Bella startled but quickly adjusted.“Do you mimic, or do you speak?”
“I speak.”
Perhaps another enchanted creature from the last castle?“Hello, then.I am Bella.What is your name?”
“Bouleau.”
A French name, though Bella was not sure if she had fallen all the way to France.“That means ‘silver birch.’A fitting name for you, for your white feathers are most striking.”
He did not seem prone to flattery, for he merely tipped his head to study her.“What are you doing?”
“Escaping.It seems there is no door.”
“I can lead you to riches.”
She laughed.“I have no need for riches, my feathered friend.Only freedom.”
“A treasure awaits you in the woods.”
He seemed earnest.Too earnest.After dealing withtoo earnestmen in her home village, Bella had had enough.“Bouleau, I am not on a quest for treasure.If you wish to be of service, perhaps you could tell me if there is a door on this tower, one which might spare me this effort?”
The bird turned his head to study her with one eye, then flew off.
“Fickle creature,” she whispered, then finally finished her project.She searched and found a rope belt in an armoire, which she used to bind a tight loop on one end of her blanket chain.She slipped that loop over the iron hook and leaned back hard into the tower, putting all her weight on it to test its hold.
“Here’s to a fine adventure,” she said and dropped the knotted pile out the window.
It did not reach the ground, but it looked close enough that Bella did not want to haul it up and add more.She gave the rope another firm tug and nodded that it held.She grabbed the pillowcase she’d stuffed with fruits and bread and tucked her arm through the slits she’d made at the top.She pushed the bundle as far up her shoulder as possible, grabbed the knotted sheet, then leaned out and wrapped her legs around the coil.She slipped at first, which caused her to squeal, but the next knot stopped her.She carefully moved her feet below the knot and kept going.
She could do this.Slide down to the knot, loosen feet, slide to the next knot.
When her shoes suddenly dangled off the last sheet, Bella instinctively tightened her grip on the last knot, but when she looked down, she could see a grasshopper leap.The ground was definitely close.With a breath for courage, Bella let go and landed on her bottom a second later.
“The prior fall was softer,” she said to no one, though falling into a different world was not something she’d recommend.An apple rolled out of her sack.She grabbed it and put it back, taking a minute to inspect the tower prison.The tall base was round and thin, with a mushroom-shaped chamber at the top, and no door to be found.Thick moss and ivy encircled the structure.No windows broke the flow of the base, meaning there was no inner stairwell to be lit, so Bella took some solace in that her method really had been the only way out.Trees crowded nearby, sheltering most of the tower to keep it out of sight.There were no barns, no fields.Just a small meadow with a clear brook running through it.No one had stepped out with intent to return momentarily.Had this tower’s occupant been flung somewhere else the same way Bella had?Was it possible they two were now swapped into each other’s lives?
Bella knew she’d traded towers with a woman, not a man, based on the feminine touches she’d seen, like the floral-painted walls and the oven discovered mid-bake.What if the woman who lived here was now trapped in Bella’s tower with that beast and talking objects?Was that where the talking magpie had come from?Should she try to find her way back to the castle?She had given her word to stay there, after all.
No.‘Twas too much to contemplate; too many unknown factors to consider.
Bella had notescaped.She had not reneged on her pledge.Fate, or the magical equivalent, had flung her to this faraway land.She should, however, attempt to return home.Her father would worry himself into an early grave otherwise.She nodded, decision made.
“I am done with prisons,” she said aloud, just as the magpie landed on that open windowsill.With a salute to the bird, Bella headed down the faint path in the grass.It intersected an ivy-covered wall, but the footpath continued right through it, so Bella reached out a hand to learn the rocks had been removed here, though one would never know at a glance.She pushed aside the foliage and stepped out into a forest of massive trees filled with strange birdsong.
Barely ten steps onto her new path, the ground began vibrating.She gasped and hid behind a tree as a literalgiantlumbered past her.His fingertips swept the treetops out of his way as he called, “Jack!Where are you?”
An enormous white goose flew overhead a few minutes later, which also had her ducking for cover, then she caught peripheral motion in the undergrowth, but when she looked, all she saw was mushrooms and flowers.
The fairies are here,she thought, refusing to study the flora any closer.She hastened her steps with intent to escape the chaos of this odd forest.
She traveled for almost two hours before she heard human footsteps heading her way.Choosing caution over curiosity, Bella slipped behind a tree trunk and waited.A woman walked past her, old, almost crippled, but despite her frailty, Bella kept the trunk between them until the woman was out of sight.There was something about her that Bella instinctively distrusted.And the fact she was heading toward the place Bella escaped from did not sit right.Was she somehow connected to the tower?Bella checked the path in both directions, stepped out from behind the tree, and hurried forward, putting as much distance between herself and the tower as possible.
Another hour passed, and Bella was getting thirsty.The apple provided only the smallest measure of moisture, certainly not enough to slake her need.The brook that had trickled by the tower did not travel this side of the wall.
The magpie landed in a nearby branch.“Treasure awaits.”
“I need water, not treasure.”
“You can buy drinks with the treasure.”
