The Forest King and the Butterfly

Chapter Two: Wreathed in Garland and Gossip

The whole town had bloomed.

By the time Joren and I stepped onto the festival green, Brindlehollow was awash in fluttering banners and flower-choked canopies. Booths lined the central walk, each more colorful than the last—bright bolts of fabric, baskets of lavender sachets, iced fruit pressed in sugar and cracked mint.

I was barely three steps in before I slid out from under Joren’s arm.

“I’ll be right back,” I said, not waiting for permission.

The crowd swallowed me like I’d never been his to guide.

I started at the blessing ring—a booth run by three crones who made festival charms out of thorn loops, spider silk, and bird bones. They winked and handed me a charm without asking what I needed.

“You always smell like turning leaves,” one of them said. “That means you’re going somewhere.”

I smiled, tucked the charm into my satchel, and kept walking.

Children darted past me, ribbons in their hair and berry juice on their mouths. One little girl stood near a craft stall, holding a flower circlet woven with silver thread and bright spring petals.

She turned, met my eyes, and beamed.

“It’s for next year,” she said proudly. “Mama says I should start walking the dance path now.”

I crouched down, adjusted the circlet so it rested like a crown. “Then walk with your head high. The forest always notices those who walk proud.”

She curtsied like she’d practiced, and ran back to her mother, petals bouncing behind her.

At the next row of booths, the face painters were finishing with a boy too small to sit still. I grinned and slid into the next seat.

A woman with stars on her eyelids hummed as she painted my cheek with curling vines and gold-tipped wings, framing my amber eyes.

“Something soft,” she said, “but seen.”

“I like being seen,” I murmured. “On my terms.”

She winked. “Then let them look.”

Further on, I paused at the garland stand—the same one that hung my work in its displays. A vendor spotted me and waved.

“Mirelle Holt, you’re a bloom and a blessing. That last ivy braid held through three storms.”

“You tied it too tight,” I teased.

“You bound it with something else. Everyone felt it.”

He handed me a sprig of rosemary. “For courage.”

And then the dryads called to me.

Tucked beneath the great elder tree were the hair-weavers, their fingers nimble with vines and fine green-glass beads. I knelt without a word.

They unbraided me gently—removing the trinkets I’d received that morning, whispering over each as they set it into a small nest of moss. One dryad rebraided my hair in spirals and leaf-knots, while another slid Alder’s cattail butterfly into a place of honor, nestled beside the polished comb.

“She’s ready,” one murmured, as I stood.

I wandered after that, letting the music and crowd pull me like wind.

Roselie and two girls from the loom-house found me near the cider press. They squealed and pulled me into a spinning circle of hands and laughter. We danced with sugared apples and teased Roselie about the merchant’s son who’d been eyeing her braid all week.

“He stares like he’s never seen hips before,” she said.

“Not moving like yours,” I shot back, and we all burst into laughter.

But not all faces smiled.

An old woman in mourning black stood quietly near the edge of the field. Her posture was elegant, if worn, and her eyes sharp despite her age.

Her arms cradled a Black Walnut mask, twined with silver and gold—worn only by widows and widowers during the Choosing. Though the mask would not be donned until nightfall, she held it with reverence.

Our eyes met.

She didn’t speak, but she inclined her head.

I curtsied, deeply.

She clutched her mask tighter, and her mouth curved—not into joy, but into something like peace.

I found my family near the Spiral Tree.

My mother stood with Liana, both adjusting the flower offerings around the woven poles. My father knelt beside Alder, who was stabbing the earth with his crook and making up a story about a mole uprising.

When they saw me, their faces lit up in quiet welcome. Not awe, not pride—love, the kind you don’t have to earn.

I hugged them one by one, and Alder looked up.

“You smell like pine and bread and magic.”

I ruffled his hair. “That’s the Choosing for you.”

And then Joren found me again.

His shadow fell over the grass just before his voice reached me.

“They’re starting soon. I saved us a ribbon.”

I didn’t answer right away. My hand brushed the spiral pendant at my throat.

Wait for what stays, Liana had said.

I turned, smiled faintly, and nodded.

But the wind picked up just then—and I had the strangest feeling that someone else was watching. Not Joren.

Something deeper.

Older.

Waiting for me to see it.



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Lyonesse