Back in the Enchanted Forest, nobody needed to travel such long distances. Most dryads never left their kingdom at all. And denizens of the outside territory mostly used horses.
“So,” Nate continued, removing the car keys and shoving them in his backpack, “now I’m going to join the others, and you and I will separate.” He flicked his eyes to where she was hovering between the car seats. “But you won’t just take off and disappear, will you?” Something like worry touched his features, but then he shook it off hastily. “You can do this, of course, if you want to. I … I’m not going to hold you back from it. It’s just that …” He bit his bottom lip, then released a breath. “I would want you to at least say goodbye before leaving. Anyway …” He shook his head again, throwing his backpack over his shoulder. “If you need anything, just tap me on the shoulder or something, and I’ll find a secure place for us to talk.”
Ariadne wished he could see the look on her face as she listened to him say all of that. Why did he think that she’d want to just take off and leave? She never had such a thought on her mind; never since she’d started living in his garden. Where did he think she would even go? Back home? And even so, she didn’t plan on leaving anytime soon.
It occurred to her that it was something that concerned Nate a lot—maybe he’d even thought that Ariadne agreed to go on this trip with him and drive all the way here only to have a chance to escape.
It felt almost as if … he didn’t want to lose her. And the realization made her blush.
Ariadne was sure glad he couldn’t see that.
The door opened, and Nate let her out. He watched her fly for the nearest shrub and hide behind it.
His friends were unloading from the car not too far away, talking loudly over each other. Now Ariadne could observe them all thoroughly.
There were the ones she’d already met—Hanna and Ray—unpacking some kind of a basket from their car trunk, discussing maps and something called “GPS”. Ray was, for some reason, certain they would get lost, while Hanna seemed more laid-back and confident.
Then there was a boy with dark brown hair, who seemed to be the youngest of the group. He wore some device around his neck—headphones, Ariadne guessed after searching her memory—that was attached to a phone in his hand. He grinned at Nate as he approached and clasped hands with him.
The last one was a girl; a very pretty one, just like Hanna. She had blonde hair a shade lighter than the other girl and was wearing a cute summer dress with a floral pattern on it. A braid looped around her head, holding her locks in place. She froze as soon as Nate’s eyes fell on her and gazed back at him as if he were some kind of a miracle.
Watching her made Ariadne feel as if she were intruding.
She lingered for a while, waiting for the group to haul their belongings from the car, lock it up, and start on their journey. As soon as they entered the forest, she took off, weaving through the tree trunks, keeping within the earshot but still far enough away.
It felt good to be back under the canopy, even though these woods lacked the familiar magic. The smell of damp soil and warm wood enveloped her from the start, taking the stress of the last few weeks away, leading her deeper into the forest.
The occasional wildflowers sprouted here and there, beckoning her to fly closer to the ground to circle around and sniff them, trying not to bump into the fuzzy bumblebees in the process. The conversation of her companions echoed all around, merging with the whisperings of the trees.
It’d been a while since Ariadne heard so many, all at once. These trees were different from those that grew in the Enchanted Forest. They told her about their daily struggles; their love for the sun and rain.
She felt the overwhelming need to stop and listen. Help them, heal them, soothe them. Every broken branch, every withered leaf made her heart ache.
She guessed it was one of the reasons—amongst many others—why a dryad was not supposed to leave the Enchanted Forest. A human world with its endless list of problems could make them go mad. This forest didn’t have magic to take care of it. It had to deal with so much struggle and hurt it was impossible to remain indifferent to it.
Ariadne knew it was wrong on so many levels, but she still couldn’t stop herself from reaching out and offering a drop of her magic to those who needed her assistance the most.
After walking through the woods for some time, the group of friends came upon a clearing divided by a creek. They spread a blanket in the shadow and settled all around it to have a little picnic.
Ariadne found some wild strawberries growing nearby and set to have a snack along with them.
Ray seemed to be still concerned about getting lost in the woods.
“Are you sure you know where we’re going?” he asked Hanna, nibbling on a sandwich.
“Relax.” Hanna leaned back against him. “I’ve been here many times.”
“My phone isn’t working,” the other guy—Ryan his name was, as Ariadne had found out—noted.
“Nobody’s phone’s working so deep in the forest.” Ray sighed. “So if we get lost, nobody will come and rescue us.”
Ariadne watched him with amusement. She could never understand such fear. Probably because it was impossible for a dryad to get lost in the forest—trees would always lead her wherever she wanted to go.
The pretty blonde—she heard them call her Mimi—sat not too far away from Nate, secretly watching him while he looked in the other direction. After observing her for nearly an hour, Ariadne couldn’t help but believe that there was something going on between her and him.
They barely talked to each other, and Nate mostly kept close to his other friends, but Mimi couldn’t take her eyes off of him. And every time she caught his glance, her face turned the color of berries in Ariadne’s hands. She wrung her hands and seemed to be lost in her thoughts most of the time. Hanna asked her something once or twice and had to wait minutes to hear a coherent reply.
Ariadne wondered if that was exactly how she herself acted around Nate.
No, it probably wasn’t like that. This girl was consumed by a feeling. Almost as if it was her first crush ever.
Though it wasn’t likely, considering she looked to be not much younger than others.
Nate, on his part, seemed to ignore the effect he had on Mimi. He didn’t give her any more attention than the others, and if anything, his interactions with her were scarce. But not because he felt the same and acted shy around her, Ariadne quickly concluded. She wanted to fly around them to feel for their emotions. Observing from afar and making assumptions was something she wasn’t used to. But as there was no way of doing it discreetly, Ariadne shoved that wish aside.
“My uncle drew me a map,” Hanna’s cheerful voice sounded from across the clearing.
“Yeah, I’ve seen that map,” Ray replied. “I wouldn’t be able to find the diner if I followed it. Just admit it—there’s no such thing as the Secret Lake. Let’s turn back and I’ll buy you an ice cream.”
“Only ice cream?”
Hanna’s laugh merged with the gurgling of the water rushing between the rocks, and whispers of the forest drowned out the rest of their conversation. Ariadne felt sleepy. She watched Nate sitting in the shadow, wind ruffling his hair, and couldn’t help but feel like she was having a déjà vu.
It was another clearing and another forest altogether.
Back then, she had this beautiful waterfall of hair her mother loved so much. It was decorated with an intricate wreath of butterflies and flowers, and the fabric of her baby-blue gown rustled as she walked through the woods with Lady Bronwyn at her side.
Her tutor—even though Ariadne never called her that, she felt more like family than anything else—always amazed her with her beautiful dresses and jewelry that was fit for a queen. That day she wore a midnight-blue gown that turned amethyst at the hem. Her long bell sleeves flowed behind her like a train.
Ariadne always thought that Lady Bronwyn was lovely, but when she looked at her
exquisitely braided hair with beads and flowers woven into it, her sapphire eyes, she couldn’t help but think that her tutor appeared to be very sad.
There was nothing surprising in that—Lady Bronwyn had a lot of things to be sad about.
She was well in her eighties by that time, but dryads lived long and didn’t lose their beauty for hundreds of years, so her tutor looked no older than thirty. She never married and never had children of her own. She had two siblings, both of whom Ariadne, unfortunately, had never had a chance to meet.
Her younger brother—Lady Bronwyn almost never mentioned him, as it was too painful for her to recall—had died at a very young age. And her younger sister …
Her story, even though she’d heard it only once, had both terrified and fascinated Ariadne.
If there was one law of the Enchanted Forest, it was this: never interact with humans.
Ariadne knew it from the time she was a baby rocking in her crib.
And she knew that those dryads who’d broken it had paid fully for it. One of those was Lady Bronwyn’s sister.
Her tutor was forbidden to speak about it. They’d let her stay in the Forest because Ariadne’s mother considered her one of her closest friends. She’d fought to let her stay and let her interact with and tutor Ariadne. But Ariadne knew that if Lady Bronwyn would let even a single word slip from her lips, she would be banished forever.
She thought it was unfair. Lady Bronwyn had already suffered so much. Lost her brother and sister, both of whom she loved so dearly, in such a horrible way. She often tried to fish out more information on the details of what happened, but her tutor kept her lips sealed, and deep inside, Ariadne felt it was unfair to ask her to recall her tragic past. But she still couldn’t help but wonder.
That day, they were taking their usual promenade around the woods when the sounds of a beautiful melody reached them from a nearby clearing. Ariadne took off and flew to see where it was coming from with Lady Bronwyn on her tail shouting after her to not get too far away.
But Ariadne stopped abruptly as she landed on the edge of a clearing and beheld what appeared before her eyes.
Not what but who. There was a little boy sitting on a bench in the middle of the clearing, playing the piano.
Ariadne gasped, stepping back. She’d never seen anything like that before in the Forest. The melody he played was soothing and enchanting, and he seemed to be immersed in it fully. His unruly hazelnut locks fell onto his forehead. Fairy lights flowed all around him in the air, along with a bunch of butterflies and pixies, all drawn to the beautiful music.
“Who is he?” Ariadne whispered to herself. “What is he doing here?”
She heard the skirt of Lady Bronwyn’s dress rustle on the grass as her tutor stepped up next to her.
“I’ve never seen a piano in the Enchanted Forest,” Ariadne said to her, never taking her eyes off the boy. “Things don’t have souls, do they?”
“They don’t,” Lady Bronwyn replied in a calm voice. “But some humans give a part of their own soul to the things they love the most.”
Ariadne drew in a breath. “I want to go to him. I want to help him.”
Her tutor shook her head, beads in her hair sparkling. “You can’t.”
“But he’s hurting!”
“He’s already healing now. We shouldn’t intervene.”
Shouldn’t? Ariadne thought. More like we are forbidden to.
Who’d even set those rules?
She wanted to help this boy herself. She knew she could do it much faster than the Forest magic alone.
But even more than that she wanted to talk to him. Come up and introduce herself. All her friends at the castle were only interested in fashion and games that never seemed fun to Ariadne. If they played a musical instrument, it sounded flat and boring. None of them could play the piano like that—as if they were following their own heart and soul and were willing to go wherever it took them.
It was probably the music itself that had led this boy into the Forest. Ariadne kept watching him in wonder. He was so different from the souls she’d met before in the woods. Not absentminded but deeply focused. Almost real.
She made a step forward. Lady Bronwyn caught at her hand.
“Your Highness, please. We should leave now.” There was deep concern etched into her voice.
“I won’t touch him,” Ariadne pleaded. “I promise. I just want to come a little closer.”
Lady Bronwyn closed her eyes and shook her head.
“We should go back. Your mother will be looking for you.”
“But I thought we still had a lot of time left!”
“We have to go back now.”
Ariadne tried to protest some more, but all of her pleads were ignored. She looked over her shoulder at the boy still playing the piano, that beautiful melody spilling from the clearing and into the rest of the forest like the waters of the Crystal River. She silently promised him she’d find a way to escape from the castle and come back.
But when she flew to that clearing on the next day, the boy was gone.
She’d never seen him in the Forest after that.
Ariadne fluttered her eyelids open to find a shadow looming over her. For the first few seconds, she wasn’t sure if she was still asleep or not. She didn’t remember herself drifting off to sleep. The reality seemed to slip out of her grip as she reached to take a hold of it. But then her mind unveiled, the remains of her dream dissipating, and she could finally see him clearly.
The boy—the one with the dark hair, Ryan—was staring right at her.
“Hey!” he shouted to the others. “There’s something strange lying in the gra—”
Ariadne went rigid. Before she knew it, she was flapping her wings, launching herself into the air, and escaping before he had a chance to seize her.
“What is it, Ryan?” she could hear Hanna’s voice ring out over the clearing.
“I’m not sure …” He was almost breathing down her neck. “Have any of you packed a butterfly net?”
Ariadne pushed forward. She could hear Ryan make a sound as he leaped over the creek and followed her to the line of trees.
“Ryan!” somebody shouted after them—Nate? “Ryan, wait!”
Ariadne wished she could fly any faster. She wove through the trees, rising higher into the air, her panicked mind giving her no time to think what she was doing.
She knew she had to stop. She’d promised Nate she wouldn’t leave. And even though she’d easily find a way back to him through the woods, she didn’t want him to assume, even for a second, that she’d changed her mind.
She didn’t want him to worry about her.
Soon enough, the forest got filled with voices of the whole company. Ray and Hanna packed their stuff on the go, crying after Ryan not to get too far-off. The only thing Ryan shouted back was, “I’m here! I’m here!”, as he panted hard, trying to catch up with Ariadne.
Ariadne knew there was no point in trying to hide. She glowed like a lightbulb and was highly visible in the shadow of the foliage.
“Ryan, stop!” she could hear Nate’s voice sounding closer now.
“Ryan, you will get lost in the woods!” came Mimi’s cry; she was not too far away, too. “We promised we won’t lose sight of each other! Please, Ryan!”
Her desperate cry made Ariadne slow down. It wasn’t just about her now—she was hurting someone else by leading this boy deeper into the woods. She looked ahead and suddenly noticed something glittering between the distant trunks of the trees.
As she flew forward, slower and slower with each flap of her wings, her eyes grew bigger and bigger.
She could see the water ahead, and not just some regular water—this one was glowing from within, illuminated by a basin carved of crystal.
The water lilies were in full bloom, magical pollen drifting on the phantom breeze. She could even see the nixies, hear their giggle as they splashed in the iridescent stream.
Jewel-like flowers chim
ed as they swayed by the shore; fairy lights rose up from the grass that was littered with crystals of all shapes and colors.
Ariadne gasped, halting between the trees.
Crystal Lake!
How did she get there? Was she back in the Enchanted Forest? Was she hallucinating?
She had to warn the others. Had to lead them away from here. If anybody noticed—
She heard Ryan cry out in astonishment and whirled to see him at the edge of the clearing, staring out at the water in a daze.
“Hanna!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “I’ve found it! I’ve found the Secret Lake!”
Neither nixies nor pixies playing in the grass paid any attention to him. And even though Ariadne had always thought them too distracted to notice anything, she knew well enough that they were skittish and especially sensitive to the loud noises.
That’s when it hit her—it wasn’t the Crystal Lake. Not the real one.
It was one of those mirages she’d told Nate about.
And she was probably the one activating it.
Ariadne dove down and circled around the lilies. Everything seemed so real, but at the same time, the important part was missing.
The magic.
She couldn’t sense its flow no matter how hard she tried. Or wished.
This was not the real thing.
The edge of the clearing was filling up with people. First, Mimi and Nate—both wide-eyed, Mimi pressing her hands to her mouth. Then, a few seconds later, Ray, cursing silently. And, finally, Hanna.
Out of all of them, she was the only one who didn’t look shocked. Her face was glowing with victory.
“I’ve told you!” she exclaimed, squealing with exhilaration. “It is real!”
“This thing had brought me here!” Ryan’s voice reached to Ariadne’s ears. “There it is, flying above the water.”
Enchanted Summer Page 8