Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 81208 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81208 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
“What if the bears don’t want you to run?” Robert says softly.
“Well, of course, they don’t. They want to eat me. It’s a whole lot easier to eat something if it stays still.”
Robert makes a choking sound. “Goldie. You know how, in the story, Goldilocks samples all the things in the house. The porridge, the chairs, the beds.”
“Yeeesss,” I drawl.
“Would you like to do that here?”
I’m flummoxed for a moment. I’m hardly going to go around testing furniture. Is he planning a porridge-making contest with his brothers and needs a judge? This is all getting very surreal, but maybe, instead of my mind whirring over so many strange possibilities, I should just get on and ask him to elaborate.
“What are you saying? You keep talking in riddles, and I don’t get what you mean.”
“I mean, do you want to stay and see?”
“See what?”
“If you like it here.”
I cock my head to the side as Robert smiles and shrugs. He’s very laid back for someone who has just invited an almost stranger to move into his home after what was supposed to be a one-night stand. Very laid back for someone who was so nervous when his brothers returned.
“What?”
“Look, it’s not safe for you to go home, and I had a great time tonight.”
“I did, too, except for the part where I was locked up.”
Robert grimaces. “That was for your own safety.”
“In case of what? I wandered off and got eaten by bears? From your weird, aggressive brother with the color-changing eyes?”
Robert stiffens. “You wouldn’t get eaten by bears around here,” he says with apparent certainty. Does he not know anything about wild animals? And why is he avoiding eye contact?
“And your brother?”
“You know how in fairy stories people fall in love at first sight, or they’re destined to be together… they just feel it in their hearts?”
“Yeah,” I say, wondering why our conversations always seem to end up back in fairyland.
“Well, that’s what my brother feels about you.”
“About me?”
Robert nods. “He’s the eldest, the one who senses that something is—” He trails off, disturbing his hair again with frustrated fingers. His mouth opens around a word he doesn’t speak. Then he sighs as though he’s resigned to whatever comes next. “Fated.”
“Fated?” My eyebrows fly up. Just when I thought this was as strange as it was going to get, it gets stranger. This really is the maple syrup on the porridge. “Hunter believes we’re fated to be together. Me and him?”
“You and all of us,” Robert says. “I know it sounds crazy. I know that it’s not something you hear every day. But that’s why he’s the way he is about you. It’s a kind of madness. It’s why I didn’t want to bring you here just for me. It isn’t fair. Not when he’s experiencing this… this frenzy.”
The more time I spend with Robert, the more I worry that these brothers have been isolated out here for so long they’ve turned strange. People aren’t fated to be together. It might be a common idea in tales of old and epic romances, but not real life. Real life is dirtier, grittier, and darker. There are no happy-ever-afters. Not really. It’s just luck when you find a person you get along with enough to stay in a relationship with.
“None of what you’ve just said makes any sense. Human beings don’t just see someone and know they’re meant to be together for life. They certainly don’t change eye color because of it.”
Robert stands and strides over to the window, pulls the drapes open, and gazes at the view I’d been studying earlier.
“What you’re saying is right. Human beings don’t just see someone and know they’re going to be together for life. At least, not in the way that Hunter does.”
“So why did you tell me that’s what happened?”
“Human beings don’t,” Robert says, turning to face me, his expression about as serious as I’ve ever seen it. “But we’re not human beings.”
16
GOLDIE
Did Robert say that? I don’t feel like I can ask him to repeat it without sounding stupid.
I slide out of bed and pad across the warm carpet until I’m in front of him. I touch his arm, needing to reassure myself that he is as I remember him: solid, warm, and real. I touch the scruff on his chin. “You sure feel real and human to me,” I say softly.
“See a coin from one side, and you only understand half the picture.”
“And what’s the other half?”
“I think you know.” He looks out into the forest, resting his hand on the window’s cool glass. As I following his gaze, his arm begins to shake.
I stare because it looks like he’s about to have a fit of some sort, but instead, before my eyes, his skin darkens until it is dark-furred and wide, and in the place of his hand is a paw with long sharp claws. He doesn’t move, but I do, stepping back until I hit the edge of the desk.