Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83858 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83858 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
With every step, I try to process what happened yesterday. Not the mechanics—those are easy, those are already stamped on my curves, and in my mind. No, it’s the feeling of a slow throb of want and desire, the sense of having crossed the Rubicon and waiting in anticipation for what comes next.
Who am I now? Am I still a person, or am I just a product? Am I a girl, a woman, or someone new altogether, bred in a greenhouse of NDAs and direct deposits? My brain is so muddled and confused. I bend to pluck a sprig of wild rosemary, and my fingers shake.
I wander deeper, until the house is out of sight, then deeper still. There’s something comforting about the way the trees cluster around me, muffling the world. My basket fills with thyme and wild mint, the leaves frosted at the edges. I even find a patch of nettle, and though it stings, I add it anyway, pressing the bright green into the nest of stems. There’s a lesson in that somewhere. I’m not sure if it’s about pain, or endurance, or just being the kind of woman who seizes the opportunity, even if it comes laced with pain.
I’m crouched by a fallen log, pulling at a stubborn root, when I smell smoke.
Not the distant tang of a chimney, but real, living, burning wood. It’s coming from the west, down where the slope dips toward the old riverbed. I hesitate, heart ticking up, then follow the scent because it’s sweet somehow. It’s definitely man-made, and I had no idea that there were neighbors in the vicinity.
Sure enough, the smoke leads me to a clearing shaded with small saplings. There’s a cabin here, smaller than Talon’s, built from rough logs stacked with messy pride. A ring of stones circles a smoking firepit, where someone’s laid a grid of sticks across the flames. Over the fire, an enamel kettle rattles with the force of its boiling.
And next to the fire, crouched on a stump and whittling a stick with a stubby folding knife, is a man.
He’s old—well, not ancient, but at least sixty, with a white beard and skin like sun-baked leather. He wears a faded green vest over a red checked shirt, sleeves rolled to elbows with fingers that look strong enough to crack walnuts bare-handed. His palms are flat and big, and he probably built this place and buried a few things under it, too.
The old man looks up when he hears me, but doesn’t stop whittling.
“Lost?” he croaks, sounding a bit like a gnome. Or maybe a hobbit or troll?
I open my mouth, then close it. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.
“Just out foraging,” I manage, holding up the basket in explanation.
The hobbit snorts. “Nothing but pine needles and coyote shit out here.” But his eyes are kind, or at least not unkind. He gestures to a rickety camp chair. “You want a seat?”
I hesitate, then sit. The chair creaks but holds.
The man sets aside his knife and stick, then grabs the kettle and pours boiling water into a battered tin mug. “Tea?” he offers, shoving the mug toward me.
“Sure,” I say, because what else can you say when a hobbit offers you hospitality?
The tea is black and bitter, leaves floating in the top like drowned insects. I sip, and it burns all the way down.
“Name’s Erasmus,” he says. “You belong to the fancy house up the ridge?”
I nod, throat still scalded. “Yes, I’m Kat. Uh, Katherine. I’m staying there for now.”
He eyes my basket, then my hands. “You’re city,” he says.
I almost laugh. “Yes. Is it that obvious?”
He shrugs. “You keep your nails too clean for a woods girl. That’s all.”
I look at my nails, and he’s right. Even after the root-pulling, my pink polish is still intact.
Erasmus leans back, the chair squealing. “So how long will you be staying around these parts?”
I smile. “Not too long. Just here for the season.”
He grunts. “Figured. Not many stay longer than that.”
There’s a long silence, filled only by the pop and crackle of the fire. I wonder if I should ask more because who’s stayed here before? Whom is he referring to? Am I in danger? But something about the hobbit is comforting, like he’s been stitched into the land and can’t be dislodged.
He picks up his knife again, resumes whittling. “You met Talon’s dogs yet?”
I blink. “No, I didn’t know he had any. You know Mr. McKnight?”
He grins, showing a row of surprisingly white teeth. “His dogs aren’t the barking kind.”
I don’t know how to respond, so I say, “I’m just his assistant, helping with his book. That’s all. He’s a very famous author.”
Erasmus shrugs again, then pauses, knife hovering over wood. “Fame or no fame, doesn’t matter to me. But you know why he comes here, every year?”