Oliver Discovers a Fairy Cottage

It’s my hero’s turn today. Oliver Sexton-Brown is a retired sailor. A year after losing his leg, he still has not come to terms with its loss. He clumps around on crutches, and enjoys playing a grumpy old man, even if he is only thirty-two. However, when a local mother brings her brood of daughters to visit, it sends him and a friend fleeing from the house.

The pair naturally followed the edge of a field dotted with small trees. Ahead, the dark, craggy line denoting the forest’s edge displayed trees with branches empty of leaves, and gave the pair a visual target.
When their makeshift road ended at a copse, his friend hesitated, letting out an uneven breath. “I think this is Thomas’ property line.”
“Scared of the woods?” Oliver taunted as he felt those hounds creep closer. He wanted escape. Perhaps he would uncover a fairy portal under the canopy of trees. A doorway would take him to a land where he might find his missing limb. A bright, happy place to keep the doom at bay. He plunged forward past Everett on a faint path, letting the ash trees envelop him. The creak of the crutches slowed as his breath labored. Physical exertion on uneven ground proved harder than he dared admit, and his pace turned into an amble. He didn’t want to admit he wasn’t fully healed. A spot began to throb in his temple. Maybe it’s time to turn around. However, the sound of footsteps behind him spurred him to keep going.
The track arced away. Small saplings lined it, and on the far side of a shady clearing, an ancient stone cottage appeared as he clunked around the curve.
“Well, that’s disgusting,” Everett scoffed.
The thatching needed repairs. Part of it—probably the spot that got sun at some point in the day—was covered with grass. Craggy bushes blocked the ground-floor windows. The shutters were closed against the light. A waist-high wall protected the entrance, and vegetation grew in the tiny courtyard, partially obscuring the door. But the door! He couldn’t recall ever seeing a blue door on a cottage. Perhaps a fairy resided inside.
“I don’t think anyone’s dwelt there in years,” said his friend. “Mrs. Hepworth and her daughters have likely gone. Are you ready for home?”
The bluebell-colored door gave the cottage life when the ancient stone and frayed thatching indicated it was an unloved place.
“If someone does live here, it’s an old hermit,” Everett continued. “One too frail to manage the upkeep. I’m for home. We skipped tea, and my breadbox is grumbling.” His friend was nonplussed by Oliver’s silence.
“I need to catch my breath. Go on without me,” he answered.
Everett’s quick pace receded. Leaning on the crutches, he listened to his heartbeat pulsing in his ears. Something about the clearing soothed his insides. Perhaps the dappled sunlight or the firm way the cottage nestled in its place. It belongs here. The smell of freshness, possibility, magic? His entire will focused on the enchanted cottage. He willed the fairy—or witch—to appear. It couldn’t be an ordinary occupant.
His host, Colonel Fitzgerald, late of the army, wasn’t the sort to secret a paramour in such a dwelling. Then his heart dropped into his gut, and all of Oliver’s ideas shifted to something banal. They’d crossed property lines onto Baylis’s estate; Oliver could imagine that man hiding a bit of skirt here away from his wife and daughters.
“But what sort of man houses his mistress in a crumbling old cottage? It’s a rare woman who would tolerate that!” He couldn’t envision the woman who would. He shook his head to clear it, and his imagination returned to crafting a fairy princess. She would wear green. If fairy, her hair would be the color of sunshine. If witch, as black as a moonless night. Either way, it would spill over her shoulders like water falling over rocks.
The sound of slight footsteps on the facing path made him twist, unsteady on his crutches. The steps halted. A creature approached, swinging a bonnet in one hand while a basket in the other weighed down her shoulder.
Like his imagined fairy, she dressed in green. He squinted at one inconsistent detail: her hair was neatly bound at the nape of her neck. Oliver frowned, wondering why her hair wasn’t spilling wildly down her back.
“This is private property.” The young woman frowned, ruining the illusion, and those hounds caught up. Reality crashed into him. He pivoted, lost control, and tumbled to the forest floor.

I’m participating in MFRW Book Hooks—browse the current hop here:
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