Kinley nudges me with his arm and tugs me down by the hair so as to whisper to me. “Perhaps you should change now.”
I leave the room—not that anyone notices except for Rune, who comes with me.
I’m happy to take off my clothes though. I haven’t really since I got here.
I think I’ve showered?? Showering seems like the sort of thing one might forget about doing here.
Daily to-dos are done here, but they’re not oft remembered.
The things I’ve noticed I’m able to recall are the way things make me feel if I feel them with enough gravitas.
I try to remember when I last showered and if I just put back on my old pyjamas afterwards—I suppose I must have? I brought nothing else with me, and Peter’s honestly done a rather terrible job of living up to what he said about being all I need.?
Nevertheless, I put on the fairy bikini, and Rune ties the daisies off at the neck and flits around excited, clapping her hands.
There’s no mirror here, so I can’t see how I look, but I try to peer down at myself.
“It fits like a glove,” I tell her.
She shrugs. It’s magic, she tells me, and then she kicks me back out towards them.
“Whoa!” Percival yells dramatically when I walk back in.
Rye pulls back, blinking, surprised. Calla rolls her eyes and looks away, but Peter—his mouth falls open ever so slightly, and then he swallows heavy. He says nothing, but his face has gone serious, and I can’t decide whether it’s a wonderful feeling or a horrible one, being stared at like this. Somewhere in between maybe.
“Should we go?” Rye asks a bit uncomfortably.
I nod eagerly before I turn to Rune.
“Thank you,” I tell her, and in turn, she claps her tiny hands, and a rose petal appears. She swipes it across my cheeks, my nose, and then over my lips.
She jingles and gives me a wink.
I walk out into the woods, and Rye walks after me. “Are you trying to kill him?”
“Just trying to get a look in with your sister about.” I roll my eyes.
He rolls his eyes back. “You got a look in, all right.”
Peter and Calla walk out after us, and Peter’s still staring. We catch eyes, and he stares at his hands immediately.
I walk over to him, catching his eye again. “Are you okay?” I whisper.
“Fine.” He nods. “Yeah, of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”
I shake my head a lot. “I don’t know. You just seem—”
“I’m kicked,” he tells me with a nod. He says it so unemotionally, just like it’s fact.
“Oh.” I nod once, trying not to float away with that. He sees it anyway, the delight in my eyes, and he squints at me playfully.
“Are you kicked?”
“Not yet.” I hold my chin in the air, and he frowns immediately. “Maybe when you take your shirt off.”
He grins at me and laughs before he takes a running leap and soars for a bit.
I turn to look at Calla, who’s just staring at me. Staring is the wrong word. It’s more of a scowl—a murderous, hateful scowl.
“I don’t feel like we’ve had a proper chance to meet. You’re the only other girl I’ve really seen here, besides Rune—that’s the fairy,” I clarify for her because she’s still just frowning at me. “And she’s a girl, of course, but she’s not a human girl, and you’re the first human girl I’ve seen, besides one in the village who’s actually—well, she’s sort of rude, so I’m glad to—” I shake my head nervously and give her a big, apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. I’m wafting—”
“Hi, Wafting,” she says, deadpan.
“No.” I shake my head and laugh. “Sorry, I meant I was blathering.”
She gives me an up-and-down look. “I’ll say.”
I stand in front of her, blocking her path. “I’m Daphne.” I extend my hand to her, and you best be sure, she does not shake it. She does stare at it though, as though I’m holding out a slug for her to pet.
“I know.” She steps around me.
“Calla—” Rye growls.
“What?” She sighs, bored.
“Be nice.”
“Why?” She shrugs, looking at her brother and not me. “She’s just going to grow up and get old, and he’ll get bored of her how he gets bored of all of them, and then he’ll take her back and she’ll spend her whole sad life wishing she was still with a boy who has forgotten all about her.” And then she looks at me, stares me down with these dark eyes, hemmed with a kind of hurt that tells me that’s her story as much as it could be mine. “That’s the real Darling family legacy.”