Page 3 of The Wind and the Wild (The Keepers of Faerie #1)

D a puts off their leaving for a time, as he promised, though it makes little difference.

He speaks to the other men in the village, who take up their wood-chopping axes and hunting bows and give the trees a cursory check.

They find the remnants of blood I discovered, but without other signs of any creature, there’s not much to be done but keep the animals penned at night and the children inside early in the evening.

Even we adults will not venture so close to the trees in the evening.

It is just as well, for there are houses to be rethatched, fields to be plowed, and pies to be baked in preparation for midsummer eve, where I shall certainly take the ribbon.

I did not last year, beaten by an admittedly delectable boysenberry pie made by a sweet girl named Maeve from the next village over, but with a bit of experimenting and more sneaking through the trees once they’re clear of monsters, I shall make one quite better.

Una and Niall will be happy to taste test.

Mam and Da leave three days later than intended, just to be safe.

The roads in this part of the kingdom are never dangerous—they’ve only stayed out of worry for me.

But I will be spending most days in the village and likely most nights with Una, helping with her dress for the dance, which shall last all midsummer evening and night.

Mam smooths some hair slipping from my short braids and kisses me, walking about with me under her arm while Da takes her bags into the buggy. Blackberry, our big draft horse, snorts and paws at the ground, happy for something to do.

Da squeezes me too tight. I hook my arms under his and breathe in the fresh smell of his coat.

It’s not that I need them here, but I’m missing them before they’ve left the barn.

They’ll return in several weeks, which will be taken quickly by a warm spring sun and the village out and about after a long winter, but I’m anticipating their return.

“ Stay in the mortal trees,” he says with a squeeze. “ And think about what I said. We want you to be loved.”

“ I know, Da,” I say, giving his beard a gentle tug.

He doesn’t mean Niall specifically—it could be anyone from the village who catches my eye, or from just around the bend, a few hours’ walk.

They aren’t pressuring me, but some gentle pestering is practically in their duties as parents.

No one’s caught my eye, but I’ll think on it, as they say. As I often do.

Eventually, I’m sure I’ll be ready once more.

With another hug and much waving, I watch them bounce off down the path in a puff of dust. Una trots up the path to wave goodbye, then drags me off by the side of my skirts.

“ I haven’t had breakfast!” I protest.

“ Emma has too many eggs—you can make yourself at home!”

In the back of my mind, I know she’s distracting me, maneuvering me out of the house so I don’t while away the hours in my kitchen with no one to talk to.

But the little kitten creatures did take some milk this morning, if only a few licks, and they’re sleeping happily in a blanket in a crate in my bedroom, so I can leave them a while.

“ Fine. Race you.”

“ Wait, no! ”

I’m already sprinting down the path while she scrambles after, yelling about cheating before she has to save her breath for catching up.

We’re both in skirts short enough to hike up and take off as fast as our legs will go, but I’m taller and spend an awful lot more time running pell-mell back across the border of Faerie.

Una is correct—Emma does have too many eggs—and I trade an hour of making omelets for taking another half dozen home with me.

She has onions in her garden, and Una was harvesting mushrooms in the bright section of the forest yesterday, so I’m content to overtake someone else’s counter space for a time.

Emma is a gentle, round sort of woman, not quite the oldest in the village but close.

For her years, she appears remarkably young.

Her chickens are her grandchildren—when her own grandchildren aren’t uprooting her yard, that is.

She is, perhaps, one of the only people here to have seen a faerie and walked away unscathed—not that she’s told me anything of the incident.

Even with years of poking and prodding when I was shorter than her knee—including bringing her cakes when I was old enough to be let near the stove—I never received much more than a hint about not getting lost in the trees and that old library the fae built and abandoned long ago.

It’s been on my mind these past three days.

Apparently, it is much closer than any other structure built by the noble folk, which makes it worthy of her memory, but she’s said nothing more.

I never did find it the few times I looked, and I gave up some years back. There are some things not to be trifled with without good reason.

Thinking of the kittens and their cute dotted fur and needle teeth, I glance over my shoulder from chopping onion stalks.

Una is at the table helping Emma unwind some of her yarn, which has become tangled by a few too many curious grandchildren.

She might need to keep her colorful wools on a higher shelf.

“ Emma, ” I say, “ remember when I was a little thing? You told me about a library on the Faerie side of the woods?”

Una gives me a disparaging look, and I shrug. Emma ignores me—until she, too, glances up. “ Why, girl?”

Another shrug. “ I’ve been thinking about all the things you’ve told me. Hounds and such.”

She looks at me and my hand. I have dresses with long sleeves, but the air is warming, and the boy who left me to monsters never lived in these cottages, and everyone here cared for me as I recovered those years ago.

I receive a glance of pity every so often, compassion usually, but mostly, everyone is accustomed to the girl with a scar on her hand who wanders into Faerie.

Besides, if I were faerie cursed, we would all know by now.

If I’ve somehow become cursed with cooking faerie food, no one seems to mind much. In fact, there are always children and many of the adults lining up at our cottage windows when I get to baking large batches of bread and pies.

“ Do you remember?” I ask again, lighter.

“ Of course. How old do you think I am?”

I manage to keep my laugh silent. “ How do you know about it?”

“ The library? I saw it. It’s not too far in. Have you never seen it? I know you go in there.”

She gives a squint that mostly impacts one eye, but I only shrug again. It is not an unknown thing. Besides, if I’m the one risking my mind and sanity, who wouldn’t want tarts and pies and jams made from Faerie fruit?

“ No, never quite stumbled upon that one. Never stumbled across any building, actually. I can barely tell Faerie is Faerie, if I’m being honest.”

Una shakes her head. I offered to take her in with me a handful of times. She, much like the rest of the village, thinks I’m mad to do so—not in a harmful way, just born-in-the-moonlight mad.

“ Good,” Emma says with a wave of her hand. “ Best you never stumble across it. Berries are one thing. You should not touch anything built by their hands. Even things abandoned.”

I shiver despite the warmth the kitchen is gaining.

I believe her, and there’s a far cry between a little exploration on the edges of the fair folk’s lands and entering a space touched by their hands.

Still, it nags at my thoughts—those little kittens abandoned at the edge of the border, something taken from them.

I know little of faerie creatures other than what I’ve been told.

Something in me insists they are not mere animals.

How can they be? From Faerie, they cannot be mindless creatures.

Even the hunt hounds I met so long ago.

.. Their most frightening aspect was not the claws or even the teeth; it was the second between thinking them monsters and realizing there was deep intelligence within their pure white eyes.

They knew what they were doing and continued on anyhow, which makes it all the worse.

If these little kittens grow, will they grow into something wise as us? Otherworldly, certainly, but perhaps wise nonetheless.

An old faerie library.

On the border somewhere.

With knowledge of their creatures, perhaps. Knowledge we certainly don’t have.

It has been several days, and there are no traces of monsters, no blood or strange paw prints or markings.

If I hadn’t stumbled across the kittens and the ensuing scene, no one, me included, would’ve realized something was amiss.

It’s been ages since anything dangerous crept from Faerie, anyhow.

What are the chances something would happen with a little more exploring?

Besides, if I go into the woods alone , there’s nothing to fear.

If I told Niall my thoughts, he would probably put aside his desire to never step foot inside the border of the noble folk’s trees and join me.

I would feel safe with him at my back, wouldn’ t I? Most likely. With his stable hands and broad grin, he is one of the few I trust, besides Mam and Da. Una too, but she would rather drag me out by my ankles than venture in. I cannot blame her for such determination.

I have never needed a shield mate when venturing into Faerie. I shall not need one for a little adventuring on the border. I do it often. I simply need to be more purposeful with my getting lost.

“ You,” Una says after we have eaten omelets and untangled a great deal of wool and I am carrying a handful of eggs home in the pockets of my skirts, “ are scheming. ”

“ Scheming? ”

“ Scheming, ” she sings, looping her arm through mine.

“ How is Cara?” I ask, hoping she has something to say about her little sister.

“ Ha! In love with a boy she met from the next village when Da took them both to market day. Have you ever seen a ten-year-old give another ten-year-old a daisy? Adorable. I’m not that easily distracted.”