“Um . . . miss . . . miss lady.” A ‘gentle’ shove on her shoulder made Elspeth roll a full turn across the hay with an ‘oomph.’ That was how she awoke in the morning, sunlight streaming through the holes in the wall but just barely chasing the dewy frost from the hay.

Instantly Elspeth was on her feet, blinking the sleep from her eyes and breathing deeply to remain calm. Her sleep through the night had been restless, nightmares keeping her tossing and turning as she envisioned herself being boiled alive, then carved alive, then eaten alive. Straw had poked her skin until it was sore, and stuck itself in her hair at odd angles, and dirt caked her cheeks. She looked quite a lot like a wood creature herself.

“You can’t eat me!” she cried, pressing herself suddenly against the wall. Perhaps if she pushed hard enough, the wall would topple over and she could run away. “I won’t help you, but you can’t eat me, either.”

Cilly, she then noticed, was standing in the doorway, his head hanging with a look of pure abnegation. Indeed, he looked like a scolded little boy; strands of his white hair had slipped from the ponytail and hung aside his face, and with his hands clasped behind his back, he dug his toe into the dirt.

“Oh, we aren’t going to eat you, lady. You can go home!”

“Pardon?”

The abominable snowman grinned, she was sure of it, his black lips stretching ear to ear to reveal two rows of chipped and crooked grey teeth, “I can say it louder: you can go home!!” Elspeth’s eyes darted to Cilly in disbelief.

“I’m not helping you,” she repeated cautiously, as though afraid they had misheard her and thought she agreed. Cilly nodded slowly, which only confused Elspeth further. “I can just . . . go?”

Suddenly Cilly looked up at her with pure fury and offered the vague explanation, “We have . . . erm . . . been encouraged . . . or, erm, asked . . . rather gruffly, might I add . . . scolded severely for this whole kidnapping spiel . . . mite too gruff, me thinks . . .”

Before it had even begun to make sense, Elspeth had run past him, darted out of the barn, and raced for the manor – though she couldn’t quite bring herself to call it home. It was a rather long trek, and for several long minutes Elspeth began to worry she had sprinted in the wrong direction, but then there it was, the dark eaves looming up above the overgrown garden. Simon was carrying several long tools around to the far side of the garden.

Here Elspeth hesitated. Though initially she had thought to just sprint into the house and demand a bath, was that really the wisest course of action? Immediately there would be questions as to where she had been all night, and that would either require lying or looking like an absolute loon. No, it would be best if no one knew of the affair and she could slip quietly back to her room and collapse into her bed.

It was still early yet. Perhaps Dillon was eating his breakfast in the kitchen, and Alistair had probably already holed himself up in the study. Simon was in the garden. So as quietly as she could, Elspeth slipped to the front of the house and hoped Latrice wasn’t lurking about. She made it into the front door, up the stairs, and into the hallway before footsteps sent her diving into the nearest room –an empty guestroom that didn’t look to have been walked in for a decade. Dust coated everything and got Elspeth coughing so badly that she feared discovery. The footsteps passed, though, and after several minutes of silence she dared to look out. The hallway was once again empty and she completed the journey to her room unnoticed.

After a long bath and a lengthy nap, Elspeth felt surprisingly chipper. It was a beautiful day outside, she was in a wonderfully soft day dress, and she could skip along on her toes instead of digesting inside of a strange creature’s belly. With a cheerful smile, she danced downstairs to the kitchen to locate some food. It was simply too beautiful to remain indoors, though, so she took her late lunch out to sit in the midst of the overgrown garden and listen to the birds sing over her head.

Surprisingly, Simon and Dillon appeared to be doing some actual work. Elspeth wasn’t quite convinced this was a common occurrence, though she supposed she didn’t know what else they did all the day long. But there they were at the far corner of the garden, carefully pulling out unwanted weeds from among the roots of what to Elspeth just looked like larger weeds.

Having eaten her fill, she wandered over and watched their backs for several long minutes before Simon commented, “Mistress decided to sleep in today, did she?”

“I’m afraid I wasn’t feel too well, but I’m all right now.”

“Well if you’re so all right, why don’t you help us out here instead of standing there gawking?” Dillon retorted, casting her a look over his shoulder. Dirt caked his sweaty pink face, and though he’d tied his hair back, renegade strands coated themselves to his flushed neck.

At this suggestion, Simon snorted, “Stop, Dillon. You and I both know the lady is entirely incapable of such work as this.”

“What?”

“It’s far too difficult a task for a proper lady such as herself.”

“I’ll have you know that I gardened with my mother all the time,” Elspeth retorted, crossing her arms pointedly.

Dillon sat back on his heels to stretch his sore arms. Even as young as he was, crawling around in the beds for so many hours made his muscles cramp. He wiped the sweat from his face and gave her a dubious look.

“Prove it.”

“Prove it? And what, get down on my knees and—“

“Crawl around in the dirt with us peasants. You see my point, Dillon,” Simon laughed. Elspeth hated that laugh, directed at her as it was; it prickled her skin and made her eyes narrow. She stomped off into the house and could hear their cheers until the door slammed shut behind her.

However, only a few minutes later she returned with an apron on to protect her dress and blue canvas gloves that had long ago been stained by grass and dirt. Simon and Dillon stopped working to gape as she crouched down beside Dillon and began pulling out weeds.

Feeling their eyes, she asked politely, “Well are you going to help or just sit there gawking?” Both servants were temporarily startled into helpfulness, and Simon pointed out to her which weeds to pull and which to leave. That they were leaving weeds confused her, but she said nothing lest she look ignorant.

They worked late into the afternoon, Elspeth silently listening to the boys talk. Mainly they discussed the affairs of other households, and she got a small thrill in finding herself privy to servants’ gossip. They discussed politics and goings-on in the city. The only time they paid her much mind was when, after tugging on one particularly resistant weed, she went toppling backwards, the dirty roots smacking her in the face. Dillon quite literally fell over laughing until Elspeth pegged him with a nugget of dirt square in the forehead. He gasped, threw one back at her which snagged in her hair, before realizing he was being friendly and playful. Immediately his smile disappeared as he returned to work, but the suddenness of his mood change only made Elspeth laugh.

At long last Simon needed to go prepare supper, and Dillon needed to feed the hens, and Elspeth badly needed to wash up. By the time she had finished, Simon, Dillon, and Latrice were just sitting down to supper. Alistair had opted to eat in his study, and so Elspeth chose to eat with the servants, though Latrice fidgeted nervously through the entire meal before sprinting off.

“Why? Why is she so frightened by me?” Elspeth demanded as the maid disappeared down the hall. No one offered an answer, whether they had one or not.

After supper, Elspeth wrote another letter to her mother inquiring why she hadn’t received a reply and was everything all right? She read for a bit, stitched for a bit, then decided to retire, seeing as Alistair would not be making an appearance. The hallways were dark and the night chill had set in; Dillon had already lit the fire in her room and she stood peacefully by it for several minutes before going to undress.

It wasn’t until she had slipped the nightgown over her head that she realized the absence of her necklace, the gold cross with the ruby that her mother had given her on her wedding day. Frantically she searched the room, tears already springing to her eyes. How had it fallen off without her noticing? Surely she would have heard it hit the ground – though not if she had dropped it while gardening.

Throwing a robe on, she grabbed her candle from the vanity and all but ran down the stairs, searching the floor as she went. It was nowhere in the parlor, hallways, kitchen, or entry way. It had to be outside, then. Without even bothering to put boots on, she ducked outside and scoured the garden paths. The moonlight showed no golden cross wedged in between the stones, though.

Just as she was thinking if she had been anywhere before returning from the barn, a shrill voice drawled from behind her, “Missing something, miss?” She dropped the candle and spun. There, standing just outside the garden gate, were Cilly and Gaffen, the latter appearing as a sweet spotted deer and the former dangling her necklace from his long, gnarled fingers.

“My necklace!” she gasped, stepping forward. Instantly Cilly pulled it back, though there were still several meters between them.

“Ah-ha! And now we can begin negotiations,” he mused, doing a strange little dance by hopping from one foot to the other. He seemed so completely opposite from his mood that morning but Elspeth preferred him guilty and scolded as he had been.

With a frown, she crossed the distance, insisting, “No negotiations. That’s mine and you stole it, now give it back.”

“I don’t think so, Elspeth. I’m sure your mother would be so sad to learn you had lost her heirloom.”

Elspeth stopped short and eyed him suspiciously, “How did you know—“

“Girl-child, we know all about you. You think we are going to all this trouble to enlist your help for no reason? It is you – it must be you! This is your fate to perform this act, to save us all.”

“It is not my fate to kill your queen. I don’t know your queen. Your people are nothing to me! Now give me back my necklace.”

“Oh, but you see, your necklace is nothing to me,” he returned. Suddenly he was holding a candle, only the flame burned blue instead of orange. He dangled the necklace over the flame and instantly she could see the metal begin to bubble. The ruby drooped.

“Stop it! Oh, stop it,” Elspeth demanded, coming closer, but Cilly simply walked backwards as easily as though he were floating along. The necklace continued to melt until Elspeth finally cried, “Oh, fine! All right!”

Instantly the flame was gone and the necklace had returned to its previous shape. For a moment, Elspeth wondered if it hadn’t all been a trick on her mind, but Gaffen and Cilly were suddenly on either side of her.

“You said so? You mean it? You are agreeing to accept your fate and do as you are required?”

“Give me my necklace back.”

“Oh, trust that we will, as soon as your task is completed.”

“My task . . . of killing your queen.”

“Don’t say so with that look of contempt on your pretty face! It will not be so gory as that. I would not put such delicate lady fingers to so dark a task,” Cilly assured her, reaching up to lace his fingers through hers. She yanked her hand away and glared.

“What is it that I am to do, then?”

“Why, simple, simple. It’s so simple, isn’t it, Gaffen?”

“As simple as eatin’ cake,” Gaffen agreed, his dainty deer head bobbing.

“You are simply to get an eagle stone.”

Elspeth paused for further explanation, but when none came she inquired, “What is an eagle stone?”

“Oh, Urisk will explain that to you.”

“Who is Urisk?”

“You’ll know when you see him. Now come, you must start immediately.”

“But I—“

“No buts! The sooner you begin, the sooner we are free. Now come!”

Elspeth only had a chance for one more anxious glance back at the house before Cilly, clutching her hand tightly in his, was dragging her off across the field.

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