The Fae Princess (The Pacific Princesses Book 2) Ektaa Bali (free ebook reader txt) 📖

“Oh, it wasn’t that bad,” joked Vidya, swatting him on his arm. She couldn’t even remember crossing the boundary with Jimmy the other night. He had been going much too fast.

Lily fluttered next to Vidya.

“What’s the holdup?” she asked. “Look,” she pointed to the forest floor beneath them.

Squinting, Vidya heard Willow take a sharp breath. “Bunyip tracks.”

“They’re everywhere,” admitted Lily. “All over the place.”

Ice trickled down Vidya’s spine. “How fresh are they?”

Lily’s shoulders moved up and down as she took a deep breath. “Recent, within the last hour.”

“Let’s keep moving then,” Vidya replied.

“We’re just walking further in to danger,” Willow muttered under his breath. He made to move onto the next tree, but Vidya placed a hand on his chest.

“Willow,” she hissed. “I had a dream about the Flower of Awakening the other night.”

He met her eyes with startled ones. “And do you know what she told me?”

“What?” he whispered.

“If we don’t restore her magic, the Fae are dead. Forever,” she poked him in the chest. “Stop complaining, and let’s do what we need to do, okay?”

She watched Willow as his navy wings drooped with guilt. He swallowed. “I know Vidya, I’m sorry. I want to help as much as anyone else.”

“I know, Will,” she said kindly. “Let’s just keep moving, hey?”

He nodded and took off for the next tree, waving the others to follow. They branch-hopped through the forest for the next hour without anything serious happening, but Vidya could not shake a creepy feeling itching at her, like insects crawling in her belly, that danger was all around them.

The trees grew closer and closer together, which meant that the canopy overhead let in less and less light. Eventually, the trees clustered so close to one another that the branches and leaves overlapped above them, closing the canopy completely. The kids had to squint through the darkness, and it gave the air a sort of heavy, sinister feeling. Nothing moved in the forest around them, no birds flit through the trees, and no small animals pushed through the leaf litter in the moist earth below. The kids found it hard to breathe the heavy moist air that had the mild smell of rotting fruit.

They stopped almost a dozen times to check the map. They were all nervous, jumping at random sounds, like when the wind rustled a branch or made a whistling noise between the trees. And they found it difficult to keep track of the landmarks they were supposed to be following. They turned left at the banana shaped tree but realised too late that they had missed the patch of monstrous pumpkins, mistaking them for large rocks. They had to double back to stay on the right track, but this type of thing went on and on for hours. Her father’s words rang clear in her ears the entire time. ‘Always be alert in the Fae forest, Vidya, there’s no telling what could happen.’

They had been travelling along in silence for a few minutes when Willow raised his hand up in the air so abruptly, he almost fell off the branch he was on. His arms wheeled frantically through the air before he steadied himself.

Vidya froze, one hand on the trunk of her own tree, when she saw them. Two enormous shapes shifted on the ground below. Bunyips. The four children froze on their branches, wondering what to do. Had they walked into a trap? But the Bunyips showed no sign of noticing them. Just as Vidya was turning to signal to Lotus to move away from there, they heard two gravelly voices like rocks grating together, having a conversation.

“Do you smell that?” said one.

Snuffling sounds came from one of the Bunyips below.

“Nah, smell nothing,” the other replied.

Vidya noticed they spoke slowly, speaking the words as if they were new and unusual to their mouths. She imagined that talking through a mouthful of very large teeth would be difficult.

“It smells like Fae,” grumbled the first. “Sweet and sticky and yummy smelling.”

“Nar, all I smell is you,” replied the other.

“When do you think we’ll make a move?”

“What are you talking about?”

“When did the King say we’re launching our attack? I can fly really well now, I think.”

“I don’t know.”

“You never listen! I think it was supposed to be in three nights’ time. When the moon is sleeping in the sky.”

“When is the moon sleeping in the sky?”

“When it’s a new moon, you dolt. That means there’s no moon in the sky. Geez, the Flower of Awakening skipped you a little bit, hey.”

“Leave me alone,” complained the other. “I’m hungry.”

“No problems there. In three nights, you’ll get to eat all the Fae you can fit into your huge tummy.”

They began laughing, an awful, grating, throaty noise that made the kids listening above, cringe. Vidya cast a look behind her to where Lily was frozen on her branch, her eyes huge. Lotus was next to her, his bow knocked with an arrow ready to shoot. Vidya waved her arms at him frantically. No! She mouthed at him. No! She finally caught his eye without falling out of the tree herself, and he guiltily lowered his bow, but didn’t return the arrow. He shrugged and mouthed just in case. Vidya rolled her eyes and shook her head. The Bunyips were now loping off in the opposite direction to the way the Fae were travelling. With a sigh of relief, Willow led them out of danger to the next tree and away from the huge black monsters.

They continued along, passing many unusual sights. There was a creek full of glowing rocks, trees that grew upside down and on top of each other, and weirder still, at one stage, they saw rocks that were fighting each other, hurling themselves at one another aggressively, until one of them burst into a shower of crumbs. They stopped to watch this last event for a few minutes before shaking their heads at one another, checking the map, and moving on,