Page 60 of The Abandoned Princess

When I finally reached the spot directly above the boy’s stone, I leaned out to peer down at him. A hand caught my elbow, steadying me.

I smiled back at Xander, realizing I had never doubted for a second that he would be right behind me.

“How are you at tying knots?” I asked, as I took one end of the rope and let the rest drop loose.

“Once again, I suspect you’re the expert,” he said, retrieving the loose end of the rope.

My fingers were already working to tie a loop in the rope that I could slip around me. The rope responded to my movements with delightful ease compared to the dresses and blankets I was used to knotting.

Within seconds, I had the loop under my arms and secured. Lori appeared, and she and Xander conferred quietly, arranging themselves so they both had a secure hold on the rope and pulling it until it became taut.

“I’ll go down the same way I used to with the tower,” I said, taking the length of the rope in my hands. “Just let it out slowly as I go down.”

“We’re ready,” Xander said in a solid voice, and I once again felt the certainty of knowing I could depend on him.

With a nod, I stepped backward over the side of the waterfall.

Xander grunted, but the rope held firm, letting out gradually as I walked my feet from rock to rock, my back toward the pool, and my hands gripping tightly to the rope above me.

I peered over my shoulder and moved to my right, slightly further away from the waterfall itself. I needed to maneuver myself into the perfect position so that I came down behind the child, out of his sight.

“We’re nearly there!” I called up to the others. “Just another yard or two.”

I had expected the roar of the waterfall to keep the boy from noticing my words, but he jerked around in response to them. For one heart-stopping moment, we stared at each other, the awareness in his eyes proving that my birthday had changed nothing.

“Let me down!” I screamed, but I was already dropping with a stomach-lurching sensation.

The boy screamed defiance, jerking himself away. And as predicted, his foot slipped, and he began to topple toward the waterfall accompanied by his mother’s scream.

I pushed off with one foot, angling myself directly toward him. My swinging bulk collided with him, driving him in the opposite direction. Seesawing wildly, he tried to get his feet under him, only to fail and topple forward off the rock.

His father was already in motion, making a wild leap toward him, and he arrived just in time to catch the toddler in his arms.

I swung at the end of the rope, bumping against the rock as I tried to steady myself. My wild movement prevented me from gaining a clear view of what was happening, but I caught flashes of the mother’s arrival and the boy sobbing and reaching for her. Now that shock had overtaken his defiance, he was desperate for his mother’s arms.

At no point did the adults give any indication they could see me dangling beside the waterfall on a rope—yet further proof that my birthday had changed nothing. My age might have caused the unexpected hiccup in the enchantment, but it was obviously a permanent hiccup.

A grunt sounded above me, and I began slowly inching upward. I fought to get my feet against the rock again to steady my movement, eventually managing to scramble the last few feet over the top of the rocks.

As soon as I lay sprawled across them, Xander rushed forward to kneel beside me.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

I beamed up at him. “Yes. Thanks to you. And the boy is all right too. Come on, let’s go check on him.”

“Untie yourself first,” Lori said. “We should return the rope.”

The knot was just as wet as I was from the spray of the waterfall, and my fingers kept slipping. I eventually gave up and let Lori untangle it before coiling the rope back into its original loops.

We all climbed carefully down the way we had come, keeping as far from the waterfall’s spray as possible. Xander kept stopping to offer me a steadying hand, so Lori soon passed us, making her way back to where I had picked up the rope.

When we reached the spot, we all paused to look across at the family. The child was smiling again, babbling happily about cake, both chubby arms wrapped around his mother’s neck. The faces of the parents told me they wouldn’t so easily forget the stressful moment, however, and I wondered if it might prompt them to move into a town. At least there they would have a community to help keep an eye on the child. No mother, however vigilant, could survive life out here in the forest without ever taking her eyes off an adventurous child.

“I wonder if I was like that as a youngster?” I said. “Some of the palace children were so calm and quiet they would sit at their mother’s side for hours, occupied with whatever small toys she gave them.”

“I definitely can’t imagine you as a compliant child like that,” Xander said with a grin. “And even if this family doesn’t know it, they can be thankful you’re the daring person you are. If you’d been even a few seconds later in getting down there…”

We both shuddered at what would have happened.

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