Half Heart Read online

I shot up, started by a noise. I had been napping. The noise that had wakened me was the drawbridge and is groaning as it lowered itself for us to cross. I sat up straight, trying to smooth the rumples out. I had to look presentable on my return home. I was the queen. Well, Queen slash warrior. When I wasn’t battling I had promised LaShebah that I would at least try to look like a queen, since I didn’t act like one.

  “Get those horses some water!” We had stopped. I was home once again. The door to the carriage was opened for me. I took the offered hand and jumped out, eager to lay eye on the familiar sight of my castle. Well, it hadn’t changed since I had left. It was still gray. I took off, running with my dress hiked up past my ankles until I was inside the castle. Then I let down my dress and walked fairly slow through the mirrored hall and into the throne room, where LaShebah sat talking to one of the scullery maids at a table with a red and gold table cloth. I stop, a smile spreading from ear to ear until she noticed me. When she realized I was there, she got up from her chair slowly with a huge grin on her face.

  “Oh, Layla!” She wrapped me in a hug. “I’m so glad you’re home.” She put a hand on my cheek.

  “So am I,” I said, touching her hand. “Where is Coca?” I walked past her to my throne. A small bundle of red silk was resting on the seat. “What is this?” I asked her, holding it up.

  “Clothes for Coca!” She exclaimed, grabbing them from my hands defensively.

  “You’re going to start clothing my monkey?” I asked, surprised. It didn’t sound like something she would do.

  “They’re not finished yet.” She folded the fabric up, not bothering to answer my question.

  “And I suppose I’ll have the blacksmith fashion him a crown for his tiny head?” I laughed.

  I sat the flower I had been holding for the last half-hour down on the chair as LaShebah shook her head and sat back down at the table.

  I looked over and saw someone entering from the far-side of the room. It was a girl, with a turquoise gown and long brown hair. I squinted, trying to see who it was. Then I realized– it was Adda!

  “Adda!” I ran over to her, taking her hands. “I do believe you have grown! You’re almost as tall as me.”

  She beamed. “It’s so good to see you.”

  Brye had a cottage built inside the castle walls for Adda and her parents, Lindy and Davy. I enjoyed seeing her everyday. She was always so full of life, and always had something to talk about. Her energy gave me energy, which I could always use. Being a queen required more from a person than being a princess.

  I took Adda’s arm, and we began walking slowly down a hallway to the library.

  “So, did you find anything while I was gone?” I asked. I had giving her the responsibility of going through our huge collection of books, finding out all she could about the Elves and their way of magic. It was something far beyond us. They were something from a different time, just like the fairies, and they knew more than any of us humans or Beatiez could ever learn in a million lifetimes. They were so mysterious, and we hardly had any means of exploring their way of life.

  “Yes, in fact I did. They aren’t short, like we thought. In fact, they are very tall. The live on a mountain called Geoteri… Geotrera…” Adda got a frustrated look on her face. “Let me show you.” She pulled me into the library, where a large oaken table stood with tons of open books, all of them dusty, and the paper yellowed. She started to flip the pages in one. She wrinkled her nose, not able to find what she was looking for. Then she turned to a different book.

  While she was searching, I opened a book with a leather binding and a tarnished lock. The pages smelled musty as I bent over, trying to read the tiny writing. I came upon a map of a rocky land, with many places with long names. One was a mountain.

  “Mount Geoterilavus?” I asked Adda.

  She looked up. “That’s the one!”

  I laughed as she came over and joined me, hunching over the book.

  “Geoterilavus. Curious name.” Adda looked at me with a strange look on her face. “I wonder what the Elves name their children!”

  I burst out in giggles. “What have you found out about Mount… let’s call it mount Geot. What is it like up there?”

  Adda pulled out a chair and sat down. “From what the books say, it is very beautiful. The air is always misty, and it shimmers in the sunlight. Everything is always green; there is no winter, or summer, or fall. Clouds come so far down out of the sky they almost touch the ground, and the Elves use them as transportation. At night, the stars venture down where the Elves can catch put them in glass cases and use them for nightlights, but by morning they are always gone. Everybody always wears green, the same color of their lush surroundings.”

  “Sounds like paradise,” I said.

  Adda nodded her head. “It must be. Do you want to hear what the Elves look like?”

  I had always wondered about that. Most people pictured them as short creatures with pointy ears and noses. But from the way Adda talked about Mount Geot, they couldn’t possibly look like that. “Please tell me.”

  “They average at about seven feet tall. They are very thin, with smooth, silvery skin that shimmers like the air around them. Their eyes are usually light gray, when they aren’t they are a gold color. Their hair is always pale blonde, and their teeth are like rows of pearls.”

  “Are their ears pointy?”

  Adda shook her head. “No, but their fingers and toes are.”

  “Where did you learn all this?”

  Adda started pushing books aside, until a small, palm size book appeared. She took it gently and set it in front of me. “Open it,” she ushered.

  I looked at her with a wary eye, and then with placid fingers I opened it to the middle. I sat back in awe. A bubble arose with a figure of an Elf in it, glowing and lustrous. It was a female, and she wore a light pink dress that slunk over her shoulders. Suddenly a child appeared, running through the picture. The woman picked her up and smiled, and then the picture stopped and started over again. I turned the page, astounded at what I had just seen. The next was as tall male Elf, wearing a long dark green tunic. He had leaves in his hair, like a crown.

  “I suppose their most prized possession is their plant life?”

  Adda nodded. “It is their symbol for everything good. ‘May the rain fall for luscious life’ is the greeting given whenever one Elf encounters another.”

  “May the rain fall for luscious life,” I repeated. I turned my attention back to the book, with the bubble still floating like life caught in a net. The Elf on this page looked royal. “Is this the king?” I asked.

  “Yes. His name is King Eathay. He has been in rule for nearly five hundred years.”

  “Five hundred years!” I exclaimed. “What is their average lifespan?”

  “Seven hundred years. I think King Eathay is six-hundred fifty-nine.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “His time is nearly up.” Suddenly something caught my mind. “Is he the one that cursed the Forest of Despondency?”

  “Yes! He is.”

  “Well, then I had better get to him soon! He is bound to know what to do to relieve the forest of the curse.”

  Adda shrugged.

  “What does–” I shrugged, mimicking her, “–that mean?”

  “He is a very plucky person. You’ll be lucky if you even get an audience with him.” She leaned her head onto her hand.

  “The queen of two countries?” I asked. Surely he would see me.

  “Perhaps.”

  I started picking up the books and arranging them on the table. “He’ll see me. And he’ll tell me what I need to know,” I assured her. “Are you going to come with me?”

  Adda looked down. “My parents won’t let me go on one of your ‘big adventures’ until I am thirteen.”

  I stopped what I was doing and turned to her. “We’ll just see about that.”