The Lost Knight (Volume III) The Lost World

Chapter 11: Strolling Under a Graveyard

I sip some cold tea as we wait for everyone to gather in the main room. I definitely didn't get near enough rest last night, and I'm not looking forward to another trek up a mountain. Please, let us find some unicorns today.

"I'm going to carry him down here if he doesn't arrive soon," Trelix grumbles.

"Prince Dathid, are you up there?" Solara calls out. I don't think she wants her future King carried down the stairs like an infant.

After calling to him for a third time, he sticks his head out from one of the highest branches. "I found them," he shouts down.

"Found what?" Trelix snaps back.

"The villagers," he says before disappearing inside the branch.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding," Trelix mutters as we climb the long spiral staircase.

Judging by the furniture, the villagers are people-sized, so they can't all be hiding in the upper branches. Maybe they left a note or something...but then, why wouldn't he just bring it down?

The long climb and lack of sleep leaves me winded by the time we finally reach Dathid.

"Why are we here?" Trelix snaps.

But Jonah has already made his way to the window. He jumps back as if something stung him. What made him react like that? Fear, revulsion, surprise? He doesn't say anything as he exchanges an odd glance with a melancholy Dathid and looks back out the window.

"Isn't anyone going to tell us what's out there?" Trelix gripes as he pushes past Dathid to look out the window and immediately steps back.

What's out there? Have the villagers moved to the treetops? That wouldn't explain Dathid's mood or their reactions. Wouldn't we have seen something if anything was out there? Granted, we are high in the thick canopy. What could be up here?

I steal a peek.

My body locks, and I instantly wish, more than I have ever wished for anything, that I had never looked out this window.

The villagers are hanging by their necks from the tree limbs. They're so high up we couldn't see them from the ground. But from here...

Thousands of faeries and some other creatures I don't recognize hang from enormous tree limbs, dangling from ropes like Christmas ornaments. They're so pretty. Beautifully dressed with their hair done, as if they were going out for the evening. Whole families. The very young and the very old.

I jump back.

I can never unsee that.

"I found them last night," Dathid whispers, ending our long silence. "I didn't say anything so you could get some rest. I've been sitting here contemplating how something like this could happen to such a peaceful village."

Jonah gazes out the window again, and everyone else follows suit, including me. I don't want to look, but I have to. The sight is surreal and stomach-turning. I never knew evil like this existed.

"They haven't been there long. Maybe five, six days," Dathid whispers.

"Yeah, well, they've been hanging there long enough to make it dangerous to walk under them," Trelix says.

I picture the bodies in the trees, floating like bubbles. It's almost beautifully magical, instead of horrifyingly gruesome.

The conversation fades, and everyone wordlessly descends the steps and packs up to leave. We step outside, and I fight the urge to glance up...not that it should matter; I looked up in the trees yesterday and saw nothing. The villagers are too high and deep inside the canopy. I don't need to look up now. I know I can't see anything.