“He’s gone. You can move now,” I inform her.
“O-oh…”
Slowly, she rises to her feet, picking her bags up off the ground. Then she departs for the gates, and I stare at the back of her golden head, wondering what has got into her.
I don’t question it further. My only concern now is getting her away from the city.
I’m not surprised when she tells me she wants to leave. We find a peach cart parked in a quiet side street, climbing into the back as we did the day previously.
Except this time, we’re caught. Before I have a chance to glamour the driver, he startles us with a laugh, and that’s how we find our free ride out of the city.
Again, we bypass the guards, and when they lift the portcullis, they don’t bother to inspect the cart on the way out. It’s much easier to leave the city than it is to get inside, but I count my blessings. My magic is just about spent after this trip; I don’t think I have a single drop left inside me.
When we return, I will rest for three whole days. If only falling asleep were that simple. My nightmares always have a way of catching up with me in the end.
Randyll—the name of our gracious rider—talks non-stop about his peaches, and Ivy manages to maintain some level of decorum throughout the whole ride.
She has far more patience than I have. If that were me in the front seat, I’d have knocked him off the cart with his very own lute.
I sulk in the back with his peaches, wishing he would shut up for just one second. The only reason why I haven’t knocked him out yet is because we owe him a great debt, and Ihateowing debts.
So, the least I can do is put up with his rabbiting.
“We grow all kinds of peaches back at my father’s farm. We have furry peaches, round peaches, spotted peaches,purplepeaches…”
“Purple peaches?” Ivy asks, puzzled.
“Yes, of course. Grown on nothing but pure magic!”
I roll my eyes. I highly doubt it. Still, I grab a peach from a wooden barrel, biting into its flesh, and maybe thereissome magic involved. Randyll grows some nice peaches.
Ivy feigns a pleasant smile. “They soundwonderful…”
I snort. “They sound wonderful….”
She scowls at me from over her shoulder.
To my utter horror, Randyll passes the reins to Ivy, and now he starts plucking the strings of his lute, singing a song about, you guessed it,peaches…
He’s not just a humble peach farmer, but a bard, too, and an annoying one at that who can’t hold a tune.
By nightfall, we reach the road where Ivy and I started our journey, and I almost kiss the ground for sheer joy.
Thank Maghelena, our merciful Goddess.
“Farewell, my humble hitchhikers,” Randyll waves. “Maybe one day you can come to my farm and see my family’s peaches for yourself.”
“We highly doubt it,” I say through clenched teeth, waving a hand as the lunatic drives away.
Ivy scolds me, waving her own hand. “Don’t be so mean. He gave us free peaches.”
And he did, too.
A whole barrel.
I sigh, reaching the edge of the faerie wilds, noticing the stark contrast with the neighbouring woods on the left side of the road. The trees are tamer there. An owl hoots on its perch, and moonlight bathes the forest in a serene white glow.
On the right side of the road—thick, oppressive silence that presses in on all sides, making you claustrophobic. Sound seldom echoes in the faerie wilds. That’s because the trees are smothered in moss and vines, making it hard for light and sound to permeate. Thoughsometimes, you can hear the cries of little children screaming in the dead of night—human children who’ve been plucked away from their homes, never to be seen again.
