Page 7 of The Beast of Ashwood Manor

“You’re not in Tolburg. My name’s Gil, and you’re in my manor. You found it in the woods. I caught your name is Cale?”

He nodded. “A cursed manor, and a cursed people. Now I’m part of it. I will soon die.”

My lips twitched. “You’re not going to die. You’re alive and well, and I won’t hurt you.”

When his eyelids fluttered open, warm, deep pools of brown stared back beneath dark eyebrows. Prickles of hair grew over his face, and his skin was sun-kissed, unlike mine. Despite his travel-worn clothes and unkempt dark-brown hair, he was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.

I warded the thought away.

“I hit you,” he said.

“You were panicking.”

“I don’t normally do that.” Cale sat up and looked around the room. “Am I really . . . in another realm?”

“It’s complicated,” I said. “I don’t know all manner of the curse on the outside. The plate of food, for instance. We don’t set that out. It’s just there on the day of Spring Tide—or rather, Autumn’s Moon here, enticing whoever to eat it. And once you do, you come here. We all live here, day in and day out.”

“How many of you are there?”

“Seven. You make eight.”

His brows furrowed. “How do you all survive?”

“I’m the only one allowed to leave into the woods outside.” I looked down and shifted in my seat. “It’s dangerous, but I’m able to hunt food.”

“You keep them all alive.”

“And I will you, too. You’re safe here, as long as you don’t leave the manor grounds.”

“Why? What’s outside of it?”

“Monsters. They linger in the woods. This isn’t the world you know as your own. You’ll do well to stay here.”

This seemed to halt his questions, but only for a moment. “You said there’s nothing that can lift the curse, but there has to be. My mother—” Cale cleared his throat and smoothed his hand over the blanket on the bed. “She knows a great deal about curses. There’s always something to break them.”

I stood from the chair and ground my teeth. Of course there was a way to break the curse, but I couldn’t tell him. I was barred from doing so, as well as anyone else. Everyone here knew what would break the binds, and even they had to learn it without me telling them. It wasn’t a choice. The curse simply wouldn’t allow us to speak of it, nor write about it.

When Mary returned with the bowl of water, I let her tend to Cale. She soaked a rag and wrung it out before placing it on his head, but Cale grabbed her arm, making her jump.

“Please,” he begged. “He won’t tell me about this curse, about how I can return to my world. Surely you can tell me something.”

Mary glanced nervously at me, and when I shook my head, she smiled at him and said, “You can trust Lord Gil. He watches over us.”

Cale grimaced. “But that isn’t an answer.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m not allowed to speak of it.”

“I’ll take it from here,” I told her. “Thank you, Mary.”

She nodded before setting the bowl down and leaving.

When the door shut, I stood at the foot of the bed and stared at Cale, hands clasped before me. He was cautious, innocent. And there was something about him that charmed me.

“Well,” Cale started. “This is certainly the most vivid dream I’ve ever had.” He stood from the bed and closed his eyes for a moment, then he walked to the window and pulled back the lace curtains. He gazed out, no doubt looking at the only thing visible, which were the woods ahead that stretched for miles east, west, and south.

“We’re in a field,” I told him. “The sea is just north of us. But that is all you’ll see. The sea, the field, the trees. Nothing else.”

“And there are beasts in there,” he said, not blinking.

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