Page 28 of Beneath Swan Lake (Deadly Endings #2)
The rain comes just as the sun begins to rise. We haven’t moved camp yet with the fire spreading more north, and as of now we don’t know the extent of the destruction. Its something to address later, but for now at least no one else traveling through the tavern ended up dead that we know of.
“What do we do now?” Elsie asks, nervously twisting her hair into a braid. She’s usually one of my calmer siblings, but right now her nervous energy is rubbing off on me.
I sigh, looking around us. Most of my younger siblings are asleep around the space, and half the travelers who paused here moved on for various reasons. Everything we owned was inside the tavern, and after checking around the base of the pillars with Zarev we determined they formed into something kind of like a tree. We can pass through the beanstalks but there’s no inside to stop in. Nothing hollow. No space where the tavern or Ysanna should be.
The fire may have stopped, but the tavern is gone. The clotheslines for the shoes are still scattered on the ground, but there’s no getting into it. The only upside is Ysanna must be gone too.
“We’ll figure it out,” I tell her, offering my sister a smile she doesn’t return. “It is always darkest before the light, Elsie. This is just a patch of darkness.”
“We can’t rebuild,” she reasons, shaking her head. “There’s a gigantic beanstalk in the way.”
“If you think mum will let the tavern die, you’re mistaken,” I tell her, my lip twisting up into a smirk. “She built the tavern from ruins once, she will do it again.”
Elsie still stares off into the distance. With the smoke gone it’s easy to see the massive beanstalks in place of our home. “”Maybe. But I don’t want to start all over again.”
She brushes me off when I reach for her, so I let her go, walking into the trees. We put up some shadowy canopies to help protect people from the rain, but if it lasts too long we will have to resort to other means. Zarev and I have to let our magic rest at some point.
Odette slides in the moment my sister is gone. “I spoke with my parents.”
I raise a brow. It’s barely morning, so she contacted the King and Queen in the middle of the night. They had to think something tragic happened to their daughter.
“They offered to help,” she explains, rubbing her hands together. “Since you’ve helped me. I know Swan Lake is a bit of traveling, but rebuilding your home will take time. We’re on the wrong side of the tavern right now but we can double back towards the lake. They offered shelter and resources in the meantime-”
“We don’t need the King and Queen’s charity,” mum says, cutting her off. I hadn’t noticed her approaching. Her steps are stiff as she comes closer. Rapunzel may have healed her leg, but from the look of things she’s still quite sore. “We’re going to rise from the embers on our own, like we always have.”
Odette frowns. “But we can help-”
“It’s not that you can help, dear. It’s that neutrality dies when we accept help from any kingdom. The tavern is a place for travelers where all are welcome, except those meaning to do us harm. There’s no divide between the refugees from Tressa or the lost who leave Wonderland. Everyone is an equal. If we accept charity from one kingdom, it may cause a rift. And that isn’t what we need right now with all eyes on us.”
Odette goes to speak again, and I slide my hand down her back. “Why don’t we take a walk? There will be a lot to do once everyone wakes.”
She hesitates, shooting my mum a look. It’s hard to read what they think of each other right now, and after last night everyone is on edge. The rain soothes fears of the fire, but it won’t fix the destruction. When the smoke settles in Sherwood we’ll have to look and see what’s left of the forest. We can only hope right now that the fires didn’t stretch beyond the clouds and find areas outside of the rain to continue burning down.
As I wrap an arm around Odette’s shoulders and start walking, I can’t help wondering what purpose this attack serves. The Missing Shoe is a place for travelers between Kingdoms and across the forest. Sometimes people share stories -
My steps slow, and Odette glances over at me. She’s barely slept since watching us reap the dead, and there’s been a blank look in her eyes the last few hours as she tries to make sense of everything. Now that blankness is replaced with concern. “What is it?”
Eyeing the beanstalks ahead, my mind starts to spin. My thoughts haven’t settled down since we smelled the burning fire, and I don’t see things getting any easier anytime soon. “Travelers stories.”
“What about them?” she asks, eyeing me.
“That’s what the tavern was known for. More than just being a place for weary travelers, people would leave their stories periodically. Ma kept them in her office mostly, but sometimes people would stay late into the night and share stories. It’s a place of memories.”
Odette nods slowly, her brows drawing together. “It contained history.”
“Yeah,” I reply, staring upwards with her. “Now it’s lost inside the beanstalk.”
“And what do you do now?”
I blow out a breath, continuing to stare up with her. It’s a loaded question but it’s the one everyone is asking. “We rebuild. Ma did it once, when my father died. We will do it once again.”
She hesitates, and I meet her eyes again. “About your father…”
I wait, wondering where she could be going with this. It’s not like she would have any knowledge of my father. “Your mom, um, she took me to his grave. ”
My brows furrow. “Grave?”
“Yes. I assumed you knew. Jacob is engraved on the front. It’s just a small stone, it’s not too far from here.” She points upward. “That’s where she found the seeds for those.”
I eye the beanstalks. I know how my father died, but I didn’t know my mother kept anything from that period of time. “How interesting.”
“Interesting?”
I nod. “Ma never mentioned any of that to me. Dad passed and… we adjusted. We never buried anything because we never found him. For all I know he really is lost in the clouds. She didn’t ever tell any of us about a grave as far as I know.”
Odette steps closer, taking my hand. I debate saying something more, but there’s nothing that comes to mind that doesn’t pull at old wounds. I need to talk to my mother about whatever this is, because it seems she’s kept secrets from all of us.
I lick my lips. Jacob. I haven’t heard my father’s name uttered in years, but if Mum put his name on the stone it must symbolize his final resting place. So why keep that from all of us?
Her fingers knit through mine, and we exchange a glance. “What do we do about Camelot?”
“We need to talk to Zarev and Rapunzel and see what they have learned since we last spoke. Maybe Cyrus too, if he can be trusted.”
She snorts. “You know, this would’ve been easier if your friend Ban wasn’t so flighty.”
I can’t help but chuckle at the irony. “Ban is strong, but he’s not strong enough to stop an entire forest fire on his own. And definitely not if it’s Phoenix fire, much less after he’s been imprisoned for a month by a psycho wizard. Honestly, his pride would be bruised if he came along and couldn’t stop the fire. He’s on his own quest now.”
“So that’s it?” she asks, narrowing her eyes on me. “You just let him go off into the sunset?”
“Do you want to go to the Frostlands?” I ask her seriously. She quickly shakes her head, and I’ve made my point. “Then for now, Ban’s on his own. He’s well acquainted with dealing with the icy personalities of the rich up north. He’ll be just fine, and maybe when he sorts out whatever his problem is he’ll be useful to us again.”
“With the spinning needle?” Odette says, mirroring my thoughts. I have no idea what Ban’s gotten into with the ice queen, and I fear the answer. His past might just come back to haunt him.
“Yes. Strange things happen where the cold goes too deep,” I tell her, looking to the sky again. “He’ll return when he’s ready. Maybe we’ll know more about the Mad Queen’s plans by then.”
“And Camelot,” she agrees.
Nodding, I point to the green stalks. “We have to start rebuilding as soon as my family is up for it. Zarev will hang around to help I’m sure. Two Reapers are better and stronger than one, and it won’t take long to rebuild The Missing Shoe when we are mentally ready for it.”
“Right,” Odette agrees, hands on her hips. “I wonder where those beanstalks go.”
“Up into the clouds,” I tell her. Staring, I can’t see where they go, they just disappear into the clouds and, presumably, keep going. “I’ve never climbed above the clouds.”
“Those stalks though, they might be too high to climb,” Odette points out. Her hands are on her hips as she gazes upward with me, seeming to work out the same puzzle that I’m trying to.
A giant threw my father up into the clouds, and he never came back down…
“Could be. We might have to shadow hop up there,” I say.
“No shadows when the sun rises,” she tells me. “It’ll sap your energy, right? Too bad only one of us can fly.”
I snort. “I can fly. The shadows let me do almost anything.”
“Oh.” She wiggles her brows, looking up again. “It might be dangerous going up. You said something about giants once upon a time?”
“One giant. I don’t know where these stalks might lead.” Standing with Odette, she knits her fingers through mine as we stare up until the stalks disappear. “First things first. We need to see where these beanstalk go to know if there’s danger above. We need to climb into the clouds.”