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A/N: Here goes- another chapter.
“What would we be punished for?” Beauty asked. “We’ve been good people-.”
“I don’t think we’re being punished at all! I have a feeling we’re all going to enjoy living in the country more than in town. Aren’t we?” Lily’s attempt at optimism fell flat in the silence of the hansom cab. She pressed her face against the window.
“How long will it take for us to get there?” she asked.
“Two and a half days, if nothing happens, and the weather clears up. We’ll be stopping in Descat this evening, but from then on it’s just the woods.” Their father answered.
“If nothing happens?” Lily asked, not sure she wanted to hear the answer.
“These woods are full of bandits, attacking all the London travelers who want to visit the country.”
Iris shuddered, and turned her attention back outside of the cab.
She stared out her window, down at the stunted kitchen garden, and finally stood up and stretched her limbs, heading downstairs. She let herself out into the garden. Dusk was falling, and there was nobody but her in that peaceful place. She poked around among the turnips for a while, pulling up weeds and killing insects, until she grew bored with the plain, ordinary roots. Standing up, she wiped a streak of mud across her brow, and surveyed the rest of the garden. It lay in orderly rows of plain vegetables- turnips this row, then pumpkins, then tall stalks of beans and peas leaning upon their trellises. She was about to turn and go back to her room when a different plant distracted her. She stepped over the small squash plants and squinted at it. It had somehow gotten dark while she was in the garden, and she could barely make out the plant’s pointy leaves, and the thin thorns protruding from the stem.
“A rose.” Beauty whispered, and bent down to smell the perfumed blossom. “What are you doing here?”
“Ma’am?” Beauty spun around. One of the maids was standing behind her, a basket full of carrots in her arms. “Are you coming inside?”
“Yes…” Beauty’s eyes traveled up from the rose to the forest that loomed behind the inn. “Yes, I think I will.”
“Aye?” the cab driver looked up from his horse.
“I have a question…when we drove through Descat, I saw a rose in everyone’s garden- even this inn has one! Could- could you tell me why?”
The cabbie shrugged. “This close to the forest, the only way to keep from being cursed is having a rose in your garden. Where you’re going…well, let’s just say that all the roses in the world won’t be able to protect you. You couldn’t pay me enough to live there.”
“What do you mean – cursed?” Beauty asked, carefully. She drew her hand tight around the handkerchief in her pocket, the texture of the embroidered rose biting into her palm.
“They say something strange lives in these woods…some sorcerer, or the like. I don’t know about that. All I know, is that sometimes people disappear, just vanish. Take care of yourself.” He pulled his hat on.
Lily, Iris, and their father crowded into the stable, carrying their bags, followed by the same maid Beauty had met in the garden.
“Beauty! There you are!” her father cried, too agitated to be angry that she was in a stable. “There’s news that bandits are on the loose, so we should hurry to get to Drummerstown as soon as possible!”
The three piled onto the cab, but the maid held Beauty back. Reaching into her pocket, she withdrew a gleaming pistol. “You may need this. Especially if you are going to insist on living in those woods.”
Beauty hesitantly took the gun and wrapped it in her handkerchief. “Thank you.” She whispered. “I’ll try to return it.”
The maid shrugged. “You need it more than I do.”