Chapter 5

Alden

AS I DRAG MY CART up Brookside Road, I can't help but to be annoyed. That old cottage is a mess, and thanks to Lydia, I'm not even going to get paid for everything I'll need to do to it.

How would she feel if I gave out goods at the mercantile for free?

Mumbles and grumbles slip from me as I drag the heavy cart, and it reminds me that I need to oil the wheels again; they're not turning near as easy as they should be. The cart is loaded down with everything I'll need today: wood planks, a hammer, a saw, nails, and a bunch of other tools and supplies just in case. No matter how many tools I bring to a job, I always seem to need something I've left at home. Always makes for a fun day.

It snowed last night, just a dusting, but the air is cold enough that the flakes haven't melted yet, and the forest shimmers as I walk the road to the cottage. The dirt beneath my feet is crusted in a thin layer of frost, and it crunches under my boots with every step.

For a brief moment, I wonder how Aurora did last night, given she has holes in her house and it snowed. Must've made for a cold evening.

When I step around the bend and into the sunlight peeking over the top of Brookside, I have to pause.

Because Aurora Silvermoon is sitting on the porch, her white cat beside her, a cup of something steaming in her hands. She's talking to her cat, pink lips moving, but I can't hear from this distance what she's saying. There's a colorful knit shawl draped across her shoulders, and given the muted colors of the late-winter forest around her, she stands out like a sunflower in a poppy field.

Is it normal for people to talk to their cats? I wouldn't know. I've never had a cat. But it seems odd. She seems odd.

Flexing my hand around the cart handle, I resume dragging it toward the old crumbling cottage.

Aurora notices me, and she scrambles to her feet, sending the cat scurrying away.

"G-good morning," she says once I'm within talking distance.

"Morning."

Her slender fingers curl around the cup, and she fidgets a bit, glancing this way and that, pressing the toe of her boot into the frost covering the ground. Do I make her nervous? Lydia says I need to smile more. I consider it, then decide it's ridiculous. What is there to smile about? All the unpaid work I'm about to do? Yeah, right .

"Would you like some tea?" Aurora asks. "I've got all kinds." She gives me a quick smile, and I notice for the first time how red her cheeks turn in the cold. They're like apples against her pale freckled skin.

"No."

A furrow forms between her eyebrows, her green eyes narrowing at me.

Seems I said the wrong thing. Lydia says I do that a lot. But Lydia says a lot of things—so many that I don't even listen half the time.

I drag the cart closer to the cottage. Aurora stands there at the bottom of her porch steps, watching me as I pull my tool belt out of the cart and sling it around my waist. She's still standing there when I slip my hammer into the belt hook and grab a handful of nails to put into the pouch.

When I glance back over my shoulder at her, she stiffens.

I really do seem to make her nervous.

"You get snowed on last night?" I ask. Maybe I'm trying to take Lydia's advice, or maybe I'm just trying to get Aurora to stop staring at me. If she keeps doing that, she's going to make me nervous, and that's the last thing I need if I'm going to be up on the steep sloping roof today.

"Harrison and I sleep in the kitchen, so we were okay, but I had to mop up the parlor and the bedroom this morning."

I arch an eyebrow. "You sleep in the kitchen?"

"No mattress upstairs." She points toward the sky. "Well, there is one, but it's hardly usable."

Right. I remember that now from when I surveyed the upstairs a couple days ago .

Looking up at the cottage, I narrow my eyes against the sun. "You have a ladder?"

"A ladder?" Aurora blinks at me, tea still steaming in her hands. "Right, a ladder. Um, maybe in the shed?"

She sets off around the side of the cottage, her long plum skirt catching on the dried plants as she walks. I follow a few steps behind her. She's so short I can see clean over her head, and I'm pretty sure I could carry her in one arm if I needed to.

Not that I'll ever need to.

We get to the shed, and even it looks like it's leaning to one side, desperately in need of some foundational support. I decide against saying anything. If I'm not getting paid for the work I do here, I'm not going to add more jobs to my list.

Aurora sets her mug on a wooden table beside the door, then fumbles with the lock for a moment before it pops free. She disappears inside, and I cross my arms while I wait. After a series of bumps and grunts, she emerges from the dark, carrying a ladder.

"Will this work?" she asks, handing it over with some difficulty. It looks unruly in her small hands.

"It's fine."

I should've brought mine. Knew I was forgetting something.

We head back to the cottage, and when I test the ladder against the side of the house, I find it's just the right length for me to climb onto the roof.

"I'll patch the holes first," I tell Aurora, because she's still lingering, and her staring eyes make me feel like I need to say something .

"Okay." She gives me a small smile, and for a moment, it holds my attention captive. Her upper lip has a dainty dip right in the middle, and her mouth looks so soft and pillowy in this light.

And that's enough of that.

With a grunt, I turn away from her and ascend the ladder, leaving her standing there in the frost below me.