King of the Woodlands

Chapter 17

The night had befallen the earth. Legends said that the sun loved the moon so much that he died every night to let her live.

The darkness was rain-washed, the blue-black sky freckled with stars. Lilibeth gazed out the mullioned window, looking out at the smudgy illuminations of grass and rock and sea. She couldn't sleep, no matter how much she tried.

She huffed in frustration, pulling the blankets up and over her shoulder. She couldn't sneak out of her room again—this time she wouldn't be that stupid. There were no books on her desk, and she'd given up on observing every detail of her room.

Thankfully, her egg yolk splattered sheets had been washed, although Birgit said that the laundresses had been quite irritated. Lilibeth had told Birgit to send them her apologies. She ran her hands over the soft, clean sheets. They smelled fresh and sweet, like soap.

Lilibeth closed her eyes, and after five struggling minutes, her nerves finally faded away, along with her consciousness.

✥

The sun shone brightly on the winding cobblestone road of her village, illuminating the vendors' carts, laden with woven baskets of cottage pie. A line of women in long, homespun skirts collected water from the little stone well, and the clock tower stood sentinel near a tavern.

Two plump farmers' wives in floppy hats and pale mauve dresses strode by, bearing baskets of corn and silver watering cans. Upon seeing Lilibeth looking at the village in wonder, one of them said, "your mother has been looking for you."

Lilibeth's millstone-heavy heart felt like a bleak winter meadow unprepared for such sunlight. "What?" Her mother died of fever years ago. They'd buried her in the autumn, when the leaves were scarlet and gold.

"Go on," the other said, giving her a nudge. "She's waiting for you, Lilibeth."

Sure enough, there was a woman standing in front of a whitewashed cottage, a slim woman with ivory skin and dark hair. She wore a cobalt tunic tucked into a long caramel skirt with an apron.

"Mother!" Lilibeth shouted as her tears spilled over at last. And then she was running, her feet kissing the land, holding up her long sugar-white skirts so that she wouldn't trip over her own excitement.

She hurtled into her mother's arms, forever safe in the embrace she'd been wanting for so long. Mother even smelled of autumn now—cinnamon bark and tart cranberries. She pressed her lips to Lilibeth's brow and whispered names in the girl's ear: wild flower, cherished, beloved.

Could you be homesick for people? Lilibeth thought yes, you could. This was luck, a miracle, something impossible. Everything was different now. The village was bright and merry, and someone had struck up a merry folk song on the bagpipes. Oh, she was home, but it was a better version of it.

Even the cottages were lively. A family of tiny squirrels had made their home in the grass, and the tulips they'd planted in autumn survived somehow. How had they managed to live beneath a blanket of snow?

"Hope," Mother said, as if she could sense the question that sat atop Lilibeth's tongue. "Without hope, the world is miserable." She opened the round, forget-me-not blue door, and Lilibeth felt like she'd stepped foot in someplace unfamiliar.

Mother had decorated the inside with off-white, mint, and gold wallpaper accented with pastel roses. Hand-poured candles scented like floral pine and juniper berries flickered from the kitchen table. It looked irresistibly cozy.

They spent the day in front of white porcelain bowls, mixing goat's milk, oil, flower petals, and lye together for soap and triple-milling it for the best quality. Lilibeth finally felt at home, stirring patiently while Mother told her a story about the Witch of One-Horn, the Maiden of Swamps, whose ivory horn dripped liquid gold, whose one eye saw lies as well as truth.

Lilibeth, in turn, told Mother everything. She told Mother how much she'd missed her gentle voice, how strange it felt to gaze at the stars every night knowing that Mother wasn't there with her.

But then she woke up, woke to pools of moonlight and a luminous canopy of stars draped over the sky. Her heart sank again, sank to depths she once thought were unreachable.

"Where have you gone?" she cried, alone in the dark, a lost child again, unsure of what to do and where to go.

Why are you crying, Lilibeth?

She could barely hear the voice over the force of her weeping. A whimper broke free of her trembling lips.

Oh, my Lili, the same dismayed voice sighed. Why do you cry?

She cried because she was lost and so badly broken she wasn't sure she could be whole again. She cried because she lived in a selfish kingdom built by selfish people, people who forced wild, free girls like her to tame themselves. She cried because death had strung life from her mother's breathing body.

"Because I'm all alone." She had Birgit and the others, but they could never fill that emptiness in her. "Because I'm lost." She held out her hands helplessly, as if the answers to all her questions would fall into them. The moon traced silver fingers of light over her own.

Follow my voice, wild flower.

Mother's voice was coming from—from the rain-speckled window. Lilibeth scrambled out of bed and crawled atop the windowsill, gazing out at the night sky. She tucked her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around herself.

The world has its eyes on you, Lili. Bow to no one but your crown.

She imagined herself as the banríon, Queen of Llewellenar, sitting on a throne the color of autumn gold, turning Llewellenar into a land of the free, where girls could wear trousers and tunics and do whatever they wanted without being judged, without being forced to shrink themselves.

May love and laughter warm your heart wherever you may go, Mother's gentle voice said, speaking a sacred Llewellenar blessing. May life's passing seasons grant you hope even in your darkest days.

"I miss you," Lilibeth whispered, touching her fingers to the window, the barest brush.

I miss you too.

But after that, Mother's voice went silent, and poor Lilibeth's tears spilled over.