Spellbound

By T.M. Navarro

When Sylvia Carson is sent off to her reclusive, absent–for– 20-years, outcast aunt, she expects her summer to be boring, devoid of fun or adventure and haunted by the stories her family has told her over the years about the woman who took off at 18 and never came back. The last thing she expects is to be introduced to a world of magic, monsters and danger, where one mistake could cost her the world. Coincidentally, Sylvia has already made that mistake.

Oops.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Aug 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669887591

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

When my parents told me they were sending me off to my aunt’s, there wasn’t really room for complaint or protest. I could whine all that I wanted, but at the end of the day, I’d still be dragged into the car and buckled in with my luggage.

My aunt was many things, one of them being the most popular topic of family gossip. Aunt Jacinta was an outcast, they said. She apparently always had been. Mum told me that she used to hide at family gatherings with a book tucked up under her arm. Now, she was hidden away somewhere in a tiny house in the country with a big stash of money in a fat bank account everybody wanted the details of.

Apart from being rich and quiet, it was said that somewhere along the way, Aunt Jacinta had learned to be cruel. Hated children, cooked them alive for dinner, and saved the leftovers for breakfast. So, understandably, it was rather disturbing that my parents were sending me to her for the holidays.

Obviously, they didn’t want me back.

But, in all honesty, I didn’t have much of an opinion on going to Aunt Jacinta’s. It was an opportunity to pursue the truth. I didn’t think there was much ‘truth’ to find at the house of a socially-awkward recluse with a suspicious stack of money she probably got off knitting ugly Christmas sweaters, but who knows? Maybe they were really cool sweaters. Maybe she’d teach me how to make them, and I’d forget all about Mum and Dad going on a holiday without me.

Sure, it stung.

Like, a lot.

But who would want to go on a $13,000 cruise that had penguin sightings scheduled into every second day? Not me. Clearly.

Living with a cruel, children-eating loner for two months was going to be spent as the most exciting part of my life. I had nothing to worry about.

Nothing at all.

‘When will you stop sulking, Sylvia?’ Mum looked back at me from the passenger seat, flipping a page from the sightseeing pamphlet detailing the holiday they were abandoning me for. She noticed how I was looking at it and did her best to hide it under her leg, like I hadn’t been reading over her shoulder for the past half an hour.

I wasn’t sulking. I had no idea what she was talking about.

‘Leave her be,’ Dad mumbled, his eyes straying from the road. ‘She hasn’t seen Jacinta since . . . uh . . .’

‘Never,’ I supplied. ‘I’ve never met her. And you’re sending me there?’

‘Attitude,’ Mum warned. She turned back to the front, shaking her head. ‘She’s not as bad as everybody says.’

‘They haven’t said anything nice,’ I grumbled.

Maybe I was sulking. Just a bit. But I didn’t know Aunt Jacinta, and I wasn’t being dramatic. Literally nobody did. She was basically a stranger who somehow found her way into my family’s conversations. Mum, her sister, didn’t even remember her birthday or how many had passed since she’d last seen her.

Aunt Jacinta was an enigma, and no part of me wanted to change that.

‘That doesn’t mean there’s nothing nice,’ Mum amended. ‘I remember . . .’

Dad looked at her when she didn’t finish, and I shoved my face into the space between their seats. I lifted both brows. ‘Well?’

Mum rolled her eyes. ‘Well, I’m old. I don’t remember much.’ Her hand closed over my face and pushed me back into my seat.

I crossed my arms, hiding a smug smirk behind an innocent grin. ‘Forty isn’t that old, Mum,’ I pointed out.

She rolled her eyes. ‘I age faster than most. You made all my hair turn grey.’

‘Good thing you’re going on a cruise then,’ I grumbled.

She ignored me. Of course she did.

Dad looked back at me and offered a sympathetic smile. ‘I wish we could take you with us, kiddo.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

Dad paused and grimaced. ‘I don’t really have an excuse for you.’

‘You don’t have to make one,’ Mum said, glaring. ‘We’re going on a holiday because we can, and maybe if we like it, we’ll go again with you.’

‘When I’m 40?’ I scoffed. ‘$13,000 doesn’t take a day to make. I know that much. By the time I’m going, it’ll be by my own money.’

‘Maybe you can ask your aunt, then.’ A smile teased at the corners of her lips. ‘Since she’s doing so well.’

I gasped. ‘Mum!’

She snickered to herself and turned away. She was joking, right?

She was joking.

Maybe.

I wasn’t even sure what Aunt Jacinta looked like. She could be a grumpy, frowning hag who snored louder than a dog at night. She could be a twig with an evil cackle and oven mitts.

I wasn’t sure what was so scary about oven mitts, but I knew I wouldn’t want them on Aunt Jacinta. She probably baked children with them every day. Even if she didn’t really eat kids, I wasn’t counting on anything I didn’t know for a fact.

Maybe it wasn’t even kids whom she preferred. Maybe she’d evolved and found a way to enjoy a buffet of moody teenaged brats who got left behind when their parents ditched them for a fancy cruise.

A shiver coursed down my spine.

‘What’s she like, Mum?’

Mum pursed her lips. ‘There’s only so much I can tell you. I don’t know if she’s changed since I’d last seen her.’

‘What do you remember?’

‘She was shy,’ Mum described, ‘and didn’t have any friends back in school.’

Great. I felt so much better now that I knew something that I’d been told hundreds of times before.

‘And she was weird,’ Mum added, tipping her head back in thought. ‘But she was so . . . so . . . vibrant.’

‘Colourful?’

‘That too.’ Mum laughed. ‘Her fashion sense was… questionable. She was a bit of an ugly duckling.’

I tried to picture a girl hiding between the shelves of a library, dressed in opposing colours that both attracted unwelcome stares and chased them away.

‘Is she . . . still an ugly duckling?’

‘I don’t know.’ Mum shrugged. ‘She took off when she turned 18.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Pretty much.’ She sighed. ‘It was so sudden. I kept up with her social media, but then that was gone too. It was like she vanished. She texted me her new number though. You know the story.’

I did, sort of. Mum did her best to call her every month, but it wasn’t like Aunt Jacinta ever answered. After a few short exchanges over text every other birthday or Christmas, Mum had given up and left the talking up to her.

I still didn’t understand why, out of all our relatives, it had to be Aunt Jacinta they were sending me off to. Her lack of communication was one excellent example out of hundreds why it was a terrible idea, but arguing with any of them would get me nowhere but another yelling fit from Mum.

‘I still don’t know what she’s like,’ I said. ‘I literally don’t know what I’m up against.’

‘You’re not going to fight her.’ Dad laughed. ‘You’re just going to spend your holidays there. And maybe you can figure that out for us.’

‘Exactly,’ Mum agreed. ‘Anything I have to tell you won’t match up to how she is in the flesh.’

‘So you don’t have anything else for me,’ I persisted, ‘even though you lived in the same house as her for half your life.’

‘Nothing you don’t know already.’ Mum frowned. ‘Well, I guess she was kind. I’d always try to fight with her, but if I wanted something from her, she’d just give it to me.’

‘Mum,’ I said, ‘I don’t think that’s ‘kind’. I think that’s just being a pushover.’

‘There you go then.’

I let an irritated breath pass through my lips and leaned my forehead against the window. What did that even mean?

Ugh, whatever.

Sighing, I resigned myself to my fate, leaning my temple against the window. I watched the city dwindle into towers of trees and stretches of grassland and toyed with my phone until my service dropped.

There was no going back now. I was going to live with a woman with no social life or fashion sense. It was inevitable that I would waste away from boredom, if not in her oven, and if I didn’t die, I wouldn’t come out the same. I’d given up thinking positive at this point. Three hours of driving from the crack of dawn did things to the brain, especially when it was forced to comprehend the tragedy that instead of spending my holidays against the railing of a cruise, recreating the Titanic with some sailor I’d met on a midnight food run, I’d be spending it in a claustrophobic cottage with a woman I’d never met.

My mum hadn’t seen her for twenty years, and my dad hadn’t even met her. That was how serious Aunt Jacinta was about distancing herself from the family, and better yet: the world.

She literally hadn’t visited society for not one decade but two, and she didn’t even have social media to keep her up-to-date. If she started tossing expired slang at me, I might just bury myself alive.

It was hard to reassure myself that I was going to come out of the next two months completely sane. A part of me was convinced that she’d somehow turn me into her – Aunt Jacinta 2.0. It wouldn’t be my fault if Mum and Dad came back to an unrecognisable shell of their daughter, who read and hated people and aspired to move somewhere far, far away, swimming in bulging wads of cash.

The money sounded okay, actually.

Apparently, Aunt Jacinta had a lot of it, so whatever she’d been doing the past twenty years had obviously been pretty rewarding. Maybe I’d try whatever she was doing if it turned out I had some kind of dormant talent for it that had been waiting for me the entire time. That would be nice.

To be good at something.

‘What are you thinking of, kiddo?’ Dad’s eyes met mine in the rear-view mirror, and I shook my head.

‘Nothing special.’

‘Everything’s special.’

‘Not if it’s confusing,’ I amended. ‘The future is confusing. I was just thinking about if . . . did Aunt Jacinta always want this life? Did she always know?’

Mum snorted. ‘Yes. Well, it was predictable from a mile away.’

That’s not the same thing, I wanted to say, but I didn’t.

‘How so?’ I asked instead. I let myself latch on to the sight of a few cows grazing the distance, clinging to them as if they’d anchor me to one spot if I looked long enough.

‘Always reading.’ Mum chuckled, catching herself in a memory. ‘Always, always reading. Everywhere. She cried when your grandma stopped her allowance.’

‘Why’d she do that?’

‘Her books were everywhere.’ Mum shook her head. ‘In the bathroom, the Tupperware drawers. I saw one in the fridge once, and I don’t think she ever really explained how it got there. And anyway, her reading just meant that she never looked up – ever. Never talked unless she had to, and usually, that would only be a few syllables of a squeak.’

Dad snickered. Mum ignored him. ‘Sylvia, your grandma used to get so mad at her when she didn’t speak. She used to yell at your grandpa because she thought Jacinta got it from him, the reading addiction.’

I tilted my head. ‘Can you even do that?’

‘Do what?’

‘Can you get addicted to reading?’

Mum shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But she obviously was.’

The car slowed into a stop at the side of the road. Mum sat up in her seat when we didn’t move. ‘What’s happening, Fred?’

‘I’m trying to figure that out,’ Dad mumbled. ‘Jocelyn, are you sure you gave me the right address?’

‘Of course I did.’ Mum shifted closer and held out her hand. She took the phone and peered down at it. ‘Yes, this is it.’

‘Then we’re here.’ Dad frowned, looking around. ‘I don’t see a cottage anywhere. Do you?’

‘If you don’t see it, neither do I.’

We were in the middle of nowhere.

Trees reached for the sky, outlining the narrow, mossy road. We were far from civilization here, and I was pretty sure that even the most rural of country towns had a few neighbours here and there. The address given had led us to trees and . . . more trees. That was literally it. Unless my aunt lived in a tree house, Aunt Jacinta wasn’t here.

‘We don’t have time for this,’ Mum groaned. ‘We have a flight in four hours, and we aren’t even half-done packing.’ I watched her attempt to call Aunt Jacinta, but even if she had service, it was clear she wouldn’t answer. Mum’s knuckles whitened around the phone.

‘What do we do?’ Dad asked. ‘It’s the address you gave me. Is it the address she gave you?’

‘Yes.’ Mum hissed. ‘This is it.’ She tried ringing the number again. Insistent buzzing filled the silence, but that was all that ensued. Another attempt at calling, at texting, at anything. Dad reached for her phone before Mum could consider smashing it against the road.

Well, I guess that was it. I guess they were forced to take me with them or miss their flight, and I had a feeling neither would happen. Along with that, I knew what would be fuelling this year’s family gossip.

Dad’s eyes widened in my direction. ‘Sylvia!’

A fist against the window drew a scream from my mouth.

I scrambled away from the door and to the other side of the car as Mum and Dad scrambled out. I kept my eyes shut, and my scream grew hoarse, persistent and never-ending.

‘Stop!’

His voice was gruff and deep. A roughened husk tinged the edges of his words, and he howled when I continued to yell out in fright. I could hear Mum and Dad joining me, their phones clattering to the ground. ‘Stop yelling! All of you!’

I wasn’t going to, but I was running out of air, anyway. I forced open one eye. In a suit, a monster of a man leaned down to stare at me through the window across. He had shoulders twice as broad as mine, and if he stood at full height, I was sure he’d tower over my dad by at least an entire foot and a half.

‘Sylvia Carson, right?’

‘What of it?’ Mum intervened. She stood, clinging to my dad outside the door I had pushed myself against. The man wrinkled his nose, and the small patch of freckles scattered over his cheeks drew together in clusters.

‘Are you Sylvia Carson?’ He asked her, rubbing his chin. Wide, hazel eyes, almost yellow, darted over her face, glowing against his dark, mocha skin.

‘What do you want?’ Mum answered, her voice hardened into a threat.

The man wasn’t fazed, instead rising to stand at full height. I was right, Dad only reached the lowest point of his shoulders, and my dad wasn’t short at all. He swallowed nervously.

‘Which one of you is Sylvia Carson? I’m supposed to be escorting her.’

‘To where?’ Mum demanded.

The man frowned at her. ‘To the Del Rosa Cottage, of course. Isn’t that why you’re here?’

CHAPTER 2

The man continued to stare at us when nobody answered.

Mum took a step forward. ‘Who are you?’

He dipped his head into a modest bow. ‘Brutus. I am one of Madame Jacinta’s bodyguards.’ An awkward grin swept over his face, and his gloved fingers hooked together in an awkward fidget. ‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ Brutus apologised. Scarlet patches stained his cheeks. ‘I was . . . preoccupied.’

Mum ignored him. ‘Where’s Jacinta now?’

‘Inside. She’s busy. She sent me out to collect her niece, but I’m unsure what that is. Which one of you is a niece with the name of Sylvia Carson?’

I blamed his muddled words on the adrenaline messing with my hearing, but it didn’t stop me from frowning. Mum looked at me and jerked her chin downwards into a nod.

Tentatively, I raised one hand. I wasn’t really expecting him to see it, but his eyes caught my movement anyway. He pulled open the door and held out a gloved hand for me to take. I balanced on one foot to peer around him, but this ‘Del Rosa Cottage’ he’d been talking about was still a pack of trees and bumpy undergrowth. He started walking towards them, my luggage tucked under one arm and my bag slung over the opposite shoulder. He walked like I hadn’t packed half my life in there, and he looked back at me when he realised I wasn’t following.

None of us were following, and I stared at Mum for help.

‘Go,’ Mum said.

Dad nodded, swallowing. ‘We’ll be right behind you,’ he promised.

Brutus cringed. ‘Actually,’ he started, ‘you aren’t permitted in.’

Mum frowned. ‘What do you mean? She’s our daughter!’

‘I’m aware,’ Brutus continued, shifting from foot to foot. ‘But you . . . erm, you haven’t been invited in by Madame Jacinta. Therefore, for safety precautions, you aren’t allowed. I will have to escort her alone.’

‘Look, you . . . whatever your name is. Uh, Brutus.’ Dad’s chest swelled with anger and embarrassment. He’d never been good at confrontation – that was usually Mum’s job. I cringed and looked away. ‘That’s our daughter right there, and we don’t know you. Even if you know Jacinta, we don’t know if you actually do. You could be, uh, kidnapping her or something.’

‘Or something,’ Mum agreed with a firm nod. Brutus fidgeted, his lips pulled into a line. I glanced between them nervously, wondering if it was safe to open my mouth and intervene. Nobody knew Mum better than I did, and I knew that if she had to, she would definitely, without doubt, throw that punch.

The trees rustled around us, and it hadn’t been from anybody I could see. Brutus straightened, thrilled by the energy in the unexpected presence. Mum tensed. Dad did not look keen on any more unexpected strangers.

A woman emerged from the trees. She couldn’t have been more than 20, with mischievous, scheming, black eyes, sparkling dangerously, the outer edges tilted upward into her brows, thick and arched fiercely, set into a delicately proportioned, tan face.

The woman’s toes met the road and curled into the asphalt. She pulled her long, dark hair over her shoulder and lifted the skirt of her red, high-necked ballgown away from her feet, holding a tall glass of matching wine away from her body.

‘Hello,’ she murmured, a smile teasing at her voice. It sounded hypnotic, alluring, pitched low and curling melodically around her words. ‘I just came to check what was taking so long.’

Brutus bowed his head. ‘I’m sorry, Madame Ja—’

‘-cinta,’ Mum finished, her voice breathy with shock. ‘Jacinta, is that you?’

Hang on now.

That hadn’t been what I was expecting.

Aunt Jacinta’s eyes flicked up to Mum’s, nervous. ‘I believe so.’

This.

This was Aunt Jacinta, rumoured tyrant in the flesh; children eater, book addict, recluse. My imagination had pursued every possibility – at least I’d thought so. I’d failed to picture a goddess woven into the flesh of a wine-drinking woman in a red ball gown.

‘It’s been a while, Jocelyn,’ Aunt Jacinta whispered. Mum staggered forwards, her footsteps unsure. Dad’s eyes bulged, his face similar to mine, and we both watched Mum seize Aunt Jacinta into a suffocating hug.

Aunt Jacinta laughed. ‘Well, hello.’

‘Shut up,’ Mum snapped. ‘I haven’t seen you in twenty years. Where have you been?’

‘Here.’ Aunt Jacinta gestured to the trees. ‘The quiet is quite nice actually.’

‘I can see that.’ Mum rolled her eyes, parting. Her hands lingered over Aunt Jacinta’s and squeezed. ‘What happened to you?’

Aunt Jacinta paused, following Mum’s gaze to her dress. She frowned. ‘I don’t really know how to answer that.’

‘It wasn’t supposed to be an insult.’

‘Oh.’ Aunt Jacinta lowered into an elegant curtsy and turned until her heavy skirts flared outwards. ‘Well, this happened. I still don’t have an answer for you. I guess I . . . grew up?’

‘I doubt it,’ Mum grumbled. ‘You look so different, but you’re no older than the day you left.’

Aunt Jacinta shrugged, her lips closing around the edge of her glass. ‘I don’t think I have an answer for that either. Um, thank you.’

There was a pregnant pause. Mum’s eyes drifted over her face, searching, shiny with tears, and she shook her head like she was freeing herself of her thoughts. She pointed to Dad. ‘That’s my husband, Fred.’

Aunt Jacinta extended one, slender hand. ‘Jacinta,’ she answered, shaking Dad’s.

Dad swallowed, blinking rapidly. ‘Uh, Fred. My name’s Fred. My wife said that.’

‘Yes, she did.’ Aunt Jacinta laughed, albeit a little awkwardly. She approached me next, and she didn’t need Mum’s explanation to figure out who I was. ‘You must be my niece, Sylvia.’

I attempted to say my name, but I was still a little stunned by everything that had just happened. I’d gone from driving for hours to watching my mum bully a man twice her size to watching the big reveal of the mysterious Aunt Jacinta I’d been worrying about the entire time. I think I was more scared of her being terrifyingly beautiful than being terrifyingly . . .terrifying.

Aunt Jacinta smiled at my loss for words. ‘I haven’t looked after anybody before, so I apologise if I’m not the best. But I couldn’t miss an opportunity to meet you.’

‘Uh.’ I coughed. ‘Okay.’

I was in no means socially inept, but any skills I’d had in communication had bailed on me the second the woman from the trees had been labelled as the aunt I’d be staying with for the next two months. I stared at her in awe, half-puzzled by the impossible beauty of her face and ashamed at how wrong I’d been. How rude.

Mum pinched the back of my hand, and I bit back a yelp. ‘Sorry. Uh, Aunt Jacinta, I’m really looking forward to spending the holidays with you.’

‘I’ll make it as hospitable as I can manage,’ she promised.

Aunt Jacinta’s eyes softened in the direction of Brutus, who had his head dipped low in shame. If I wasn’t wrong, he was whimpering. There were a number of things wrong with listening to a grown man whimper at the mercy of a small woman in a ball gown, but I think I’d be whimpering too if my employer looked and felt even half as powerful as her.

‘Brutus,’ Aunt Jacinta called, ‘there’s no need to be sad.’

‘But, Madame—’

‘Up on your feet,’ she interrupted. ‘We’ve a guest to accommodate.’

‘I’ll make it up to you, Madame.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Aunt Jacinta dismissed. ‘We’ll talk about it inside.’ She looked at me and then back at Mum and Dad. ‘You have a flight to attend to. A cruise, right?’

‘Erm, yes,’ Dad said, but he made no signs of movement to the car.

Mum tilted her head, opening and closing her mouth like she was debating back and forth between asking her long-lost sister something that she’d probably regret later, or not, and risking another ten years biting her tongue. I knew that look. She often wore it when I was in trouble and didn’t know how to phrase her opening lecture. But like always, she said what she wanted to say anyway, and worried about the consequences later.

‘I haven’t seen you in ages, Jacinta,’ Mum pointed out. ‘Aren’t you going to invite us inside?’

‘No.’

I gaped.

Mum gasped. Audibly, too.

She didn’t even pause to think about it, but it didn’t look like she thought she needed to, either.

Mum flinched. ‘Oh.’ She frowned, stealing a look at Dad. He shrugged, helpless, and Aunt Jacinta’s hand found Brutus’ bicep.

‘I can have him show you out.’

‘No, it’s fine,’ Mum grumbled. Obviously, it wasn’t fine. I don’t think any mother could ever be subtle when something wasn’t fine. ‘Sylvia? Behave.’

‘Bye to you too!’ I called back. ‘Have fun penguin-sighting without me!’

She piled into the car, Dad in tow. He waved at me and gestured at his phone, and I nodded. Mum didn’t look up.

Aunt Jacinta’s smile wavered, and her brows lifted in confusion. She tugged on Brutus’ arm. ‘What did I do wrong?’ she whispered.

Brutus shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Madame. You did say your sister is easily upset.’

I snickered into the back of my hand, and Aunt Jacinta looked at me, curious. Her eyes followed the car as it left. ‘Do you know what I did wrong, Sylvia?’

‘I think,’ I started. ‘I think my mum wanted you to invite her in.’

‘Oh.’ She shook her head. ‘Never mind that. Come along. I’ll have Brutus deliver your things to your room. We have a tour to do, don’t we?’

‘Uh, okay.’ I didn’t want to offend her, but I wasn’t sure what part of a tiny cottage needed touring. Maybe there was a basement where she kept all the children, but at this point, in her fancy red dress and sparkling red wine, I wondered if it was even funny to joke about the rumours our family had generated.

She led me into the trees and crossed a murky creek by a mossy log. I’d been joking earlier about the tree house, but now I was convinced that she lived in a treetop network somewhere deep in the forest. We weren’t walking long, but it felt like the opposite. Even with shoes, I was struggling over the thick arms of roots peering out of the dirt. Aunt Jacinta wandered over them barefoot, and if it weren’t for the glimpse of her feet beneath her dress, I would’ve thought she were floating.

‘We’re almost there,’ she assured me, like she knew exactly what I was thinking. ‘It’s just up ahead. Do you see that arch? With the vines?’

No, I didn’t. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘It’s just past that.’

What I saw was a lot of trees and uneven ground. I was surprised I hadn’t fallen on my face yet, but I guess the fear of humiliation did a lot to a person when the probable witness of the humiliation was a mysterious aunt I’d never met before who looked like she ruled a kingdom and fought dragons as her day job.

I hadn’t decided whether or not I liked her yet, and I guess I didn’t really have a choice since I was spending the next two months with her. Still, could it hurt to be a little suspicious? She’d sent my mum off just like that and after twenty years, too.

Aunt Jacinta hummed her way along, her hand in Brutus’ as he helped her over bushes and unexpected rocks. They both seemed to know this path by heart, but I was picking my way through the ground like it’d swallow me if I weren’t careful. It was also partly because I kept accidentally stepping on her dress. It was a miracle she hadn’t noticed.

‘Aunt Jacinta.’ I puffed. ‘Are we almost there?’

‘Just a few steps ahead!’ she cheered, and Brutus howled in encouragement. Howled. Pulled his arms back past his sides and everything.

Ah, there it was.

The weird.

It was honestly a little reassuring to know that I hadn’t assumed everything wrong.

I edged away from Brutus and tried not to wrinkle my nose. Aunt Jacinta laughed at him and shook her head. Obviously, grown men whimpering and howling like dogs was normal and not very, very weird.

‘Aunt Jacinta.’

‘Yes, darling?’

‘Are you sure we’re almost there?’

‘I’m sure I know where I live, if that’s what you’re asking. Oh, are you tired? Brutus, maybe you should carry—’

‘Nope!’ I flushed. ‘Nobody needs to carry anybody. I can walk, see? I’ve just been on a long drive, and I need to exercise anyway.’

Aunt Jacinta’s brows dipped in concern. ‘Are you sure? Brutus doesn’t mind the heavy lifting. Don’t you, hm?’

Brutus grinned. ‘Not at all!’

‘I’m good!’ I squeaked, jumping away. ‘I’m a healthy human! See? No injuries. I can walk.’

‘Just say the word,’ Aunt Jacinta told me. She hiked her skirts over her knees at the next log and jumped. I watched, dumbounded, as Brutus caught her in his arms with my bags and all. He didn’t even look fazed in the slightest.

Brutus twirled her around, spinning ‘round and ‘round until she lost herself in a fit of giggles, and Aunt Jacinta held out a hand, gesturing. ‘See? If you need to, he’ll be fine. His muscles are like rocks.’

I coughed. ‘That’s . . . nice.’

‘Feel them.’

‘I’m good.’

‘Suit yourself.’

Did bodyguards do that? I knew chemistry when I saw it. I wouldn’t be a true friend if I hadn’t cooed over my friends and their partners, after all, and however weird Brutus may be, it didn’t change the fact that he was undeniably into my aunt. Was I third-wheeling? For my aunt? Whom I’d just met less than ten minutes ago? Ew.

I shook my head free of my thoughts. Matchmaking was not a conversation starter I would use with my aunt. Even calling her my ‘aunt’ felt foreign. It didn’t belong next to her name, but it didn’t change the fact that she was still – and always would be – my aunt.

‘We’re here,’ Aunt Jacinta announced. Now I could see the arch. It didn’t look like much before. Like a small window of sunlight through the thick housing of trees. I looked at Aunt Jacinta, and she nodded, inviting me in.

‘What . . .’ I breathed, finding myself at the foot of an imposing mansion.

Aunt Jacinta glided into my view, holding her hands out. Her eyes glittered with pride. ‘Welcome to the Del Rosa Cottage, Sylvia.’

CHAPTER 3

I’d expected a tiny cottage wedged between bushes and maybe a tiny front yard with a pretty table and a matching set of chairs. That idea had been pretty exciting actually, even if I didn’t really want to go and live there for two months. That I’d prepared for. I’d prepared myself mentally for a cute little house and maybe even a horse or two. But that was pushing it.

I wished I pushed further, though. I wish I’d let my imagination run wild, but even my most creative fantasies wouldn’t match the real thing. I hadn’t even realised I was gawking until I choked on a fly.

Aunt Jacinta rushed to my side, patting my back. So much for not humiliating myself.

‘Are you all right?’ She looked back at Brutus for help, but I stumbled away before he could even begin to think about trying the Heimlich on me.

I wiped my mouth and blinked, rubbing my eyes. ‘That’s not a cottage!’

‘Do you not like it?’ She worried. ‘I admit it does look a bit old. But I thought the design was pretty. It has gone through a few renovations so it doesn’t fall apart. It won’t. Don’t fear.’ She continued to ramble, and I wasn’t sure if it was okay to interrupt her or not. I shook my head and touched her arm, and she paused to take a breath. ‘I’m sorry. You have something to say?’

‘It’s just . . . bigger than I’d expected, like, a lot bigger.’

Moss crept up the large, stony brickwork, woven between and crawling over the gritty plaster. Newborn ivy had followed in its wake. Long planks of oak separated the stories, scoring across diagonally and dividing up the walls into little squares, beaten and faded by weather and time. Drapes of wisteria and honeysuckle crept towards the roof, caving over windows, hanging from the edges and sewn into the wood structuring, catching the light in bulbs of glowing yellows and purples. To the right, a tall tower manned the front corner, brushing the clouds and peering over the forest. It’s roof, arched in a transparent, glass dome, reflected iridescent sparkles of rainbow strings and glitter. It was beautiful. Stunning. Hamptons kind of vibe.

‘Is that good or bad?’

‘I don’t know. But it’s not bad,’ I promised.

Her shoulders sagged in relief and she squeezed my shoulder. ‘It would be a shame if you didn’t like it. Brutus, can you put her things in the guest bedroom, please?’

‘Of course, Madame."

He took off, and Aunt Jacinta waited. I wasn’t sure what for, but she was looking at me so intensely that I couldn’t help but ask, ‘Are we . . . going inside?’

‘Yes. I was just wondering if you were ready or not.’

‘Oh, I’m