He warned the exhausted parents, “No more. Neither Bumbly Bell nor the baby would make it.”

  “Is it because of the laudon?” weakly asked the new mother and sobbed into her pillow when the healer nodded.

  Bumbly Bell didn’t speak to anyone but Chera for three days. She nursed her baby and crooned to him, but a bitter expression would come over her face, and Chera noticed the expression was coming more often and lasting longer.

  After Chera put Cedar into his crib that night, he sat on the bed next to his wife and gently reminded her she had forgiven her aunt and uncle for giving her the laudon.

  She whispered, “I know but now—”

  When her voice trailed off, Chera told her, “The wise ones say it’s not unusual for bad feelings to come back after someone has hurt you, but you mustn’t let the feelings stay. Bitterness will poison you on the inside, Bumbly Bell, just like the laudon did. You have to forgive Finken and Faso all over again now, and so do I.”

  The young woman in front of him didn’t argue but she didn’t agree either.

  It was the next morning when Chera entered the bedroom with two plates of pancakes that Bumbly Bell said, “I’ve done it. I’ve forgive them again. Keshua helped me.”

  “Great,” her husband responded gladly, his face lighting up.

  Bumbly Bell smiled at him. She felt very weak still, but the bitterness had lifted during the night and she’d been able to sleep. Poor Chera looked tired. It was time to say what she’d planned last night. That should help.

  She sat a little straighter and said, “I have something to tell you. We have a beautiful child, and I am quite happy with the family Keshua has given me.”

  Unfortunately a sniff-sob came out of nowhere between the words “quite” and “happy.” She tried to hide it by adding loudly, “Keshua has blessed us.”

  It didn’t work. Chera’s face fell and he stumbled, spilling a big dollop of maple syrup onto the bedroom floor.

  “I mean it, Chera. There was something in my nose that made me sniff,” she told him in a threatening tone of voice.

  He didn’t say anything as he carefully put the plates onto the bedside table without spilling any more syrup. She watched, thrusting her chin out an inch and lifting her nose an inch and a half. When he turned toward the bed, Chera grinned at the sight.

  “What color are you today, Bumbly Bell?” he asked.

  She laughed at the old question and relaxed.

  After all, it was true. Keshua had blessed them. Oh sure, life was hard sometimes, and they hadn’t gotten everything they wanted—still, they had been blessed.

  Bumbly Bell’s heart unexpectedly soared and she answered him sprightly.

  “I don’t know. One color won’t do. Right now I’m a whole meadow full. So there!

  Chera laughed at her last two words, reminiscent of their childhood days, and she laughed with him.

  “Of course it won’t last. I’ll go back soon enough to being one color at a time, but this morning one isn’t enough. I’m a whole meadow full of bumbly bell colors, Chera. Double so there!”

  About the Author

  Sally Byrd lives in North Carolina with her husband, Bob. She is a graduate of Duke University, mother of three beloved children, grandmother of four extraordinarily bright and attractive grandchildren, and a lover of mountains. Her favorite activities include reading fantasy, visiting family, and evaluating desserts—it’s a hard job, but…

  At the end of The Opal Cavern, the author started to wrap up Chera and Mindik’s lives along with everyone else’s, but it wasn’t enough. Then Stone Walkers loomed in the author’s mind, mysterious and eerie. When the girl-next door popped into being, a new story began to fit together.

  Previous books: The Montaland series: Captives of the Fern Queen, Fernpeople, and Benk and the Ugly Princess.

  Follow Sally at:

  www.sgbyrd.com

  Facebook: /sgbyrdfantasy

  Twitter: @sgbyrdfantasy

  The Montaland Adventures

  The Montaland Adventures

  Captives of the Fern Queen is the first in a series of three stories that take place in Montaland, the mountain world. Montaland is a world of mountains: icy peaks, tree-covered ranges, rocky crags, and, lowest of all—the grassy hills of the Kingdom of Mount Pasture. Hills shouldn’t be in a mountain world, especially not hills covered by smelly sheep. That’s what Mt. Pasture’s twelve-year-old Princess Janna thinks anyway, and when she tries to liven up her boring kingdom by telling the old stories to younger kids, everyone gets angry at her. Janna would give anything to get out of her kingdom and see something from the old stories, but when she does get out, it’s not exactly what she had in mind. Crawling through a dark tunnel isn’t fun and neither is starving as a prisoner of the Fern Queen.

  Fernpeople. In the second book of the Montaland series, the evil Fern Queen is dead, but five green-veined fernpeople have survived. They will do anything to protect themselves. The Kingdom of Mount Pasture seems like a peaceful, safe place. The most exciting event in eleven-year-old Benk’s life is lambing time. His older brother Alland is traveling to another kingdom to woo a princess. This infuriates Benk, who is left behind with pregnant sheep duty. Sixteen-year-old Janna is baking cookies in Mount Pasture’s castle kitchen when something hits her on the head, knocking her to the floor. As she loses consciousness, Janna has a dazed vision of a green-veined arm coming around her and roughly lifting her up. Fernpeople! Fernpeople have her! Benk “borrows” a horse and sets out from Mount Pasture. Wolves start howling near the fernpeople’s hidden cave—and Janna, held hostage, wonders how she can keep going.

  Benk and the Ugly Princess. In Montaland, the mountain world, there are different kingdoms. Rose, a high-ranking princess in one of the kingdoms, has disguised herself to look ugly, but her coverup is exposed, and she will soon be forced to marry the highest bidder. She must escape, but how far can she get on her own? Benk is a famous scout who finds Rose and wants to help her, but they are trapped in a cabin by evil wedewolves. Will even Benk be able to plan his way out of this one? Benk and the Ugly Princess is a fun fantasy with likeable characters who deal with one danger after another and find that the Maker of all worlds comes through for them—in unexpected ways.

 

 

  S. G. Byrd, The Brueggen Stones

 

 

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