Peggy
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
We make it to the fourth stone tower just before midnight, but there’s a problem. I hike the baby carrier up on my chest and shush the kittens, who are going crazy in my backpack. Yeah, I know it’s not really cool to carry my kittens in a backpack, but it’s not like I was going to leave them behind and I couldn’t go hiking through the woods with a cat carrier.
We’re definitely at the tower, but there’s nobody here.
No one.
It’s just desolate.
This can’t be it. We couldn’t have come all this way for nothing.
My heart sinks and my stomach feels heavy. We’ve been walking for two days. It took two fucking days to walk here with the baby and my bag o’ kittens, and there’s just nothing. I’m out of diapers, out of food, and out of luck.
What did I expect?
I shake my head. I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up, but I did. Somehow, I thought there would be someone here. Maybe several someone’s. I thought there would be information on how to find Fablestone. Hell, I kind of thought maybe this was Fablestone or that there would be some sort of secret portal, but that’s not happening. That’s not here.
There’s just nothing.
Daisy starts to cry, and as I approach the base of the tower, I look up at it. Vines cover the old tower. How fucking old is this thing, anyway? Kids in town always come up with weird legends and fables surrounding the stone towers, and even though I know it’s stupid, I always sort of thought they must be a little bit true.
I always thought there must be something more in the forest than we thought.
Then again, maybe I’m too much of a dreamer. Maybe I’ve been reading too many books, watching too many movies. Real life isn’t some magical fairytale that can be neatly tied up with a happily ever after.
I know that.
“This can’t be it,” I whisper. “This can’t be the end.” I swallow hard. Daisy starts to cry louder, and the last thing I need is for any predators to find us. It’s the middle of the night and it’s going to get cold soon. The best thing to do would be to create a shelter and camp here tonight. Then in the morning, I’ll figure something out. I don’t know what, exactly, but I’ll figure something out.
I lift Daisy out of the baby carrier and she instantly calms.
“That’s better, isn’t it, Daisy?” I ask. She coos and reaches for my face, touching my cheek. “Yeah, I don’t like to be all cooped up, either.”
I carry her over to the base of the tower, lower my backpack, and sit down with my back to the tower. I turn Daisy around so her back is to my front. She sits in my lap while I rustle around in my backpack. To my surprise, there’s a single diaper left, and I pull it out.
“All right, little monkey,” I tell her. “It’s go time.”
I get her changed and set up a new bottle. The kitten twins are somehow sleeping. I have no idea how. They’ve basically been meowing the entire journey, so if anyone or anything was following us, they’d have no trouble locating the lady with the crazy cats. Still, it’s nice to have a little bit of quiet. As I hold Daisy, I start to rock back and forth, singing quietly.
I don’t know if the dragon shifters have special songs they sing to their children. I don’t know if they have fairytales they share. I don’t even know what they eat, but I know that Daisy needs to be with her people. I promised Ellie. Somehow, the idea of going back and turning Dais over to child services doesn’t even seem like an option.
No, even if I go back, I’m going to have to find a way to contact Fablestone.
I fish my phone out of my pocket and turn it on, but there’s no service out here. Of course, there wouldn’t be. We’re way too far from civilization for that. Still, I try, holding it as high as I can reach and then staring at it again.
“Come on,” I murmur. Then I look around the clearing. There’s maybe thirty feet to the nearest tree in any direction. I don’t hear anything and I certainly don’t see anything, but suddenly, I’m starting to feel a little scared and nervous. I basically got here on pure adrenaline, but what happens now?
What happens now that we’re here, and there’s just nothing?
No one?
What if there’s something watching me from the darkness?
“Don’t be stupid, Peggy,” I say out loud. “You got this far and you can make it the rest of the way. You just have to have hope. You have to believe in yourself. You can do this,” I say. “You have to do this. For Daisy.”
Then I sit there. Daisy finishes her bottle and quietly falls asleep in my arms. My kittens are still passed out. Me? I’m starting to feel scared and alone. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken up such an important quest all on my own.
You took an oath.
I still don’t know what’s happened to Ellie. Is she okay? Did she go to a hospital? Did she escape from whoever was trying to find her? And why separate Daisy from herself? I don’t actually need answers to that last question. I know why. I might not be a mother, but I’d do anything for my child.
Even if that meant leaving the child with someone else…while I fought for my life.
I close my eyes and stop singing to Daisy. There’s no one here tonight. There’s no one coming for us. In the morning, I’ll have to figure out what to do next. Hike back to my house? Or go deeper into the woods looking for Fablestone? There’s no way for me to know what the right choice is, and right now, I’m just so tired.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Finally, sleep claims me.
*
The nightmares that fill my sleep are so terrible that when I wake up screaming, I think the hand that clamps down on my mouth is part of my dream, and I fight harder, trying to wake up. I need to rouse myself from my slumber. I need to wake the fuck up.
“Hush.”
Then I realize I’m not dreaming anymore. There really is someone here with us. My entire body stills.
Daisy.
Where’s Daisy?
I don’t feel her in my lap.
My eyes shoot open and I see a man squatting in front of me. His hand is firmly clamped over my mouth, and I can’t move. I can’t scream. I can’t do anything except stare into his deep, dark eyes.
“You cannot scream,” the man says. “It’s not safe. Do you understand?”
I nod as best as I can. Now that I’m staring at him, I don’t think he’s going to murder me. At least, I hope he’s not going to murder me. If he was a killer, wouldn’t he have slit my throat while I was asleep? Wouldn’t he have come after me while I was resting?
“Good. I’m going to remove my hand now. No screaming.”
He takes his hand away and I press my lips tightly together and quickly looking around. Daisy. I need to find Daisy.
“She’s fine,” he says, and a gentle look crosses his face. “Look.” He points a few feet away, where Daisy is laying in a small bed of grass. Did he make her a little grass nest? It kind of looks like it. What the hell? Daisy is awake, and she’s looking around, but she’s not crying or screaming, so we’ve got that going for us.
“Who are you?” I ask quietly.
“I am the guardian of the tower,” he tells me, and then I realize that we came to the right place, after all. We did it. Daisy, Mocha, Frappe, and I…we all made it to the tower in time. Now everything is going to be okay, right? It has to be okay. I don’t know if I can keep moving forward if everything isn’t okay. Honestly, I just don’t know what I’ll do if it’s not okay.
The world is different now than it was a few days ago, at least for me. It’s darker now and more dangerous. Those people who came to my house? They weren’t government officials. They were looking for Daisy. I just know it, but why? Because she’s a dragon shifter child? Is that why they want her?
I look up at this man and my heart fills with relief.
Contentment.
Joy.
We made it.
I leap forward, wrapping my arms around him, and my quick movement catches him off guard. He tumbles backwards and I land on top of him, straddling him. The man looks shocked.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble awkwardly, trying to scoot off of him. “I’m just…relieved…to have found you.”
As I move away, though, I realize something terribly awkward that I probably should have noticed before.
“You’re naked,” I squeak out, blushing.
“I am,” the man agrees, glancing down at himself. He looks back up at me, and his eyes are twinkling. He’s seriously, legitimately got twinkling eyes right now.
What the actual fuck?
Is he a shifter, or is he a fucking fairy?
I don’t know, but I wiggle away, moving backwards, stumbling a little, and then I finally right myself and squat, looking over at him. He hasn’t moved. He’s just watching me cautiously, carefully.
“You’re human,” he says, pointing out the obvious.
“And you’re not.”
“Why have you come here?” He asks, but he doesn’t seem mad. He just seems curious.
This is the part where I decide whether I’m going to be honest or tricky. Do I want to tell this man why I’ve come? He might be the only one who can help me. On the other hand, what if he’s not a shifter like I think he is. What if he’s one of those evil people who were chasing Ellie? What if he’s a monster in disguise?
I have a choice to make, and I don’t know which is right.
I can be truthful and risk being taken captive, or I can lie and possibly risk not being taken to Fablestone.
In the end, I decide that the most important thing is getting Daisy where she belongs. The most important thing is keeping the dragon’s oath I swore, so I take a deep breath, and I meet the man’s eyes directly.
“My name is Peggy,” I tell him. “And I need to find Cameron of the Fablestone Clan. It’s a matter of life and death.”