The kitchen clock ticked quietly, the face reading 11:16 pm. Everyone at the cottage had retired for the night, but not everyone was sleeping. In the darkness of his bedroom, the Mandrake lay in his bed, watching the way the blowing tree branches and streetlights made soft glowing shapes dance across the ceiling. He wondered if Rose was sleeping or laying awake like he was. Why had he put her room at the end of the library, instead of next to his own? She felt a world away somehow. But really he was just imagining how much better it would feel to know she was somehow on the other side of his wall, regardless of how untrue that actually was given that most of the cottage's rooms were knitted together with portals leading to various locations. But he knew, as a writer, that suspension of disbelief was sometimes a necessary and powerful thing to maintain the illusion of a fantasy, however mundane.

Hm. Fantasy was a subject he thought he knew well, but perhaps he only knew how to engage in fantasy. So many of them revolved around a certain redhead, leading him to frequent distraction. It had been 30 hours since Rose had returned and she had already occupied his thoughts in at last 28 of them. Sometimes the thoughts were fleeting. But alone in the quiet darkness, with her just a few "rooms" away, he couldn't help but fantasize that she might come to him now, in the middle of the night. Despite his powers and thorny demeanor, he was still a man, after all. A man in love. More to the point, a lonely man in love. He imagined her standing in the doorway of his bedroom, dressed in something soft and flowing, her red curls cascading over her white shoulders. Her eyes would glint and twinkle while she smiled at him in that bewitching manner of her's. Or, maybe she would look bereft and disheveled. "I can't sleep…", she would say, her eyes pleading with him to let her in. He would then usher her towards his bed, where he would slide his hands over those shoulders, slipping off her nightgown and begin making love to her—-arrggh! The Mandrake felt his hands clench and he trembled in anger now. The bedsheets began to smoke while his eyes sparked and his forehead bubbled. These fantasies served him well enough over the past seven years, helping him to navigate his loneliness, depression, longing and frustration. But now, they only seemed to be mocking him. Even if Rose really did come to him now—looking at him with heavy-lidded eyes and breathing ragged, running a fingertip along the buttons of his shirt as each one magically slipped open, allowing her to run her warm hands over his naked chest, this being the start to one of his favorite fantasies—what good would it do him NOW? He couldn't be embraced by her, or kiss her, or anything else he wanted to do to her, without quite literally setting her and the bedroom on fire from the sheer force of his emotions. This curse had ensured that his intense feelings of desire and arousal would remain his to experience alone from now on. Rose was condemned to remain limited to his memories and imagination. This was his punishment for supposedly allowing his passions to be indiscriminate. And with her now back in the picture, Mandrake knew this would be more than he could bear. Unless this curse was broken, he would have to keep himself at a dispassionate distance. No woman was fire-proof, after all.

After seeing her little daughter soundly to bed, Rose Scarlet had come back to her specially prepared guest room to find her two suitcases standing on the floor by the dresser. She smiled to herself knowing the Mandrake had sent his demons to fetch her belongings and bring them back for her. It was nice having bellhop and busboy service at the cottage, she thought. One could quickly get used to this…As she unloaded her bags, she found her mind to be pre-occupied with wondering how to break the Mandrake's curse. She was certain he was brooding under the pressure of it. Several times, she had wanted to reach over and tenderly touch him, however reassuringly, but decided against the idea. He was indirectly and silently telling her to keep away. She didn't allow herself to feel heartbroken, believing that the curse was somehow to blame. She had to believe that, because this wasn't what she expected to return to, not after the way she left him on that night eight years ago.

Rose lay down on top of the bedspread, turned on one side, her head resting on one bent arm. She thought back to how everything unfolded during those final days with her bandmates…