Page 7 of Beyond the Cottage (After the Fairytale #1)

Chapter 7

T he following afternoon, Ansel returned to Miss Hacker’s cell. He’d spent another night without much sleep, so fatigue and tension strained his steps. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and stopped at her cell.

She sat cross-legged on the pallet, toying with her ponytail and reading the book he’d put in the sack. Her hair looked freshly washed. A bucket of soapy water stood inside the bars, as well as an empty food tray. He disregarded a twinge of relief that she’d been eating. Also, a stab of guilt.

Unaware of his presence, she scratched a mosquito bite on her elbow and turned a page. In repose, she looked harmless, almost girlish.

Ansel got lightheaded. His gut clenched against… what? Something deeper than curiosity and more irrational than comfort.

Fondness .

What the fuck was wrong with him?

She looked up, and the feeling passed as quickly as it came. Ansel rubbed his neck where she’d bitten him, discarding the odd moment as he had the others.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I need to speak with you.”

“The only thing I’m interested in talking about is your plan to let me go.”

“As it happens, I can tell you that. I’ll release you in five days.” Ansel paused. “A week at most.”

Surprise flickered across her face. Then her eyes narrowed. “A week ?”

“It’s the time we need to properly vacate the premises. It will pass quickly.”

She tossed the book aside and stood. “Are you seriously incapable of hearing how fucked up that sounds? How fucked up all this is?”

I am more fucked up than she’ll ever know.

“I’ll do my best to make you as comfortable as possible.”

She leaned on the bars with a frustrated sigh. “Alright, Lab Coat, I’ll play along. You say you want to make me comfortable, but keeping me locked up is barbaric. I need fresh air and sunlight.”

“The opportunity to escape, you mean.” Did she think him a fool?

“I’m serious. Forced confinement is its own form of torture. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be locked in a cage?”

Ansel’s lungs constricted. For a brief flash, he saw a gnarled hand turning a rusty key. Breathing hard, forcing his eyes to stay open, he slammed a lid on his sewer of a memory bank.

Miss Hacker watched him cannily. No doubt she’d concluded he was a madman and was already working out the best ways to exploit it.

Still. Fresh air wasn’t an unreasonable request. And it wasn’t as though she had anywhere to run to. Perhaps if she saw the swamps firsthand, she’d recognize the futility in escaping.

“I’ll be back in a moment.” He rushed to his office, and when he returned, he found her standing in the same place. He produced the handcuffs, and loathing came off her like perfume.

“I’m not wearing those again,” she said.

“I don’t want to use them either, but I don’t trust you. It’s the cuffs, or you can keep reading in your cell.”

She hesitated, clearly evaluating her meager options. Then she sighed. “I’ll only wear them with my hands in front.”

“Agreed.”

“You’re a piece of shit.”

Also agreed.

Once the cuffs were fastened, he unlocked the door and guided her through the dim passageway. She kept her face straight ahead, but her eyes scanned their surroundings.

“How long have you lived here?” she asked as they walked.

“Two years.”

“Interesting. I can tell it’s been abandoned a lot longer than that. You must be from around here if you knew about it.”

“I don’t fault your efforts to suss out my identity, Miss Hacker, but I warn you it’s a waste of time. People from the swamps may as well be ghosts.” The only recorded proof Ansel Wallenfang existed was correspondence with a few academics and his Antrelle library card. He used a false name on his business accounts, and only Seven and Jonas knew his surname.

He effectively didn’t exist.

She shrugged, and he steered her left. The door at the end of the hall had six locks, though only the middle one worked. Ansel unlocked the door, and it groaned as he hauled it open.

Afternoon sunshine burst in like a nova. Miss Hacker squinted against it, her mouth spreading in the first genuine smile he’d seen from her. Tamping down guilt, he followed her to the yard.

When Ansel and Jonas had played there as boys, the property sprawled for acres into the bayou. Over time, the swamps had swallowed land until the distance from the door to the luminous muck could be measured in yards. The structure’s floor would be submerged in a year or two, a problem that no longer concerned him.

A few pixies leaned against the building, chatting and giggling. They grew silent as he and Miss Hacker went by. Before she could harass them, Ansel pulled Miss Hacker to a path jutting from the island, and she yanked her arm from his hand.

He didn’t try to reclaim it. Now that she’d gotten a good look at the swamps, she’d be a fool to think she stood any chance against them by herself.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“There’s a clearing ahead.”

They reached it, and he sat on the weathered bench.

Disinclined to join him, Miss Hacker walked slow laps around the perimeter. Her fingers sifted through the shimmering fronds of a willow tree before breaking off a strand. “Where does the path lead?”

“Nowhere, the swamp ate most of it up. There’s a dead end a ways down.”

She perused the greenery, brushing the willow frond against her chin. The gesture gave Ansel another visceral pang of familiarity.

“Are you…?” He squinted. “Some sort of public figure?”

Her expression suggested he’d asked if she was a professional trapeze artist. He shook his head, waving the idiotic question away.

He was getting crazier. Even if she had some kind of celebrity status, Ansel wouldn’t have seen her image before. He rarely read newspapers, let alone entertainment rags. It seemed unlikely she’d graced the pages of Phlebotomy Quarterly .

The pixie was simply common looking. Pretty, yes. But she resembled a hundred people he’d met over the years.

Ignoring him, she continued walking in circles, visibly savoring the outdoors. A cool breeze cut through the thick, humid air, and she turned her face to it.

The chirping in the trees stopped. Ansel looked up. Not a cloud marred the perfect blue, but he’d lived in the swamps long enough to trust the birds more than the sky. Another gust came, and his scalp tingled.

“How did you get into dust trafficking?” she asked, leaning on a fallen oak. He dropped his eyes to her without responding.

“Oh, come on,” she said. “The least you can do is distract me with conversation.”

Still tense from that unsettling breeze, Ansel frowned as he considered how to answer. She was practically putting together a dossier on him, but what was the harm in divulging the basics of his profession? They’d be irrelevant soon, anyway.

He replied, “While studying blood transfusions, I became curious about other applications for the principle. I developed subcutaneous fluid transferal technology by modifying hypodermic needles.”

“You did…whatever all that is to steal pixie dust?”

“Again, you’re the only one I ever— Yes. I developed it to extract dust.”

She crumpled the frond and let it fall to the ground. “Impressive. What confuses me is why you’d use all that knowledge and effort for something so despicable.”

Compared to the endeavors of Ansel’s past, his current business was downright benign. Nothing he said would change her mind about him, though, so he shrugged. “I needed the money.”

“Everyone needs money.”

“I need more than most.” Silver was expensive.

She looked him over disdainfully. “You’re a squatter who dresses like a bum, so I’ll use my imagination where your expenses are concerned. Really, though, I think you’re just a cold bastard who gets off on it.”

She believed he sold pixie dust because he enjoyed it? Because it excited him? She had no idea what he was actually working toward, but hell if there was any point in telling her.

“Miss Hacker, you don’t actually know anything about me.”

“I know you’re intelligent, and you’re obviously resourceful. Why don’t you apply your education to a legitimate science career?”

“Because I’m not educated. Not formally. It isn’t easy for swamp trash like me to pay for university.”

She snorted. “I think that’s an excuse. It’s easier to blame the world than take responsibility for what you are.”

“What I am?” He stood, towering over her. “I wouldn’t say you’re well-positioned to judge the life choices of others, pixie. My associate informed me he found you stumbling around bars and brothels, piss drunk and barely coherent.”

“At least I wasn’t hurting anybody. And getting drunk is better than worshiping money at the expense of basic decency.”

He didn’t worship money. Like the dust farm, it was a means to an end. And those who disregarded money’s necessity had usually never needed to worry about it.

“I’d hardly expect you to understand,” he said. “But I’ll remind you, not everyone grows up in the luxury of a pixie colony.”

“Believe it or not, asshole, growing up with wealth doesn’t promise an easy life. Besides, you should know better than anyone that not all pixies are rich.”

“Your perspective on hardship is relative. I doubt you’ve spent a single day concerned about your survival.”

Emotion burst across her face. It disappeared before Ansel could name it, but he recognized it. Somehow, he knew with absolute certainty he’d spoken in error.

She had survived something.

Miss Hacker lifted her chin. “You don’t know anything about me, either.”

No, but I want to.

The thought startled him, and he retreated, putting space between them.

He hadn’t been careful. His nonsensical, counterfeit emotions indicated her dust was already replenishing. While there was no avoiding a degree of proximity to her, he played with fire by indulging in personal conversation.

The less he knew about her, the better.

“Time to go back,” he said.

Blocking the path, she approached. He backed away, and she followed, stalking him. Her expression sent warning bells clattering around his brain.

Which was fucking ridiculous.

Ansel put a hand on his hip and tried to look menacing, for once. “I said— ”

Her cuffed wrists lifted. She curled her fingers into his waistband and viciously yanked, making him stumble to her by the hips.

Eyes wide, she breathed, “I don’t want to go yet.”