Chapter 4: Silverpine

Bastian didn't flinch.

"Then we have twenty-nine days," he said.

"You say that like it's a lot."

"It's more than none."

The beta looked at me in the rearview mirror.

"For what it's worth," he said, "I didn't shift till I was seventeen. My mother thought I was a cat."

I laughed before I could stop myself.

It hurt my lip.

Silverpine Hall sat at the north end of Lake Oriel, long and low and made of dark timber and stone.

It was after two in the morning when we pulled up.

Lights were still on in the front windows.

A woman in a grey sweater opened the door before we reached it.

"This is our housekeeper," Bastian said. "She runs the house. And me."

"Somebody has to." The housekeeper looked at my cheek and then at him. "Who did that?"

"Her mother."

The housekeeper said something under her breath that I didn't catch.

Then she took my duffel off my shoulder before I could hold on to it.

"You're in the east room," she said. "Come on. There's soup."

The east room had a bed big enough for three people.

It had a window over the lake, a fireplace already lit, and a bathroom with a tub.

There was a lock on the inside of the door.

I stood there turning it back and forth.

Click. Click.

At home, my door locked from the kitchen side.

My mother said it was so the dryer vent wouldn't blow it open.

The housekeeper set a tray on the table by the fire.

Chicken soup. Bread with butter already on it. A glass of milk.

"I can take it down to the kitchen and eat there," I said. "So I don't mess anything up."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Neglected Girl Chosen by the Moon Goddess from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.