13 Curses (18 page)

The little woman’s hair was long and matted, twisting around her body like fur. Rowan could make out beneath it a raggedy dress made of a material that looked very old, gray, and crumpled—like the fairy herself. She was barefoot and her arms and legs were twig-thin. Looking around the library, she caught Rowan’s eye and shot a furious glance at her.

Penny poked her again.

“Why aren’t you reading?” she complained.

“I’ve had enough,” Rowan snapped, closing the book. “I want to read to James.”

Penny let out a huff of annoyance and got up to find someone else to pester. Rowan grabbed a book from James and pretended to read. James sat placidly in her lap, chewing on a strand of her long red hair.

She waited to see what the fairy would do. She didn’t have to wait long.

With a screech that reached Rowan, the fairy woman kicked the book off the trolley. On its descent it hit another book that was jutting out, and landed in an untidy crumple on the carpet.

The creature leapt from the trolley and landed on the librarian’s counter. At that moment, the woman—the only person authorized to eat or drink in the library—was reaching carefully for a steaming mug. But as her fingers brushed the handle, the fairy gave the mug a vicious shove that knocked it over. Its contents slopped all over the desk, saturating a pile of books and a stash of paperwork.

At the librarian’s gasp, several people looked over at the apparent accident and tut-tutted, and another member
of the staff rushed to help. The fairy gave a triumphant cackle as she admired her handiwork, then, unfolding a crusty set of wings, she took flight, landing on one of the nearby desks. There, she kicked a stack of books and papers to the floor, much to the confusion of the young man seated at the desk. Then she stomped on, flicking the pages of a book a teenage girl was diligently making notes from, losing her place.

The fairy’s rampage continued: books fell from shelves and were knocked out of hands; hair was pulled; shoelaces were knotted together; library cards were mixed up; pens leaked ink.

Rowan watched it all. And as the fairy drew nearer and nearer, she noticed something odd. A group of local schoolchildren was completely bypassed by the fairy, who appeared not to see them at all. Next she ignored a middle-aged man who was peering over his newspaper in bemusement at all that was going on around him, and went on to torment a little old lady, unpinning her hair from its neat bun before moving on to the next person. Everyone in its path was attacked, seemingly without reason, so Rowan wondered why the schoolchildren and the man had escaped the fairy’s attention. She continued to watch as the fairy drew closer to where she sat. Then it happened again: the fairy bypassed the twins and went on to jab Sally in the arm with a stolen hairpin. Sally slapped her arm and looked about herself suspiciously, as if expecting to see a bug of some kind.

Rowan was openly staring now, her mind racing, trying to figure out what was going on. The fairy seemed
unwilling to spare anyone from its tirade, so why had it ignored certain people? What was it about these people that was different from everyone else in the library?

They must have something in common,
she thought, something she was missing. But what? An idea struck her then. What if the people the fairy had spared were able to see it? Perhaps it only preyed on those who were oblivious to the existence of fairies. But even as she thought it, her mind was already dismissing it. She would have noticed if someone else had the second sight—especially the twins.

So what was it? She examined the people again, looking for some obvious similarity or shared characteristic. Finally, she saw it.

They were all wearing red.

The children’s matching school blazers were a rich crimson. The man, in turn, was wearing a pair of bright red corduroy trousers, and the twins were wearing matching red dresses.

Rowan glanced around, looking for whoever was next in the fairy’s path. It seemed to be heading back in the direction of the bookshelves, and she wondered if it was going back to its nesting place. Only two people stood in her way now: a father reading to his young child, a boy a little older than James. As it passed the child, the fairy slammed the book closed on the little boy’s fingers, catching the father’s thumbs too. Luckily, the book was thin, and so the action did not cause an injury, but the shock of it was enough to make the little boy’s face crumple, and he burst into tears.

Content now with the chaos it had caused, the fairy
gathered its horribly matted hair around itself and leapt through the space in the bookshelves, vanishing from sight.

As the occupants of the library began to pick up their dropped books, clean the spilt drink, and rub their sore fingers, Rowan heard more than one nervous laugh and a few embarrassed coughs.

“There must be something in the air today,” she heard someone mutter.

The group gathered their belongings and chosen books, readying themselves to leave. Rowan grabbed the books she had selected for James and asked Polly to hold her little brother’s hand as she took the books to the counter. On the way, she added to her pile the tattered book that the fairy had crawled out of. Her heartbeat quickened as she picked it up, for although it was badly damaged, she could already see that it was no whimsical read but something that contained folklore—something that could be of great use to her.

As she waited for the librarian, she flipped through the book, looking at the strange old pictures. Some were paintings, others were grainy woodcuts. It was one of the woodcuts that caught her eye. It depicted an ugly, shrivel-faced creature in a baby’s crib, and a woman looking on anxiously. Beneath the picture were the words: “A changeling left in place of a human baby may be a fairy child, an old fairy, or even a piece of carved wood enchanted to look like a real child.”

Changeling.
The word was eerie. She turned the page
but then her pile of books was slid along the counter by the librarian.

“Wherever did you find this old thing?” the woman inquired. “It’s in a terrible state.”

“It was down the back of the shelves,” Rowan explained. “It seems to have been there a long time too.”

“I’ll say,” said the librarian. “Let me see if there’s another copy. Now, what’s it called?”

The book was so badly worn that neither Rowan nor the librarian could decipher the title on its cover or spine. In the end the librarian looked inside the book for a reference number before going off to another desk and checking records.

“I’m afraid it’s for reference only,” she said when she returned. “You can’t take it out of the library.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’ll have to be thrown away anyway—it’s not even fit for a rummage sale.” She picked the book up and put it behind the counter.

“You’re going to get rid of it?” Rowan asked. “Why can’t you just let me take it?”

The librarian sniffed, and suddenly Rowan had the feeling that she was being deliberately obstructive. “I can’t release substandard books. It reflects badly on the library.”

“So you’d rather throw it away than give it to someone who wants to read it?”

“I don’t make the rules, young lady.”

“Will there be a replacement?”

“I shouldn’t think so. It’s probably out of print.”

Rowan narrowed her eyes. There was a self-satisfied air about the woman’s words.

“Please,” she tried again. “It’s important. I… I need to read it.”

But the woman shook her head. The conversation was over.

Later, when James was asleep, Rowan rifled through her clothes, looking for something red. Eventually she found an old pilled cardigan and pulled it on. Next she searched for something red for James, but all she could find was a pair of pajamas that would be impossible to get him into with only one functioning arm. Scouting the corridors, she found a red towel draped over the banister and wrapped it around her little brother. Then she crept into the bathroom.

At first she did not think the fairy was there, but she waited, listening, and soon heard a telltale gurgle. A moment later it emerged warily from the drain and looked around. Immediately, Rowan knew that it had not seen her. She watched in silence, for several minutes, as the creature moved around the bathtub, slurping on stray bits of hair and even an old piece of soap. Then its bulbous eyes bulged as it spied something on the side of the bathtub: a thin necklace with a star pendant left by one of the girls. The creature grabbed the piece of jewelry with a delighted squeak.

“You slimy little thief,” Rowan murmured.

The creature looked up in obvious shock. It had seen her. As it slid down the drain, Rowan tried to make sense of what had happened. It hadn’t seen her at first, she was sure of it. But when she had spoken… it had broken the
spell somehow. The color red acted as some kind of camouflage to the fairies, but it wasn’t totally foolproof. But now she could be certain of two things. First, she had a way to hide herself and James from the fairies.

Second, if there was one way, then there were bound to be others.

Red awoke at dawn, her head aching from lack of sleep. The Hedgewitch’s cottage was still and silent, but for the breathing of the man who was slumbering a few feet away from her. Light and a freezing draft forced their way in through the gaps in the window shutters. Red fought the temptation to burrow back into the thick furs that covered her. Every breath clouded in the air.

She studied the man’s face. In sleep, he was less stern-looking, and there was a trace of something that might have been handsome about him once, in another lifetime. She still didn’t know his story, didn’t even know his name or what to call him, in fact—and she found she didn’t want to. She hadn’t yet told him all of her story. Now she doubted she ever would. In a
split-second decision, she knew that she was going to leave the Hedgewitch’s cottage by herself.

Quietly she rolled the furs back into a bundle. They were going with her. Next she stood up and took the fox-skin coat, which she’d used as a pillow, and pushed it into her bag. She scanned the cottage a final time, making sure she had all her belongings and anything else that could be of use.

Soundlessly she lifted the latch on the cottage door.

“Leaving without saying good-bye?” a voice said.

She spun round. The man’s blue eyes were open, watching her. “I had a feeling you might do that.”

“Good-bye,” she said pointedly, turning back to the door.

“I know who you are.”

Red froze. Her instinct told her he was bluffing, yet she couldn’t be sure.

“No, you don’t.”

“Really? You mean that you’re
not
the girl who steals the changeling babies, returning them to the fairies in the hopes of exchanging one of them for her missing brother? You’re
not
the girl who hid in the tunnels below Elvesden Manor until you were discovered by the granddaughter of the owner? And you’re
not
the girl who intervened when that same girl was in danger of being drawn into the fairy realm, taking her place?”

The latch slipped from Red’s fingers.

“Who are you?”

“I’m the caretaker of Elvesden Manor. And the girl I just spoke of told me about you—how you saved her.”

“I didn’t save her,” Red answered. “I did what I did for myself, to get me here for the sake of my brother. I didn’t do it for Tan—” She stopped herself just in time, remembering not to reveal the name. From his place in the cellar, Eldritch was likely to be within earshot, and though Tanya’s absence meant she could not be connected with the name, Red still did not want to risk speaking it with a fairy nearby. “I didn’t do it for
her
,” she finished.

“I don’t think that’s completely true.” The man threw back the furs covering him, and blew into his hands.

“I don’t care what you think. I’m leaving.”

“I know you are. But I’m coming with you.”

Red stared at him, infuriated. He was up now, sweeping out the remains of the fire and calmly laying another.