Macey Redcap's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Macey crouched behind the mossy shed at the ring's edge and watched the trees. She had hidden here for weeks now, exiled from her own Fairy Ring, hungry to win back her crown of toadstools. Without it, the soil did not know her. Without it, she was a goddess in name only. A tall red mushroom with white dots had pushed up beside the shed door overnight. She pressed her palm to its cap. It leaned toward her like a dog greeting its keeper. The land still remembered. That was something. But remembering was not enough. She needed to know where the usurper kept her crown, and she could not step inside the ring to look. So she untied the small leather pouch from her belt and whistled. A glossy black raven dropped from the pines and took the pouch in its beak. "Circle the center," she whispered. "Find what he guards closest. Don't be seen." The raven blinked one yellow eye and lifted into the canopy. Macey waited through the long afternoon, chewing her thumb, sick with the risk of it. At dusk the raven returned. It dropped a single curled toadstool scale into her hand — a flake from her own crown. The bird croaked once and tipped its head toward the ring's heart. He kept it there, then. At the center. The very place she could not yet go.