Chapter Twenty-One
Twenty-One
It was the first Saturday morning we’d had free in four weeks. The first weekend post-Faire. We could do anything we wanted.
We went to a renaissance faire. The Maryland Renaissance Festival, to be precise.
Alex was excited. “It’s one of the big ones!” he said. “Back when I was with the Bros we applied there a couple times, but never made it. Back when I was young and full of self-confidence.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You’re such an old geezer now.”
“I feel like it sometimes,” he said. “Thinking about where I might be five years from now. What I might be doing. Think I’ll have to wear a tie?” He gave a mock shudder, and I grinned.
“Can’t be worse than tights.”
He considered that. “Good point.”
The drive to Crownsville took us through winding back roads filled with green. Trees leaned over the roads, forming a canopy for us to glide under, and around every bend I expected to find a gnarled wizard, poised to offer us the best kind of side quest.
“Thanks for driving.” I glanced over at Alex. He leaned his left elbow on the driver’s-side door, his right wrist draped over the steering wheel.
“Hey, it’s what I do,” he said lightly. After a beat a crease appeared between his eyebrows. “Or did, I guess.” He gave a small laugh and shake of his head. “I need to get used to the fact that this is all over.”
“Not yet.” I reached over to place a comforting hand on his thigh. “It’s not time for real life yet. We’re still stalling, remember?” I’d slept on it, but my own decision wasn’t any clearer. Nothing wrong with extending the last huzzah just a little bit. I could decide later.
The wooded back roads outside of Annapolis gave way to a long straightaway, and suddenly there it was: a giant field that was about the size of the entire Willow Creek Renaissance Faire. But for the Maryland festival? It was just the parking lot.
No. It was one of the parking lots. Volunteers waved and pointed, directing us away from the already-full field to an auxiliary one farther from the gate. We bumped our way over the uneven ground, finally pulling to a spot on the far side.
“We are never finding our way back,” I said as I hopped out.
Alex snorted. “I wonder if they have complimentary search parties.” He pulled out his phone, dropping a pin at our location while I shook out the skirt of my sundress and looped my crossbody bag over my head.
As we started toward the gate, falling in with the rest of the crowd, Alex reached back and I took his hand.
He squeezed it tight, twice, before settling in with a steady grip.
“What does it say about us,” he said, “that we’re going to a renaissance faire as a break after a month of doing Faire?”
“At least we’re not performing,” I said.
“And the outfits are more comfortable.” He looked like a completely different person, strolling through the parking lot in khaki shorts and a T-shirt.
He looked like Normal Alex, not Performer Alex.
Two sides of the same person, and I’d fallen for them both.
I’d dressed down too; my only real attempt at a costume was putting my hair up in a twist and anchoring it with a flower crown I’d picked up at the Willow Creek Faire one season as a teen.
It felt illegal to be able to breathe this easily.
He let go of my hand to slide his arm around my shoulders, tugging me closer. “Not to mention we get to spend the whole day together. No obligations to anyone else.”
“I like the sound of that.” Between set strike and bookstore inventory, it had been a long week.
The gate didn’t open for another half hour, but there was already a crowd of people waiting.
“Is there an opening gate speech?” I stretched up to my toes, as though that would do anything.
Alex shrugged. “You know as much as I do.” He planted a kiss on the side of my head, firm and possessive, and despite the early-morning’s mugginess I slid an arm around him, snuggling myself into him. “Though this one’s got a King, so that’s different.”
The crowd filled in more and more as the time ticked closer, all of us waiting in front of the impressive stone structure.
This wasn’t like Willow Creek, where most of our set pieces were thrown together and erected in the week or two before we opened.
This was a solid building, a fortress even.
I could envision people peeking out the windows, archers lined up on the battlements, ready to defend against attackers.
I bounced eagerly on the toes of my sneakers, turning to grin up at Alex. Something about this day already made me feel like a giddy child out for an adventure. The smile on his face said he felt exactly the same.
I hated the idea that he was giving all this up. Of him never smiling this wide again.
The King hadn’t appeared yet on the battlement, and it was almost time for the gate to open.
I glanced down at my phone, then back at the front gate, when I heard a commotion from behind us.
I sucked in an excited breath and clutched at Alex’s arm.
You’d think I’d never seen a horse before, but there was something so primal, so perfectly in-period, for the King to be arriving to his festival this way.
“Nice,” Alex said beside me. “That’s a great touch.”
The King’s welcome speech was delivered from the back of his horse, and while the words washed over me, I let myself imagine trying to convince Emily that I should deliver my speech as Queen from horseback next season.
Looking back, that should have been my first clue that my decision had already been made.
The gate—three enormous, heavy-looking wooden doors, an honest-to-God entrance as opposed to our rope with a hook—opened, and the crowd began to stream through.
Alex readied his phone with our tickets to be scanned, and I could barely keep the bounce out of my step.
I felt like a little kid. We walked under a banner, stretched above the gates, that read Prepare Thyself for Merriment.
Oh, I was prepared. I was prepared as hell.
—
While we didn’t have a plan, we at least got a map at the front gate, which we passed back and forth as we wandered through the festival.
I was used to Willow Creek’s quiet pastoral setting in the trees, and in my mind I thought all renaissance festivals were the same.
I hadn’t been to the Maryland Renaissance Festival since a field trip in the seventh grade, and those memories were sketchy, mostly written over by my time at my own local Faire.
The first few minutes inside were sensory overload.
A maypole at the front with dancers twirling with their ribbons.
Wide, wide lanes bracketed by shops. Vendors blowing bubbles that made rainbows in the early-morning sunlight.
Flower crown sellers weaving in and out, their brightly colored wares on display on branching poles.
Women and men alike with wicker baskets full of roses in all colors, some definitely not found in nature.
A small clutch of performers off to the right with a blackboard, but we were too far away to read it.
Even this early in the day, music floated around us on air that smelled like roasting almonds and cinnamon.
This wasn’t a grouping of tents and tables and hastily constructed stages.
This was a village, and we’d stepped back in time to spend the day here.
It was glorious.
We couldn’t settle on anything at first, so we followed our wandering feet, taking in the sights and smells and sounds.
We lingered in the back of the audiences, catching snippets of shows, sipping at our first drinks of the day.
I thought doing a lap of the festival would be a quick and easy endeavor, but I soon learned the error of my ways.
Quick? Nope. This place went on and on, and just when I thought we’d hit the end of the grounds at the jousting field, it curved off to the left to a whole new section.
“Crab…pretzel?” Alex craned his neck to look over his shoulder as we walked past a food stall, then he turned back to me with an eager smile. “I don’t know what that is, but I want one.”
I nodded. “Sounds very Maryland.” I sipped at my beesting—a drink recommended by a server at one of the taverns, and she had not steered me wrong.
Half mead, half cider, and one hundred percent perfect.
The lane before us became a wooden-planked boardwalk, and we followed it under a canopy of trees, past shops selling delicately made jewelry, cloaks suitable for knights and hobbits alike, and a fortune-teller’s setup.
And then we realized our big mistake. The reason that maybe we should have given the map more than a cursory glance. The wooden boardwalk ended at the bottom of a steep hill.
“Well, at least we haven’t had much to drink yet today,” Alex said cheerfully as we started up the path.
As we trudged along, I noticed a slide to my left, winding its way down to where we’d just come from.
Why hadn’t we done that? I followed Alex up the hill, enjoying the view.
He really should have worn tighter shorts; where was that old Sword Bros costume when you needed it?
More shops at the top of the hill, and a stage that sloped off to the right, but what caught my eye was a tent with tables. And books. Lots of books. My gaze went to the shop just to the left of the book tent, and I sucked in a delighted breath.
“It’s a bookstore!” I looked from the bookshop to the tent out front, and it took a few moments for it to click in my brain. The tent and its tables and the people inside it, they were authors. A bookstore with book signings, at the renaissance faire! This was unreal.