Page 66 of Bridget & Gabe Are Not Okay

There was a brief round of bickering after this, and in the end, Gwen, Arthur, Gabriel, Bridget, Sidney, Florian, and Adah were the ones who left their horses behind and started the trek down the mountain, led by Sir Hurst.

“If she’s buxom,” Adah said to Bridget in an aside, “it’ll all be worth it. Think buxom thoughts.”

Bridget was concentrating on where she was putting her feet, and watching Gwen, to make sure she was too. “I won’t, thanks.”

Arthur was the least steady, and spent half the time leaning on Sidney. Bridget observed Gabriel watching him closely, thought of Gabriel throwing himself at the mercy of the blacksmith knight in Arthur’s stead, and wondered what the hell was wrong with both of them that they were still keeping a careful twenty paces apart in all circumstances.

“Use a stick!” Gwen shouted at Arthur over the wind, when he stumbled for the third time.

“I don’t need a stick!”

“You’re being stubborn for no reason! You’d love a stick! You could hit things with it!”

“That’s a good point actually! If you see a stick, chuck it over!”

By the time they reached the hut, the sun was gone, and nerves were frayed to breaking point. If they knocked on the door and didn’t find the Lady within, Bridget suspected that unchivalrous tantrums might ensue.

Sir Hurst was the one to rap three times. When the door opened, a middle-aged woman with tawny skin, a mass of dark, curly, unbrushed hair shot with gray, and deep laughter lines was looking back at them expectantly. She was wearing an old tunic with an apron thrown on top, flour smeared across her thighs, greenish copper bracelets clinking on her wrists.

“Aha!” she said, her voice faintly accented, although Bridget couldn’t place the origin. “Come in, if you can all fit.”

There was no bowing, no acknowledgment at all that the King of England was on her doorstep.

“She’s not what I was picturing,” Adah said in Bridget’s ear, “but she’s got a certain something about her.”

“Don’t try to bed the Lady of the Lake,” Bridget replied, and Adah chuckled quietly in response, which wasn’t very reassuring.

Inside, Bridget was surprised that the little hut had more than one room. There wasn’t much furniture, but what was there was covered in shells, acorns, smooth pebbles, bundles of herbs, hollow wooden bowls, sticks of incense, small animal bones, the cores of apples, and half-finished knitting.

Fae or not, she was clearly a local witch, a risky thing to be in certain parts of England, and perhaps certain parts of Wales too. Cultists revered and loved witches despite little evidence of actual magic; good Catholics despised witchcraft, and went to great lengths to terrorize suspected witches in their communities.

Bridget, although not a cultist, had always felt a certain amount of kinship with them. Anyone who was at risk of being chased out of town for unchristian behavior was likely a friend of hers. She didn’t believe that the craft they practiced was necessarily real, but she also didn’t believe that you could treat swollen eyes by tying a crab around your neck, as some physicians—men of science, supposedly—liked to recommend.

The woman went to the fire and said, “I would offer you seats, but I only have two chairs, and they have another purpose.”

“That’s all right,” Gabriel replied. “Sorry to ask, but are you… you’re the Lady of the Lake?”

“Yes and no,” said the Lady. “Would you like some tea?”

From somewhere by Bridget’s ear, Adah whispered, “Don’t drink it.Neveraccept tea from a hippie in a remote location.”

“What was that?” said the Lady. “You want tea also?”

“Oh,” said Adah, startled. “Yes, please.”

“Good, good, I will make everyone tea.”

The tea was an infusion of bitter herbs in hot water. Everybody pretended to drink it, except Sidney, who showed it to Arthur, shrugged, and started sipping away.

Gwen put her tea down on the crooked windowsill, perhaps so she could pretend she’d forgotten about it. Bridget wished she’d thought of that. “So, sorry, just to clarify—you are the Lady of the Lake people have been talking about?”

“That depends. What do they say?”

“That you live half the year in the lake and the other half on land, and perhaps turn into some sort of swimming creature,” said Gabriel. “And that you give magical gifts and grant wishes.”

“Oh! All that! Ha. Yes, why not.”

“You live in the lake? You turn into an animal?”