Tales from The Word Below

Percival's Penance Part 1

I close my eyes and allow my ears to fill with the leaves rustling in the breeze. The dappled sun makes it way through the canopy warming my face as the grass prickles the skin on my back. Resisting the urge to move, I concentrate on separating the sounds around me. A mouse scuttles through the debris covering the forest floor to my right, and a squirrel scuttles across the branches.

I turn my head and laugh. 'I hear you, Percival. You can't sneak up on me.'

Opening my eyes, I pin the wood sprite with my gaze just as he emerges from a tree trunk.

'You cheated. You used magic,' Percival grumbles.

The peace I feel while in the woods is ruined and I sit up, clasping my knees to my chest, a frown drawing my eyebrows together in what I hoped was a fierce countenance. 'Percival, you know I did no such thing.'

The sprite changed to the human form he preferred to use when out of the sprite glade, appearing as a male of about four and a half a foot with startling leaf-green eyes and floppy dark hair.

Many sprites found other creatures treated them better when they were in human form. Percival knew it did not matter to me, but he still changed anyway.

He shuffled his feet and blushed as he dipped his head in shame. 'Sorry, Eleanora, I didn't mean it.'

My mood changes instantly, a smile curling my lips. 'You disturbed a mouse and a squirrel,' I tell him. 'You forgot about the animals.'

His tone is sulky as he tells me, 'The trees and plants and the flowers are all I am interested in. I don't have time to be bothered with animals.'

'Percival!' I am shocked. 'The animals are as important to the wellbeing of the forest as the vegetation is.'

'Let your mother and sister worry about the creatures of the forest.' Percival responds petulantly.

His tone grates on my nerves. Although he is often moody surely, like me, he wants to make the most of the few hours we have left together before I leave for University. If only he had agreed to come with me we would be together for the next two years.

'You could be so much more than someone who tends to the forest,' I say. 'Mother said she would sponsor you to attend university.

'Not all of us have glorious futures mapped out for us,' Percival says, his voice so low I strain to catch the words. 'And not all of us want one. Some of us are happy to tend to the land that nourishes our magic.' Percival shakes his hair angrily out of his eyes before disappearing.

Rising to my feet, I brush dry leaves and twigs from my new emerald green dress, and tuck a stray strand of hair behind my ear. I am annoyed with Percival, but I am honest enough to recognise it was partly because his discontent mirrored my own. I wished I too could decline a place at the university and remain here. Only the choice was not so easy for one of my kind to make.

'Percival,' I call , searching the surrounding vegetation for signs of the sprite. Where had he gone? There was no tell tale movement or shimmer indicating he was still around.

Hold on, what was that? My head swings back around, and I crouch to get a better look at a shadow at the base of a tree. A black line of mould radiates out from the roots, criss-crossing the ground as it reaches out for another life to take hold of.

My hand covers my mouth as my stomach clenches. Oh, no. Not another patch of blight, and so close to home. My mother and sister have been working night and day with the sprites to clear patches all over the forest, but none have been this close to the village.

'Eleanora?'

I ignore the call as I trace the line of sickness further into the forest, all the while looking for signs Percival is still near. Sprites using blight sick trees to move through the forest run the risk of becoming ill.

'Eleanora!'

I jump. The voice is right behind me.

'Mother says you are to come now. You will make us all late for the reception.'

Botheration! I had forgotten all about the grand gathering for the Queen's second daughter, Princess Petunia. Glancing down at my crumpled gown I sigh. Mother will be more than displeased when she see the state I am in.

Effie tutted. As the oldest of the three sisters, she often has to pull the Gennie and me out of scrapes, saving us from mother's wrath.

'Oh my, just look at you.' She mutters some words and runs her hand down the length of my gown. 'There, good as new.'

I check her handiwork. No one would guess I had spent the morning rambling in the forest. I mutter a thank you that does not sound gracious even to my own ears, causing Effie to glare.

'I am grateful, really I am it's just...,' I use the toe of my shoe to scuff through the debris by my feet. 'It is hard being the only one who does not have full control of their gift,' I finally admit.

Effie places a hand on my arm. 'It is all right. I still remember when even the simplest spell I cast went awry. Your gift will mature. Going away to university will help with that. With the masters' help, you will find your true calling, then everything will fall into place.'

'I suppose.' I wished I felt as optimistic about my future as Effie did.

'What were you doing out here anyway?' Effie asks, glancing around the clearing.

'I was....' I stop, turning back to the tree as I remember about the blight. All traces of the disease are gone.

Did I imagine it? I shake my head. No, it had been here all right. Percival must have worked his magic. My brows draw together. It is dangerous for wood sprites to fight the blight alone. I hope he has the good sense to go find someone to cleanse him of the blight's taint.

Effie drops an arm over my shoulders. 'I know you would prefer to be a protector of nature like mother and Gennie, but our talents lean in a different direction. We cannot change out natures and I believe, your gift, like mine, lends itself towards helping creatures rather than the earth.'

I sigh. For someone who was training to be a healer, Effie is often inept at reading her fellow creatures.

The trunk of the tree in front of me shimmers and a grinning face pops out of the wood before disappearing again.

'Come on, Ellie.' Effie's arm tugs me gently away. 'If we delay any longer mother will be angry. It is such an honour for Magnus to allow us to attend the royal reception, and we simply cannot be late.'

As I allow my sister to pull me from the clearing, I say, 'He does us no honour. He only invited us because his family would not return from the city and he does not want to entertain the royal party alone.'

I move through the woods, keeping pace with my sister, but throw a last glance over my shoulder, hoping to find Percival. At least his kind were not subject to the political obligations of we greater creatures. He would spend the afternoon frolicking in the forest while I endure polite small talk.

Effie urges me to move more quickly as she carries on our conversation. 'Surely you are curious to meet the princess, and your other classmates. I mean you will be spending the next two years together, and it will be nice to know people when you arrive in The Capital.'

Percival has obviously gone. I quicken my steps to rejoin Effie.

'I guess I am a little curious,' I answer her. Not enough to endure an evening with the loathsome Governor of the Wyld Woods, Magnus Baaronson, I add for my own benefit.

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