rock.”
He sighed deeply. “I did not always feel at home there. I loved travelling to other planets, even when it was to wage war. But now that I have been away for so long, and not by choice, I miss it. I miss being able to fly from the moment the sun rises until the moons join her. I miss feeling the wind against my wings. I miss the scent of the rock as it is washed by rain. I miss...”
Cairn grew quiet. “All this time, I refused to let myself think of home. It was too painful. Yet now that I am in your home, I cannot help it. I'm not strong enough.”
I put my hand on his before I could think about whether this was a wise decision.
“I don't think it's a sign of weakness to miss your home. You've been here for almost five hundred years. I think you're allowed to be a little homesick.”
He looked at me with puppy eyes. Quite an achievement for the hulking alien with skin the texture of granite.
“Do you have family waiting for you back home?” Wait. How long did his species live? Maybe they were all dead by now and I'd just pointed out that fact. Think before you speak. I could hear my grannie's voice clearly inside my head. I'd never been good at that.
“My parents returned to the stone when I was at the warrior academy. I do not have siblings, but my friends became my brothers. My two closest friends, Sten and Hallr, were with me when our ship crashed.”
His face grew darker as he remembered whatever had happened to make them land on Earth. I was curious, but I also didn't want him to become morose.
“I'll make us some tea. Or... would you like some hot chocolate? That always cheers me up.”
“I have heard of chocolate. I have seen tourists eat sticks of it. But I have never seen it hot.”
I laughed. “Then you're in for a treat. I guess your exposure to human food has been very limited.”
“I have encountered more seagull shit than food,” he said. For a moment, I wasn't sure if he was joking, but then his eyes lit up and he grinned, fangs showing behind his dark lips.
“That must have been pretty disgusting.”
He shrugged. “You just wait until the rain. I'd go to sleep until I felt water run down my skin, washing off the avian shit. You have a lot of rain on this planet.”
“Not everywhere. But we get lots of it in Scotland, that's true.”
I walked over to my little kitchen area, expecting Cairn to stay on the sofa, but he followed me.
His tail bumped against my table. Yet another reminder of just how different he was.
Wings, tail, fangs, horns. Like a devil from a fairy tale.
Yet I didn't see him as anything threatening or dangerous.
I wasn't intimidated by his size or looks. All I wanted was for him to smile.
Huh.
I was going to have to unpack that later. For now, I had to introduce Cairn to the art of hot-chocolate-making.