King of the Woodlands

Chapter 30

It was hot and dim, nearly stuffy. Lilibeth didn't dare make a sound, carefully walking across the creaky wooden planks that made up the floor. The only light source was a crackling fire—which explained why the room was so stiflingly warm. She was already starting to sweat, but not just from the heat.

The Beggar's cottage was worse than Aithne's. A string of dead ravens hung from the ceiling, and a large, old spinning wheel sat undisturbed in a corner. Lilibeth's heart hammered so fast she was afraid someone would hear it.

There were so many things in this cottage—spools of thread, a wooden pot stuffed with nettles, an ivory candle with a blackened wick, a jar of lemon wedges. Lilibeth avoided the cracks in the floor, stepping cautiously on her tip-toes, keeping her ears pricked and eyes peeled.

Where were they? Lilibeth searched for the sparkle of a ring, the gleam of a perfect glass mirror. No, she couldn't find them.

She continued to quietly make her way around the dimly lit room, the strong fragrance of sage stuffing itself down her nostrils. Lilibeth felt a sneeze rising up and quickly held her nose, pinching it between two fingers.

Beyond, somewhere in the gloom, Lilibeth felt a figure shift.

The girl shuddered violently. If I had sneezed, she would've caught me, she thought, the ugly words taking shape inside her head.

Stretched up on her tip-toes, Lilibeth took another step, her arms flung out on either side of her for balance. There were piles and piles of hoarded junk crammed inside the bookshelves and even the basin—a white bowl of pomegranate seeds, sprigs of ferns and foxgloves, and a crocheted fruit picking bag full of rotted apples. But no ring, no mirror.

Lilibeth scanned the shelves, her frenzied heartbeat quickening by the second. She was running on borrowed time, and when she ran out, the Woodland King would die.

The books were all old, probably old as the Beggar of Yore herself. Lilibeth couldn't help but wonder, in some childish part of her mind, what she could find in those old books, if there were little bits of nature that had been picked and placed between the dusty pages many years ago—thin leaves, dried forest lilacs, pieces of lace.

Lilibeth searched deeper, her eyes straining to trace the shapes emerging from the darkness.

She looked harder. She saw something, the faintest outline, barely lit by delicate threads of firelight.

Silent as a sleeping cat, she crept closer.

There! She saw it now. In the gloom of the cottage, there stood a large rocking chair, facing a shelf laden with more useless bric-a-brac.

And on that chair sat the Beggar of Yore, her back to Lilibeth.

She was built like a birch tree, all tangled grey limbs and pale tree-bark fingers that ended in fingernails sharp enough to pick bones. At first, Lilibeth had been expected an impossibly old woman, but this thing had a lithe yet wrinkled body.

But despite the strength in the Beggar's body, she looked old, her slender form swathed in a cloak of indeterminate color. It could've been grey or brown or the green of unripe wheat. Lilibeth didn't know.

For a moment, she felt giddy and impossible and wild. She was foolish, so foolish, to dare come into the Beggar's cottage, but in her foolishness she was stubborn and brave. She would surely have plenty of tales to tell her future children. Hey, Erea and Enid, did you know your mother did two impossible things when she was twelve? Now who wants toffees?

Lilibeth bit down on her mouth to keep her laughter in. She was so scared she couldn't even cry anymore. Now all she could do was expect the worst and hope for the best like she always did.

She kept one eye on the Beggar as she rocked back and forth in her great old chair, keeping another eye on the tangle of junk laid out before her. Nothing—absolutely nothing.

Lilibeth inched closer slowly, her feet beginning to ache from standing on her tip-toes for so long. She spotted the warm golden shades of field rye, the redness of fresh raspberries. But once again, no mirror or ring.

Perhaps Caoim and Father had hidden it elsewhere. Perhaps Lilibeth had been too impulsive (yet again) and had sent herself on a fool's errand. Perhaps she was too late and—

No. They had to have hidden the ring and mirror here to keep her from "getting any ideas". They had underestimated her—by a lot. Since the Beggar was crafted from nightmares themselves, Father and Caoim had probably decided to lock the mirror and ring somewhere they didn't think Lilibeth would dare venture.

But oh, they had no idea what she would do for the Woodland King.

Lilibeth kept looking, although everything inside her was slowly collapsing when she searched the shelves and didn't find what she was looking for.

No. She wasn't going to give up. She was sick of fighting with herself. She was a wolf, a wild animal, and she bit when cornered. Lilibeth Faren wouldn't give up without a fight.

And there it was, the gleam of untarnished silver. It tugged at the cotton sleeves of Lilibeth's chemise, folding itself into her cape and settling into the hollow of her neck.

Time's web is unwinding, it seemed to say. Be clever. Even if you retrieve us, she'll never let you go.

Lilibeth followed that tug. It led her towards the Beggar. She was so close now, so close she could count the stray hairs sticking up on the back of the old woman-thing's speckled, wrinkly neck.

Lilibeth's heart sank like a stone. The ring was on one of the Beggar's gnarled, pale fingers, and the mirror lay in her lap, cradled in a dark silver tray littered with marigold petals.

How in the name of every god that suffered could she pluck the ring from the Beggar of Yore's gnarled finger? And not to mention the mirror?

Come on, Lilibeth. Piece by piece. It was what Father had said to her when he'd taught her how to read. Letter by letter. Pull the words apart in your mind, and don't let yourself get overwhelmed by the sentences stacked before you. Take it slow.

Lilibeth just had to not panic. How easy was that, right? Especially when you were a twelve-year-old girl with the fate of a dragon and his court of faeries resting on her scrawny shoulders!

Lilibeth crept around the chair, her feet stepping carefully on each wooden plank, until she was directly facing the Beggar of Yore.

The Beggar was asleep. Lilibeth felt like falling to her knees and kissing the ground. Her bones were shaky with relief—the Beggar was sleeping. But even in sleep she was hideous. Her skin was a map of wrinkles, and her lips were nothing more than deep, twisted lines.

Lilibeth forced herself to extend a hand. She was going to wet her bloomers, but right now she didn't particularly care.

Quietly, quietly, she reached out, fast as lightning, and plucked the mirror from the Beggar's lap.

"Retrieving brambles for your family, little mouse?"

Lilibeth was going to die, she was going to—no—

She gauged the distance between the Beggar and the door, still cracked slightly open.

But she didn't have time to contemplate anything, not even an escape plan, and she cursed herself for not thinking of one beforehand.

The door behind Lilibeth snicked shut.