Page 162 of Beyond the Cottage

Gretta gave him a bewildered smile. She felt like a lead cloak had been lifted from her shoulders. Nat’s games still pissed her off, but she supposed his intentions had been approximately good. Now that she and Ansel were free, she could allow that Nat had behaved more like a meddling big brother than a true tyrant.

“Will there be anything else?” he asked. “I have work to do.”

Gretta hopped off the sofa and kissed his wooden cheek, ignoring the magic radiating off him. “Thanks, Senator. You’re slightly less of an asshole than I thought.”

He shooed her away and returned to his paperwork.

Chapter 55

Ansel’s horse galloped along a dirt path, its hooves kicking up dust. The overcast sky made the distant trees appear darker, more sinister. They loomed before him like the walls of an enemy fortress.

His pulse pounded as he neared them. He’d thought himself safe from the wood’s terrors, but the closer he got, the more his insides twisted. He touched the letter in his pocket like a talisman.

Gretta had left it for him a week ago, the afternoon he’d given her the deed to the house. She’d slipped it through the mail slot without knocking, and he found it the following morning. He hadn’t seen her since.

He reached the tree line and reared to a stop. The horse nickered merrily, oblivious to the darkness swirling around them. Darkness only Ansel could see. Breathing slowly, he counted backward.

It’s just a forest. There’s nothing left here that can hurt you.

As if to emphasize the point, a jeering blue jay flew from the trees. Ansel nudged the horse on.

The air grew cooler as he plodded into the wood. It used to be eerily quiet, but now sparrows chirped overhead. A pair of squirrels chittered, chasing each other across a branch, and a deer took off running when it heard the horse.

Ansel inhaled through his nose and exhaled out his mouth, pushing onward. He’d suffer a thousand of his episodes to see her again.

Her letter had been brief, merely a time, date, and location. It gave no indication of her feelings. That she reached out at all had to be a good sign, though, didn’t it? Surely, she wouldn’t call him there to tell him she’d changed her mind?

Of course, with Gretta, one was a fool to forecast.

Ansel rode through the forest at an easy pace until the path ended. He stopped short of a wide clearing and pressed his eyes shut. The Eater’s creek gargled in the background.

The witch is dead. Gretta’s waiting for you.

He dismounted and entered the clearing.

She stood before the rotting cottage, oblivious to him. A half-empty liquor bottle hung from her fingertips.

Fear and love constricted Ansel’s chest, nearly suffocating him, and he had to concentrate on every breath as he approached.

When she heard leaves crunching, she looked over her shoulder. Her expression held no emotion, but dried tears streaked her cheeks. Ansel ached to haul her against him. He wanted to comfort her, to pick her up and run, to promise her they’d never return to these godforsaken woods.

Instead, he stopped beside her. They quietly stared at the cottage.

“It looks different,” she said. “I’m not sure what I expected.”

He eyed the sunken roof and the crumbling chimney. The pink scalloped trim had faded to gray, and dead vines encased the walls. Glass shards jutted from the windows like fangs.

“It’ll collapse in a few years,” he said. “A fitting grave.”

“Her bones are still in the oven. It’s silly, but I had to check.” Gretta searched the crooked doorway as though the Eater’s skeleton might crawl out and snatch her.

Her fist clenched around the bottle, but she didn’t uncork it. “What do you think she’d say if she could see us here together? If she knew we were still friends?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure she’d care either way.”

“You don’t think she hated us?”

“I don’t think she felt anything at all. It never seemed personal to me. She was like a mindless, rabid wolf who needed to be put down.”

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