The Story of the Trees - Sword, Ring, and Crown Book One

Chapter Twenty-One

When I returned to my room, I found two things. First, Luke had placed a pile of books on my desk that was so tall it threatened to fall over. The second was the backpack Mike had given me.

My banmuinen and I sat away from the bag as it lay there on the bed. I explained to them what the bag was and who gave it to me.

"Should we get the guards to take this bag and destroy it?" Elsie asked.

"There might be a spell on the bag," Jeanne whispered.

Beth was still not speaking to anyone. However, she looked pretty worried I was going to make her open it.

Believe me, I thought about it. 

I also realized that it represented another gift I foolishly took from a Fae. 

Years of my mother's training fled just because family and friends charmed me. 

Even without Luke's sermon earlier, I should have remembered not to take gifts. But I'd been taking gifts from Mike and even Luis for years.

I swallowed. I'd even accepted gifts from Joseph. I hoped that wouldn't count. 

He was definitely not human.

 That  backpack on the bed had bound me just as the box of jewels and the key had bound me.

I felt a bit sympathetic to Erick as I realized I'd been hit with a geas. It might have landed on him in as tricky of a way as mine had.

 And to break the geas on me, I had to offer something more valuable in return. I had no idea what that would be. I decided to be the brave one and approached the bag with a letter opener I'd taken from the desk.

I poked the bag and jumped back. The other women all squeaked and cringed.

Nothing happened, of course. I blew out an embarrassed breath. Then I inched towards the backpack and sat down next to it.

"Oh be careful, My Lady!" Jeanne squawked.

Seeing that I was still not dead, I risked opening the bag. Everything that Mike had given me was in the bag, along with the cherry colas I'd lobbed at my kidnappers. They had no dents.

I think that scared me the most. 

"We should get rid of it, My Lady," Elsie said.

"Can't..." I mumbled, my lips twisting, appreciating the irony of gifts I couldn't give away. "It's a gift from a Fae."

"Oh, dear..." Jeanne put her hands against her heart in dismay.

"Try pouring salt on it."

I looked up from the bag in surprise at Beth's suggestion. It was a good idea.

"Why are you helping me?"

She looked away from my stare. "I don't want you to get the wrong idea. I'm not happy about this. Erick was mine, but I did something horrible to you when we were kids.  You should execute me... but you haven't, My-My Lady." She swallowed and grimaced as she said the honorific.

It wasn't much of an apology, but I wasn't ready to accept one anyway. "I should, but I won't."

Elsie scoffed. "You are her banmuinen. Nothing is yours unless she allows it."

Wait. What? I closed my eyes and shook my head. Never mind. It wasn't the time right then to explore that statement. "Do we have any salt?" 

"I can go check with Danela, My Lady," Jeanne said eager to please. 

"Great, th-uh-go do that." I winced as I almost thanked Elsie.

She left to go check and we all sat there staring at the bag until she got back. It had remained stationary and didn't eat one of us — not even Beth.