Except the Queen (14 page)

The shouting has stopped and suddenly he is there, standing on the edge of the wild, forsaken lawn. He raises his head, shaggy with unkempt hair, his once fair skin mottled brown and black like old leather left to wither in the sun and rain. You are still, unmoving, though your eyes gaze keenly at the man, taking in every line of his face, the eyes black and bloodshot, the lips dry and cracked. He inhales deeply, his wolfish head swinging slowly from side to side as though scenting prey. For one moment his eyes seem to rest on you, and you see the moment of shocked surprise, before his eyes roll back into white spheres of madness again. He falls to his knees and with outstretched arms, lifts his head, howling.

And in the small triangle of skin at the base of his throat, that skin that once you warmed with your kiss, you throw your silver blade. Your aim is true as always and the point plunges deep, strangling his howls. He falls and you watch him, horror and misery mingled with the confidence of your action.

You step from the edge of the woods and enter the fallow field, wildflowers brushing your ankles as you let yourself turn back to that first moment. Blood weeps beneath your breast, the old wound torn open anew. Slowly, you approach him and he watches you, the fury in his black eyes dulling like river-washed stones abandoned on the shore. He gurgles, hiccups as the blood pools around the stem of silver. But he does not struggle, for he believes again. You lean down to him and your honey-colored hair brushes his face. He thinks you mean to kiss him farewell, and almost imperceptibly he lifts his chin amid the pain of dying to receive it.

But you will not kiss him, for you know too much about his madness. Instead you free your blade from his throat and watch him die, quickly now as the blood spurts furiously, washing his neck and shoulders crimson. You wipe your blade on his filthy shirt for not one drop of his blood must enter the Greenwood lest they should know of it.

Later, in a cool spring, you will purify yourself, pouring the cold, clean water over and over your flesh until all traces of his animal scent and the blood of your wound reopened and now sealed again have disappeared. But one last gesture you cannot resist. On a small bayberry leaf dangling close to the edge of the spring you have scratched your child’s true name with your fingernail in lines so small, not even a spriggan could read it between the green veins. And you wonder as you do so whether you have made a mistake after all.

M
y time comes each month when the moon is up and I can find my way into the Greenwood again. The healing green. Too many days, too many nights, I must live in the gray place. My father sends me into exile there. His magic keeps me there. Except for the full moon when I must return. To the Greenwood. To his hand.

My father. I piss on his name.

This last time in the Greenwood, I came upon a field by accident, only in the green there are no accidents. There was a smudge in the air that I could see but could not see through, as if someone worked hard to disguise being there. So I waited. I am good at waiting when the moon is high. Not so good other times.

When the smudge had gone—like a cloud drifting away from the moon’s face—I walked the perimeter of the field carefully. Sniffing around, I found my way past the flowers that masked the smell. How long had he lain there, his death creeping out of his throat through the dark slit? The body was not yet disturbed, the blood still running. And my nose confirmed what my eyes told me. Not long. Not long at all.

This, too, was no accident. But not, I think, my father’s doing. His smell—that dark, dangerous tang, like the death cap mushroom—was not here. Yet this man did
not die alone. I smelled another blood, sharper, still living. I smelled a heady mix of perfumes too, compounded of crocus for foresight, heather for solitude, and the strong, sharp rhododendron that signifies “beware.” I will know that scent should I ever meet it again. I followed it on the wind, and found more on a leaf of a nearby tree.

Something written. Something hidden. Who would—who
could
—do such a deed? It had the look, the smell of a fey thing. I trembled, on point, like a hound.

Taking the leaf in my hand, I shook it loose from its brown and bendy twig. For a moment I held it in my palm and then it started to die as if I had brought autumn with my touch. The tips turned inward, the color began to fade, the sides became brittle. What had been written was now scrawled into my skin. A name. Passerinia. I crumbled the dead leaf and dropped the bits at the tree’s base. And then, I pissed on it, marking it as my own. No one, not even my father, would see what had been written there now.

But I did not howl. In the Greenwood I never howl lest
he
hear me.

S
tanding outside the tattoo parlor, Sparrow hesitated before she went in. She studied the artwork in the window, intricate Celtic knots and the sort of tangled designs of animals and nature one saw on the pages of illuminated manuscripts. There was nothing in those designs that suggested the maliciousness of the knotted sprig now inscribed on her neck. Self-consciously, Sparrow placed her hand over the tattoo and felt the dark lines throb beneath her palm.

She had healed in three days, which struck her as a long time, considering her nature. But at least the tenderness was gone, and the oily redness of the fresh tattoo had finally faded. Yet the last three nights she had been awoken by a stampede of continuous nightmares only to discover the tattoo oozing drops of blood on her sheets and pillows. Still, in the morning, the raw wound would heal as soon as sunlight crept through the windows.

What have I done to myself?
she wondered.
What has
he
done to me?

Angrily, she thrust her hand away from her neck and shouldered her way into the tattoo shop.

“Can I help you?” A red-haired woman at the counter looked up from her magazine. She was big and full figured, and her strapless top barely concealed the prominent tattoo across her chest—a black-horned Japanese
oni
with fierce red-rimmed eyes glaring above the edge of the fabric.

“Yeah,” Sparrow said, shifting uneasily. “I need to talk to Hawk.”

“Get in line.” The woman shrugged toward a row of seats, most of which were occupied by women.

Sparrow glanced at them over her shoulder, noting they all had the same harried look, the same anxious pale face she saw when she stared at herself in the mirror.

“I’m not here for a tattoo,” she said, turning back to the red-haired woman.

“I don’t care why you’re here. You’ll have to wait.” The woman returned to reading her magazine.

Anger drummed in Sparrow’s veins and she resisted the urge to grab the magazine and strike her. But she knew the woman was only a gatekeeper demon designed to shuffle victims quietly into their seats.
You don’t have to take this
, Sparrow told herself. She clenched her hands into fists and rested them on the pages of the woman’s magazine.

The red-haired woman looked up, annoyed, and Sparrow knew by her appraising stare that such defiance didn’t happen very often with Hawk’s clients.

“Get him, or I swear I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” a low voice interrupted.

The red-haired woman straightened up, her expression apologetic as she gazed over Sparrow’s shoulder. Behind her, Sparrow heard the soft, murmured sighs of the women waiting in their chairs.

Sparrow turned to face Hawk, grateful for the distance between them. It allowed her not to feel so intimidated . . . 
Or seduced
, she thought, her resolve weakening in the sudden warmth of his gaze. That’s it, she realized. That’s how he does it. She set one hand on the desk, its firmness allowing her to resist the subtle pressure to move closer to him. From there she studied him, trying to discern his true nature beneath the handsome face.

He was wearing a tight, sleeveless black shirt tucked
into a pair of old jeans that showed off his muscular arms and lean waist. His sand-blond hair was pulled back into its ponytail, revealing the delicate shape of his jaw and high curve of his cheekbones.

It was hard to see past the glamour of beauty he wore, but from her distance, Sparrow understood two things about him: his own skin was pure of any tattoos, and, although he smiled at her, his eyes were cold, the obsidian pupils sharp as knives in the green iris. His smile faded beneath her appraising gaze and his fingers curled into fists at his side. But his voice was still inviting.

“Why don’t you come back to my office,” he said.

“No.” Sparrow’s instincts alerted her to an unnamed danger. It was the only thing she had to thank the nightmares for—the foreboding, the sense of being hunted. The tattoo on her neck prickled and burned, as though her body fought to reject it.

“Then what can I do for you?” The soothing voice was growing edged.

“The question is what did you do
to
me?”

He laughed, slowly stroking one hand up the length of his bare arm, and Sparrow’s heart skipped at the memory of those agile fingers, stroking her neck.

“I only gave you what you asked for,” he said. “Don’t you like it?”

“No. It’s . . . ugly,” she said.

“Let me fix it for you,” he offered. “No charge. What do you want, roses?”

Sparrow’s heart was pounding now. The pull toward him was a commanding current. She struggled to resist, digging her heels into the ground, gripping the desk’s edge more firmly, and biting her cheek. A burst of pain followed, then the taste of blood. She closed her eyes to clear away the vision of Hawk, opening them again quickly, as she felt him suddenly near.

“Who are you?” he whispered sharply and reached out a hand to grab her.

Sparrow twisted away, shouting, “Don’t touch me, you freak.”

The parlor erupted into a brawl as the red-haired woman lunged across the desk to strike at Sparrow. Sparrow ducked, grabbed a ceramic jar of pens and pencils, and threw it at her. Hawk stepped back, getting out of the way as the other women rose out of their chairs, and physically shoved Sparrow out of the shop’s door and onto the sidewalk.

“Fuck you,” Sparrow shouted back at them. “Fuck all of you. You deserve whatever he’s doing to you, you stupid bitches.”

The door to the tattoo parlor slammed in her face, leaving Sparrow panting with rage outside, surrounded by a group of curious onlookers.

“Get out of my way,” she growled, elbowing her way through the crowd. She drove her body down the city streets, trying desperately to get as far from the tattoo shop as she could. The bright sunlight glancing off the shop windows and cars hurt her eyes and she had to squint against the piercing pain. After three blocks, she ducked into a delivery alley and vomited. She waited there, a hand braced against the wall until the spasms stopped and she could breathe again.
Why did I go to his shop?
she wondered.
What did I hope to gain?

Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, Sparrow stumbled out of the alley again, and slowly made her way home.

*   *   *

B
Y THE TIME SHE
’
D REACHED
the house, she was shaking with fever. Tears poured down her face as she turned the key in her front door. The apartment was empty as Marti had gone to work.
Like I should,
Sparrow thought.

But she just needed to rest a while first. She’d call in sick before her shift at the bookstore. Lurching down the hallway to her bedroom, she threw herself down on the unmade bed, and piled the coverlets over her shivering body, clutching pillows tightly around her head to try to ease the pounding headache. Lily jumped onto the bed and tried to lick her face but Sparrow pushed her away.
Undaunted, Lily stationed herself at the bottom of the bed, her head lifting with a worried glance every time Sparrow turned over with a groan.

It’s much worse than a hangover
, she thought. It was like withdrawal from a powerful drug. There was nothing to do but ride it out. Ride it out and hope for the best.

*   *   *