I was almost feeling sick to my stomach for not having eaten in so long. I think they call that low blood sugar, but maybe it was just starvation setting in. However, I still wasn’t planning to eat anything if doing so would keep me longer in this strange place. I wanted to GO HOME, or rather back to the ship.
But then the queen and Timothy both assured me that I could eat without being required to spend more time in Faeryland. That was super good news. I dived into a plate of scones. These had apricot bits inside them, not pomegranate seeds, which I found somewhat relieving. Next, on the plate that Timothy handed me, he’d placed a baked apple, a piece of the roasted pig, I mean, pork, and a pile of mashed pumpkin.
I picked up a fork and tasted the pumpkin. Oh, my. Delicious. Someone had prepared it with whipped cream and orange peel. The dish was sweet, I think, from honey drippings, and it made me wish I could eat nothing but pumpkin. Especially not the pig!
When the pumpkin was gone, I tasted the apple. Yummy. Stuffed with cinnamon and something sweetly caramelized. In between my samplings of these things, I finished off my apricot scone. Timothy brought me another when he saw me glancing back at the table with, I suppose, a look of longing. We were sitting in chairs formed into a circle, but I could have gotten up and gotten my own scone. I told him that, but he just smiled at me.
Out team of guards were also eating. No chairs for them, but it didn’t seem to bother them. They and some of the soldiers had just plopped down on the floor and were holding their plates in their laps, enjoying the food as much as I was. Bob, especially, because I saw that he had a stack of scones piled on his plate. Terry had loaded his plate with sliced pork. His personal mountain lay like slabs of concrete. Daniel was also enjoying his feast, but Ben wasn’t part of the floor crowd.
I glanced about and finally saw him catering to Queen Beatrice. He’d delivered her a plate filled with goodies, and she was eating like she was starved, although I’d seen her munching on the breakfast spread earlier.
“All right, Ben. Go serve yourself,” Queen Moragana said, and Ben jumped up and headed to the table. So, had that been his punishment, to have to serve the Kidnap Queen as well as being forced to wait for his own meal?
“What magic can you do, Penelope?” Queen Moragana suddenly asked me. I’d just taken a bite of Mr. Piggy and almost choked on it.
“Magic? I’m just a human. Your Majesty,” I said, when my coughing finally stopped and I could speak again.