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I hurry to look for the closet that I know must be waiting for me behind one of the various doors in my room, and gasp in awe when I finally find it behind the second door I try. It's enormous, and filled to the brim with so many clothes, it's impossible to know where to start to pick out an outfit for the day.
Upon closer examination I'm bemused to find that all of the clothes seem to be dresses, although luckily none have the petticoats and corsets I was worried about the day before. I pull upon a drawer looking for underthings and blush when the first one is filled with various sets of lingerie. Two more drawers are filled with the same thing. Wishful thinking on Aiden's part it appears.
I finally find underwear that doesn't scream "do me", not that Aiden would know the difference, and walk out to the hallway where he is waiting.
"What do you have planned for today?" I ask him, bemused by how excited he seems to be.
"I'm going to take you through the village, allow the people to see you so that news of the Queen's return can spread to the land. After that we will begin to remind you exactly who you are."
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"I'm going to begin to teach you magic."
"Pretty sure I don't have a magical bone in my body," I tell him, half lying. There's definitely something different about me, I'm quite confident about that. I'm nervous to find out exactly what that is however.
"It will all come to you," he replies confidently. "You are from the most magical lineage that the world has ever seen. We just have to coax it out of you."
"Did I have magic before?" I ask. His eyes darken, and there's a flash of anger that passes over his face that he pushes away quickly. I immediately feel bad. It's obviously very painful for him to talk about my past. I wish there was some kind of book I could read that could catch me up instead of having to get everything from him.
"You were more powerful than anyone realized," he finally tells me, although the way he says it seems like he is almost resentful about that fact. I decide to drop the topic and we have our first tense, awkward silence as he leads me out the castle gates, nodding at the soldiers posted there. Once we get there I notice that the village seems to be bustling. It's strange that it looked so empty when I was gazing at it from my balcony. It's now teeming with life.
The villagers remind me of a scene that you would see in Belle's French village in The Beauty and the Beast. They are all wearing old fashioned clothing, the women in dresses and the men in simple pants and loose blouse looking tops. They all look happy and well-fed, perfect really. They nod respectfully as we pass, but Aiden's presence must be a commonplace thing as few of them stop to look at us. I do notice that the ones who do turn our way keep their eyes carefully averted from me. There's a group of children playing with a ball in one of the charming courtyards we pass by. I move to walk over to them, but Aiden gently grasps my arm.
"Not now darling. It would only frighten them to have the Queen impede on their play."
I nod disappointingly, and we continue on. He points out various things of interest but never actually interacts with the villagers. Aren't these supposedly our people? Shouldn't we be talking to them? I resolve to talk to Aiden about this once I get my feet under me. I'm still not completely sold on the concept that I'm a queen, but now that I know about the life I was living before Aiden saved me, I'm willing to embrace this life wholeheartedly.
There's so many shops and bakeries that I would like to try out, but Aiden walks me past them all. I decide that I'm going to come back to the village without him so I can actually experience it.
My tour of the village is decidedly brief and before I know it he is leading me out of the village and back onto the castle grounds. My annoyance with him over the disappointing "tour" disappears from my mind when I actually pay attention to the view I have of the castle as we walk towards it rather than away from it. I gape at its enormity. Looking at it, I can't help but feel the same sense of foreboding that I do walking down its hallways. It's dark, just like it's master. My forefathers must have been a depressing sort because I can't see myself ever having felt at home within its walls. It fits Aiden far better. The same black stone as was on the inside covers the outside. There's turrets and towers everywhere. I can imagine that one or two ghost stories have originated from this castle. Maybe this castle fits who I am now, after a life of scars and abuse. I can't imagine though that it would have fit the old Eva if she and Aiden were so happy together.
My thoughts are interrupted when Aiden leads me to a courtyard that has strange cauldrons boiling here and there. I laugh to myself thinking that the cauldrons are the perfect touch to the creepiness of the castle. Aiden looks at me inquiringly and I stifle my grin, not wanting to offend him about my disdain for his…I mean our…home. There are interesting smells emanating from the cauldrons, creating a heady mix that makes my head spin a little. Aiden stops at each one and stirs them, closing his eyes in concentration as he brings spoonfuls of the steaming elixirs up to his nose. A few times he must have smelt something wrong because he grabs what looks like herbs that are sitting in dishes on a table set up on one side of the courtyard, and throws them in the pot, muttering a few words as he does so. I jump when one of the liquids changes from a putrid brown color to a lime green one from just one handful of what looked like blades of grass. He laughs at me and straightens up from where he had been bent over adding things to the mix.
"I thought you said that we were Fairies?" I ask him. "This looks more like witchcraft than anything else," I tell him, motioning to the bubbling pots.
"We do have magic, but I've always found myself attracted to the inherent beauty of a potion. There's something intoxicating and seductive about the slow tendrils of smoke of a well-made potion. It's a power that requires work while magic usually doesn't. You either have magic or you don't. Potions require devotion…and your whole heart."
Aiden stops speaking and there's again something in his eyes that is hard to read as if there's a camera reel playing images, or memories, in front of him that I can't see.
"But we'll get to all of that on another day," he says, breaking away from the trance his impassioned speech had put him in. "For now, we will start back with the basics. Surely there's some sort of muscle memory for magic and it will all come back to you the more we practice," he tells me confidently, leading me down another path, the smell of the cauldrons along with the sound of their bubbling contents soon disappearing around the bend as we walk for what seems like a mile.
"It seems to me that you are implying my magic is going to take work," I tell him wryly, finally commenting on his impassioned speech about the so-called ease of magic use.
He rolls his eyes in response but says nothing.
The path finally leads us to an open glen surrounded by thick trees. There is a giant ring of what looks like mushrooms forming a circle just within the trees. I give a small gasp as Aiden leads me inside the circle. I can feel a slight humming coming from the earth, almost like the ground is vibrating with energy. My hair begins to slightly stand on end from whatever power is within the circle. Aiden turns to look at me.
"Do you feel it?" he whispers, his eyes wild with excitement, and what looks confusingly in this situation, like hunger.
I nod slowly, my eyes wide with shock and awe from what I'm experiencing. The mushrooms around us are beginning to glow. The light seems to be emanating from within them, like the power is seeping up from the ground.
"What is this?" I ask breathlessly.
"A fairy ring," he answers in an almost reverent tone. "One that hasn't worked since its Queen left the realm," he says, turning to stare at me intensely.
I can't deny that I feel something, whether that's magic, I'm not sure. It feels like the earth is calling to me, like its bidding me good morning after a long slumber. I feel energized, like something inside of me has risen up and is longing to escape. It continues to coil up inside of me until I find myself bent over from the pain of feeling so full.
"That's it. Let it out," he orders, sounding uncomfortably excited despite the fact that I'm currently hunched over in agonizing pain.
