“Thank you, I do try to keep myself in check,” she laughed, her cobalt skirts blowing in the wind as we arrived on the terrace.
The climb to my room was easier than the descent in my mind. All I had to do was look up and ignore the sickening plummet beneath us, yet as I took in the view I felt that perhaps Wetherdon was further away than I’d first thought. All around us the old forest seemed ancient as everything crawled with moss and hanging vines. Sunlight fell in ribbons from the thin canopy above and though the forest was not dense it seemed as if all the trees were connected to each other, their roots entwining both above and beneath the soil.
“Where are we?” I asked in awe.
“You’ll know in good time,” Willow started. “As for now enjoy the new spring breeze and rest up. Lav is waiting for you with lunch.”
There would be time to push the question, but I decided against it and thanked her before continuing up the rickety bridge. There was so much I didn’t understand and so many questions I needed to ask. Was I even in the East Kingdom anymore? Did Ethan really come to my aid or did I just imagine it? And then there was my family. All that remained of me was a shoddily written note and an empty bed. I needed to get word to them. They’d be worried sick.
The door opened with a creak and Lavender jumped to her feet. Her dress was the same colour as her name, an ensemble of different purples and blues under a deep velvet bodice. Her sleeves peeked out, kissing her wrists with accents of pale blue that complemented her pale skin and delicate fingers.
“It’s nice to see you walking about,” she said excitedly.
“Make a sudden movement and I might just have to shoot back underneath the bed,” I joked, though a small part of me contemplated whether I was in fact being serious.
“I think you may have just made your first joke,” Lavender laughed. “Besides if you go back underneath you’ll miss out on lunch.” She tapped me on the stomach and steered me further into the room.
I perched on the edge of the bed as Lavender fetched the board of bread, meat and cheese. Then something moved behind me. Hot, heavy breathing touched the back of my neck, stirring my damp hair, and I turned to face whatever it was slowly. A dog twice the size of my hounds on the farm panted inches from my face. It was covered in a mass of copious black hair, its tongue lolled from the side of its mouth, and its eyes were that of molten gold as it stared excitedly at the dried meats.
“Holy-” I mumbled.
“I see you’ve noticed Theron.” Lavender sat next to me on the bed, placing the board of food between us.
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice him when he takes up most of the bed?” I pulled my head away as Theron tried to lick my cheek with an enormous, wet tongue. Lavender sniggered and pulled him gently off the bed.
“He’s a great big softy most of the time.” She shooed him from the room as he tried to swipe a piece of cheese while we weren’t looking. “Later, Theron, later.” The dog huffed and stalked from the room. I could have sworn that I heard him muttering inaudible things under his breath.
“What breed is he?”
“Oh, he’s one of a kind,” Lavender smirked. “All mongrel.” I considered him as we ate, tearing bits of bread from the loaf and combining it with the pickles and condiments.
While we ate we made small talk about various silly things. Over the past week the meals had crawled by as I’d swallowed spoonful after spoonful at an achingly slow pace, but at last, the pain from eating had subsided enough for me to enjoy my food at a reasonable speed. Lavender said something that almost made me choke as I laughed, and it was surprising how quickly I took to her. Maybe it was because of how much she reminded me of Kaela, or her refreshingly straightforward take on conversation. She was good company.
“So,” I started after we’d cleaned our hands, “I was speaking with your mother earlier about where we are but she wouldn’t say.” Lavender’s face hardened with anticipation for the next question. “Can you tell me? Or at least answer a nondescript question-”
“I wish I could tell you. I really do. But,” she paused, biting the inside of her cheek, “if you must know I can take you down to the others. What I can tell you is that you’re safe and no one here wishes you any harm.” Her face softened at the sight of my disappointment. “You must be patient with them. This is the first time we’ve had a stranger stay for many, many years and some of us are not quite as trusting as the others.” Lavender put her hand on mine and smoothed my damp hair back from my forehead. A bird called, an unusual sound, and Lavender looked out of the window, her eyes darting from one place to another. “I’ll see what I can do.”
IT WAS A good few hours before Lavender returned from the house below. I rose to my feet at once when I heard the creaky door open. The sun was just teasing the horizon and refracted light in Lavender’s golden hair. She was smiling as she grasped my hand, though the mischievous glint in her eye said that the others hadn’t exactly said yes to meeting me. I liked her more with each passing hour.
We descended swiftly, feeling the cold chill of evening as we disappeared below the sun’s light. I shivered as my feet touched the terrace, excited to see the inside of the house beyond the washroom corridor. Obviously I didn’t expect a grand tour of the mysterious property, but felt a tad disgruntled when we ran past door after door, and as we reached a stone staircase I had to duck abruptly to avoid a large tree root which had grown through the wall. Questions piled on top of each other about this amazing, intimidating house the further we got. At the bottom of the staircase we turned right down another corridor and followed it to the end. Lavender knocked twice and opened the door in front of us, walking through the opening just enough to hide my form from view.
The room was warm and open, fitting well to the property’s ability to seem both untouched and lived-in at the same time. The very end wall held two large, glass doors, whilst the other three were made up of roughly cut stone and wood like the rest of the house. There was a joint kitchen on the left of the enormous room and, from the look of the sliding wooden doors, it could be separated from the rest of the space if desired. As I peered around Lavender I saw four people. Willow was the only one I recognised immediately, but could have sworn that the other two out-of-sight figures looked familiar, even if they were just shadows at the window.