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ARTHUR is anything but happy to see Mercy. He grabs the girl, throws her behind him.
“Do you see what they have done, child?” he says. “Do you see?”
Mercy looks around. She does not see anything out of the ordinary. There is the forest floor. There is the tiny shoe one could not see if it were not known to be there. There is the spot Ursula spread her concealment spell in the dark of night. But wait. The sheep. She can see the sheep. What had happened to the spell?
She turns to Arthur. “How—” she says.
He points to the tops of the trees. “There,” he says. “Up there.”
And she sees the rest of the sheep, dangling from nets, bleating from the trees. “How did they come to fly?” she says.
“Traps,” Arthur says. “And I am certain there are men watching. We must make haste.”
“But what must we do?” Mercy says.
“Cut them down,” Arthur says. He slides a dagger from his belt and begins climbing a tree.
“But it is too high,” Mercy says. “You will injure them.”
“They are no good to us up here,” Arthur says. He looks down at her. “And you have magic.”
Yes. She does have magic. She will make a soft place for them to land. And this is precisely what she does, following Arthur to every tree, pointing her staff, hiding behind the trunks as he bids her, though she does not know from what she is hiding. If it were men, would they not have seen her by now?
“Take care,” Arthur says when Mercy steps behind another tree. “There is one still waiting for its prey.”
Mercy glances at the ground. A net, covered in leaves, lies just beside her foot. She steps away. “And how do we hide the cut traps?” Mercy says.
Arthur lets go of the tree he is climbing and thumps to the ground. “We take them with us,” he says. “We use them.”
“Why are the men not watching their traps?” Mercy says.
Arthur looks around the forest, as if he, too, has wondered the very same thing. “I do not know,” he says. “Perhaps we have fortune on our side. But I do not think it will be for long. Sheep do not roam woods without a shepherd.”
“I can cast another concealment spell,” Mercy says.
“I fear your strength will be needed for something far more important,” Arthur says. “Let the sheep be found.” He slaps one on the back, but it does not move. “Go on, then,” he says to the animal. “Run.”
Though they are in a grave circumstance, Mercy cannot help but smile. “Perhaps they wait for your daughter.”
Arthur looks at the girl. “Yes, well,” he says. “Hazel will not be coming up.”
The air shimmers around them, and suddenly, unexpectedly, the very girl they speak of is before them. She looks from one to the other.
“You are safe then?” she says.
“You children do not listen,” Arthur says. “You must listen if you want to keep your lives.”
“But you did not come back,” Hazel says. “And Mercy did not come back.” She looks at her friend. “You should not have come here.”
“You should not have come here, either,” Mercy says. She holds her head straight and high.
“Both of you,” Arthur says. “Back this very moment. I shall be right behind you.”
“What about the sheep?” Mercy says. “The shepherdess is here now.”
Arthur looks at his daughter. “Yes,” he says. “I suppose she is.” He takes both of Hazel’s hands in his. “I need you to send your sheep away.”
“Send them away?” Hazel says. “But we need them.”
“There are traps,” Arthur says. He holds up one of the nets so she can see. “People have been here. They have been setting traps. They are still looking.”
Hazel looks from her father’s face to the traps and then to her sheep. “How will we manage?”
“If they stay,” Arthur says. “It is only a matter of time before we are found.”
“But the portal is tiny,” Hazel says. “They will never discover something so small.”
“It is far better to take precautions,” Arthur says. “Please, daughter. Send them away. I want you all to live. I want you all to pass your days in safety.”
“And we will stay in this underground home?” Hazel says. “We will live here forever? The king will stop looking?”
Arthur shakes his head. “We must get back,” he says. “We must make haste.” His voice, dear reader, is splintered, pleading, full of sorrows he cannot speak today. “Please.”
And because he is her father, because she loves him, because she loves the children who hide behind a tiny portal, Hazel does. She sends her friends away. She whispers in their ears, begs them to find another home, for the time being, watches them go.
Arthur hugs his daughter when the last sheep moves out of their sight. “Thank you, my daughter.”
Hazel cannot say a word in return.
Arthur pulls away and looks at Mercy. “Now,” he says. “You must make haste back through the portal. I shall be right behind you.” He looks around the forest. “There might very well be eyes, returning at this precise moment.”
The girls do as he bids them and disappear through the portal. Arthur takes a deep breath, sweeps his eyes once more across the forest that appears to be unchanged, but for the missing sheep, and follows them.
***
IT is true that there is a man, a very young man, watching Arthur and the girls. Only he is not watching them so much as he is sleeping, for this young man stayed up far too late playing cards with his friends in a tent last eve. They made sure to remain as quiet as they could, with as little light as possible, for the captain did not like them staying up too late before an important day such as this one. And after all the traps had been hung throughout the forest, this man was, alas, the very one put in charge of the first watch in this exact part of the forest.
It is with great irony that we might remember what Captain Greyson tells his men on the eve before any momentous task. “Much has been missed because someone did not get enough sleep,” he says.
Yes. It is true, for right here, before us, is a man who has folded his hands and rested, rather than keeping diligent watch over his part of the forest, and just what has he missed? Two children. A man. A portal, most important of all. The very things his fellow men have spent their days searching for, and this man missed it due to a nap. His fellow soldiers might have gone home for a good nights’ sleep in their own beds, rather than continuing the search. They might have enjoyed a hot meal round their tables. They might have been set free.
But, you see, one man wanted for a nap.
Yet there is something.
Oh, yes. There is something.