The Hunt of the Grimalkin (Erresuma Book 1) by Dani Swanson (read aloud books txt) 📕

She felt tired, worn out, and sick. Her stomach was growling, but the thought of food made her nauseous. Her head was once again pounding behind her right eye and she struggled to concentrate on anything going on around her. It felt like a confusing dream, and yet, like Deja Vu as well.

The fairies had brought her to the center of their home in the forest. She noticed how the fairy homes seemed to be formed in concentric circles becoming less crowded and grander the closer to the center they went. They brought her some dried meat, cheese, and fruit to eat and a bottle of wine. Getting settled in the center of the large fairy circle, more and more fairies came out to see her. The elaborate homes were no longer just mushrooms but entire trees and she could see the golden light shining out from their windows through the bark and the mushrooms. She sat with the pink haired fairy and watched the other busy fairies dance and play.

“How did you do it? Where are you from? Where are you going? Why are you here? What is your name?” The fairy was talking a mile a minute in her ear. “What is your name?” The fairy asked her. “They call me Willow,” she offered in her small voice without waiting for a response. Willow then continued to ask variations of the same question over and over again, “How did you do that?”

“I have no idea how I did that,” the girl finally answered in a confused voice.  “And I was going west to try to find someone to tell me where I am.” Willow sat down on her knee to listen to her answers. Fig, on her other side, nervously watched Willow.  “And I’m from… well my name is...” she started to panic. She still couldn’t remember anything from before waking up a few days ago on the bank of the river. “I’m sorry,” she said with a lump in her throat, choking back tears. “I can’t seem to remember who I am or where I came from.” Crocodile tears poured from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. Willow watched her with a look of concern on her face.

The distraught girl continued to tell her story to the small fairy through her tears. She recounted how she woke up, met Fig, and followed him through the forest. She told Willow about the cabin in the middle of the woods and the strange shadow she had seen a couple of times now. She displayed her book, ‘Creatures,’ and the scraps of paper with her handwritten clues. She got so upset telling her story she started to hyperventilate.

Willow flew up from her spot and got really close to her face. She could see little gold specs shining on Willow’s face and her blue eyes stared back into to hers. “You need to breathe!” she squeaked in a panic as she squeezed the girl’s cheeks. The girl shut her eyes and started to slow her breathing between hiccups.

“What am I going to do?” the girl sobbed. Willow had confronted her with the questions that had been plaguing her befuddled mind, and it was overwhelming.

Willow and the other fairies made a blanket for the girl out of all their little blankets, each an incredible masterpiece in its own right. There were hundreds of blankets stitched together in a patchwork of color and materials: leather, feathers, moss, wool, and a slippery substance she couldn’t name. The girl covered as much of herself with it as she could and stared blankly into the fire. Fig sat at her feet, carefully watching the fairies and the girl with a look of concern. His tail had not gone down the entire time he was in the fairy circle. The girl rested her chin on her folded arms upon her knees, slowly rocking herself as one would to comfort a crying baby.

“You’ll find the way. You’ll remember,” Willow said, trying to be comforting. The little green fairy whom she had saved flew up to her, pressed a tender kiss on her forehead, and dropped a vile in her lap before flying away. The vile shimmered in the moonlight with millions of specks of silver. “Fairy dust,” Willow explained. “You can use it for your magic.”

The girl started to cry again, then her tears turned to hysterical laughter as she laid her head back. Most of the fairies were frightened by her abrupt laugh and scattered to their houses. Willow stayed and looked at her. “You have magic. You may not remember it, but you used it today.”

“All I did was pick up a fairy and hold him,” the girl responded, with a cynical tone to her voice. “I haven’t done anything but wander uselessly for days.”

Willow flew up and condescendingly patted the girl on her cheek. It wasn’t very reassuring.

The fire slowly burned down; the little fairies that were still up watching the girl from afar retired to their homes. Fig curled up on the girl’s cloak and slept softly. Willow stayed up with the girl and mirrored how she was sitting watching the fire, except she was facing the girl, sitting on the girl’s forearm. A few crickets chirping in the distance and the crackling of the embers were all that could be heard. “Let me see your book.” Willow said after a long silence.

The girl started at the little voice. She reached over to her bag and pulled out the old leather book. She set the book down on the ground and the little fairy hovered over the words to read about all the creatures in the book. Willow would occasionally talk out loud to herself with a, “Yes, that’s right,” or would say something was incorrect.

The girl slowly started to shake her pensive mood and paid attention to the fairy. She was awestruck as the fairy flipped the pages