Except the Queen (41 page)
Authors: Jane Yolen,Midori Snyder
Hawk—or Lankin, as Robin explained—had nearly succeeded in killing her. She shuddered, remembering opening the door, the sting of the elf shot, and then falling. She remembered too the way he’d undressed her, caressed her, and then slapped her hard across the face. She had wanted to scream, to writhe in pain, even fight back when he’d taken the needle to her flesh. But there was nothing she could do, not even weep. The crows had swarmed through the broken glass and flooded into her room. Sophia had broken the spell of binding. But even then the trouble had not ended.
“
Be careful
,” Sparrow continued . . .
. . . the shit is hitting the fan here and it’s really dangerous. Last night a couple who live in the apartment below mine, just back from their holidays, got attacked by someone right in their apartment. The cops have been and gone. We’re pretty sure they saw the mess upstairs. Probably have it figured for something drug related. Sophia thinks the bad guys were looking for her and maybe me, too. You know already about Lankin. And how we pretty much scooted out of there with just our skins. After the cops went, Sophia realized that she’d left your letters behind. Like I said, you guys don’t know much about keeping secrets. She hustled back there and two seconds after we saw the lights go on in her apartment window, Jack started cursing.
From our window we saw these walking dead guys heading up the back stairs after her. Jack grabbed a rusty pole and Robin took a kitchen knife—I wanted to come but they yelled at me to stay put. I don’t know what happened exactly. I saw Sophia in the window turn and then it went dark as the lamp was knocked over. Jack and Robin must have got there pretty quick because a second later I see those thugs crashing out the window trying to make a quick getaway. One had Jack’s pole in its belly. Only they don’t fall—they fly with huge raggedy wings, snake-necked like vultures. They didn’t have bird heads, though—just human skulls.
Sophia wasn’t hurt too badly. A nasty gash across her left arm. Jack cleaned and stitched it up and has been taking care of her. You’re wrong about him by the way. He’s a handy guy to have around. He won’t let her get up until he’s sure there’s no infection.
So here’s the thing.
Get here as quick as you can.
Tell the crones Jack’s got a bottle under the
bed reserved just for them. It seems he knows their type only too well.
See you soon,
Sparrow
“Sophia, do you want to add anything to the letter?” Sparrow asked, putting down the pen.
“That would be good, thank you.” Groaning, Meteora lifted herself off the couch and shuffled over to the table. Beneath the untidy swath of hair, her face was pale, beads of sweat dotting her upper lip. But she smiled graciously at Sparrow. “Just a few words.”
She leaned over the paper and wrote in slanted, curling letters that drifted like vines across the page.
P.S. Forgive me, dearest Sister. I have let Sparrow write my letter. I am in too much pain right now to sit and give it the thought it needs. Oh, how I wish I could speak to you in Robin’s toy. I dare not let the others know how much the bananachs hurt me. I have so precious little magic in me and they too much. Jack’s cures are working—but they will not work for long. I need you. I will fold this letter until it is small enough to tuck beneath the wren’s left wing. I can only hope she finds you. There is much to tell you, but too dangerous to commit to this page.
Blessed is the mother that bore us and the sister who dwells in my heart.
M
“Will she come in time?” Sparrow asked, watching Meteora’s fingers delicately fold the tissue of onionskin paper until it appeared no thicker than a thin dime.
“Of course she will come,” Meteora answered. “She’s my sister.” She went to the window, gently pushing a
vigilant Robin to one side. Opening the window, she gave a low whistle. A small wren, no bigger than a child’s fist, appeared at the ledge and allowed Meteora to tuck the letter beneath his striped wing. She fed him some bread crumbs from her palm and then he was gone, smaller and smaller until he was hardly a pebble in the sky.
“That’s it then,” Meteora said, turning.
Sparrow smiled, envious for a moment of the old woman’s unshakable faith in her sister. She was completely confident that Auntie Em would simply show up at Jack’s house, in a town she’d never seen before.
But then
, Sparrow thought,
she’s traveling by “air” with a couple of crones. And that I can’t wait to see!
O
nce spilled blood would have excited me. Once I was my father’s son. Now I am the grandson of a healer, a friend of a gardener, and I bind the wounds.
Sophia’s cut was nasty, but not deep into the bone. Jack showed me where to look for infection. I did not tell him I would smell it. But I watched his competent hands stitch and mend, and when, at last, he trusted me with the changing of the cloths, I washed my hands carefully, before doing the binding.
Precious fluids. The smell of my beloved’s sweat and lust. The way I marked my territory in the garden. And now my great-aunt’s blood. These three have helped me walk away from my father’s world, from his whistles and commands. I will not go back.
W
e needed too many things: food, bandages, and most importantly news. As Jack was the only one of us who might have safely ventured outside without drawing the attention of the UnSeelie hordes watching the house, I anointed his left eye with a bit of my spit that he might have partial sight into Faerie. Perhaps it was a rash act, but I had only the right intent that he should protect himself from the UnSeelie in the streets below and at the same time gather news of their whereabouts. But then I forgot the old tales, and the dangers to mortals who can see into our world.
He returned a shade lighter than he had left. Even sick as I was with the bananachs’ poison, I noticed immediately the somber expression on his blanched face, noted the way his hands trembled slightly when he placed the bags on the table.
“What happened?”
He turned to me, the skin across his jaw rippling with agitation. “As I was walking out of the grocery store, a man in a red baseball cap nearly slammed into me. I thought it was just a guy so I sidestepped to avoid him. He hissed and when I looked at him a second time, he whipped off the red cap and I saw him more clearly. Pointed teeth, long ears, green cast to his pale skin. I
didn’t look away quick enough. My face showed that I recognized what he really was.”
“We gotta run,” Robin said bluntly.
Jack disagreed. “Sophia’s too sick.”
“They’ve marked you,” Robin argued. “Look out the window. See for yourself.”
Jack peeked around the edge of the curtain and we all heard the sharp intake of his breath. “Damn!”
“If we do not get out of here
now
, there will only be more of them. And not much we will be able to do to stop them on our own.” Robin moved toward Sparrow, his instinct to protect her making him agitated.
“I know a place,” Jack said, stepping away from the window. “It’s not too far from here, but just the sort of place to throw them off the scent. Lots of iron.”
“But my sister is already on her way.”
“Can you get word to her?” Jack had started gathering up things and tossing them into a huge cloth bag. I noticed that he slipped in his carving tools, but whether for defense or because he was sentimental about them I could not tell.
“I will leave her a message. One the UnSeelie will not find.”
“Then make it quick.” Robin’s eyes were trained out the window. “There are two more monsters sniffing around the garden. And if
they
are here, then Red Cap won’t be far behind.”
Jack told me where we were going, and I whispered the words to a mourning dove who was napping on the sill of his kitchen window. She was a simple creature, incapable of anything but one or two thoughts at a time. However, it was all I needed. I pulled a hair from my head, and tied it around her leg—for though we were different, my hair, like the feather, would serve to identify her as my nest mate. The dove would not speak to anyone but my sister—indeed she
could
not, for none but my sister would be able to jog the message from her memory. I bid her fly through Sparrow’s shattered
windows, then up to my door that I knew still stood ajar, and wait inside until my sister should arrive.
My legs were shaking, my head light from the fever. It was becoming harder to breathe. “How will we get there?” I asked, unable to imagine running or even walking a short distance to safety.
“We’ll take the Charger. It’s in the garage. We can avoid being seen by anyone hanging around the alley or the garden.” Jack stuffed extra bandages and a sweater into his big bag.
“Charger?” I envisioned one of those great warhorses.
He laughed. “You really are out of this world, sweet Sophia. It’s my car, a Dodge.”
“A muscle car,” added Sparrow.
Now I was thoroughly confused. His words dodge and muscle and charger all had different meanings for me, so I focused on the one word I understood. “I cannot travel in one of those machines of iron and noise. That will kill me faster than the poison. Please,” I begged, my mouth dry with panic, “there must be some other way!”
“She’s right,” Robin said, coming to put his arm around my shoulder. I leaned against him, weak and frightened. “Sparrow and I are human enough that we can stand it for a short while. But Sophia won’t be able to manage.”
And that’s when I saw the shocked look on Jack’s face. I knew he thought me unusual, and even possessed of some magical skills, at least by the standards of this world. But I saw now that he had never considered that I might not be fully human. Or that Robin and Sparrow might be only partially so. Shadow chased the light from his eyes as he absorbed the news.
“So if not human, what
are
you?” he asked at last.
“Fey,” I answered, hoping that was enough.
The light returned and he smiled his lopsided grin. “I always thought you were supposed to be—”
“Young?” I interrupted, irritably. “Well, consider it a first,” I wheezed. “I’m old and fat, and even though I’ve no more power than a thimbleful of sand, I am still proud
of what I am.” It was stupid really. We had other far more important things to consider and there I was muckle-mad about my wounded pride.
Jack put his arms around me and kissed the top of my head. “I was going to say I thought the fey were shades of green. Silly joke. I think you are quite perfect, Sophia. Wouldn’t change a thing about you.” He looked out, over my head at Robin and Sparrow, standing by the door. “What if we cover her? Will that be enough to protect her from the iron in the car?”
“Possibly.” Robin grabbed a sheepskin rug off the floor and draped it around my shoulders. Jack added two quilts, and before I knew it, I was swaddled from head to toe.
We took the back stairs that led directly to the garage, Jack in the lead, followed by Sparrow clutching rowan branches pulled from the chairs for protection. I came lumbering after them like a bear just out of her den, and last was Robin cradling his fiddle.
They bundled me into the front seat next to Jack, while Sparrow sat behind me and patted my shoulder. Jack revved the engine and I thought my heart would burst from the whirring iron all around me, every turning cog and piston casting poisonous dust into the air. Robin opened the garage door, jumped into the backseat with Sparrow and we sped away leaving behind a shocked and outraged Boggle and Bloody Bones that had been left to watch. But Jack was right, for even they could not follow the iron trail of the machine.
The journey was worse than I had imagined. Once Jack pulled over that I might hang my head out of the window to vomit. What a sight I made. I could not hold my mind together, raddled between my misery and fear of the machine, the thought of Red Cap’s host desecrating the garden, my grief at mayhap never seeing my sister’s face again, anguish at looking so ravaged in front of the children and Jack. Although I had managed till now to find some small measure of dignity in this disgraceful middle age, the dodging, charging muscle car
had turned me into nothing more than a wretched and retching hag.