Chapter Eight #2
He followed me immediately. “No, I know.” I could barely hear him over our feet crunching over leaves and the rustle of the branches we cleared out of our way. His sad tone calmed my defensiveness. He didn’t speak again until we’d gotten to the side path.
“I never should have listened to Kyle. He was the one pushing me to…” He broke off with an annoyed shake of his head, and I was glad he did. There was no need to relitigate our breakup. “Those guys weren’t my style. All innuendo and chasing after busty tavern wenches.”
“As you do at the renaissance faire,” I said pointedly, and he chewed on the inside of his cheek, caught.
But he persisted. “You were so different than…well, than the girls they liked.”
I cast a sharp glance his way. “You mean because I wouldn’t put out?”
He stumbled over a root. “I don’t know if I’d put it like that.” I could hear amusement in his tone now, and it made me huff out a laugh despite myself. “That part was actually kind of nice.”
“Oh, sure. All the guys are into that.” I shook out my pink skirts. What was I thinking, going bushwhacking in the woods right before opening gate? I probably looked a mess. Time to get back to the Hollow, make sure my hair wasn’t ruined, and collect Queen Stacey so we could start our day.
“I was,” he said quietly. “The guys—the Sword Bros—were all about body count, you know? Girls who didn’t want to be attached. And I don’t know if you know this, but the Faire is a great place to meet people like that.”
“I can imagine,” I said flatly.
“But I wasn’t looking for that. I was looking for…well, you. You had this strength about you that said you knew who you were.”
“You can thank my mom for that,” I said as I crashed through the remaining brush, emerging onto the lane.
When you had a strong role model like my mom, raising you all on her own, you grew up thinking you could do anything you wanted in life.
It put steel in my spine, and not even being dumped via text message could take that away.
In fact, it had made that spine stronger.
When I’d turned to computer science and found myself in a male-dominated field I’d become more steel than softness out of necessity.
Whenever some douchebag mansplained my own ideas back to me in a meeting, I’d ask myself what my mom would do.
Said douchebags usually needed three to five business days to recover.
“Anyway. I just…I wanted to share this part of the morning with you. Show you that place where the trees can breathe.” Something in his voice made me look back to where he was, still a step behind me.
I waited for him to catch up so we could walk together.
“Like I said, it’s my favorite part of the day.
The quiet of the grounds before the day begins. ”
“I’m glad you did,” I said. He was right. It was magic to walk these lanes in the early-morning quiet, before the cacophony of a Faire day set in.
“Good.” His eyes brightened, even while sadness flickered across his face. “I’m so sorry that I took the magic of this place away from you, Cait. I had no idea that I’d…”
I waved off his words. The apology was nice, overdue even, but hearing it just brought up the old hurt. “No, it’s…” My voice faltered, because “it’s okay” was the knee-jerk reaction to any apology. And I wasn’t quite there yet.
Alex nodded, as though he could read my thoughts. “If I really took the magic of the Faire away from you, it’s only fair that I give a little of it back.”
“No pun intended.” I smiled despite myself, and his low chuckle next to me said that he appreciated the joke. There was some more of that good, clean air between us. I liked it.
Now we were back in the main thoroughfare, the vendors were set up and ready for the day. As I’d expected, not a Rubbermaid tub in sight. One of them gave a friendly wave, and I waved back, letting my steps slow to check out her setup.
I remembered this vendor from my childhood; she was about my mom’s age, a leatherworker whose wares ranged from hand-bound journals to barrettes to small bags.
Stacey had bought a backpack once from this vendor, if I remembered right.
The vendor and her daughter wore matching dark green skirts with a loose chemise.
I remembered the girl as a toddler, but now she had to be in double digits.
I watched as she adjusted a display of wallets.
What must it be like to grow up like this?
I thought I knew, but I’d spent only a handful of my teenage years doing this for the summer. Compared to this kid, I was an amateur.
I needed to get back to the Hollow, but I lingered over the journals instead.
“Ready for the day?” I asked, as I picked up a deep forest-green one.
The color was not unlike Alex’s jerkin; that was probably just a coincidence.
Journals had always been my favorite—who didn’t love the endless potential of all those blank pages?
—but the price tag was still too much of an indulgence.
I put the journal back, letting my fingertips trace across the smooth leather.
“Oh, yeah.” The vendor wasn’t using her accent; wasn’t time for all that yet. “Last weekend was a good one, hoping for more of the same this weekend. It’s great to see you back, by the way. How are you liking it?”
I was getting tired of telling people I wasn’t back.
Because maybe it wasn’t quite the truth.
“It’s not bad,” I said, keeping my voice as noncommittal as possible.
Why was it so hard to admit that I was having a good time?
I focused on the vendor, keeping my smile bright.
She didn’t need my crankiness. “It’s weird not singing, though.
That was my main thing, back in the day. ”
“Oh, I remember.” She nodded fondly. “I practically watched you grow up doing this festival. You were a lady-in-waiting too at one point, right? Like you are now?” I nodded, and she leaned in. “So tell me…” She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial murmur. “What’s the deal with the new Queen?”
I hadn’t expected that question. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, what happened? Chris has been the Queen for…” She trailed off as she considered. “Well, for as long as I can remember.”
“Me too,” I confessed. “I don’t know any more than you do. I heard something about her running off with a knight, but…” I shrugged, because that really didn’t sound right. It was disappointing to not be able to provide better gossip.
But Alex spoke up next to me. “That’s exactly it,” he said.
He was bent over the table, playing with one of the leather roses in a can near the cashbox.
“I asked the knights over at the joust about it last weekend. Sir Lionel, from Joust for the Weekend?” A wicked, flirty grin lifted his face.
“Apparently they retired together.” He raised an eyebrow, and there was that renaissance faire innuendo he’d been talking about. Shameless.
“Him?” The vendor sucked in a breath, her eyes wide. “Ooh, well. I don’t blame her, then. Talk about a silver fox!” She fanned herself dramatically and pretended to swoon. But she wasn’t done with the gossip. “Emily, though…” She shook her head. “Are we sure she’s the right one to take it over?”
“She wasn’t that bad…” I had to defend my aunt, but I trailed off. She really had been drowning in that costume, and okay, maybe she wasn’t the most confident public speaker. But she hadn’t been a complete failure as Queen.
But she disagreed. “Don’t get me wrong. She was a great tavern wench.
And she keeps things running around here for sure, her and that pirate husband of hers.
Believe me, I’ve done bigger festivals than this that weren’t this well organized.
She’s got the authority, for sure. But…” She shook her head again.
“I don’t know if she has the confidence.
There’s a certain…presence you need to be the Queen. And she doesn’t have it.”
“Emily was just filling in. We have a new one today. Maybe you’ll like her better?”
“Hmmm.” She looked dubious. “Well, I hope they figure it out soon,” she said. “A renaissance faire is only as good as its Queen.”
“Is it really that big a deal?” It wasn’t from where I was standing.
We had a warm body in the costume that mostly fit her.
She knew the opening gate speech, and I’d be there to drag her around to all the places she needed to be.
Stacey may just be an understudy, but we had a Queen. Wasn’t that good enough?
But I looked from the leather vendor to Alex, and both were nodding solemnly.
“It probably sounds weird,” Alex said. “But it’s a big deal.
The Queen—or King, obviously—is the symbol of the whole enterprise.
Not just to the patrons that come every year, but to the vendors and performers behind the scenes too.
It’s like…” He trailed off as he struggled to come up with an analogy.
“Like the CEO of a company,” the vendor supplied. “You’re going to have one opinion of a company if they’ve had the same person at the helm for fifteen years. But if they change their CEO every year, that’s different.”
“Hmmm.” That still sounded ridiculous to me.
“They know it isn’t real, right? The Queen.
She’s not really ruling over all this.” But even as I spoke, I saw what they meant.
No, Miss Chris hadn’t been an actual queen ordained by God and all that, but backstage to all of us she’d been the leader.
Simon was the director, the man in charge, but Chris had been the mama duck keeping all us cast members in line.
The leatherworker shrugged. “She’s been the Queen here all these years,” she said. “It’s going to be hard to see someone new in the role, that’s all.”
I nodded thoughtfully, still trying to get my head around it all. So if our Queen sucked, the entire Faire was done for? It seemed like something I should bring up with Simon, but did I have the authority?