Page 2 of Horned to be Wild
No wonder she never wanted visitors.
All in all, it could have been far worse and her optimism returned. She was smiling as she called Etta.
“Are you there? Are you settled in? Have you met any monsters yet?” Etta’s questions tumbled over each other, and she laughed.
“Yes. No. Not yet. I need to clean the cottage before I do anything else. If it’s going to need a lot of repairs, I want to know sooner rather than later. Besides, if I put it off, I’ll never find the time once I start painting.”
“How does it look?”
“A little neglected, but it’s really quite charming,” she said firmly. “I’ll take some pictures after it’s clean.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come up and help you this weekend?”
“No, it’s fine. I know how busy you are at the beginning of the school year. And besides, I don’t really have a place to put you yet,” she added truthfully.
“Okay. But call me every day and let me know how it’s going.”
“Of course I will.”
After answering a few more questions, she hung up and looked around the room. Time to get to work. The days were already growing shorter at this time of year and she wanted to make as much progress as possible before dark.
She unloaded the car and put away the groceries she’d picked up at the big supermarket the next town over. As she was filling one of great aunt’s pretty vintage glasses with water from the tap, thehair on the back of her neck suddenly prickled. Was someone watching her?
Walking out onto the small back porch, she surveyed what had once been an attractive garden. The paved area outside the back door must have been a charming seating area at one time, and remnants of stone pathways peeked through the weeds, leading towards the edge of the dense forest behind her property. Nothing moved—even the breeze had died down—but the sensation of being watched intensified.
Then she caught a glimpse of an enormous silhouette at the forest’s edge and her heart started to race. Even though he was partially hidden by shadows and underbrush, he was massive, easily seven feet tall, with broad shoulders and a powerful build. She couldn’t make out his features but impressive, curved horns rose from his head.Not human.
Their eyes met across the distance—amber eyes that seemed to glow in the forest shadows—and a curious shock went through her, as if the very air was charged with electricity. Her breath caught in her throat as his eyes remained locked on hers. But then he stepped back and disappeared into the forest, silent despite his size, and the world started to move again.
She took a long, shuddering breath and tried to calm her racing pulse.
A minotaur.
She knew what minotaurs were, of course, and even in New York she had encountered the occasional monster. But somehow seeing an occasional orc on a crowded city street wasn’t quite the same as having a minotaur in her backyard.
I knew what I was getting into, she reminded herself. She would have to seek him out and introduce herself. He was most likely a neighbor and she didn’t want him to think she was prejudiced against his kind. But first she needed to deal with the dust and dirt that had greeted her arrival.
The next few hours passed in a whirlwind of cleaning, and it was long past dark by the time she was able to retreat to the now clean bathroom with a glass of wine for a long, hot soak in the big tub. All of the dust sheets had been removed and thrown into the fortunately still working washing machine, although the dryer was not equally cooperative. She’d have to dry them on the clothesline in the morning. The furniture had been dusted and the floors mopped. Tomorrow she would tackle the curtains and the windows. And the outside.
The thought made her groan. Cleaning was one thing, but any type of repair work was well outside her experience. She still wanted to give it a try before she hired anyone to help.
Maybe I can ask my neighbor, she thought, her heart giving an odd little flutter at the idea. He would certainly be strong enough to handle any of the heavy-duty repairs the house might need.No. She’d just escaped one relationship; she wasn’t looking for another. And why had the word relationship even popped into her mind? She groaned again and ducked her head under the water, determined to put any thought of her mysterious neighbor out of her mind.
But despite her physical exhaustion, she ended up tossing restlessly rather than falling asleep. When she finally gave an exasperated sigh and switched on the bedside light, she noticed that the top drawer on the nightstand wasn’t quite closed. When she tugged it open, she found a leather-bound journal. Her great aunt’s flowing script filled the pages, interspersed with delicatewatercolor sketches of wildflowers, birds, and forest creatures. Eleanor must have been an artist too—something else she hadn’t known.
A sketch of massive, curved horns partially hidden by foliage caught her eye, and she read the entry beneath it.
“Torin brought firewood today. He always insists on refilling my supply before the first snow, even though I’ve told him I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself.”
Torin.That must be her minotaur.
She continued flipping through the journal and found more references to him.
“Torin pointed out the most extraordinary mushrooms today. I’ve never seen such an incredible variety of color and shape. He pretended not to be interested when I sketched them, but he can’t fool me.”
“Torin stopped to tell me about the migration of the fireflies. We sat together on the back porch and drank iced tea and watched them rise in the woods, a wave of shimmering gold. Thankfully he had the good sense to keep quiet rather than fill the air with meaningless conversation like most people.”
She snorted a laugh at the last comment. Judging from the journal, her great aunt had been as acerbic in person as she had in her letters. But despite her occasionally scathing comments, it was clear that Torin was a regular visitor and that Eleanor trusted him. She definitely needed to introduce herself.
