Page 17 of The Court the Fae Forgot
Whatever luckthe fae had brought, it wasn’t all bad—not for everyone, anyway.
It wasn’t until the next morning that Finch’s appearance was even mentioned. Ada and I didn’t dare discuss it once we’d gotten back inside and snuck up to the loft to avoid waking the tentative peace that fell with my father’s slumber, but if the fitful groaning of her mattress next to mine was any indication, the mystery of it was on her mind as well.
Breakfast was a lively affair, though still no one mentioned the visit by the fae. My mother busied herself with an uncharacteristic frenzy as she flitted between the table and stove, filling bowls of gruel that my father ate with the ferocity that only a prior consumption of several jugs of ale could inspire. Ada’s feet kicked out anxiously under the table, hitting me in the shins enough times to bruise—and yet still, I didn’t dare make so much as a sound.
I’d gotten enough sideways glances from my mother between her own nervous flitting about to know I’d yet to entirely skirt the consequences of our most recent visitor.
I picked at the meager portions in the bottom of my own bowl, as usual, the emptiest out of all of them. Mama and Papa have always insisted I was served last—something to do with keeping me from being greedy. While Ada normally saved me some extra food from her own bowl, sometimes on mornings like this where she was especially distracted, she’d forget. On most days the lack of food was bound to bring on the betrayal of grumblings from my stomach, but for once, I barely noticed.
Food was the last thing on my mind, not when I was far more concerned with what would happen once the missing bag of coins was finally remembered. Experience had taught me it was better to be flogged on an empty stomach than a full one.
More experience still had taught me a bag of coins like that wouldn’t be forgotten long.
A smashing sound from the stove drew a flinch out of me as one of my mother’s few water jugs slipped from her hands in her frenzy, smashing on the floor in an explosion of ceramic and water. My head ducked slightly as if in anticipation of a blow—verbal or otherwise—from my father, seated next to me. When it never came, I found myself glancing up to meet my surprise matched on Ada’s face as well. Mama, meanwhile, just kneeled to pick up the broken shards, her own mood seemingly unaffected.
Worse still was when she straightened up and held the broken pieces out for my father to examine, only for the two of them to break out in a sound so strange that it took me a few seconds to understand waslaughter.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard the noise come from either of them. Up until this moment, I wasn’t sure it was a sound either of them was capable of.
I caught my sister’s eye again, and I knew she was as bewildered as I was.
We both wondered the same thing.
Who had taken our parents, and who were these mild-tempered creatures they’d replaced them with?
“Ah well,” my mother said, shaking her head and smiling down at the broken ceramic as if it wasn’t, up until moments earlier, one of the few nicer things she’d owned. “Aurra, next time the merchant passes the house, buy another from the baker’s purse.”
The moment I’d feared had arrived.
Dread consumed me as I stared down at the moldy bread accompanying my gruel. It was a larger chunk than usual, too, leftovers from before Ada’s most recent baker’s bounty. That so-called greedy voice in my head urged me to tuck it into my skirts, to save it for the days of empty bowls sure to follow once my blunder was uncovered.
“In fact,” my father said, picking up his spoon and licking the last of his porridge off the surface so he could admire his grubby portrait in it, “buy two.”
He grinned up at my mother as if she should be the luckiest woman in the world. “The days of poverty are behind us, my dear. Who would have thought the fae would bring us this kind of luck?”
Their words only served to mystify me further.
I glanced around the cottage, looking for any sign of this luck my father mentioned.
Had the fae put my parents under some kind of spell? It was the only explanation I could come up with.
My face must have betrayed me, because when I looked up again Ada stared at me from across the table, her legs no longer kicking out of excitement. She knew me better than anyone. I didn’t have to tell her when I was screwed—she already knew.
I felt her bracing for my own words before I spoke them. There was no point in waiting. It would be worse for me if I waited until the merchant arrived, only to admit that there was no money to pay for his wares.
“I …” I started, bile building in the back of my throat with every word of my admission. “I lost it. I lost the purse.”
For a second, the world around me stilled. My mother froze where she stood, looking down at me from beside my father, his own face unmoving for a moment too long. Even Ada didn’t dare to breathe. The only sound I heard was the rustle of her skirts bunching up beneath fingers closing into tight, nervous fists under the table.
I closed my eyes, waiting for the blow that was sure to come.
But it never came.
Instead, into the silence came tumbling that same unnatural, barking sound of my parents’ form of laughter.
“You know what?” my father said, his face turned back up to my mother when I dared peek up to look at the two of them. “Next time the merchant comes, let’s buy three.”
The two of them cackled in glee, half at their own private joke, and half at the ever-growing bewilderment on both my and Ada’s faces. At long last, when their laughter had once again died down, my mother took pity on us.
