Margaret Thornbury's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

The fae folded her wings and waited. Margaret stood under the tree, ready to say yes again. Then she remembered the warning. Prices. Terms. She had signed nothing, and already the word yes hung in the air like a hook. She made herself stop. "Before we begin," she said, "tell me what it costs. All of it. Word for word, since you like words so much." The fae's smile thinned. "Mortals never ask." "I'm asking." "Then listen closely." The fae lifted one gold-marked hand. "I will send you a man who sweeps you up and spins you around. That is what you wished. In return, I take one thing you own but do not use. I choose it. You do not." Margaret's stomach turned. "That could be anything. My house. My dog." "Your dog you use." The fae shrugged. "The house, perhaps. You'd know once it was gone." That was the trap. A blind trade. Margaret thought of the empty rooms she never entered, the boxes she never opened, and she felt cold. Then she heard a car door slam beyond the hedge. A young man in a stiff white collar came up the lane. He carried a folder against his chest. His shoes were polished and his face was set in a scowl, the look of a man moved somewhere he did not want to go. He stopped at her gate. "You're the new owner," he said. Not a question. "My family signed this bungalow over to strangers. Your family, I was told. I'm Theo Brackish. I have papers." Margaret stared. She lived alone. She had bought nothing. "There's a mistake." "There's no mistake in the paperwork." Theo held up the folder. "It's all here. The Quiet Cul-de-Sac Bungalow. Signed. Do you understand what you've taken from me?" Margaret looked from the scowling man to the fae in the roots. The fae watched with bright, patient eyes. Understanding arrived like a slap. This was the price, already moving. A house shifting owners. A stranger's family bound to hers. The thing she owned but did not use was being taken, and given, before she agreed to anything. "Stop," Margaret said to the fae. "I haven't said yes." "You said it last night," the fae answered. "Forty times. I only needed once." Margaret turned to Theo. His hands shook around the folder. He was not a suitor. He was a bill come due. She stepped toward him, past the tree, past the small watching creature. "Give me the papers," she said. "We'll read every line together. I won't trade a man his home so I can be spun in a circle." Theo blinked. His arms loosened. For the first time his scowl cracked, not into a smile, but into surprise. Margaret took the folder. She had wanted a storybook. Instead she held a stranger's ruin, and a bargain half-sprung. But now she knew the price. She could fight it with her eyes open.