Chapter 6
Chapter Six
LINDY
“Your sons?” The giant’s words came out as a half-strangled cry, and the shocked expression on his disconcertingly handsome face was delightfully amusing. “But they’re…you’re…”
“A caring and devoted mother,” Lindy said, pressing a hand over her heart.
The giant—Atlas, if she remembered correctly—shook his head slowly in disbelief.
It really was entertaining watching him flounder, and his uncertainty made him much less alarming.
If she had to guess, he was over seven feet tall, and she could still feel the phantom sensation of his large hands wrapped around her wrists.
He had held her prisoner as easily as if she were an annoying bug, and she was sure he could have snapped her bones as easily as she could have broken Corbin’s neck earlier.
Guilt plagued her at the thought, whispering that she ought to apologize for threatening the prince when the scales were so unevenly balanced in her favor. She couldn’t even lie to herself and claim that she felt threatened.
Compared to what she had faced growing up, an angry bird—even one as big as he was—was nothing.
He’s a swan. The most he could do is make himself a nuisance and bite me. I have the power to end his life, and I held it over him. I wanted to feel powerful. I wanted him to fear me.
Her stomach soured, and she nearly missed Atlas’s question.
“I just meant, well, there are seven of them. And you’re…”
She raised her brows. “Be very careful with what you say next, young man.”
“That’s just it!” He pointed a long finger at her. “You can’t be any older than I am. How do you have seven sons?”
Lindy crossed her arms. “Perhaps I have an extremely effective beauty routine. Or maybe I had several sets of twins.”
He shook his head. “No. If you were actually their mother, you wouldn’t have talked about wringing their necks. That sounds more like a friend or sibling relationship.”
“And I’m assuming you’re some kind of expert in familial relationships?
” Movement in the corner of her eye drew her attention to where the princes were slowly congregating on the shore, obviously invested in the little drama that was playing out.
She scowled at Corbin, willing him to read her mind and go away.
“No, but wouldn’t a caring and devoted mother want her sons to stay close to her?”
“Perhaps I’m trying to communicate that they should steer clear of you.”
“That’s the other thing—if you’re their mother, wouldn’t they be more concerned about your safety?”
His innocent question, likely chosen to simply prove his point, was a knife in her gut, reopening the wound carved out by a lifetime of pain.
Of course they’re not concerned about my safety. No one is. But it’s fine. I can take care of myself.
She sighed dramatically to hide her emotions. “I’m afraid you’ve caught me. They’re my stepsons.”
“That makes more sense.” He nodded to himself. “You said they’re cursed?”
“Well, I didn’t marry a swan,” she drawled sarcastically.
“So you’re married?”
Curse him and his never-ending questions! Well, no. No more curses. One is enough to try to break. But I wish he would just leave already.
“Was,” she answered, turning around and marching toward the tree line where she had left her bag, hoping that he would take the hint that it was time for him to go.
“I’m sorry.”
His words were soft, his apology sincere this time. She could hear the undertones of empathy and heartbreak in them, and she closed her eyes against the sudden, unwanted tears that gathered in response.
“Yes. Well,” she said briskly, still keeping her back to him. “There’s nothing to be done about it. I can break a curse, but I can’t raise the dead.”
“Is there somewhere I can take you?”
“Ha.” Her laugh was hollow. “No. I’ll be fine. Don’t you have a goose to find?”
“It’s too dark. I’ll have to pick up the search in the morning.”
Lindy whirled around. “You’re not staying with me.”
Atlas held up his hands and moved back. Night had completely fallen, and the moonlight behind him made him seem far bigger and more foreboding than he had been in the sunshine—and that had been frightening enough. “I never said I was. What gave you that idea?”
“Maybe the fact that you’re not leaving?” She tried to inconspicuously drag her foot over the ground around her, searching for a tree branch or a rock she could use as a weapon.
Though he’s so big that it’s unlikely anything I do will even bother him. I should have put more effort into studying defensive cursing.
“I’m trying to take you somewhere safe!” She could hear his jaw dropping in disbelief, even though she couldn’t see it.
“In that case, you can be on your way. I’m perfectly fine where I am.”
“You…” He growled in frustration, and she could see the outline of his arms against the starry sky as he gripped the sides of his head. “I can’t just leave you here!”
“Why not? I would have been here whether or not you knew about it.”
“You’ll be alone.”
“Which means, statistically, I’m far less likely to be attacked or robbed than if there were, say, a strange man in the forest.”
“Look...” An irritated huff escaped him. “I still don’t know your name.”
“Lindy.”
“Look, Lindy. I don’t know what kind of ideas you’ve conjured up about camping in the wilderness, but something tells me you’re not prepared. Do you even know how to start a fire? What about food? Have you ever cooked before?”
Panic clawed at her throat at the reminder that not only was she alone, but she was in far over her head. If she was going to break the princes’ curse, she would have to live long enough to see the task done.
“I’ll figure it out.” I always do.
“I’m sure your family is worried about you.” Atlas’s tone shifted as he changed tactics, and Lindy decided she much preferred grumpy to cajoling.
She laughed bitterly. “Trust me, my family is not doing a whole lot of worrying on my behalf. My husband is dead. My stepsons are swans. My sister hasn’t done more than briefly acknowledge my existence in years, and my father practically threw me to the first available man who offered.
Once my little brother was born and he could finally pass the throne on to a male heir, I became little more than a bargaining chip. ”
“Throne?” His voice dropped to a confused whisper.
“Oh, did I not introduce myself correctly?” Lindy curtsied sarcastically, though it was doubtful he could see her. “I am Belinda Olorin, Queen of Cygnus.”
He was silent for a moment, whether stunned or simply trying to process the information, she couldn’t tell. “The guard at the castle today said the king had died.”
“You just found out today? Do you live under a rock or something?”
“The top of the mountain. Current events tend to take a while to reach me.”
“If you live up there, why are you looking for your goose all the way down here?”
She reprimanded herself as soon as the question left her mouth. Why are you asking him questions? We don’t want him to stay for conversation; we want him to leave.
And yet, there was a small part of her—the crumpled, cast-aside corner of her heart that still longed for human connection despite her best attempts at convincing herself she was better off alone—that wanted to extend the moment.
Wanted a few more minutes of not being alone.
Of having someone interested in her as a person rather than being treated as a person of interest.
“Prince Jacques goosenapped Phoebe.”
The unexpected statement pulled her from her moment of self-pity. “What?”
“He stole my goose. He climbed up the Beanstalk and stole my goose.”
“Beanstalk? I thought you said you lived at the top of the mountain.”
“It’s just what we call the narrow path you have to climb to get there,” Atlas explained impatiently. “But that’s not important. What is important is the fact that he took Phoebe and I need him to tell me what he did with her.”
Jacques must have used the goose as part of his prank. But why put so much effort into stealing a bird?
“Feel free to ask him.” She gestured toward the lake. “But I don’t know how much help he’ll be in his current state.”
“Wait.” She heard the crunch of the sand as Atlas spun on his heel. “When you said your stepsons were cursed…”
“I meant the princes,” she finished for him.
“Can they talk?”
“They’re very good at hissing.”
He groaned and sank to the ground with his head in his hands. “What am I supposed to do?”
Despite his size, he sounded so small and dejected that she couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. “Wait until the curse is broken.”
“How long will that be?”
Lindy gave in to the exhaustion in her body and joined him on the ground. “I don’t know. A few weeks? Maybe less.”
“I can’t wait that long! What if something happens to Phoebe?”
Her guilt translated the impatience in his voice into accusation, and she quickly threw up her prickly wall of defense, forgetting any kind of sympathetic feelings. “I’m sorry if my curse-breaking doesn’t fit into your schedule. I can only work so quickly.”
“Can I help?”
“What?” The words might as well have been a foreign language for as little as she comprehended them. No one had offered her any kind of assistance in years—not since her father had dismissed Master Pickering for having the audacity to stand against him in her defense.
“If I helped you, would it speed up the process?”
“I…I don’t know if you can.” Lindy’s mind was a jumbled ball of confusion.
“Why not? What exactly do you have to do?”
“I’m knitting them shirts out of nettles.” Her voice sounded far away to her own ears as her thoughts tumbled over one another.
Could he help? He does have a reason to want Jacques to be human again, but is it enough? Does he really want to subject himself to that amount of pain on the prince’s behalf?
Atlas made a strangled, choking sound. “I’m sorry, I think I misheard you. You’re doing what?”
“Knitting shirts out of nettles.”
“Why?”
“It’s complicated. Suffice it to say that the curse was cast in hurt and anger, out of a desire to see the princes suffer, which means that only an act of willing suffering and sacrifice will break it.”
“But knitting? With nettles?”
If the subject hadn’t been so painful, Lindy was sure the expression on Atlas’s face would have been just as entertaining as before.
It really is a ridiculous solution, but also…
“There aren’t a lot of avenues out here to willingly inflict suffering other than starving to death, and that would be rather counterproductive.
Knitting is one of the few things I know how to do, and…
” She mashed her lips together as the memory of Lizzie’s shawl chafed at the raw edges of the open wound in her heart.
“And it adds a layer of poetic justice.”
Atlas’s next words were cautious. “Is sleeping on the ground part of breaking the curse as well?”
“No, it just adds to the ambience.”
“Why don’t you go home then? Surely it would be easier to accomplish this if you didn’t also have to worry about surviving in the wild.”
“Current events really do take their time getting to you, don’t they?
” She sighed wearily, resigned to the fact that his civility was coming to an end.
“If I go back, they’ll throw me into prison and probably execute me.
And while there is a chance that would be enough to break the curse, I don’t know for sure and it’s a risk I’d rather not take unless absolutely necessary. ”
Suspicion colored his voice. “Why would you be imprisoned?”
Lindy dropped her head back, staring sightlessly at the speckled canvas of stars overhead. “Because they think I killed the king. I didn’t—but I did curse the princes.”