Charming, Volume 2 by Jack Heckel Page A

trusting, bears, or of a kindly old grandmother with a protective, ax-­wielding son-­in-­law. However, if you are unlucky, you could end up at the front door of an impoverished and morally bankrupt woodcutter or a witch with a sweet tooth and cannibalistic tendencies.
    Of course, Elizabeth Pickett had gotten very lucky. She found the dwarves’ home unexpectedly cozy. It was filled with an incredibly eccentric collection of books, plenty of nooks to read them in, and a fantastic quantity of fine ale to drink while reading. For rest and recuperation, it was nearly ideal. Every day she grew stronger, and soon she was able to abandon her sickbed. She also smashed her obviously unnecessary cast with a hammer she found under Grady’s bed. The arm was tender but otherwise fine, and she reminded herself to make sure Dorian got a full measure of her tongue when he returned.
    But, for all of the appeal of the cottage, the surrounding wood was infested with the most obnoxiously endearing wildlife. First, there was the flock of songbirds. The twittering freaks had decided to make it their business to wake her every morning at the first sign of dawn with their incoherent chirps and tweets. Then there were the deer, big, brown-­eyed, and adorable, but also thieving scum. Twice, they had raided her laundry line and tried to carry her undergarments off into the woods. Only a strong arm, another indication that Dorian’s doctoring left a lot to be desired, and good aim had prevented them from leaving her in a state of forced indecency. But the last straw was the afternoon she had caught two inordinately cute bunnies and a rather seedy squirrel peering with disturbing intensity at her through an open window while she took her bath. Of course, she did the only thing she could—­scream, then lob her bar of soap at the Peeping Toms. She spent the rest of the day fashioning a sling and collecting stones.
    Despite these annoyances, Liz enjoyed her time in the wood. She soon settled into a routine of cleaning, reading, setting snares for bunnies, gardening, reading, taking potshots at birds, cooking, reading, and planning dishes that required large amounts of venison. Then one afternoon, as she was setting a particularly cunning squirrel trap by the stream near her wash line, Liz noticed that a sudden calm had come over the woods around the cottage. After days of near-­constant chirrups, tweets, peeps, and twitters, the silence was eerie. She peeked around the smooth trunk of an ash tree and across the small flower-­covered meadow to the cottage. Everything appeared normal, but the quiet made her suspicious. Where were the deer, the hopping bunnies, and the damnable frolicking squirrels?
    Liz hoisted the clothes basket onto her hip and headed toward the house. Halfway across the meadow, the unmistakable feeling of being watched crawled its way along her spine. She hurried her steps to the cottage, wondering when she’d become such a hysterical woman. A cup of tea should calm my nerves.
    She pulled open the door and the same strange odor of nutmeg that had clung to Collins when they fought in the clearing came rolling out. She froze as four men dressed in the livery of the Royal Guard stepped forward. She knew that she should run, scream, or simply faint in a properly ladylike manner, but that wasn’t her. She advanced into the threshold.
    â€œWhat are you doing in my house?” she shouted, pointing her finger at them. “How dare you?”
    Her scolding had clearly left them uncertain as to how they should respond.
    â€œUm . . .” one of them started. “I . . .” said another. “Uh . . . Captain?” said a third, while the fourth took a few steps back as though trying to shrink back into the shadows.
    â€œShe-­is-­to-­be-­apprehended-­and-­taken-­back-­to-­the-­castle,” said a fifth man who entered from the back