Chapter Eight

      I had no bed. It sounds like the beginning of an orphan story but I didn’t, so I made up the sofa with sheets and a big quilt I’d brought with me. The quilt had been my mother’s, a purchase from a tag sale, and weight about a hundred pounds. So I doubted I’d be cold despite the wind that was currently buffeting my fairy-tale cottage.

      I pushed my face to the cool glass and watched the trees tossing with each gust. The small TV I’d brought was picking up the local channels just fine thanks to a brand-new HD box I’d bought.

      ‘Even TV isn’t free anymore, Dad,’ I whispered.

      My father would have had a fit knowing that you had to pay for even the most basic network channels. And knowing that he’d have a fit amused me because I could picture him vividly.

      There were lights on in all three houses. Front room for Coop’s small stone house – maybe his living room. The upper right room for Deke’s – I was betting that was the bathroom, so I immediately imagined him naked. Imagining Deke naked was like imagining a chocolate torte – the moment you pictured it, you wanted it. Speaking of baked goods, in Stephen the baker’s little cottage it was the upper left room – bedroom maybe? I knew bakers kept odd hours and given it was past eleven, I wasn’t surprised to see the light flip off.

      I wondered if his house smelled of yeast and cinnamon and sugar.

      ‘He lures you in with his sugary treats. Like in Hansel and Gretel,’ I whispered, letting the lace curtain fall. ‘Firstly, Farrell, what is with all the fairy-tale references and secondly, stop talking to yourself, you twit.’

      I watched some news and covered myself in the quilt and then enjoyed the ending of the fire, glowing its merry glow. It wasn’t long before my eyes were heavy and my body followed suit. I was too tired to put away the pie, or shower, or anything but lie here watching the dancing blue shimmer of the television screen through almost shut eyes.

      When my eyes finally did drop, the blue light penetrated just enough to give a ghostly flicker to the darkness behind my closed lids.

       I was in the tower. It was so tall. Much taller than it appeared from my front porch. My hair whipped in the ever-present wind that whistled through the small keyhole windows in the structure …

       Down below, when I leaned over a bit too far, giving myself a swirl and dip of vertigo, I could see them. Three in a row looking up at me. Cooper and his assessing eyes, his self-assured swagger, his smile. Stephen and his black hair, his bulging forearms, his confidence. Deke, big flashing smile, narrow jaw, Lucifer-like demeanour … hell on two legs. Literally.

       The cottages were dotted with gingerbread and candy and each man opened his mouth to speak. In unison they bleated, hard, squealing pig sounds that froze my heart.

       ‘Dream, dream, dream …’ I chanted, running down the spiral stairs. Three men, three pigs, three choices, gluttony of arousal. It all swirled through my head and I knew that I was dreaming. But I batted the thought away with a shiver as the wind twined itself through the stone stairwell.

       At the bottom, I rushed out, a bitter gust lifting my hair from my face and my neck. I looked down to see my nightgown – plain white gauzy peasant gown that hugged my breasts, exposing twin points against the fabric from the cold. I rubbed my thighs together realising that I was bare underneath. And so were my feet.

       ‘Dream, dream, dream …’ I repeated. Noticing, of course, the group of three. Three of everything around these parts. ‘Three is the magic number,’ I whispered but the wind scooped up my words and tossed them away.

       I ran to Deke’s house. He turned to me in a swirl of smoke and I knew I should be afraid, but instead, I was drawn to him. He was so … there. Intriguing. Sexy. Possessing. I shivered when he reached for me and said something I almost made out, but not quite. ‘You’ll love me,’ he said and when he smiled his teeth were so white and so big and … growing. And a forked tail whipped around from behind his back to stroke a lock of hair behind my ear.

       I turned and fled.

       ‘Wake up, Farrell,’ I hissed.

       But I knew I wouldn’t.

       I slammed into Coop. Bounced off of him and let him steady me with his big hands. He glowed slightly.

      Because he works for the power company, silly, I thought. As if that were the most logical thing in the world.

       ‘Hey, there. Where you going, little girl?’

       His words terrified me and turned me on. I leaned in to kiss him, not feeling in control, but decidedly out of control. It was only at the last minute that I caught the whisper of whiskers on my face. I reared back seeing the long pink lupine tongue, licking his chops. Utterly wolfish chops.

       ‘You’re not a pig. You’re the wolf,’ I gasped, backpedalling so fast I stumbled and almost fell.

       ‘Back off, Coop,’ came the words just as the large arms caught me. Big forearms that wrapped to my waist and kept me from falling.

       I turned into the white chef coat of soft-spoken, sadly serious Stephen. He smelled of cinnamon and sugar and the sharp pungent deliciousness of vanilla extract. He smoothed my hair back and took my hand. ‘Come inside, hurry.’

       He tugged me in his gently commanding way and I followed, stumbling up his wide plank steps and sliding precariously across his porch. Inside, he turned and slammed the door. The entire kitchen was decorated with candy and tuiles of caramel and chocolate. His chandelier was spun sugar and gumdrops.

       He turned to me, his face having grown dark – a frightening shade of greyish green – and pointed. As authoritative as I remembered, he pointed and practically hissed, ‘Get in the oven, Farrell.’

      I sat straight up, head pounding with my pulse, wind banging a stray branch to the side window. I thought I’d heard myself scream or cry out. Instead, the sound of my fear piloted out of my mouth on a strangled puff of impotent air.

      ‘Fuck me hard,’ I breathed. ‘What the hell is with you and the fairy tales, you nutter?’

      Even I couldn’t ignore the fact that when I pulled my hair back into a messy knot, my hands were shaking. I found a tiny bit of solace in the fact that it was morning, and I could get up and make myself a cup of coffee. And eat some pie.

      But when I cut the pie, the sweetness factor, the gooeyness, reminded me of my pseudo male witch of the forest – Stephen –