Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 69923 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69923 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
“Name it. Everyone wants something.”
“Hmm.”
“What say you?”
“Does she lie?”
Their whispers went back and forth over, beside, and all around me.
“Okay, human. We will tell you how to get over the fence. What you do from there will be amusing to watch.”
Meaning another barrier awaited me on the other side.
That wasn’t a surprise. But, if this worked, I could find another section of forest and bribe those nymphs to help me past the next obstacle. This might not be so impossible after all.
“You will bring us blankets and swaddling for our young one. The nights are too cold for the babe.”
I stilled. “Young one. What do you mean?”
“Just what we said.” The leaves rustled, and little gnarled faces glared through. “Blankets and swaddling now. Before we change our minds.”
“But you said babe,” I rasped, throat drying. “There are no baby nymphs. You grow from adolescence to adulthood like a sapling becomes a tree, but you are never babies.” I pushed up on shaky knees. “And you never get cold.”
“Why does this girl presume to tell us about ourselves?” a voice hissed. “Where is our offering? We demand our offering.”
“Tell me where the baby is.”
“Now she makes another request without fulfilling her promise of the first. Faithless human.”
“Trickster child.”
“Lying human.”
Their voices began to fade—the rustling sounding farther and farther away.
“No, wait! I— I have the swaddling here.” I tore off my coat and held it up, spinning to show the trees the soft, woolen lining. “This will keep your babe warm through the harshest winter. Take me to them, so I can show you how to wrap the child. The buttons are tricky.”
“Buttons on swaddling?” She sounded close. I tipped my head back and there she was, dangling off the highest branch. “Is this a new kind?”
“Oh yes. Humans have started using them recently, but they’re so much better. This way the baby can’t kick them off.”
“Oooh, wise.”
“Smart girl.”
“Good girl,” said a pleased voice on my left. “We will accept this better swaddling. You will show us how to do the buttons. Follow Mahaila. She will show you the way.”
Mahaila? Where—?
A hard object landed on my shoulder, pulling a cry from me. The dryad tugged on my ear. “You will go that way.” She turned my head to the left. “You will walk until I say stop. You will go now.” Nymphs were goddesses in their own right, and they ordered humans around like one.
Taking a deep breath, I stepped off the path. The rustling overhead increased tenfold as though the whole forest was rocked by whipping gusts of wind. They were all coming to see the girl wrap their babe in a woolen gift and lay them to rest. But how could this be? Had the nymphs truly found and adopted a human child? Was this babe abandoned by a desperate student? Were they out here all night while we were decorating our dorm rooms and chatting up new friends?
“Stop.” I halted just short of an ankle-high tree root. “You will turn right. You will step between the twin oaks. You will not disturb them.”
I followed her orders, squeezing carefully between the narrow opening between two oak trees. The world only the dryads knew unfolded before me.
A soft, mossy bed of green blanketed the tiny oasis between the trees. Overhead, the branches twisted and tangled, forming a natural roof from which the vines and flowers dangled. Amidst it all, in a bed of leaves, moss, and grass, lay a sleeping babe.
He didn’t look new to this world. A plumpness to his cheeks and thickness in his curls put him at a few months old. He looked peaceful and sweet, sucking on his fist while he dreamed. He also didn’t look to be harmed—though if he was, I wouldn’t have blamed the nymphs. The nymphs of legend would raise and protect gods that were in danger from their divine parents. They weren’t strangers to adopting babes that needed a family.
But this will not be yours, little one. I cannot walk away from an abandoned child, even if the nymphs are willing to care for him.
“You will swaddle him,” Mahaila said. “You will teach us the buttons.”
They were right that he needed blankets. The poor thing was put out in only some thin wrappings to catch waste and nothing else.
“Okay.” I laid my coat out and placed the child within the warmth. “Now tell me how to get over the gate enchantment.”
“Simple, child. The power is in the link. The link must be broken.”
I paused. “The link must be broken? I don’t know what that means.”
“Break the link. Break the circle, then anyone can leave.”
“Break the circle,” I whispered. “You mean... break the gate. The spell is activated when the gate closes whole and intact. And if I can’t break the gate?”
“All spells can be undone by the person who cast them.”