Heart Spell

Chapter 5

The ride home was quick as Evolet's mind was swimming with things she couldn't seem to understand logically.

The creature from a book, the stag's appearance again, and the message "beware" that she still believed she had heard directly from the stag. But how? The ideas bumped around inside her head like loose wheels.

Inside the cottage, she immediately sought Vanadey who was in the kitchen stirring something in a little pot over the stone hearth. Above her hung bundles of dried florals – wisteria, marigold, lavender, yarrow, and multiple other dried bunches of roots and banes. "Where are the books?"

Vanadey looked over at her. "What books?"

"Those books with the stories you used to tell me when I was younger."

"In a box in the attic I presume..." she turned her focus back to stirring the pot. She reached up and plucked a few blooms of lavender to drop in the pot.

Evolet retreated upstairs and found the book she was looking for. Bringing it downstairs, she opened it and searched. There, she found it.

"What is it that rekindled your fancy for those stories?"

"I think..." Evolet faltered, daring to say what she was afraid sounded ludicrous. It was ludicrous. These were just stories – fairytales. They couldn't be real, but Vanadey had once said a story was a narration of something, either real or not. "Vanadey, what can you tell me about Fae Folk?"

"Ah," Vanadey continued stirring, "They go by many different names, each to a specific race, but they are all the same – Fae Folk. Inhabitants of the forest and nature who keep to themselves so much that they have become nothing but stories and tales."

"But, they are real then?"

Vanadey gave her a look. "Yes, but they are very rare."

"What can you tell me about them?" Evolet held the book up to her and read. "It says here they have forms?"

"They have forms that they masquerade as. Beasts and birds of the forest mostly – hawks, foxes, rabbits, even deer." Vanadey ended with a twinkle in her eye.

"So you mean..."

"What?"

"That the stag...could be Fae?"

"It is possible."

"And..." Evolet stalled but then told Vanadey about the other creature she saw. "Are you saying that was a Fae too?"

"They mostly are, especially creatures like a Barghest. You're lucky to be alive."

Evolet sat down, admiring the little wooden carving on the table that was still formless, but she noticed where Vanadey had made a few indents and curves that would lead to its birth of a work.

"I can't believe it," Evolet breathed. It wasn't about the fact that she survived an encounter with a Barghest that she couldn't believe, but the fact that Fae Folk were actually real. "But how would you know for sure?"

"Sometimes, they will speak."

Beware. Evolet thought of the message she'd heard.

"I do think that book at the Booksmith is finally about ready by now since it's been several days. Would you please go by and fetch it?" Vanaday requested as she added a handful of grounded herb from a jar to the pot, adjusting the green shawl on her shoulders.

Evolet nodded and got up to retrieve her cloak. Fastening the knot at her throat, she opened the front door and walked down the steps to start toward the Booksmith's shop. The clouds still withheld the sun's full touch upon the earth, and the smell of petrichor remained in the air.