Page 23 of The Beast of Ashwood Manor

Mary smoothed out her dark-blue dress. “I’ll think of something.”

I took a bite of corn bread and looked out, seeing Eugenia and Natalie walking together near the hedges. When they weren’t working, they were always together, sometimes holding hands.

Then I spotted a striped cat in the distance. I’d seen it around before. It hardly came up to us, but now, it seemed to smell our food and ventured over.

“Hello.” I reached down, letting the cat smell my fingers, and it licked me.

“That’s Dyna,” Mary said. “She comes and goes as she pleases, but she seems to favor Lord Gil. I always see her going through his window.”

Smiling, I scratched her ear and gave her a bit of sausage, which she ate up quickly.

“Do that and she won’t leave you alone.”

“I don’t mind,” I said with a laugh, looking over at Mary. “You look around my age. Were you very young when this happened?”

“I was ten. I’ve been here for almost fifteen years. My mother worked at the manor. She helped raise Lord Gil, you see. She followed him to the Ashwood Estate. I was very young and only helped my mother because Lord Gil wouldn’t allow me to work until I was old enough. He treated my mother with kindness and respect, as he did all of us. There were five of us here at first. My mother and I, Royce and Annie, and Edgar. Then Jared came with two others.”

She looked down, smiling faintly. “When the curse fell over us, it was terrifying at first. My mother told me that a woman cursed Lord Gil for turning her away, but it went much deeper than that. I learned that there was a fae connected to the Unseelie Court in Lord Gil’s family. I don’t know all the details, but we believe she’s the one who put a curse over the manor, for whatever reason. Jealousy, perhaps hatred? Lord Gil’s father loved him dearly, so much that he gave him this estate.”

I fed Dyna more food as I listened, trying to picture it all in my head; a fae casting a curse . . . my mother would flip if she knew, as she believed in such things. The Unseelie Court was most unsettling to hear about, as I’d heard her mention it several times growing up but always thought she was teasing about such a place to scare me away from the woods.

“Is that where we are now?” I asked. “The Unseelie Court?”

“I’m not sure. My mother believed we’re in a threshold between it and the Seelie Court, far enough in to see the monsters that linger here but far enough away not to be too bothered with them.”

Dyna rubbed against my hand. “And Jared and the other two who left? What happened to them?”

“I don’t know. Lord Gil looked for them afterward, but he never found them. Either that or he killed them. And if he didn’t kill them, they were either killed by monsters or turned into them.”

Hearing such a thing dampened my mood. There was much to mull over. I looked out at the courtyard, watching Natalie laugh with Eugenia. She pointed at something near the wall.

How lucky they are to have each other.

I chipped a piece of wood from the table and narrowed my eyes. “You know, I can try and build a new table and chairs. Do you have any wood? Tools?”

Mary’s face beamed. “Yes, we do! There’s a pile of wood near the back of the property. Lord Gil keeps it stocked up, and we get rid of things that break in the house out there. It would be nice to have a new table out here.” She suddenly grabbed my arm. “Oh! What about a picnic?”

I furrowed my brows. “A picnic?”

“Yes. You and Gil could sit outside and eat together. On the new table. You can tell him you built it just for him.”

“Doesn’t that seem a bit . . . much?”

“No. It’s a nice gift, and it shows him you’re trying. Come on, let’s do it!”

“Um . . .” I rubbed my neck, unsure of the idea. “Okay.”

Itwaslateinthe evening when I came back to the manor. I’d been gone for two days, and I was ready to change, maybe eat before passing out in my bed. I had a new wound that would need tending, and the last thing I wanted to do was ask anyone to help with it.

After I dropped off the animals I’d hunted in the shed near the front of the house where we slaughtered, I heard a commotion from the courtyard.

Coming around, I saw everyone out on the terrace. A lamp burned on one of the tables, but I noticed it wasn’t the same one there before. It was new.

I narrowed my eyes on the new table and chairs. Beside it, Cale smiled as Mary placed a garland of leaves on his head.

“I pick Cale to be our mender from now on!” she said, laughing.

“Good. It means you can all go outside and eat instead of loitering around the kitchen,” said Royce.

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