SIX

“Take your clothes off and get in the water.”

That was Fayette. She was the one who wanted them both to have a bath at the same time in their individual tubs while they shared an intimate conversation about their childhoods.

Torsten did not want to talk about his childhood, but he obediently removed his clothes and put two of his fingers in the water. The water was green. There was scum growing on the top of it. It looked like moss. It hadn’t looked like that when he had inspected the tub the first time.

Looking down at his bare skin, he couldn’t imagine getting cleaner in the water. It seemed like the sort of place you needed to take a bath after having been in… Unintentionally, of course.

Completely naked, he snatched up a butterfly net leaning against the side of the house and started scooping the top layer of scum off the water.

“Are you in the water?” Fayette called through her side of the privacy screen.

Torsten raised an eyebrow no one could see. “Sort of,” he said as he raked a scoop of green guck off the surface.

“What was your earliest memory?” Fayette began.

Her voice was sweeter than he had registered when they had spoken in the gazebo. Seeing her loveliness had left him blind to her other charms. He let his eyes travel upwards as he thought of how he ought to interpret her voice. He did not want to allow her to charm him on principle because he didn’t want to make it easy for her to tame him. It was tricky when her voice hit all the right sounds: feminine, unassuming, soft, generous…

With his eyes cast upward, he noticed that the ceiling that covered the tub had an unusual texture. There were an awful lot of knife points pointing downwards.

Why would anyone make a ceiling with points coming down in that way?

Torsten had stopped skimming the tub and was looking upward with a curiosity that had seized him when Fayette reminded him that he still had not answered her question.

“Ah… Yeah… My first memory. It was of going to my little brother’s funeral,” he answered absently as he reached behind him to grab his underpants. He thought he might be more comfortable wearing them if he was going to stand on the lip of the tub and inspect the ceiling more carefully.

“It was?” Fayette asked, her voice filled with concern.

“He was a baby,” Torsten answered as he finished tying his ginch at the hip. “I wasn’t allowed to see his body. I also was not allowed to carry his casket, although my two older brothers were given permission. It was strange because it was such a small casket that the two of them could carry it without a problem even though they were only children.”

Torsten was standing on the lip of the tub with his hands holding onto a beam that held the edge of the roof in place when Fayette came around the corner.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Torsten stared at her in surprise.

Loose tendrils of hair framed her face while the rest of her hair was held up in a messy bun on top of her head. Her body was hidden by a bath sheet that covered her so efficiently, it was almost shameful.

At least, Torsten thought it was a shame.

“I’m sorry,” she said, holding the sheet to her chest and dropping her head in a bow. “I was not trying to stir up painful memories. I just thought it was a good place to begin.” When she raised her head, her expression of sympathy was replaced by one of bewilderment. “Why are you standing on the tub?”

Torsten looked back at the ceiling. From where he was standing, on the lip of the tub, the little knives that had been protruding looked different. He could have sworn they were tiny knife points when he saw them from the floor, but up high, they looked like decorations meant to enhance the beauty of the space. He had got up on the ledge for nothing.

However, the surface of the tub still looked dreadful.

“I was cleaning the tub,” he answered, hoping that seemed reasonable, though he didn’t know why it would make sense for him to stand on the edge of the tub to clean it.

Fayette came over and saw the state of the water.

“Ugh,” she said, giving her nose a repulsed crinkle. “Why does it look like that?”

He jumped down. “It doesn’t look like this on your side?”

“No. Why didn’t you say anything?” she asked rather crossly, scanning her mind for solutions. It was clearly not how she saw their first real conversation going. “I’ll get back in my clothes and I’ll help you clean it.”

“No need,” he said, quick to lay on the charm as he dropped down to the level of the deck. “I could just join you in your tub. It’s clean, isn’t it?”

Her eyes were enormous as she turned back to look at him. From the look on her face, she saw all of him and, even though the situation was against Torsten, it was clear that she saw him the way he had always wanted to be seen.

To her eyes, he was dangerous. His muscles, which did not bulge like his brothers’, were more than enough to put roses on her cheeks. He didn’t have a single scar to recommend him on the battlefield, but to her… He was more than enough.

He smiled and hooked his thumb in the front of his underdrawers, pulling the front down a little lower suggestively.

She gasped, turned, and scampered away.

He laughed.

She was never going to get control of him.

The Extra Tail in the Fairy Tale

The knife points in the ceiling over the tub were glaring at Fayette. As far as they were concerned, they almost had Torsten. He was going to get in the tub and when his skin was burned by the acid, they were going to fall on him. Each and every one of them thought that they were going to be the ones to get him in the eye. He had two eyes so their chances were doubled.

Not only were the knife points working their diabolical magic, but the wood that sat under Torsten’s clothes had fragmented and splinters were working their way through the weave of his discarded clothing. Except they all had to wiggle out when Fayette appeared.

What was she doing there?

She wasn’t supposed to be there.

Torsten was lucky, in that he snatched up his clothes before Fayette had fled the scene completely.

Then the wood didn’t get a chance to get back in his clothes.

Each little piece of splintered wood cried like it was the end of the world.

“I didn’t even get to scratch him,” one bawled.

“I had a dream last night about getting under his skin,” one lamented. “And when he discovered me, it didn’t matter how much he clawed and scraped at his skin, he couldn’t get me out. He bled and bled.”

“What a wonderful dream!” another one exclaimed.

“Tell us your dream again,” one begged. “It’s such a good dream. I want to hear it over and over until I fall asleep. Then maybe, I’ll dream a dream exactly like it.”

The other pieces of wood hoped all of them would have dreams like that, but not as much as they hoped they would be the ones to cut him.