Page 163 of Once Upon a Fable

My entire existence was on pause, and I was exhausted.

Past exhausted.

I’m wrecked.

Needing to move on the eighth day, I explored the veggie garden again, ignoring the empty spots where I’d dug up food that’d fed Kas and me over the past week.

When I’d first arrived, I hadn’t appreciated the random food Kas had provided. I’d found his offerings primitive and lacking. No seasoning. No cohesiveness.

Now, I understood it was all he had.

He painstakingly planted, nourished, and harvested every morsel he ate.

The rows upon rows of produce were every wealth he owned. There was no other food in the entire mansion. I knew. I’d looked. It made my respect for him billow. The fierceness of his will to survive was awe-inspiring.

However, it also layered me with a thousand more questions.

From his bursts of awakeness, I’d gathered he’d been a prisoner here, along with the other poor souls he’d mentioned. He’d killed the people keeping them in hell. He’d saved his family.

But if he’d managed to overthrow those who oppressed him, then why was he still here? Why was he alone? Why had his supposed precious family left him?

Those questions kept me company as I patroled the huge house and hunted for my personal locator beacon and phone for the hundredth time. The first day I’d tried looking for it, I’d opened every drawer, cupboard, and basket. I’d tried to put myself in Kas’s shoes and imagine where I would hide two pieces of technology I didn’t understand after smashing them into pieces.

Would he have kept them or thrown them away?

And even if he had thrown them away, they would still be around here somewhere. It wasn’t as if there were trash services to take waste away. No recycling truck appeared each Friday.

The first few times of searching and being unsuccessful had driven me to look outside. I’d hunted for freshly dug holes, kicking through the overgrown daisies and grasses, squinting against the sunshine to see if anything glittered to be found.

And nothing.

Nothing in the kitchen, the bedrooms, the library, the many, many other rooms.

I had fantasies of finding my PLB, fixing whatever Kas had broken, and hearing thewhop-whopof helicopter blades as help arrived. I had dreams of Kas being flown away from this nightmare and reinserted back into society, with me by his side to remind him to behave.

But that was the thing. They were just dreams. Just fantasies. Things that would probably never come true.

On the ninth day, I wandered as well as hunted. I ambled the gardens, gathered a cos lettuce, a broccoli, and a handful of green beans for asalad later on, then cut down the servant hallway to the foyer after leaving them in the kitchen.

A puff of air kissed my cheek as I passed another flight of stairs leading to the left.

Of course!

I’d forgotten about this hallway. I’d traveled this way when I’d first trespassed but had been using the main entrances ever since.

Where does it go?

My phone and PLB could be up there.

Without hesitating, I took the steps two at a time and opened the ratty door at the top.

And then, I froze.

A chill ran down my spine.

Because I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, I’d finally found Kas’s bedroom.

I’d found it strange that in all my sleuthing the past week, I hadn’t found an area where Kas slept. No signs of well-worn mattresses or a spot on the carpet somewhere. It was as if he didn’t live in this house at all.