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But, no. She was always trying to befriend spiders and climb onto birds, and she took naps in the flowers the horses liked to run through.
And now this.I rubbed at my temples.
“What’s wrong?” Eddard didn’t even give me time to dismount before he grilled me, but then, patience had never been my brother’s strong suit. “Did you get the medicine?”
The question had been laced with fear ever since we found out who our savior was. Rumplestiltskin was not a man, or troll, to be trifled with. But, he had never gone against his word, either. Nor had he ever answered any of my questions about why he cared so much if Lina lived or died.
“Yes.” I handed the vial over to him.
I had picked it up at the same place I always did, from a woman who refused to tell me how she procured it, even when I offered her the substantial amount of blood money I had received in exchange for my most recent job. My family needed the coin, but not as much as they needed to be out from under the weight of my obligation.
Especially when the weight of that burden fell on them, as making the money they needed to survive had fallen on me.
But it didn’t matter. For ten years, the woman had given the vial to me, and me alone, and only once she had received word from Rumplestiltskin.
“Then what is it?” my brother asked.
“What is what?” I countered.
“Your face.” He gave me a knowing look, and I shouldered past him.
“This is just my face, Eddard,” I lied, walking toward our house.
“Is this about Lina offering us the farm?” he asked, quietly, holding out a hand to stop me before we reached our parents.
“She did what?” I asked, sharply.
“She asked us to manage the farm for her,” he said. “I thought she told you.”
“No, she didn’t.” But it meant she was serious about her plan, if she had found someone else to look over her mother’s beloved farm.
“So what’s upsetting you, then?”
Well, what the hell.He’s going to find out eventually.
“She wants to go into the forest, to find the fairies. Because she thinksshe’sa fairy.” It was ludicrous, hearing it out loud. Though nothing about Lina had ever made sense.
“Who’s to say she isn’t? It’s not like anyone remembers what they look like, and she has to have come from somewhere.” He echoed my reluctant thoughts before cocking his head like the perceptive bastard he was. “What bothers you so much about that?”
“She wants me to go with her.”
He eyed me for a long moment, like he saw far more than he should at only sixteen years-old. Then again, I had left home at only a year older than he was, now.
“Well, you have to, don’t you?” he finally responded. “She’ll get herself hurt, or worse, in those woods.”
I looked at where my father had raised a hand in greeting, at the vial my brother was still holding; the medicine keeping the man who had given us everything alive.
Then, I pictured tiny little Lina in the forest full of venomous insects and all other manner of deadly creatures, half of which she’d probably try to make friends with, and I sighed.
“Yeah, I guess I do.”
5
Lina
Now that every last detail of the farm was squared away, there was nothing left for me to do but to move forward—to move on.
I distracted myself by touching up the paint on my hedgehog's nails. It was a dusty rose color, and it matched the paint on mine. Maggie grinned and sat still while I finished, practically drifting back to sleep as I worked. She’d always loved when I did this. It was as relaxing to her as it was to me.
