I was only a little out of breath by the time we reached the door. I tilted my head back and stared up. And up. The entire building was three stories. The first two stories were made of stacked stone with a few narrow windows, every one of them dingy with dust.
From the outside, it looked like each level was taller than normal, putting the third well above the trees. And what a third level it was. Where the first two were solid granite except for those dusty windows, the third was all glass framed in dark wood with barely a roofline to obscure the view. Oddly, while the glass didn't exactly sparkle, it wasn't dull with grime like the first two levels.
“The view from up there must be incredible. I bet you can see all the way to Asheville.”
“Not quite that far, but the view is amazing. My great-great-grandfather built this place. His excuse was that we needed to watch out for forest fires. I don't think he ever ended up stationing someone here full time, I think he mostly built it because he wanted to.”
“Whatever the reason, it's gorgeous.”
Royal looked up, for a moment lost in thought. A drop of water hit my head. Then another. The sky was still clear mostly, but clouds clung to the treetops to the east. The sprinkles didn't alarm me—showers sprang up in the mountains without notice all the time, dropping rain and disappearing as quickly as they'd arrived.
Royal pulled a key from his pocket.
“Do you want to see if this key works before that rain kicks in? I have to check a few things for Griffen, and we can wait out the weather.”
“Sure.” I thought of my brand-new dress and the dust that was likely everywhere in the watchtower. I'd have to be careful because I really, really wanted to see the inside.
Royal's key turned in the lock with only a little jiggling. The first floor of the watchtower wasn't as dusty as I expected. Maybe because it was bare of furniture except for a few ancient-looking trunks shoved up against the walls. It was dim inside, not a light bulb or lamp to be found.
Answering the question I hadn't asked, Royal said, “No electricity out here. There used to be some oil lamps around. Probably upstairs. Do you want to go up?”
“Absolutely.” I followed Royal to the tight spiral staircase in one corner of the room.
“I haven't been out here in years. It was off-limits when I was a teenager. Prentice had it all boarded up so we couldn't sneak in behind his back. Let me get to the second floor before you come up just in case any of these stairs are loose.”
The place might have been dusty, but the spiral staircase was solid as a rock. The second floor was almost as empty as the first and equally as dusty. No trunks up here, just a folding card table and some chairs. This room looked like it was used as seldom as the first.
Royal made a few notes on his phone, probably for Griffen. The spiral stairs continued one more flight up to the third floor. That was the one I couldn't wait to see.
I followed Royal again and stopped well before the top, surprised to find a solid ceiling above my head. I was even more surprised to see Royal raise a hand and push, lifting a neat square from the ceiling. A trapdoor.
We climbed through and emerged in what felt like a completely different building. A narrow iron rail surrounded the trapdoor, most likely to prevent an accidental fall through the open hole in the floor. Up here there was a lot less dust, and there was no question what Royal's father had used the watchtower for.
A king-size bed dominated the space, hewn of stripped pine logs polished to a golden shine. There weren't any sheets on the bed, but the mattress looked almost brand-new. I couldn't imagine how they got it up there in the first place. Not through the spiral stairs, that was for sure.
There was another trunk against the wall, and what I thought might be an oversized closet in one corner of the room. Wine glasses sat on a table in another corner, an empty bottle between them.
It wasn't the furnishings that drew my attention. It was the view, even more magnificent than I'd expected. The Blue Ridge Mountains spread around us, a rolling blanket of green in every direction, the slowly setting sun spreading shadows and illuminating the treetops, turning the mountains into a kaleidoscope of green.
“So beautiful,” I breathed, mostly to myself.
Royal came up beside me, his arm settling around my shoulder. “It really is. When you see these mountains every day you kind of take them for granted. But seeing them like this, with you…” He turned to face me, his eyes serious. “It reminds me how lucky I am.”