Page 41 of Beyond the Cottage

He’d be waiting on his knees forever if he thought she was going to elaborate. In fact, she was done dealing with any of it. Emotional reactions only added weight to the situation, and she’d already decided she was finished with them.

“Get up,” she said.

He rose. His eyes had softened with something too close to relief for Gretta’s taste.

“I think we need to set a couple things straight,” she said. “First, our shit from the past has nothing to do with anything now. We were kids in a bad situation, end of story. We’re going to get through the next few days as strangers because that’s what we are. Understand?”

He nodded.

“Second, I don’t want any more melodramatic apologies. I let you get it off your chest, and I’m trusting you to honor your promise to drop it. Can I trust you?”

“You can trust me.”

“Fantastic. I’m going back in.” Shivering, she started down the stairs. Ansel followed, holding the lantern aloft. When they reached the kitchen, she left him there without another word.

Chapter 15

That afternoon, Gretta got sixteen pages into a door-stopper on pixie anatomy before slamming it shut and setting it on the pile of his other boring books. Her reading options were growing thin. Another few hours alone in the room, and she might return to the watchtower to throw herself off it. Like Ansel had offered to do.

Ignoring a twist in her stomach at the image of him laying broken and bloodied in the swamp muck, she got up and unlocked the bedroom door. Considering how much he liked reading, there had to be some kind of library in the prison.

She left the bedroom and stopped short at the mystery door across the hall. The one the master key wouldn’t unlock.

It was cracked open, spilling a wedge of light on the floor, but no sound came from inside. Since it was the only room with a special lock, she didn’t believe he’d have accidentally left it open.

He was in there, doing…what?

Without giving him time to hide whatever the fuck he was up to, Gretta shoved the door open and strode inside.

Ansel looked up from a notebook on a workbench, blinking behind a pair of spectacles, chewing the end of a pencil.

He tossed the pencil and spectacles on the bench. “Hi.”

Gretta stepped deeper into the huge, lantern-lit room and smelled chemicals. Several tables occupied the space, their surfaces filled with gadgets and tools she couldn’t begin to identify. A massive periodic table covered one wall. Beside it hung a sepia photograph of a constipated-looking man in a white lab coat.

Every surface held books, jars, and papers, making his disaster of a bedroom seem the pinnacle of good housekeeping.

“What is this?” she asked.

“My laboratory.”

She picked up a piece of paper covered with equations. Now that she’d seen inside Ansel’s super secret lair, she ought to march right back out. She was avoiding him, after all.

But curiosity hounded her.

“Is this where you mess around with pixie dust?” she asked.

“No. Dust requires no tampering.”

“So what do you do in here?” Gretta brushed her fingertips over a slender bottle filled with purple liquid and picked it up.

Rushing forward, Ansel reached around her to take it away. “Don’t touch that. Actually, don’t touch anything.”

“What is that stuff?”

“Petracero potion.”

With a sound of disgust, Gretta vigorously wiped her hand on her pants. “Goddammit, Ansel! You deal in witchcraft, too? Wasn’t the cottage enough to keep you away from that shit?”

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