Page 75 of Savage Blooms
Where wouldn’t he follow, if Arabella led?
“Keep up if you can!” Arabella called over her shoulder, her dark curls and red hair ribbon streaming in the wind. Robert did his best, slowing only enough to prevent himself from stumbling and cracking his skull on a rock. At fifteen, Arabella was a long-leggedgazelle, but thirteen-year-old Robbie had yet to grow into himself.
“Where are you going?” he demanded breathlessly, pulling up alongside her as she slowed. They had cleared the green and were in the woods now, having crossed that liminal threshold into the uncultivated part of Craigmar.
Arabella grinned at him. A bright, wild smile, more creature than child.
“Where do you think?”
“Arabella, no,” Robert said, making his voice as serious as possible. It was a difficult task, as it had begun to crack in recent months. “Father will kill us.”
“Father doesn’t have to know, unless you tattle,” she said, giving her brother a sharp pinch on the fleshy part of his upper arm. “Come on, I want to see what’s out there.”
Robert didn’t need to ask where “there” was. He had only been to the cave twice, both times to place offerings of sweets and cream with the rest of his family. The atmosphere of the place had felt… wrong. Robert had gotten the strong inkling that he shouldn’t be there. He had been raised like any other Kirkfoyle child, taught to give the cave a wide berth and not to trust his eyes and ears when he traveled out there.
Robert knew their strange neighbors were not to be provoked under any circumstances. He knew they were to blame for the curious lights he sometimes saw out his bedroom window in the wee hours of the morning, andfor the way his father sometimes paced the hallways at night, muttering to himself until his wife coaxed him back into bed, but that was all Robert knew. He kept a healthy distance from the cave at all times, and he maintained a healthy fear of the fae, even though he had never seen one of them himself. Arabella had, though, or at least she liked to pretend she had in order to frighten him. She said they came to her in dreams, to whisper secrets in her ear and sing her sweet songs.
Robert opened his mouth to protest further, but Arabella had already taken his hand and started pulling him deeper into the forest. Just about the time he had formulated his argument for why they should turn back, they cleared a hill and found themselves face to face with the cave. It loomed before them, flanked by bare trees with twisted branches covered with moist lichen.
“I don’t like this,” Robert said weakly. “Come on, let’s go back. It’s so cold out, and Father will be home from town soon. If he finds out we’re gone, I’ll be the one in trouble, you know that.”
“I won’t let anybody get you in trouble,” Arabella replied, already taking a few steps towards the cave in her soaked ballet flats. She had been obsessed withSwan Lakerecently and practiced her pirouettes at all hours of the day, and she hadn’t bothered to pull on her boots before scurrying out onto the grounds. “Don’t you want to see it for yourself? Nobody has to find out.”
Robert had to admit, grudgingly, that part of him wascurious. But a bigger part of him was scared, both of the cave and of his father’s discipline. He pulled his hand out of Arabella’s grasp, but she didn’t turn back with him. Instead, she lifted her chin and took a few determined steps into the cave.
It was alarming, how fast the darkness swallowed her up. In one moment, she was totally visible; in another, she was gone. Robert’s heart battered against his ribs. He couldn’t lose Arabella. Hecouldn’t.
Swallowing the last of his pride and his good sense, Robert squeezed his eyes shut and walked into the cave.
At first he blindly navigated by feeling along the damp rock walls and following the sounds of Arabella’s footsteps ahead. The air inside the cave was wet and thick with the scent of rotting leaves and the musk of small animals, but as he pushed further into the mountainside, there was another smell as well, like the fluffy hot cross buns his mother baked every Easter. It might have been appetizing if it wasn’t so sickly sweet.
“Arabella,” Robert hissed into the dark. He put a hand out to grasp his sister, but all he clutched was empty air. “Arabella, where are you?”
“Come on,” Arabella whispered back, her voice seeming to come from every direction. It was impossible to tell how far away she was.
Robert took a gulping breath, and tried not to panic. If he panicked, he might suck down all the oxygen in the small space and suffocate, and then Arabella would haveto drag his body out, if she could even find her own way back, and then…
His anxious thoughts trailed off as the ground began to slope downwards, moving further underground.
And then, there was a faint glow of light up ahead.
Robert scurried towards the light, hoping that they had somehow turned around and were resurfacing into the sun. But the air was getting colder, not warmer, and that saccharine scent was as strong as ever.
Robert hurried forward, and emerged in an underground chamber. Overhead, the ceiling was low and adorned with stalactites, and the mica in the walls sparkled and winked at him as though it was in on some joke. But how? There shouldn’t be any light down here at all.
Robert looked to his left, and his heart nearly gave out at what he saw.
A wooden table sat in the middle of the cavern, heavy-laden with out-of-season fruits and a whole suckling pig with an apple in its mouth and buns that looked like his mother’s. No, Robert realized as he took a few stunned step forwards, theywerehis mother’s, down to the uneven criss-cross on top.
Robert knew with a crushing dread that they had most certainly made a mistake in coming here. But Arabella seemed delighted. She was standing at the table with her hands clasped together, as though the entire spread had been arranged for her pleasure alone.
“Look, Robbie,” she breathed. “Isn’t it so pretty? And everything smells delicious.”
“Look at the lights,” he whispered, too terrified to move a muscle.
There were fat, dripping candlesticks on the table, smelling of beeswax and sweet chamomile, but the flames dancing on the wicks weren’t the cheery gold of mortal fire. They were an eerie blue, pale as a robin’s egg, and they cast a cool light around the room.
“Let’s leave,” Robert said, finally finding enough courage to reach out and clutch Arabella’s arm. Her skin was cold beneath her thin sweater. “Before anybody realizes we’re here.”
