Chapter 23
Chapter
She fears her mind has betrayed her.
If only she knew it is the only
good thing this realm has left.
“Did you hear that?” I ask, pushing my way through the brittle remains of an old willow’s curtains in search of the song’s source.
Frog gives a subtle shake of his head but falls in step behind me all the same, giving me the space I need to make sense of the nonsensical—a task I fear may only become harder as the days go on.
With the pale blue of my fingers now spreading to my chest, it’s becoming more evident time is not on my side. And neither is sanity, apparently.
I’m about to turn around, to suggest we go back, when the melody picks up again. Louder than before.
I stop, tilting my head toward the chiming sound. What’s coming will only keep coming, whether I hurry or hide. I might as well embrace the madness now. Even if it means chasing a melody only I can hear.
I sink my teeth into my bottom lip, sneaking a look over my shoulder at Frog. He is scanning the crimson rose-covered trees for any sign of a threat. Do I tell him not to worry? Not to waste his breath?
Yes, because telling people that you’re dying is the best way to make friends.
And while you’re at it, mention that you have inexplicable feelings for him but that you know it could never work because you’re to be engaged to the not-so-charming prince.
And he is the one who took a vow to deliver you to him.
“Miss Sunday?”
I startle at Frog’s touch and he withdraws his hand so quickly I fear he might have broken it.
“Oh, I…” My hand reaches back out for his before I think better of it, letting it fall back to my side. “I’m sorry. I was…” Not thinking about you at all. “Just getting my bearings together.”
Frog doesn’t look the least bit convinced, but he doesn’t argue or protest when I turn to keep walking. He simply falls back in line and together we continue through the Disenchanted Forest until the melody is all I can hear.
We pass a few glorious briar brakes, their bark scarred by magic’s long abandoned touch, but they aren’t the reason my heart’s forgotten its own rhythm.
For sitting just beyond them, tucked away in a small moonlit grove, is a well.
Its aged white stones have been forgotten by more than just the realm’s people.
And yet, it remembers their voices all the same.
“It’s here. The music. Can’t you hear it?” I ask in quiet wonder as the melody, thin as mist hums all around me. Through me.
“You…the hour is late, Miss Sunday. Perhaps we should head back?” Frog points out, but even the magnetic timbre of his voice isn’t enough to pull me away. Not when the very fibers of my soul are being asked to remember a story I was never told.
I step closer, eyeing the pink weather-worn roof. Crystals hang from the dried-up ivy, dancing without sparkle, their shimmer and shine lost in the absence of the sun. Just beneath them, an old bucket sways from side to side, rather aggressively for there not being any wind…
I take another step closer, peeking over the well’s cobblestone ledge.
“Miss Sunday, the others. They’re probably—”
“Climbing out of a well?” I ask as two knights with copper-toned hair ascend the last few stones of the waterhole’s mouth. Both their smiles fade when they see us.
“I can explain!” Merrek offers, landing on his feet with a thud, while his more mild-mannered brother opts for a toes first approach.
“Explain why you both were in a magical singing well?” I fold my arms the way Rhidland used to do when he knew I was lying, hoping the gesture might inspire some truth.
Instead, all I get are two nearly identical faces contorted in two entirely separate ways.
“Singing?”
“Magical?”
The twins speak in unison, and I am again reminded of how my weirdness cannot be upstaged.
I uncross, then recross my arms, throwing the whole confidence bit to the wind. “Nevermind. Just…why were you two in the well?”
The twins exchange a look before turning to Frog, who’s all but turned to stone at my side. Is he angry? Surprised?
I study his averted gaze, noting the subtle lift in his brows, the barely there creases on either side of his eyes.
No. That isn’t surprise. He’s—
“Saving a dragon!” Merrek sputters.
“What?” I blink at him. “A dragon?” I ask, drawing the words as if that’ll help them make sense.
“Mm-hmm,” he nods excitedly, toying with the curls above his dark brows. “Isn’t that right, bug brother?”
“I told you not to call me that,” Myrrdin sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. But he doesn’t contest what his brother is saying, which leads me to wonder…
“Where is it then?” I shrug, noting the obvious lack of pink and white feathers amidst the men’s arms.
Why I’m even asking is beyond me. If last night’s conversation is anything to go off of, these men clearly have a skewed view on reality.
And coming from me, that’s saying something.
But even I know dragons haven’t been seen soaring through the forest in years.
They can’t fly without the wind, and there’s been none of that through here since the curse, meaning most succumbed to predators ages ago. And those that didn’t are—
Climbing out of Merrek’s bag.
“Oh my god that’s a dragon!”
Merrek practically beams as the little creature makes itself at home on his shoulder. “Yeah. This is Buttons.”
“Buttons.” I repeat the word, unable to find any others.
“On account of the fact that he likes to steal buttons.” Myrrdin supplies, his frown finally giving way to a soft smile as he scratches between the dragon’s fuzzy, white tipped ears. “Personally, I think he looks more like a Scraps, but I wasn’t given a vote.”
“Don’t look at me. I didn’t name him,” Merrek shrugs, offering up the palms of his hands.
“Then, who…” I turn, following Merrek’s twisted grin to Frog. His sheepish smile unmistakable despite the mask. “You?”
He raises the bend of his arm in answer, and with a boost from Merrek, Buttons’ pink and white wings fan out on either side of him as he glides through the grove, with a long pink tail tipped with a white tuft trailing behind. He lands gently upon Frog’s arm.
All the thread in the world couldn’t keep my jaw from dropping. “He’s yours?”
“Well—”
“Is that even legal?”
“Uh…”
“Are there more?”
“Actually—”
“And how did he get stuck down there?” I gesture, my finger pointed down the well as the questions pour out of me so fast, there’s barely room for air or answers.
Frog blows out a shaky breath, rubbing at what I can only imagine is a pretty bad bug bite on the back of his neck, given how hard he’s scratching at it.
“Well?” I ask, patiently waiting.
Merrek breaks out a booming laugh. “And here I was worried they wouldn’t find anything to talk about.”
Myrrdin cocks his head, blowing out a slow breath before pressing his lips into a thin long line. Meanwhile Frog’s eyes have never been bigger, nor the tops of his cheeks so red.
Odd… “Am I missing something here?”
“No.”
“Nope.” Frog and Myrrdin are quick to answer.
And Merrek…well, he’s lost in laughter. Which I now realize is the only sound ringing through the disenchanted forest, as the singing has finally stopped.
Buttons climbs his way to Frog’s shoulder and curls into a little ball just inside his hood.
“The dragon’s song?” I wonder aloud, a dangerous habit, I know. “There was this melody…Is it possible it came from Buttons?” I ask the question before it has time to fully-form.
“Their song hasn’t been heard in nearly twenty-five years, Princess,” Myrrdin offers, a sad smile tugging at his lips. “And the only one here to have been alive during that time was too young to remember—”
“That wasn’t Buttons, Miss Sunday,” Frog cuts in, his gaze narrowed on the well before flicking to me. “They would have heard him too.”
The silence that follows is deafening, shattering any remaining hope I had that it wasn’t just my mind slipping. Because now I’m not the only one who knows that it is. And I can’t decide which is more tragic. The descent? Or the mess it will surely leave behind…