Page 8 of Faerie Magic

Chapter3

My heart thudded in my ears as the woman's wide eyes scanned me like I was the answer to her prayer.

I gulped. Surely she was speaking to someone else. I slowly peeked over my shoulder. But no one was behind me except the Ringling Brothers crew watching me impatiently.

Leaning forward toward the lady, I stole one more glance over my other shoulder, just in case I’d missed something before engaging her. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Do I know you?”

The crease line between my brows ached from frowning so much in the past hour between the chain mail cops, the castle, and this dungeon check-in process from a Hitchcock movie.

The energy the woman in front of me had exerted at her excited declaration deflated instantly and she instead flashed me a sad sort of smile. “My apologies, dear. Of course you don’t.” She added an awkward wink to her statement, which really sent me squirming.

Had I said “what the hell” enough in my head since arriving here?

Still, maybe I’d found someone who could tell me what was going on.

I leaned farther forward, placing my hands on the solid wooden table she was sitting at as she organized and adjusted the papers the guard had given her.

“Look, I have no idea where I am. I don’t know why I was taken here. Do you think you could tell me what’s going on?” I squinted as I tried to read the papers in front of her. All I caught was my name scrawled along the top before she lay her arm down on top of the rest.

She gave me a terse smile. “I’m not sure what you think is going on, dear. But you’ve been picked up for trespassing on royal territory and brought in for sentencing. What did you think would happen if you went traipsing around Medeis Lake?”

I fidgeted but stood my ground. “Medeis Lake? Should that mean something?”

Frowning, the woman blinked a few times before giving me a once-over and then scanning her papers again.

Her silence gave me more time to try to convince her to tell me something. Anything. “I just don’t know how I got here. I think there’s been a serious misunderstanding. Since you recognize me, maybe you could help me.” I excitedly reached out to grab her hand. “We could talk—”

Before I could grasp her, the woman scratched her nose and raised her gaze away from her papers and focused on me solely. “I don’t have any idea who you are, child. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get this done so I can continue with the others that have been waiting patiently.”

“Yeah, get outta the line,” a raised, high-pitched voice screeched behind me. I didn’t bother turning around.

The woman at this station went from excitedly knowing who I was to blowing me off. Why?

She jotted down a few more notes on my papers before switching to her notebook and scrawling some illegible chicken scratch there as well. Then she pushed back from the desk and gathered the papers into a thick red envelope and tied it shut with a golden tassel.

“Follow me.” She turned on her heel so quickly, I had to jog to catch up.

She pushed through a wooden door behind where she had been sitting. Once more, I stared in awe as a narrow door opened into a massive room. Only this one looked essentially like every court room I’d ever been in. The only difference here was that the back row was filled with additional strange-looking people.

But that made sense. They were probably related to the string of folks waiting to come in that I’d passed in line.

The woman with me pressed her hand into the small of my back and led me to sit in a chair alongside the depressing brownish-yellow walls.

She sat beside me and folded one leg over the other.

“Do you have anything further to add, Ms. Bingham?”

At the front of the room sat a judge in a familiar black gown seated at the head of the courtroom. Her voice was authoritative and demanded respect as she asked her question.

I sighed softly. Finally, a person I was used to. Even though it was a judge and they hadn’t been very good for me in the past, it was something familiar and I’d take it.

I watched the current proceedings come to a close. A woman sat alone at the defendant’s table, which was closest to us, her hands folded in front of her. Two guards decked out in the same attire all the other ones had been wearing sat at the other table. The woman didn’t appear to have a lawyer with her. I frowned. How was that fair? Unless she was representing herself.

I recognized the way she was cracking her knuckles and shifting her fingers around in their clasped position, and it spoke to me. Those anxious movements. I’d seen it lots of times since being in the foster system. She was scared but wearing a brave face. Heck, I’d done it myself let alone seen it from others.

Courtrooms were terrifying. I’d been in enough that I hadn’t wanted to be back—both with placements and breaking a few laws. Nothing major, but enough to scare me.

I needed a plan. I needed someone defending me. I glanced over at the first-nice-then-uppity gatekeeper sitting next to me. She was silent and sat incredibly still. I needed something even if she had just blown me off.

---