Heart of the Moors

Chapter 18

The night before the festival, Phillip set off for the Moors on horseback to dine with the faeries.

When Aurora had claimed she knew what he wanted to tell her, his heart had stuttered. Then she’d declared his news was that he was leaving Ulstead. He ought to have corrected her. But he hadn’t. He had let her believe that was the reason he had come to the Moors and had asked her to walk with him. It had seemed harmless. He had told himself he would be able to confess his love anyway, just a bit later. And the words were on the tip of his tongue as Maleficent had arrived.

This time, he knew he had to spit them out.

Through the woods he rode, the moon high in the sky. In time the foliage grew dense, the air became thick with the sweet scents of flowers, and the ground filled up with pools of water, reflecting the stars.

A few moments later, small glowing faeries descended on him, flitting around his head and giggling.

“This way,” they said. “Our mistress sent us to lead you.”

Phillip thought of the last time he had been led by some of the Fair Folk—led astray—and he checked the stars. He didn’t want to get lost and arrive late, especially not that night. He was well aware that this was a test, and not one he could afford to fail if he didn’t want Maleficent to continue to think ill of him. He hoped for her approval, but he would settle for her not threatening him anymore.

It seemed that the little faeries were leading him in the right direction, however. Soon the shallow pools opened into a lake dotted with tiny islands, with lights blooming beneath the surface of the water. Glowing nymphs emerged, surfacing and then diving again, leading him to the largest and most central island, where he could see the outlines of Maleficent and Aurora. A green castle with spires reaching into the sky towered behind them. They stood under a tree hung with glowing lanterns that was beside a long table. Next to them was a collection of faeries, none of their shapes familiar.

Phillip blinked in surprise at the enormous leafy palace. He was absolutely certain it hadn’t been there before. But the Moors were changeable and he supposed magic meant the landscape could alter itself in accordance with the whims of the faeries.

As he got closer, his heart thudded faster. If any of the people he knew in Ulstead had seen him doing this, they would have thought he’d run mad. Half the nobles in Perceforest would agree. There were countless stories of faerie food and how even a single bite could bind you to them, trapping you in their clutches forever. Yet with Aurora’s shy smile coming into view, he could not regret coming.

If it meant being bound to her, it could not be so terrible a fate.

Aurora wore a flowing dress of pale ivory, which blew in the slight breeze. Her hair was loose and fell around her shoulders in a river of gold, with a garland of flowers at her brow in place of a crown. She looked so beautiful that for a moment he felt as though every other thought had been struck from his head.

“Hello, Phillip,” Aurora said, walking down the hill in her bare feet.

She petted his horse’s nose, laughing as it snuffled in her hand.

Watching her, he had a feeling of such intense love that it was not unlike agony.

“You look well tonight,” he said, and immediately felt like a fool. Surely he knew how to pay her a better compliment than that.

One of the hedgehog faeries came and took the reins of his horse. He jumped down, his polished boots immediately sinking in the mud. He looked down at them sadly.

He was wearing a doublet of the darkest blue velvet, with a bit of golden rope across the chest and at the shoulders. And muddy boots.

Maleficent walked to the edge of the isle, the feathers of her wings ruffling in the wind. Her hair was hidden under her black cap, and there were jet cuffs at the bases of her horns and a necklace of jet beads around her throat. Or at least he thought they were jet beads. Upon second look, they appeared to be shimmering black beetles. When she saw him, her lips stretched into a wide smile—perhaps slightly too wide for Phillip’s comfort.

Beside her were Diaval, the raven-man, and a host of other Fair Folk—wallerbogs, tree sentinels, mushroom faeries, pixies, hobs, and foxkin—some which loomed and others which scampered. They all stared at him with eyes that seemed more animal than human.

“You came,” Maleficent said, as though that was a surprise to her, and not necessarily a good one.

Phillip offered his arm to Aurora. She took it, her body a warm and steadying presence as he moved away from the embankment and toward Maleficent.

“Godmother,” Aurora said, “shall we sit?”

Phillip’s gaze went to the banquet table. Along the vast length of it, a scarlet cloth was draped. Plates of silver at various heights were piled with food, some of it familiar, but much of it not. There were heavy pitchers, black glass goblets, and clusters of fat candles, their wax running over their sides to clot in pearls and runnels.

“Yes, of course,” Maleficent said, her hand stretching toward the table in invitation. “I wouldn’t want either of you to go hungry.”

The faerie took her place in an ominous chair at the head of the table. It was tall and had what looked like horns that curved in and then out, carved from ebonized wood. She gestured to the other end of the table, where a matching chair rested. “As the guest of honor, you shall have that one, Phillip. And you, my dear,” she said to Aurora, “can be seated at my side.”

A possum faerie wearing a cape pulled out Aurora’s chair. It was carved in the shape of spread wings and gilded so that it shone almost as brightly as her locks.

Other faeries began to scamper to the table and find themselves places; some climbed up onto stools, others onto piles of pillows, and a few of the taller faeries sat on low seats made from hollow logs.

At the far end of the table, Phillip considered what Maleficent had in store for him. Even the tableware was alarming. He had what appeared to be a small silver pitchfork on one side of his pewter plate and a dagger on the other. He lifted the dagger experimentally and found it heavy in his hand, the way a real weapon would be.

A small hedgehog faerie poured elderflower water into a black glass goblet in front of him. It perfumed the air with a scent so pleasant that he allowed himself a sip.

It tasted like sweet, pure water, the kind that bubbled up from springs. He guzzled it all in what felt like a single swallow.

This won’t be so bad, he thought a moment before he noticed that one of the dishes was creeping toward him on crab legs. He startled, rocking back in his chair.

“Something the matter?” Maleficent called down the table.

“N-no!” Phillip said as another plate scuttled around on the table, veering toward what appeared to be a woman made entirely of roots and greenery. Fat globes of grapes bounced toward him, followed by a dish of mushrooms—chanterelles, chicken-of-the-woods, faerie ring champignon, wood ears, and honey fungus, all cooked with wild garlic leaves. Then marsh samphire, sautéed. A collection of hard-boiled eggs paraded before him next—snake eggs, starling eggs, quail eggs, white and brown, some speckled and some blue. A few plates were carried on the backs of beetles, while others rested on the backs of turtles. Others appeared enchanted to move on their own.

Then a pile of blackberries and damson plums wriggled forward, beside a pot of fresh cream.

Behind it was a plate of crispy fried spiders and a tray of oblong white snake eggs.

A large tureen on wheels was being pulled down the table by a tiny faerie. It contained a bright green potage of wild leek and nettle. The faerie waved around a ladle in a slightly threatening manner and then dumped some of the soup unceremoniously in a bowl in front of Prince Phillip.

“We hope you don’t mind simple fare,” Maleficent said with a wide, malicious smile.

Beside her, Aurora had an uneasy expression. She was looking at Phillip as though she fully expected him to flee the table. And he had to admit that he was tempted. In the air overhead, what he at first had taken for oil lamps suspended in the trees turned out to be more tiny faeries, glowing with pale yellow light and peering down at him.

He thought of a story he’d heard from his nurse when he was a child, about a girl who was sent by her wicked stepmother out into the cold to die. In the snow, the girl stumbled on a witch sitting by a fire. The girl was so polite that the witch gave her a warm fur coat so that she passed the night cozily. When the girl returned home, she discovered her pockets were laden with treasure. Jealous, the stepmother sent her own daughter out into the cold the following night. But her daughter was rude to the witch, so the witch put out the fire and let that girl freeze to death.

He knew that faeries hated many things, but above all, even more than iron, they hated uncivility.

“This all looks delicious,” Phillip said, somewhat unconvincingly, even to his own ears.

“Try something,” Maleficent said, bringing a black grape to her mouth and biting into it. The moonlight caught on her fangs, making them unmistakable. “I wasn’t sure what you liked, so we cooked up a little of everything.”

“Yes, I can see that,” Phillip said, looking at the vast number of mysterious dishes in front of him.

Aurora had a blue egg on her plate, along with some berries and a cake dusted with herbs and honey. The cakes hadn’t scampered over to Phillip yet. She smiled at him and raised one of the menacing black glass goblets to her mouth.

Aurora hoped that humans and faeries could get along. Phillip needed to try. Maleficent might want to frighten him, but she was hardly going to poison him right in front of everyone.

Probably.

He put a spoonful of the soup into his mouth.

It was surprisingly pleasant. He took another spoonful. And another. Then he speared a few mushrooms.

By the time the honey cakes finally came, he was happy to take three.

A raven circled overhead, then swooped down to drop a rodent onto an empty plate. Prince Phillip could not help startling in horror at the mouse’s open mouth and the blood matting its gray fur.

The raven landed beside the plate and began to take apart the dead mouse.

“My apologies,” Maleficent said, looking down the table. “Prince Phillip, would you like some meat?”

Phillip felt a little queasy seeing the mouse’s blood running over the plate and the raven’s beak pulling strips of red flesh from within the fur.

“There is little enough for Diaval. He shouldn’t have to share,” Phillip managed to say.

“But he left you the eyes,” Maleficent said. “They’re the best part. A real delicacy for a raven. They pop like fish eggs in your mouth.”

The table had gone quiet. The faeries stared at him eagerly, waiting.

“I prefer the heart,” Phillip said.

“Phillip—” Aurora began.

But Maleficent rose from her chair. “Do you really? Diaval, you heard the man.”

Diaval hopped over and dropped a small piece of flesh on Prince Phillip’s plate. It was the color of a garnet and half the size of a grape.

He had made an extravagant promise to Maleficent—told her he would do whatever she asked to win her approval. He’d been willing to swear on his life that he meant Aurora no harm.

This was nothing.

He picked up the heart and put it on his tongue. Gagging once, he got it down.

“Delicacy,” he said, choking a little on the word.

All along the table, faeries began to laugh. Aurora stared at him in astonishment, a smile growing on her face.

“You know how to be polite,” Maleficent said finally. “I will give you that. You haven’t screamed once.”

Phillip didn’t admit how close a thing that had been. “It’s been a delightful dinner.”

“I am not sure I would go so far as all that,” Maleficent said.

Aurora nudged her. “Godmother.”

She took a deep breath. “Very well. You are welcome in the Moors. Aurora may even walk you to your horse, if she’d like. But I warn you, be careful what you say. This welcome can be revoked.”

Phillip supposed that was as much as he could have hoped for. He pushed back his chair and stood. “Would you walk with me?”

“With pleasure,” Aurora returned.

Together, they walked away from the banquet table. A cloud of tiny faeries blew around them and away.

“You were so very good tonight,” Aurora said. “And I really do think you impressed my godmother. And you ate—”

“Let’s never speak of it!” he said, and she laughed.

They walked on through the night. Aurora moved through the Moors nimbly, hopping easily from stone to stone.

“I will miss you very much when you’re back in Ulstead,” she said.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I did get a letter from home asking me to return,” he said, “but I haven’t replied to it yet. That’s not what I came to say to you the other night.”

She turned to him, frowning. “What is it, then?”

Phillip needed to say it the way he’d swallowed that mouse heart: all at once.

“I love you,” he told her.

Her entire demeanor changed, shoulders tensing. “You’re teasing me, aren’t you? Because of everyone’s fussing.”

“I love you,” he repeated. “I love your laugh and the way you see the best in everyone. I love that you’re brave and kind and that you care more about what’s true and right than what anyone thinks—”

“Stop, please,” she said, shaking her head. “Your kiss didn’t end the curse. It wasn’t True Love’s Kiss. That means you can’t love me. You can’t!”

“We met once before that,” Phillip said. “And your aunts were shouting at me to kiss you. That can’t possibly count.”

If anything, that made Aurora look more stricken. “It’s not fair! All the things I said in front of you—the way I acted. Sitting up alone at night and playing games before the fire in our underclothes! I would never have behaved that way if I thought—”

Phillip felt cold all over, cold that extended all the way from his heart to his fingertips. He had thought it was possible that Aurora wouldn’t return his feelings, but he hadn’t expected her to be horrified by his confession.

“I see,” he said stiffly, and made a formal bow. “I should not have spoken. I will take my leave of you.”

“Yes,” Aurora agreed. “You should go.”

And numbly, trying to show nothing of what he felt on his face, he did.