LILY

BNR848

Disclaimer: The publicly recognized characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plots are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.


CHAPTER 7

She was softly awakened by the voice of her mother and the smell of fresh coffee. Lily Castle had inherited numerous Castle traits, but her love of coffee was all Beckett. She greeted her mother with a smile and yawned while extending her arms to take the cup.

"I could get used to this. Maybe I should just move back home and let you and dad spoil me," she snickered.

"Not on your life! Now hurry up and get dress. I don't know how much longer I can control your father. I swear that man is the consummate child."

"Yeah, but you love it," a laughing Lily yelled to her mother as she closed the bathroom door.

Lily laughed as she entered the kitchen to grab a second cup of coffee. There, fidgety as a child waiting on the expiration of a time-out sat her father guarding two extremely large pumpkins. Lily had breakfast while her father provided a detailed outline of the planned carvings. He had sought out a student from the Art Institute to design patterns they could easily follow.

"Wow dad, I'm impressed; and only two pumpkins, we can finish these up in no time," added Lily as she took a bite of her pancakes.

"There are seven more out on the terrace, your mother won't let me ply my craft indoors any longer," Castle sadly replied.

Lily had practically choked on her food. Heaven only knew why her mother had banished him to the terrace. If she were to guess, it had probably involved some disastrous experiment. She finished her breakfast, grabbed an apron from the pantry and followed her father outside.

Kate sat in the terrace, pretending to read while watching as her two mad artists gutted the pumpkins. She looked at her phone as the reminder for her pending errands dinged. Two floors down, the Johnson family was also preparing to host a less adult soiree. Charlie had begged her grandmother to pick her up from school to see her aunt Lily and attend the Johnson party.

Charlotte Taylor was a ball of fire. Tall and slim, with strawberry-blond hair and her grandfather's cobalt blue eyes, she was stunning. At fourteen, Charlotte was developing into a heart-stopping beauty.

At eleven thirty a slew of decorators arrived to put the finishing touches on the apartment. Knowing what Castle was capable of, Kate supervised the decorating, keeping things in check. There were smoke machines, ultraviolet and strobe lights, motion detection devices and pressure sensitive mats that activated different sounds throughout the house. Kate was not a fan. There was an eerily, lifelike ghoul glaring in the main entrance, and a huge dragon spewing smoke over the door leading to the terrace. It was turning out to be another Castle haunted house.

After a quick lunch and an attempt at cleaning up the pumpkin mess, Lily sat back to enjoy a chat with her mother. Lily Castle was well aware she was a carbon copy of Katherine Beckett. She would always remember a heated argument her first year in Albany when an opponent's aide had interjected during a tense exchange.

"You're just as big a bitch as your mother!" he'd angrily screamed.

As everyone stuttered through apologies and embarrassed utterances, Lily smiled and simply responded. "Thank you, and your point?" Being compared to her mother was always a point of honor.

"Well baby girl, I have to run a few errands and pick up Charlie at school. The caterers should arrive around three to set up. Please keep your father out of trouble," Kate added as she kissed her daughter.

"I can't promise I will succeed, but I will try," Lily added with a giggle.

The moment Castle heard his wife leave, he made a bee-line for Lily. The grin on his face a dead giveaway he had something brewing.

"Hey Lily-pad, I got something for you. Come on let's go to the den," he blurted as he grabbed her hand.

"Dad, I promised mom we'd stay out of trouble, so no crazy stuff okay?" she'd answered as she followed him.

He hit the side of one of his bookshelves and a long thin drawer popped out. He grinned, retrieving a long blue velvet pouch, and handed it to her.

"Since I have a real one, I thought it only fair you have one too. It's an exact replica," he proudly declared.

"Wow, dad… It's…Wow!" she was speechless. This was way overboard, but then again it was her father and it was Halloween. The small thin sword was a thing of beauty.

As it turned out, it was an extraordinary realistic addition to her costume. He was so excited about their secret he could not contain himself. She loved Halloween, mainly because she cherished how her father relished the holiday and all its trappings. Lily Castle was thrilled to be her father's partner in crime.

She watched as he displayed his costume, laughing when she noticed the built-in muscles. The tailored made outfit and armor, crafted from a lightweight polymer, and probably configured on a very high-end 3-D printer, appeared realistic. His sword was authentic, and the rest of the attire looked as if it had traveled back from the days of dragons and knight; dirt and all.

A widely popular series around the time of her birth, one only needed to be a purveyor of fantasy novels or old television shows to immediately catch the reference. But there was not a single Castle who did not know, "A Song of Ice and Fire" by George R. R. Martin, and his series of novels. They were poised to make a grand entrance as Arya Stark and Sandor "The Hound" Clegane. She had agreed to the costume the moment he had suggested it.

"We'll have to lock ourselves in the guest room so you can do my make-up, otherwise your mother will see us. I had one of the make-up guys at mother's playhouse create a prosthetic we can glue on my face, all you have to do is blend it in with the stuff he gave me. And wait till you see the wig!" He was so excited he hadn't taken a breath.

When he pulled out the shoulder length reddish brown wavy wig she could not contain her laughter. They would have to add some baby oil or other greasy hair product to make it look more authentic. Sandor was not exactly a cleanly primped knight.

"This is all great, but we have other things to do. If mom gets home and we're not done with her to do list, she'll kill us," Lily added as she kissed her father on the cheek and thanked him for the present.

Fifteen minutes before the caterers arrived, her mother returned with her firecracker niece in tow.