Chapter eleven
Fauns & Waterfalls
The next morning, Iwoke and stretched, then grabbed my new moth cloak from a peg on the wall. Aliena was not in her bed, but I heard voices outside. Just beyond the door, however, I was met with a large, wet nose in my face. I staggered backwards, gasping as the enormous red stag in front of me snorted and stamped. His magnificent antlers made him nearly as tall as the cottage itself, with deadly tines flowering into deep cups at the top, and he wore a delicate splash of white down his forehead.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” I yelped, more out of habit than anything else.
He watched me with dark eyes, then opened his mouth and said, “Well, I should think so.”
I stood perfectly still for a moment, trying to determine if I might be dreaming. But Aliena’s musical laugh broke through my confusion as she walked over and tucked me under her arm.
“May,thisis Balthazar, Lord Stag of the Arden,” she said, turning her head to wink at me. I fought back a smile and dropped into a low curtsey.
“The honor is entirely mine, Your Lordship,” I said in a stuffy voice. “I am Marina of Locksley.”
“Oh, Idolike this human, Miss Dale,” said the stag, nosing the edge of my cloak. “Such fine manners. Not like the rest of you…intractable folk.”
“Don’t worry, Bal, we’ll rough her up a bit,” Aliena told him. His only reply was another snort, then he lumbered away to graze by the creek. When I finally tore my eyes from his great, shaggy form, I spotted at least two dozen other red deer, mostly hinds, fawns, and younger stags, grazing between the trees.
“I…I don’t…” I stammered. Aliena pulled me away from the cottage and over to a firepit, where a pot-bellied copper pot hung on an A-frame above a crackling fire.
“Bal’s just full of himself,” she whispered as she sat me on a stump. “He’s no more special than any other deer in the forest, just older and more pretentious, so he’s styled himself Lord Stag of the Arden. We play along when he brings his family to the Hollow.”
“Oh,” I laughed weakly. “Do all the animals here…speak?”
“Not all, but you’ll know if one does because theynevershut up.”
“Yesterday, though…you fed me stew with…with meat in it…” I grimaced and Aliena laughed.
“Oh, aye,” she said casually. “Rabbit stew, but don’t worry, that fucker had it coming.” I swallowed hard and tried to laugh. Aliena’s copper pot contained porridge, and several other fay creatures that I’d met in the Hollow the day before came around for breakfast, each bringing their own contribution to the meal. There was warm brown bread with a crispy layer of rosemary baked into the top, brought by a stout young woman with the tail and tufted ears of a red squirrel. Two faun children, a little unsteady on their tiny hooves, carried a basket of the sweetest blueberries I’d ever tasted between them, carefully supervised by their father. And finally, a whole, dripping piece of amber honeycomb wrapped in lambskin, produced with a dramatic flourish by a large, waist-coated toad who walked on his hind legs. I tried not to stare as Aliena handed me a bowl of porridge and drizzled some of the honey over it, but I anxiously put off taking my first bite.
“Can I eat this without…” I trailed off, wondering if it was too late for me to be concerned about becoming trapped in the fay world. Aliena plopped beside me with her own bowl of porridge and a chunk of bread.
“Of course! But Robin told me you’d decided to stay.”
I nearly choked on my first bite. “He said that?”
She just shrugged. “Implied it, more like. He certainly does tell a great many untruths for someone who can’t lie. So, you aren’t staying?”
“I-I don’t know,” I admitted. “He still hasn’t told me who I need to heal, or what’s wrong with them. What if I…decide I want to leave? Or what if your queen decides for me?”
“Well, the rules are a bit different for humans like us, who’ve made a bargain,” Aliena said, motioning to herself, “but Titania certainly has no love for Robin or his schemes.”
My curiosity was piqued, but a stone sat in my stomach alongside the honeyed porridge.
“Aliena!” cried the little girl faun, whose name I had been told was Myrtle. “Would you sing the Song of the Huntress for us?”
“Might I finish my meal first, you little wretch?” Aliena asked, sticking her tongue at the child.
Myrtle’s younger brother, Vale, crossed his arms and stomped one hoof. “I want to sing it!”
“Now, now,” chided their father, Larch. “Dale is the one with the gift, and we will let her use it.Aftershe finishes eating.” Vale huffed, but his sister stood and spun away toward the creek, deftly avoiding Lord Balthazar. She leapt into the water and began to splash around, scrubbing her face and the furry goat legs that stayed mostly hidden beneath her patchwork skirt. Larch seized Vale, then deposited him in the creek too and hopped in after his children to help them wash.
“Why do they live here in the Hollow?” I asked Aliena quietly. “They’re certainly not human.”
Aliena sighed, scraped the last bit of porridge from her bowl, then set it down. “Myrtle and Vale have a human mother,” she explained. “Celia. She lived here with Larch, before the war, but never made a fay bargain, so it wasn’t safe for her anymore.” I looked over at Myrtle and Vale again, noting how their features did seem more human than their father’s—their ears and noses slightly less goat-like.
“But…they can’t be older than ten,” I murmured.
