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I was relieved for my father’s sake, but I didn’t feel any less burdened like I expected to. If anything, losing that last tether to Lina only made me feel… empty.
Leaving the medallion behind, on the other hand, had been surprisingly easy. For all that it hadn’t left my neck in three years, the past few months had made wearing it feel more like a shackle than a privilege.
As much as I wanted to get to Lina, my frazzled nerves were ready for a break when we finally stopped for the night. At least we had a tent and a reasonably comfortable place to sleep. Rumplestiltskin had pulled an entire fairy-sized pack out of his normal one for this journey, and Maggie still had some of Lina’s supplies in her saddlebag.
I tried not to think about her as I rifled through them, the way she left without so much as a goodbye. She had told us she would leave once she found the fairies… but part of me never really believed she would.
I told myself that as long as she was safe, I would leave again, let her be happy with her own people, just as my mother had said years ago. That didn’t stop the sinking feeling when I pulled out her bedroll, trying to ignore the way it held her scent of fresh flowers and sunshine.
How was it so easy for her to walk away?Because she didn’t care? Or, more likely?Because she thought I didn’t?
I was unrolling the bedroll next to Rumple’s in our tent, which was little more than twigs and canvas, when something started moving underneath the fabric. I jumped back, pulling the bedroll with me until I saw it, an enormous brown cylinder burrowing from the ground beneath.
“Snake!” I called to Rumplestiltskin, grasping once again for a weapon that wasn’t there.
The green man looked over irritably, not a trace of surprise or fear on his features.
“Earthworm,” he corrected, shaking his head at my idiocy. “Just leave it be and it’ll go away.”
Sure enough, a second look at the slimy, cone-shaped head proved him right. It squirmed around aimlessly for a moment before Maggie darted over and ripped it from the ground. She chomped away on it, and the sound churned my stomach. Either I hadn’t noticed how loud and squelchy her eating habits were, or my hearing was more sensitive now. Either way, it made my stomach uneasy.
Something rustled outside of the tent, and I startled, again.
“Just a weed hitting the tent. Go to sleep,” Rumple growled.
I let loose a stilted breath, cursing myself for the uncharacteristic jumpiness.
“How does she live like this?” I didn’t realize I had asked the question aloud, until Rumplestiltskin actually chuckled under his breath.
“She doesn’t. Lina knows the difference between a snake and an earthworm just fine.”
“You know what I mean.” I shot him an irritable look. “How has she even survived in a world where literally everything can kill her?”
“You mean like that worm?” He raised his eyebrows.
I just waited him out.
“Fairies are different than humans,” he reluctantly explained, passing me a pecan as long as my forearm. I took a bite while he kept talking. “They give off a scent to would-be predators letting them know they aren’t prey, aren’t enemies. That’s not to say that an animal can’t strike before realizing that, but as long as a fairy is reasonably careful, they have little to worry about from the animal world. Most things are just curious about them.”
All those times Lina had said something was just coming to say hello and I had accused her of being naive, she had been right.
“You must give off the opposite scent.” I thought of the way everything in the forest seemed to shy away from him.
“When I’m full-sized, yes. It does seem to be diminished in this form.” He glanced at where Maggie was still munching on the earthworm.
Well, that’s just fantastic.
I finished eating wordlessly, and Maggie came over, sniffing at Lina’s pack.
Right.
I opened it up and unfolded the blanket I’d seen her sleep in before. She snatched it from my hands with her teeth and rolled until it was snugly wrapped around her just outside of our tent.
Even before I settled in my bedroll, I could tell it was going to be a long night.
It wasn’t only my murky thoughts keeping me awake, either. Everything was soloud. The wind whistled through the grass, each blade creating its own high-pitched tune. A creepy shuffling sound outside our tent made me pop my head out, and then immediately back in, when I beheld a spider half as tall as I was rubbing its hairy legs against one another.
I sat inside the tent, squeezing the flaps closed and hoping that every one of its eight eyes was fixated somewhere other than my stupid, curious head. After a few minutes passed, I finally breathed a sigh of relief, laying back against my makeshift pillow.
