Peter held out his hand towards me. “Can I have a hair?” he asked without looking at me.
“What?” I stared over at him, and then he looked up at me and plucked a hair right off my head.
He held the piece of hair between his thumb and his finger like he was trying to thread a needle, except he was literally trying to split a hair just to prove to no one that the knife could do it.
So I kissed his cheek, and he said nothing when I said goodbye.
On my way out, he runs after me and kisses me up against the giant mushroom by the door.
“You look really pretty today, girl,” he tells me.
My cheeks go pink. “Do you want to come with me and Rye? We’re going for a—”
“Boring,” crows Peter, and I roll my eyes, and then he claps both his hands on my face and kisses me again and takes off in the other direction.
“You two seem to be doing better,” Rye says, pushing himself up from the tree he’s leaning against. I hadn’t noticed him there, and I flash him an embarrassed smile.
“Sorry.”
“What for?” He shrugs, indifferent. “You ready to go?”
I nod once.
“Got your basket?”
I flash it to him.
“Got your shears?”
I shake my head.
“A knife?” he asks.
I pull a face.
He shrugs. “I’ve got two. Come on.”
“Where are we going?” I ask him after a few minutes.
“The best place to forage.”
I lift my eyebrows, waiting for more.
He looks over his shoulder and gives me an excited smile. “The Fallen Kingdom.”
I blink at him. “The what?” I guess I’ve not reached this particular part of history in the book yet.
“The fairies, right? They live in tiny pockets, a few here and there. A lot of the time they’re alone.”
“Right.” I nod. They live in the trees mostly, and you can spot them because there’s always this bright light that feels almost too beautiful to be real but feels too warm to be your imagination. The little hollows are usually mossy, baby mushrooms growing around them, the tiniest flowers you’ve ever seen and so much sparkle. I haven’t dared peek in, but it sounds like wind chimes and chirping birds.
“But they used to live in a kingdom.”
“Really?” I stare after him.
“They used to be big too.”
I stop in my tracks, because now this just sounds fake. “What?”
“They still can be.” Rye shrugs.
I shake my head. “Then why?”
“When they’re small, they’re harder to catch.”
I frown over at him. “Who’s trying to catch them?”
Rye gives me a sobering look. “Lots of people.” He reconsiders this answer. “Lots of things.” He doesn’t say anything for a couple of minutes again before he stops and crouches down. “This is a type of mycorrhizal mushroom.”
“Oh.” I nod. “We have those on Earth.”
“Yeah.” He nods. “I think they’re from there originally, but my people brought them with us. Anyway, it’s safe and edible.” He picks three of them and puts them in his basket. “This one”—he points to a smaller one that’s stringier looking—“also edible.” He pulls a face, and I squint at him, confused. “But the pirates, they’ll come out here looking for these. They’ll grind them up and—” He sniffs.
“Oh!” I gasp. “Like drugs?”
“I mean—”He shrugs. “I don’t know what that is. That’s not what we’d call it here.”
I squint over at him. “What would you call it?”
He chuckles and thinks for a half a second. “Herbal recreation.”
“Drugs.” I nod with a laugh.
We keep walking.
“There’s a few plants around that do that. Flowers and leaves and mushrooms—”
“Do you use them?” I ask as Rye stands and keeps walking.
“Sometimes,” he says.
“For what?” I ask nosily.
He looks back at me. “When I need to.” He stops at a tree and reaches up for a branch, pulling it down. “Come smell this.”
He’s tall and broad and has such a warm face that it’s impossible not to grin up at him as I do. His eyes are dark like leather, short dark brown hair, brown skin, and the loveliest smile. He’s handsome too, and I suspect that he knows it, though he doesn’t appear to use it to his advantage.*