Honestly this story has gone in directions I did not originally expect it to, but I'm liking the way it's turning out anyway! Doesn't help that I didn't have much of a middle plot planned out before I started writing and posting XD
I hope everyone is having a lovely Friday!! (me? forgetting it's Friday again? it's more likely than you think) Who's your favorite Fablehaven character?
Eve remained seated, startled. She sure hadn't expected that.
The portal was open in front of her, and she knew her way home, but she was reluctant to go. She knew she'd probably been gone too long already, but that just made her dread returning even more. Her dad would kill her for this- the rule was unspoken, but she wasn't exactly encouraged to leave the palace at all, let alone Terrabelle entirely.
She frowned in the direction of the main door to the garden room. She wished she'd gotten to properly say goodbye to Seth. She missed him already.
Oh, well, she thought. She was going to have to go home at some point. Might as well get it over with. Be brave, she told herself. You can do this. She knew she could, but she really didn't want to.
Then, an idea crossed her mind.
A bad idea. Only delaying the inevitable. But…
Seth hadn't explicitly told her she had to leave, had he? What if she stayed just a little bit longer?
Eve knew already that this was not one of her best ideas, and she also knew she was going to carry it out.
With a backwards glance at the portal, hoping she wouldn't cause any trouble by leaving it open, Eve started slowly towards the other end of the garden. If she were to stay longer, she knew exactly where she wanted to be: the library.
She walked much slower than her normal pace, just in case anyone was still in the room. She stopped a couple times to look more closely at specific plants she hadn't noticed before when she was too busy noticing Seth. One flower in particular caught her eye- smaller than most of the other flowers on the plants, with delicate pale blue petals. She picked one to take with her, tucking it into her hair behind her ear.
When she got to the doorway, she waited for a couple minutes to be sure the hallway outside was quiet, a burning guilty feeling in her stomach. She wasn't doing anything technically wrong, but by practical and moral standards, it definitely was. Well, technically, she wasn't ever supposed to leave Terrabelle, so maybe it was technically wrong too.
That only made her stomach feel worse.
So Eve pretended she didn't realize and went about her day. She stepped out into the hallway, putting on an air of confidence. She'd always read that if you act like you know what you're doing and like you're supposed to be somewhere, people will assume it's true. She hoped that if she happened upon any undead residents it would work on them too.
When she tried to remember how to get to the library, she realized she couldn't. She thought back to her tour. It shouldn't have been that hard. But she couldn't remember much of that either. She frowned thoughtfully, wondering if that was on purpose. She wouldn't be surprised to find that was one of the different rules of the Under Realm. She made a mental note to ask Seth about it later.
This place was so different from her home- well, where she lived. She didn't really like to call it home anymore when both of her parents made her dread being there at all. She was going to move out as soon as she figured out where to go. But Terrabelle in general was a very nice place, and Eve very much enjoyed being outside in the village. Although, she supposed, she didn't really have many other places to compare it to. The Under Realm was almost another collection of separate buildings too, but none of it was outside. And it was so dark down here, and much colder than Terrabelle.
Eve eventually made it to the library with no incident, being particularly quiet as she walked. It was silly, not like someone in charge would just hear her walking and come throw her out, but it made her feel better. She picked a comfy-looking chair to sit in, then got up to go look for a book.
For a moment she wondered if it was okay for her to read these, but then she remembered Seth had specifically told her she was welcome to the library before when she'd mentioned that she enjoyed reading. Anyway, she did stuff she wasn't supposed to all the time; she had no problem reading forbidden books, except for the fact that she wasn't entirely sure how much Seth trusted her and didn't want to upset him enough that he'd kick her out or something.
She eventually settled on a book that was about the Under Realm. She went back to her chair in an out-of-the-way corner Seth had shown her, sat down, and began to read.
Eve read long enough that she almost forgot what was really going on outside of the book. She might've read half the book before she became aware that she was actually reading, not in the book, and in the Under Realm. This fact was only brought to her awareness by the section of the book she'd reached: consequences of the Under Realm on the living.
She sat up a little straighter as she started into the section. This could apply to her. A feeling of dread came over her even as she started reading, filling the place the guilt had been before the book made her forget about it. She suspected something would be a problem.
Sure enough, there was a problem in bold print, right in the second paragraph.
The living may never remain in the Under Realm for more than twelve hours at a time, lest they be cursed to remain.
Eve didn't know how long she'd been here exactly, but it had been a majority of the day spent with Seth, and it had definitely been more than a few hours that she'd stayed overtime. Unknown to Eve at that point, that was only her first misstep.
What was she supposed to do about that? She couldn't go back in time, and though she wasn't sure exactly how long it had been, she was sure it was more than twelve hours. Even if she left now, that wouldn't undo it. Could she even leave now if she wanted to? What if she couldn't leave at all and really was stuck here? What would she tell her parents? For that matter, what would she tell Seth? He was in charge of the place she was stuck in.
She resolved to go back to the portal and see if it was still open and if she could leave and decide what to do from there. After she finished reading this specific section just in case she'd accidentally violated any more rules. She didn't want any more problems to sneak up on her.
Almost at the end of the section was a list of seemingly insignificant things that were not insignificant here and their consequences. Stepping on a bone, eating specific foods, spilling the blood of another, in any way removing a plant from the garden, falling into specific traps for the living- wait.
Eve's eyes instantly snapped back to "removing a plant from the garden." She reached up and touched the small flower still in her hair. Seriously? And right now? She didn't need any more problems! Starting to feel a little sick, she looked to the consequence for this specific action.
All that was left to think was oh, no.
there must be more to this
our desperate wandering
how do we put to rest
all of our discontent?
