Page 20 of Beyond the Cottage

“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 effectivelydidn’texist.

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 ofPhlebotomy 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 changeher mind about him, though, so he shrugged. “I needed the money.”

“Everyone needs money.”

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

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