Page 9

Chapter Five

S he awoke to a loud knocking noise.

The first wild thought that crossed her mind was that the reverend had made good on his threat and now there was a mob of villagers here to threaten her for practicing ‘witchcraft’.

Reminding herself that the Woods seldom let people through, Serena hurriedly dressed and made her way downstairs, eyes still bleary from sleep.

She wrenched open the door to find herself face-to-face with her strange visitor from the day before.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said flatly.

He frowned at her disheveled appearance and decidedly unwelcome tone. “I thought I would continue my search from yesterday.”

“It is barely sunrise,” grumbled Serena, but nonetheless stood aside to let him in.

“I thought to get an early start. Not an early riser, are we?”

Counting to ten in her head to keep herself from smacking the bland expression on his face, she reminded herself that he was twice her size.

It did not help. She still wanted to hit him.

Pinching her forehead, she decided to think calming thoughts. Like the peppermint tea she was going to have in fifteen minutes. It occurred to her then that he still hadn’t told her the name of the book or what he planned to do when he found the text.

“You’re not thinking I’ll let you take the book with you, are you? Because my family’s book collection is not for sale or for borrowing for long periods of time.”

“Don’t worry about that,” he said brusquely. “I just need to take a look; my work won’t take more than a few hours.”

That sounded odd to her, but as it did not concern her, she decided to not push him any further.

They stepped inside the study, and she had a moment to take in his appearance in the daylight.

The blasted man looked like he had stepped out of some fairytale book, but instead of looking like Prince Charming, he looked like the rugged warrior who would help you on your quest. She had noticed this before as well; Kai Gray did not have the look of a scholar about him.

Her aunt had entertained few visitors, but those who had made it to the cottage were usually bookish types, eager to peruse the famed Larke collection.

The number had waned in recent years, but Serena still remembered the nervous men who had talked too much, with delicate lily-white hands and clothes too big for them.

They stooped over the books, their eyes shining with glee as they beheld the different titles.

Gray looked nothing like that; he was tall and straight backed.

A man of few words with eyes that seemed to sear your soul.

He was not a towering man, but he was taller than her brothers and had a solid body and a deep assured manner of speaking.

His hands were callused and slightly scarred, and he—

—was looking right at her.

“Is everything all right?” he asked.

Blinking, she shook herself out of her reverie. “Yes, sorry. Hey, be careful with that!”

For he had just thrust a hundred-year-old tome aside like it was yesterday’s newspaper.

Apparently, he also did not possess the scholarly urge to be careful with books.

She picked up the tome gingerly, assessing it for damage.

Serena wasn’t a scholar, not like her aunt, but as a voracious reader, she had grown up loving and respecting books.

Gray’s cavalier manner was not only puzzling for a scholar but also horrifying for her precious books.

One wrong move, and he would end up ruining a centuries-old preserved text.

“I think I am going to have to supervise your search,” she said grimly. “I would like to keep these books safe, thank you very much. And for the stars’ sake, will you just tell me what you’re looking for? ”

The man appraised her for a long moment.

“The book is called The Tales of Arcana Fortune . The author was a renowned storyteller who—”

“I know who Arcana is,” Serena cut him off, her voice colored with disbelief. “But there’s no such book of hers. You must be mistaken.”

She would know. When her aunt first told her about their famous ancestor, she had pored through their books and read every story Arcana had ever penned.

Some of the fairytales in her collection were also annotated, and Serena had read all those as well, more than a little starstruck by this mystical forebear of hers.

Gray shook his head. “There’s no mistake. I’m sure that book exists. How are you so sure it doesn’t ?”

“Because Arcana Fortune was my ancestor.”

This seemed to startle him, and he looked around the room with understanding in his eyes. “The collection,” he murmured. “Everything makes a lot more sense.”

She nodded. “Our family name comes from Arcana’s sister Larke, who not only received Arcana’s books after her death, but also proceeded to grow the collection even further.”

“That means my sources must be correct,” said Gray, his brow furrowed. “This really is the most likely place for the book to be.”

“Then we keep searching,” said Serena, picking out a book from one of the nearby shelves.

“We?” He raised his eyebrows.

“Arcana was my ancestor. If she left behind a book that we missed, then I would like to find it. ”

“Suit yourself.”

For the next hour, they went through as many books as they could, the pile of discarded titles getting bigger and bigger.

“All right, time for a break,” she announced. “I’ll get us some tea.”

He scowled at her, his clothes now covered in more dust and a lock of dark hair partially covering his forehead. In his hands he held what she was pretty sure was a large tome of an erotic fairytale, but she refrained from pointing out that amusing detail.

“I’ll make chamomile.” she said helpfully, “It’ll help clear your head.”

Taking his silence as nonverbal acceptance, she left the study. She returned a few minutes later carrying two mugs of steaming tea. Taking a seat upon the desk, she raised the mug to her lips and studied him.

“Have you been to other places before this?” she asked.

“Yes. I’ve been looking for this book for a long time. This was the last stop.”

“Oh. Do you travel often?”

“I don’t know about often, but I have been around a lot, yes.”

“Must be nice.” She sighed wistfully. “I wish I could travel.”

He gave her an assessing look bordering on surprise. “What about you? What’s your story?”

“Me? What do you want to know about me?”

“Why you live alone, why you haven’t traveled even though you want to. Why your hair looks like it was dipped in pink paint.”

She swung her legs back and forth, stalling. “There’s nothing much to tell. I moved in with my aunt when I was seventeen years old, and I remained here even…after. I don’t travel because I have responsibilities here. As for my hair, you mustn’t make fun of me. I was cursed.”

“Cursed?” he asked, his eyes wide.

She nodded. “When I was three years old, I went missing playing outside my house. No one could find me for hours, and it wasn’t until almost nightfall that an old fisherman found me near the river.

I was lying on the ground unconscious with a nasty bump on my head.

I was fine the next day though, but my hair had turned this shade.

” She pulled at a lock of light pink hair.

“It doesn’t have to be a curse,” he pointed out, “It is a very pretty color.”

“It was definitely a curse,” she asserted. “I was never the same after; that’s why I have horrible balance.”

“Ah. I’m sorry to hear that?”

“A normal person would offer more sympathy than that.”

“Well, you don’t seem to be upset overmuch.”

She stifled a giggle at his solemn reply.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” he said gruffly. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m just…I try not to form attachments during my travels, but I should not have been curt with you.”

The earnestness in his words softened her a little to him, and she decided maybe he wasn’t so annoying after all.

Silence fell after that, and she focused her gaze on the documents on the desk, racking her brains for any other clues she could think of regarding Arcana. Then it hit her.

“I think I know where to look.”

Gray’s head whipped around so suddenly she feared he would fall over.

Jumping off the desk, she opened the topmost drawer, seeking a certain emerald-green journal. Where was it? She groaned in frustration as she rifled through papers and old journals that cluttered the space. Dust clouds wafted into the air, and she let out a loud sneeze.

“Do you mind letting me in on what’s going on?”

“My aunt’s journal,” she said, as she exited the study, the dark haired man at her heels. “She was very interested in our history and was always trying to find out more about it. If a clue exists, we’ll find it in her journal.”

“And you have no idea where it is?”

She flitted about from one cupboard to the other trying to find the book. “No, I haven’t seen it since she—” She paused. “I haven’t seen it in a while.”

“Was your aunt in the habit of keeping journals with the plates?” asked Gray wryly.

She opened a kitchen cabinet and peeked inside. “What? Oh—” She had gotten carried away in her search.

“How much do you know about Arcana?” he questioned. “Maybe there’s some piece of information we’re missing.”

“I know mostly about her skill as an unrivalled storyteller. It was said that if she told a sad story, she could have the most stone-hearted of men crying like babes and a happy tale would have those with the dourest dispositions letting out belly laughs. Many people had started to believe fairy tales to be but the stuff of children’s fantasies around that time.

But the elderly still remembered, and when Arcana’s name and fame spread, many of them declared that she had been blessed by the Faery King and Queen themselves. ”

She sent a smile his way, her voice becoming more animated.

“ It was a romantic notion, and so it caught on like fire, more and more people starting to believe there was truth to the rumors. However, she vanished barely a decade later, and people soon forgot about the temporary belief she had restored.”