Except the Queen (18 page)

And then abruptly, I heard a familiar voice, sharp and unhappy, pitched like a magpie defending its nest. It was coming from just behind me, back in the shelter of the trees. I turned my head to the side, not wanting to let on I knew they were there. I needed to see them first, believe with my eyes what my ears had revealed.

The three were sitting on the ground beneath the spreading branches of an old oak, its leaves already turning rusty brown. Though they were wearing more clothes—mostly dirty T-shirts and torn bluish trousers—I knew them at once. The boy had the same dark hair shaved close to his scalp in spiral patterns. The girls wore their hair in thick-snarled plaits, tied off with beads and bits of black feathers.

I turned back to watch the passersby on the sidewalk, but tuned my ear to the squabbles of the three behind me.
Why are they here?
I had left them far behind on the edge of the forest that rainy night they pushed me toward the iron dragon, fleeing as soon as Baba Yaga grabbed my wrists. How did they know where to find me?

I heard them quiet down as the tips of my ears flickered, catching the sound of their voices.
It is no good
, I thought,
they will leave if I don’t stop them
. I bundled up my lovely sandwich back in its wrapping, grabbed my paper teacup, and stood up. Behind me there was silence.

I smiled broadly and walked briskly toward them. The grass was moist and springy beneath my feet. They looked startled and rose as a group, prepared to flee.

“Wait!” I called. “Don’t go. I bring a gift.”

They hesitated, the smaller girl pulling on the oldest boy’s T-shirt. As changelings they had learned long ago in the Greenwood to live on almost nothing but air. But human children needed more to sustain them and I knew they would remember the taste and pleasure of food. I handed the boy my white bag and he snatched it from me as though I might change my mind. He put his face into the bag and sniffed. The others stared at him expectantly. He motioned them to sit down and took out the sandwich. As the girls watched, licking their lips and wiping their dirty fingers on their even dirtier clothing, the boy carefully tore the sandwich into three sections, leaving one for himself and handing out the other two pieces.

I sat down on the ground beside them and pulled out the two peaches from my pocket. I split them into halves and gave them to the children. The older girl squealed and snatched the sweet fruit from my hand. But the smallest child, the girl with the heart-shaped face, reached out a grimy hand and patted the hidden lump in my pocket.

I laughed and withdrew the cookies for them. Then I presented the children with the half-filled cup of now cold tea and they passed it around, swallowing quick sips in between bites of bread and cheese, fruit and cookies. I leaned back, quietly waiting for them to finish eating.

It did not take long, and looking almost abashed at the eagerness with which they had accepted the gift of food, the eldest boy lowered his head.

“We are in your debt,” he said softly.

“Not at all,” I replied. “You have already helped me once before, that night—”

“Shhh. Don’t speak of that,” he said, darting glances over his shoulder to be certain there was no one to hear our conversation.

“Why are you here?” I asked, lowering my own voice. “How did you find me? And why would the Queen wish to spy on me? Except to convince herself I am as miserable as she hoped?”

“Too many questions,” the boy said.

“We are to watch . . . and wait . . .” said the older girl. Her long narrow face ended with a pointed chin but her golden eyes were large and round as an owl’s.

“For what?”

“For what comes of it,” she shrugged, and retucked a black feather into her braid.

“Comes of what?” I asked, growing more confused and alarmed.

“They are looking for it,” the little girl said, licking the last of the cookie crumbs off of her palm.

“For what? And who’s they?” I asked.

The boy gave a coarse laugh. “Riddles are not meant to be answered like tallying sums in a shopkeeper’s ledger. Though you appear old and plump as a vintner’s wife, you’ve not lost your true nature to seek beneath the signs. Use it instead. We’ll give you no more, for it means danger for us.”

They stood and I did too, albeit with more effort. The boy reached down a hand to help me. They may have been half wild, but they still remembered the rules of hospitality. I wished at that moment that I had more food, anything to keep them close and talking to me. But I knew I had nothing left to give them but one rare and private thing.

“I trust you,” I said to the boy, who seemed to be the leader. His brown eyes widened with surprise. And it was true. I saw them—like me—as outcasts longing to return home. We were all pieces of a game, not certain of the hands that moved us. Mice hiding in the pantry of big cats. And mice need to stick together. I leaned forward to the boy, and spoke my true name into the shell of his ear.

His eyes glistened for a moment before he blinked it away. He turned to leave, and then as if thinking twice about it, he abruptly turned back and leaned in close. He closed his hand around my ear and whispered his own name,
Awxes
.

I touched his shoulder, grateful for the gift. Whatever else they were doing here, I believed they meant me no harm.

I watched them depart, strolling through the shadows of the trees until they melted into the green leaves. And as I walked back toward the path, I heard the harsh cawing of crows and saw them break through the canopy of tree branches to streak above me, their black wings stark against the fading sunlight.

I walked home in the encroaching twilight, the newly lit streetlamps casting shadows across the sidewalks and streets. A chilly breeze rustled through the trees. I could smell rain approaching, only moments away, and hurried my steps. By the time I turned down Farewell, I was shivering in a brusque wind that rifled through leaves and caused the branches to moan and saw against one another. I dashed into the house as the first heavy spatters fell from the sky.

For once the house was quiet. No troll music, no barking dog, no crying girl. I walked up the steps and got halfway up the first floor, then stopped and turned around. It was a vain hope, but I wanted there to be a letter. I wanted to feel my sister close to me.

I looked at my black letterbox, and through the opening spotted the envelope. Trembling I fetched it out and saw the words written in delicate lines across the front. At first, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry to see the name I had chosen written there and in the corner, hers—“Mabel Farmer.” I burst out laughing. We sounded like nothing more than a pair of milk cows. I pressed the letter to my breast and mounted the stairs, desperate for news.

*   *   *

L
ATER, SITTING IN THE KITCHEN
, lit only by a single candle, I replied. Outside the rain lashed the windows, a dismal harbinger of the coming autumn. I was wrapped in one of Baba Yaga’s woolen shawls, a pot of strong tea to hand. The cat slept on the chair curled into a knot, with her tail firmly pressed over her face. I was grateful when
the hands suddenly appeared, the feminine hand in a lacy fingerless mitten, and showed me how to send heat into the little vents near the floor. The house slowly warmed, but I could not remove the chilled sorrow from my heart. I tried to put my muddled thoughts into words that might enlighten Serana but not reveal too much—for I thought of the changelings somewhere outside, huddled in this cold rain, and I didn’t want to say anything that might bring them harm.

Folding the letter, I slipped it into an envelope and put a stamp on it. I wrote down Serana’s address, feeling how odd it was that there was this place I had never seen, that held the body of my sister. I could not imagine how she might look standing in a room of such a place, staring out the windows and searching for my face.

Much later I got into bed, pulling the coverlet over my shoulders and up to my ears. I was almost asleep when I heard the girl below me crying again, her long sobs wrenched from deep within a wounded heart. And try as I might, I could not imagine what horror coiled so deeply in her breast.

T
hree days passed, dark and full of thunderstorms, and not a word from my sister. On the fourth day, the sky cleared and I ventured out, thinking to go to the store and buy food. I had finished all that Jamie Oldcourse had bought for me. The olives especially had been a new and delightful taste, being salty and tangy at the same time. When I drank the juice left behind in the bottle, it was so strong, I coughed until salt came out my nose, but it was wonderful nonetheless.

Surprisingly, Juan Flores’ store was closed. Perhaps he was sicker than the bark-brown lady had suggested. Worried, but with no one to ask, I walked farther along the block, and then two more long blocks, seeking another store with fruta in it, till at last I came to one like Juan’s, only larger, with huge signs on the windows promising sales. I bought two apples, the color of old gold, but they were dearer than I had expected, so I purchased nothing else, and went back out into the sunshine, preparing to return home. I would have the apples for my dinner, and on the morrow return to the Man of Flowers’ store.

Just then I smelled something that I had not a whiff of since Faerie—a copse of trees. Not just the spindly things that lined my block. The scent was so faint, I wondered for a moment if I were mistaken. Standing on my tiptoes,
I glimpsed far ahead the green tops of a full grove of trees. So I shoved the apples into my skirt pocket and dove into the noise and the stink of the city. Dodging colorful bags swung by careless walkers and racing in between the cars, I walked as quickly as this body allowed toward the tempting green. As I went, I began humming a song Meteora and I had made up years ago.