Chapter 3
Imade it home about an hour later. It would have been sooner had I not needed to visit several shops just to purchase a few bits of food and personal supplies.
Word travelled fast in our village, and being banned by the Cult of Children had a far-reaching impact.
It felt like everyone I passed was gossiping about what had just happened between Maxx and me.
Some whispered, while others did not care to hide their thoughts.
After being yelled out of several shops, I managed to find one who would serve me.
Their only words to me: “Grab what you need and get lost.”
As hurt as I was by the judgment, I couldn’t fault them.
It was self-preservation. Shun the witch, and live to see another day.
Understanding their behaviour didn’t make it hurt any less, though.
If anything, it helped turn my anger and frustration into hardened resolve.
The Cult of Children would not get away with this.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do yet.
Thankfully, I had nothing but time on my hands to sort it out.
Walking over the threshold into the cottage, I felt an immediate difference in the energy in my home.
There was the telltale magical energy—thrumming, warm, familiar.
It was accompanied by a heavy pressure, similar to what I had encountered last night in the Nightwood.
Something capable of wielding magic was in my home.
“Nocturna? Astra?” I called out, slight panic to my tone.
Astra raised her head sleepily above the top of the sofa, while Nocturna came out from the main bedroom and settled into a deep stretch.
Whoever or whatever was here clearly did not have these two bothered.
I dropped everything on the floor and walked as quietly as I could further into the living room to start investigating who or what was in my home.
I headed toward the fireplace to grab the poker for protection.
As I rounded the sofa, I looked down at the rug Nocturna and Astra were now sitting on either side of, and between them, curled up on the floor, was a very large naked man.
I pointed the poker in the stranger’s direction.
What was happening right now? Who was this man?
How had he gotten in here? Why was he sleeping on my living room rug naked? And where was the red fox?
I gently poked the man in the chest to see if he would react, but he didn’t budge.
Using the poker to push aside the messy chestnut hair covering his face, I didn’t recognize him as anyone from the village.
I knelt down to get a closer look at his face and noticed a bit of skin poking through his hair.
Curious, I pushed his hair back even further, exposing his ear, which had a strange severe point to it.
My stomach dropped to the floor, and I felt like I was going to pass out.
“There’s no way this is happening right now,” I whispered to myself.
It took me a moment to realize where I had read about pointed ears.
I got up from my crouched position and hurried over to the bookshelf where my grandmother had kept all my children’s books.
I pulled out a fraying midnight-blue book full of nursery rhymes and fairy tales.
After furiously flipping through the pages, I found what I was looking for.
On the page in front of me was a tale about forest fairies who kidnapped children.
The one remarkable feature they shared with the exposed man on my floor: pointed ears.
I rubbed my eyes to make sure what I was looking at was actually in front of me.
I looked at Nocturna and Astra—why were they so calm about this?
“You two are terrible at your job. You know that?” I hissed at them.
I put the book down and went back over to examine the situation before me further.
Looking at the fae man’s face a little closer, I noticed on the side of his head what appeared to be a mostly healed wound.
I quickly scanned his body to see if he had any other injuries, and on his wrists and ankles were what appeared to be healed burn marks, similar in size and shape to the chain I had removed from the fox.
My head started to spin at the place my mind had decided to wander to.
No, this can’t be. There was no way this was possible.
The red fox I had rescued from the Nightwood could not be the fae man I was looking at right now.
I paced the living room for what felt like ages, certain I had begun to wear a stress path into the large area rug. “What do I do? Do I try to wake him? Do I go and get some help?” I looked over at Nocturna and Astra. “You’re both more than welcome to step in at any moment and help.”
I’d officially lost it, talking to the two mountain cats like they had a clue what I was saying or could help me in any way.
I looked over the fae man again to size up the problem before me.
He looked to be much taller than me and made up of nothing but tanned skin and muscle.
There was no way I could move him on my own, and bringing someone in here to help would only raise questions I couldn’t answer.
Not that there would be many people willing to help me at present.
That left me with only one available option: I had to try to wake him up.
Kneeling before him, I turned to the mountain cats beside me. “If this goes sideways, I expect you both to go for the jugular. You understand?” I had to assume the deadpan look they both gave me was confirmation that they understood.
Taking a deep breath, I leaned forward and placed my hand on the fae man’s shoulder and gently shook him.
From outward appearances, he seemed relatively fine, but I didn’t want to risk any further injuries by shaking him too hard.
After about a minute of trying to shake him awake to no avail, I went over to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of menthol oil from a cupboard.
This stuff was so potent it could wake the dead.
I removed the cork from the top of the bottle, held it just below his nose, and muttered a few Please hear me, Mother Vikteriyas, hoping the man would stir.
Thirty seconds later the man’s eyes fluttered and his nose scrunched.
Thank you, Mothers Above! It was working.
I quickly reached over the man and grabbed one of the folded blankets from the sofa to cover his lower half, so he didn’t wake up exposed to the realm, thinking the worst of me.
After another thirty seconds of taking in the menthol oil, the man opened his eyes, and he stared up at me unblinkingly. I let out a huge sigh of relief.
The man gained his focus and spoke warily. “Where … where am I, and who … who are you?” He looked down at himself, face flushing. “And why am I naked?” He slowly wrapped his arms around himself in an effort to preserve whatever dignity he felt he had left.
“You kind of just showed up in my home that way.” I reached over him to grab another blanket from the sofa and placed it gently over his arms and chest. “I found an injured fox in the woods last night. I brought it home to take care of it. And then you were here this afternoon …” I let my thoughts trail off, as I wasn’t quite sure what else to add to that.
“My name is Aurelia, by the way. And you are …”
The man looked concerned, his brow bunching in what appeared to be a mixture of frustration and contemplation. “I …I don’t know.”
“Um, all right. Do you remember what happened to you or how you got here?”
There was a slight panic in his voice when he replied. “No, I … I don’t remember.” He looked around the room, searching for an answer. “I don’t remember anything,” he whimpered as he clutched the blanket to him tighter.
All right, this was a bit concerning. Clearly, he was experiencing some type of amnesia from his injuries.
I calmly replied, “That’s fine. It looks like you have had a bit of a head injury.
Sometimes, with those, there can be temporary amnesia.
It’s nothing to worry about for now, though.
The most important thing to do right now is get you up and into bed to rest.” I looked down at the blanket-covered fae, my face flushed with embarrassment at my rudeness.
“And get you into some clothing, of course.”
The man looked up at me now with full fear in his eyes. “I don’t even remember my own name or how I got here. And now I’m supposedly injured? How bad is it?”
“Well, when I found the fox … I mean, you, you had a large wound to the side of your head.” I reached out and lightly touched the still-healing wound on the side of his head. “There were also some restraints on your, or its, wrists and ankles that had caused a fair bit of damage.”
The man slowly inspected his wrists and then lifted the blanket to check his ankles.
“I’m not really sure why the restraints caused such damage—I’ve not seen anything like them before, to be honest—but the lacerations do appear to be healing rather quickly and without complication.
I suspect another day or two of bedrest will be necessary before they are fully healed.
” A small smile spread across my lips as I clasped my hands together on my lap.
His brow creased, and his lip quivered. I could only imagine how terrifying it must be to wake up in an environment foreign to you, with no recollection of why or how you had gotten there.
Amnesia was a fickle thing I had dealt with far too often, thanks in part to the numerous blasting accidents that occurred up in the mines on Mount Morningstar.
It was a copper toss when treating them.
Not everyone I treated regained their memories, though.
The human brain was complicated, and the magic I used was not always powerful enough to heal it.
Hopefully, I could help him so this wouldn’t last much longer, and he could figure out what had happened and go home—wherever that was.