Page 43 of The Wind and the Wild (The Keepers of Faerie #1)
As ever, the trees are calm and open and empty.
A few birds flicker through the branches this time, and the leaves rustle in the calm air.
Carefully, I take a few steps past the small tree the library sent me through, standing on the crinkly carpet of leaves.
Nothing presents itself. The library chimney puffs smoke a short distance away.
“ You’re being suspicious,” I tell myself, then remember Aidyn telling me my words will be heard among the trees of Faerie and click my jaw shut.
The beehive sits just in my line of sight.
Even if the little creatures were not too dangerous for me to approach, Aidyn has been worried of stealing too much honey.
I will collect as many plums as I can within a few minutes, then run back through the burrow still safely open by my feet.
Even alone, I am nervous. The open, bright nature of the trees both helps and intensifies my turning stomach.
I gaze up into the heavy branches of the plum tree. A few maples crowd against it, but it sits comfortably in the dim soupy sunlight of Faerie, a bird taking flight from its branches.
I relax further.
This is nothing to fear.
I have gone almost this far into Faerie on my own many a time.
This time, there is the library to keep in my sight and the burrow by my feet, so it shall be even easier.
Turning the ring on my finger, I take a few experimental steps around the tree.
Bees buzz faintly, far off, but come no closer to me than last time.
In the quiet between the trees, I very much expect the strange little creature that drinks off emotions to come peeking its odd face at me through the brambles.
No such thing presents itself, though I grip the handle of my basket and think about giving it a good smack if it does.
I’m not sure I’ve ever taken up violence against another living creature, but I’m prepared to try.
Sugary fragrant fruit fills my senses. The taste of the air settles along the back of my tongue, and I’m reminded of exactly why, at a little age, I started tripping my way into Faerie.
The fruit on the other side was simply irresistible to human eyes and noses.
The first time was an accident, but when I finally stumbled back out into the bright daylight of the mortal realm, both parents in an entire tizzy about my whereabouts in a village where disappeared children means being trapped forever in the eternal realm, I’d returned with my pockets full of blackberries, not to mention what was smeared across my face from all the eating.
Faint lines existed for a long time on my hands and arms from crawling past the thorns and brambles to the sweet fruit hiding among the moths and fallen leaves.
They faded with time, though if I look hard enough, I can find one or two.
The much-larger scar on my hand and arm overwhelms any desire to do so.
I rub my fingers against my skirts, casting a glance around, but there is no such thing as hounds here—not right now.
It is bright daylight, and I am not wandering in any strange in-between space where time plays tricks.
The library is there, the remains of an old giant coated in leaves and time.
Sun shines bright and deep through the trunks.
I do not smell or hear or sense anything dangerous, just the few passing birds and the nearby hive.
Bees buzz around the dripping nectar, too high and few in number to pay me much mind.
The branches hang heavy and low. I push one aside, gazing into the cool dark about the trunk created by all the low branches, but let the leaves fall back into place.
I am wary of venturing into shadows now, even ones cast by a fruit-laden tree.
A bee buzzes close by my head, and I shy from its wings, but it is only drifting by, fat on the few flowers remaining on the tree and the dripping nectar itself.
Picking the closest plum so ripe it falls into my palm with a brush of my fingers, I settle it into my basket.
Another and another go in, my head whipping about every time I crack even the smallest twig or drop the plum with too much of a squish into the basket.
Nothing presents itself. Smoke curls from Aidyn’s hearth in the library, and I do not allow myself to become distracted with the idea of him—he is unwell, and I know little of how to aid him.
No. Right now is not the time to let my mind wander to such things. I can worry when I am safely back in his gaze, sour as it may be today.
Mumbling to myself about strange faerie men and bees and kittens, I fill the large basket halfway to its brim.
I am in no fear of taking too many. I have barely managed to take the tips of a few bundles of fruit of just three clusters of small branches.
The tree, massive as it is, has so many I could make a dozen pies and feed the kittens for a month and likely never run out.
They will fall to the ground and rot before I can gather them all.
I’m grateful Aidyn noticed the tree during our last venture. Hearing the bees buzzing about, I would not want to brave trying to take from their hive. They are much larger than our little mortal honeybees.
Licking my fingers, I glance again into the woods. The sugar and tartness make my cheeks hurt. I pick another from the tree and slurp most of it down without chewing, juice dribbling.
All things considered, it’s rather a shock no one else likes to go traipsing into Faerie.
Blain.
I pause, a second plum halfway to my mouth, and consider. Many men think themselves brave enough to go into Faerie, daring one another to run in and back unharmed, though the idea itself is mostly harmless. I’ve done so hundreds of times, thousands. It is nothing.
Putting the fruit into my mouth, I chew and collect more, glowering at the leaves, considering and considering.
Does he want something from Faerie? I could not believe he would wish anything else from me , specifically.
He once wished me to show him these lands, those years ago, but I thought nothing of it.
It was a common thing, after all, and I was a strange girl—the wild and moon-born oddity who skips into Faerie to return unharmed.
Perhaps it is not him. Mister Haskel approached me first, after all. Business with my father, perhaps? But no, Da would have him thrown into the dirt—
“ Back again, are we?”
I jump, annoyed at having let my thoughts wander, and scowl at the creature perched between a cluster of the plums. I weigh the basket full of plums in my hands and consider that I could perhaps take out a grown man with it.
It cocks its head at me, still drooling, and I see that it does, in fact, have no teeth.
Knowing it can’t do me any true harm, just dig at any old wounds I cling to in my heart, it’s almost pathetic.
Picking a plum out of my basket, I toss it at the creature.
It fumbles, snatching it with one overly long limb before it can be struck in the face.
“ Eat a plum, ” I tell it, then turn on my heel for the burrow in the roots of the nearest tree.
“ Step on a mushroom, eat your eyes...” it hisses in a strangely familiar feminine voice. Whatever it’s trying for, I ignore it and its morbid little poem, giving the bees a watchful eye as three buzz near the tree I’m approaching.
“ Pluck your teeth, one by one . . .”
I nearly roll my eyes, but chills are crawling across my skin, so I keep walking, ignoring it as I ignored Blain. Evidently, I am annoying it, since it is trying so hard to get me to come back.
“ Oh, look how the little one cries . . .”
Una. It’s making itself sound like Una.
Aidyn didn’ t mention that particular talent —he must not have known.
How does it know what she sounds like?
Irritation flutters up my chest. Picking another plum out of my basket, I turn to give it a good throw at the stupid thing.
I have quite a decent throwing arm, most likely from spending too many years hurling various harmless objects at both Niall and Una and getting them thrown back in return.
Might as well knock the creature right out of its roost, and maybe next time it won’t try—
A flurry of limbs, and I smack the creature away with a yelp as it jumps from the nearest branch right for my face.
Its skin is cold and dry as paper. I stumble, and my shoe catches on a root of the brambles.
I smack down too hard onto the forest floor, irritated with myself at being so startled and clumsy at the same time.
“ Stupid thing,” I grumble, coughing and glaring at the tree canopy before sitting upright. “ I’m going to send Aidyn after you—”
My voice dies in my throat, and I stare at the dark thick trunks of trees.
“ You’re not right,” I mumble, just to hear my own voice.
The plum tree is gone, as are the brambles and the goblin creature—though it could be hidden behind the nearest trunk and I’d know no better—and it takes me a moment to gather my nerves and glance over my shoulder.
Clusters of dark trees. A dim haze of fading light as sudden twilight turns to falling night. A few stars blink between the branches of the canopy, strangely close.
No burrow. No library.