I shook my head, which was probably very rude to do to a queen, but I was in shock and feeling a sudden urge to slam my fist into my beloved’s chest. Not that I would ever do so, of course. But, why hadn’t he told me anything about Faery? Why hadn’t he prepared me for the odd rules and the even stranger people who lived here?
The queen continued, all the while, half shaking her head and half smiling. “Unfortunately, Queen Beatrice got her wish that you will be required to remain in Faeryland for a time. Your body would not allow you to leave before . . . Two sips, you said? That is two weeks, at least, I’m afraid. But you will not linger here in this wretched castle, of course. I shall take you to my kingdom where you will be treated as the wife of Prince Cadarone should have been treated all along.”
I detached myself from Timothy who’d gasped loudly and then swallowed hard. His face had paled, and I think from the way the muscles in his cheeks were actively flapping about like a fish trying to breathe in air, he was greatly upset with the conversation.
Realizing how dismayed he was, instead of slugging him, I turned and patted his arm. “It’s okay, Timothy. Really. I assume you and the guys can all go to Queen Moragana’s palace with me? We can have a pre-Paris vacation.”
Timothy groaned, corralled me once again inside his strong-armed embrace and kissed my cheek with a smucking sound. “It’s not what I wanted for you. I was hoping to whisk you back onboard the ship where I could ravish you suitably.”
Okay, he said that last line with that eerie ability he had to mind-link, but I still felt my face grow hot as boiled water and probably red as a fire engine.
“Good. That is settled then,” Queen Moragana said, and she clapped her hands together loudly. “Where is the food?” she called out. “Why has no one cleared this stale stuff away?”
That brought my mind back to the old ditty about the hole in the bucket. A husband tells his wife there’s a hole in the bucket, which is why he can’t fetch any water. Then they go through a dialogue of what to do to repair the bucket, the wife growing more irate with each stanza. It ends with the fellow once again explaining that he can’t do what the wife asks because . . . there’s a hole in the bucket.
It’s a very funny children’s song, but why that piece brought itself into memory at the moment is the realization that if I was being forced to stay in Faeryland for two weeks, how could I avoid eating and drinking anything while there? Wouldn’t doing so prolong my stay into permanence?