The Tree's Heart

XXVI

The next morning came sooner than Clover would have liked. She had been sleeping like a rock, apparently and Willow had already started preparing everything for the potion when Clover had woken up. She was still in her wedding dress, never bothering to get out of it, before going to sleep the night before.

"You should go and have a bath. The water should still be warm." was the first thing that Willow had said to her. Clover wanted to protest, but she felt like she had run a marathon the day before and a bath would be nice right now.

So she went to the outhouse and got out of her dress (which was harder than she thought), before climbing into the small tub. The warm water was nice and relaxing on her skin and Clover wondered why she hadn't gotten a bath sooner. She scrubbed her feet and her legs that had gotten dirty when she had been running through the forest. Her hair was greasy since it had been drenched with sweat.

Plus, the bath was warming her bones that were still cold after her and Willow had made their way back to the cabin. She had warmed up by the fire for a bit, but it wasn't enough to get all the way through to her bones. The bath seemed to be doing the trick. Her muscles were still sore after it, but she felt a lot better, being warm and rid of all the dirt on her body. Clover wrapped herself in the towel and made her way back into the cabin. She wasn't going to wear her wedding dress, even though she wanted to.

It just felt wrong to wear it. Even keeping it felt wrong, but no one had asked for it back. Clover loved the feeling of it, and she wondered whether she could take it with her to the outside world, but how was she going to explain why she had come out of the forest in one of the nicest dresses she had ever seen? She'd have to go back in the clothes she had come to the forest in. Anything else would raise questions.

Clover didn't want any questions. She didn't want to come back, having to explain herself, having to make up some stories about what she had seen and what she had done in the forest. Especially since she couldn't just tell the truth. Thinking about the questions that might come her way once she was back home already annoyed her enough. She had to figure out what to tell them. How she had been lost in the forest for such a long time. How she had managed to survive. Why they weren't able to find her.

Clover had put together a neat, little story for everyone who asked, about how she had been hiding in a cave, living of berries and mushrooms, and drinking the water from the river to survive. How she had been sick and couldn't go around looking for a long time, so she stayed holed up in the forest until she felt well enough to make the long walk through the forest and to get back home. It seemed unlikely, but it was a believable story. More believable than that she was taken in by a woman that had been lost years ago and how she was meeting satyrs and nymphs and fae. But Clover had never been a good liar.

She was worried that they weren't going to believe her story. Maybe they would think she had run off with someone, that she had gotten into some sort of trouble. But if she just stuck to her story, there was no way to prove anything. There was no way this could go wrong, at least Clover hoped so. She was also worried about the effect the forest might have had on her. What if she got sick? What if she didn't manage to live with the outside world again? It was a possibility. But Willow was already making the potion and Clover had made her decision earlier. She had fought so hard for all this.

Clover went back into the cabin and asked Willow for some new clothes, since she didn't exactly have anything to wear and she sure as hell didn't want to walk around in her dirty clothes, she had arrived in. She was still holding the wedding dress in one hand, careful not to let it drag on the ground, even though she knew that there was some spell on it that would keep it completely unharmed.

"I'll grab you some more clothes in a second. What are you going to do with this?" Willow asked her and nodded at the dress.

"I don't know. Do they want it back? Or can I keep it? Either way, I don't really have any opportunity to wear it, that much is for sure. But it would be a shame to just leave it somewhere. It's a gorgeous dress."