Faery Tales & Nightmares (27 page)

The girl steps onto the porch. She is but a child, hair in braids, but she comes as the Sleeping Girl must. She whispers, “Do you summon me, Cailleach?”

Aisling answers, “Not yet, little one. Sleep now.”

The girl tumbles to the soft snow, and Aisling gathers the child in her arms.

She carries the girl to the cabin, where the Sleeping Girl’s sisters wait. They accept the Sleeping Girl from her and carry her farther into the house.

As he has every year since she became Cailleach, Donnchadh stands at the threshold. He brushes his warm fingers over Aisling’s cheek. “I thought of you these long months. It is strange pleasure to look forward to the snows.”

She holds her breath as he brushes his lips across hers. The moment before vanquishing him is still new, will always be new—but it must come. Winter must end Summer, just as the Sleeping Girl must call him back in a few short months.

Gently, Aisling whispers, “Donnchadh…”

And at the touch of her icy breath, he vanishes.

“Until spring,” she whispers into the empty air.

So Cailleach Aisling turns back to the frozen night; she has much to do before the new Sleeping Girl wakes the earth and Donnchadh reigns again.

C
OTTON
C
ANDY
S
KIES

T
HE SKY WAS THE COLOR OF COTTON
candy.
Tish would like that
. Rabbit hadn’t made it through a day yet without thinking about his sister. She’d been dead for two months now—two months during which he’d watched his other sister become one of the rulers of Faerie. Ani and Tish had been the children he never expected to have; they’d been his to raise since Ani was a toddler, chin jutting out, Hunt-green eyes narrowed, clutching seven-year-old Tish’s hand.

The paintbrush in his hand hung limp. Some days he was able to paint, but this morning didn’t feel like it was going to be one of them. He stared at the sky. The clouds were thin wisps, stretched-out bands of darker pink woven into a pale pink background. Trees, some familiar and others peculiar, popped up in the landscape, not always where they’d been the day before—or perhaps the moment before. Few things were predictable in Faerie. That part he liked. Feeling useless, however, was a lot less appealing. In the mortal world, he had a function—he’d raised his two half sisters, been in the employ of the Dark King, and had a thriving tattoo studio. Here, he had no responsibilities at all.

“It’s hers.” One of the other artists, a faery woman with stars always slipping in and out of her eyes, leaned against a low wall outside his cottage. “The sky. She colored it today.”

Rabbit looked away from the artist. If he stared too long at her, he had trouble remembering to breathe. He watched falling stars, comets that whipped past, entire nebulae all glinting in her night-sky eyes. Every time he looked at her, he had to force himself to pull away. Something about her intensity made him fear that he’d get trapped in her gaze. He wasn’t sure if such a thing was truly possible, but he was living in Faerie, a land where the impossible was more likely than the expected.

“Not
your
her,” she said.

“My her?” Rabbit asked.

“The Shadow Queens. The girl that is two girls.” The artist walked toward him.

Talking to the artist was one of the few joys Rabbit could count on. She was unexpected in the way that not even the fluid world around him was, but she had a sense of calm about her that he craved. Before, when he was the person he’d been for all but these past two months, he’d have asked her to grab a drink or dance, but the idea of doing something so free
now
made him fill with guilt. Logically, he knew he wasn’t at fault for surviving, but if he could trade his life in for Tish’s, he’d do so in an instant. With conscious effort, Rabbit stopped pondering that.

“Will you tell me your name today?” he asked.

She smiled. “You could ask the queens.”

“I could,” he agreed. “It’s
your
name, though. I told you mine.”

“No.” She took his brush, touched the tip of it to her lips, and started painting in the air. Glimmering bits of light hovered in the empty space in front of him. “You told me a name that is not what
I
should call you.”

Silently, he watched as she created a flower in the open air and beside it a small rabbit that lifted its head and watched them. The rabbit she’d drawn seemed to be rolling in the grass in front of a cluster of yew trees. The illusory rabbit startled, and then ran under the lowest branches where it peered up at the sky sadly.

She handed him his brush. “You are not a small animal.”

“My father called me ‘Rabbit,’ and my sisters did, and … it’s who I am,” Rabbit explained to her again.

She sighed. “It is not
all
of who you are.”

“They were my life,” he whispered. “Before my sisters… I wasn’t worth anything, and if they don’t need me… I am nothing.”

Gently, the artist covered his hand, and he felt cold flow from her skin into his.

“Starlight,” she murmured. “Close your eyes so you can see.”

The words made no sense, but the feel of her body against his was one of the few things that made him feel anything other than hollow. She filled his emptiness with something pure, and even as he felt that light slide into his skin, he tried to escape her touch.

“Paint,” she urged. “Keep your eyes closed and
paint
.”

He felt tears slip from his closed eyes as he moved his brush. There was no canvas, nothing that would contain the images that he saw in his mind, and he wasn’t sure if he’d see them hovering in the air if he opened his eyes. Unlike tattoos, these images were temporary.

Her hand rested atop his as he painted in the air. He wasn’t sure how long they stood there.

Today, when Rabbit watched her go, he felt like he kept some of that peace she gave him by her presence.

As he watched them, Devlin considered intervening: Olivia was a perplexing creature on her most lucid days. She turned to stare directly at him, and then held a finger to her lips.

He startled. While he was hidden in the shadows cast by the side of the cottage, she shouldn’t see him. It was a trick that he found useful for observing the working of Faerie without the fey or mortals noticing him.

Olivia continued walking toward her own home, and after ascertaining that Rabbit was as fine as he seemed to be on most days, Devlin followed Olivia.

Once they were inside, she sat on the floor. The main room had no furniture at all. It was a bare space with pillows scattered over a woven-mat floor.

“The shadows hurt my eyes today.” She waved her hand at him. “Make them go.”

At a loss, Devlin did so, letting the darkness he wore to hide himself sink back under his skin. No longer hidden, he motioned at the floor. “May I?”

“For a moment.” Olivia kicked a few pillows toward him.

“You can see me.”

“I have eyes.” She gave him a puzzled look. “Do you not see you?”

“I do, but I was hidden. The others—”

“Are not me.” Olivia sighed, and then reached out and patted his knee. “I’m glad you have the girl who is two. When one gets confused, it is good to have help. Maybe you should not go out alone?”

“Maybe…”

“The girl used to stay in your skin when you visited me,” Olivia said. “It is why you weren’t willing to share my cot?”

“I… you…”

Gently, Olivia squeezed his hand. “Do you need me to take you to her? It can be confusing to walk alone when you are not meant to be alone.”

“You are kind, Livvy.” Devlin pulled his hand free of her grasp. “Do others see me when I wear shadows?”

Her brow furrowed as she stared at him. “Why would they? They are not me.”

“True.” Devlin smiled then. “Will you tell me if Rabbit needs me?

“That’s not his name,” she murmured.

“Right. Well, him… Will you tell me if he needs me?”

She nodded. “He needs
me
, but he’s not sure of it yet. Soon, though.”

For a moment, Devlin watched her. Years ago, he’d learned that waiting was useful when dealing with Olivia. Her sense of time was unique, as was her sense of order.

Hours passed. Of that, Rabbit was fairly sure. What he didn’t know was how many hours passed. The sky didn’t shift as it had in the mortal world, and between the irregular landscape and the numbing grief, he wasn’t ever entirely sure of the time.

“Are you feeling any better?” Ani stood in a band of shadows that seemed to flex and pulse like water.

Idly, Rabbit wondered if she noticed the shadowed air.

“Rab?”

His sister walked up to him and took something from his hand. He realized that he was still holding the paintbrush he’d picked up when he’d started the day. With effort, he uncurled his hands.

“You need to… I don’t know.” Ani wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned her face against his chest. “I need you well, Rab.”

“I’m trying.” He stroked her hair. “I don’t know how to be something
here
, though. The world I knew was over there. My family, my girls, my father … my art. My court.”

His baby sister looked up at him. “You have family and court and art here too.”

“I do.” He forced a smile to his lips. “I’m sorry.”

Tears filled her eyes. “You don’t need to be sorry. I just need you to be well again. I want you to snarl at me. I want you to laugh.”

“I will,” he promised. With his thumb, he caught a tear on her cheek and wiped it away. “Come inside. Tell me about your day.”

Ani snuggled against his side and together they went into the little house that was his. She’d invited him to live with her, offered him a replica of their old home, even offered him the right to design whatever he wanted. Instead, he stayed in the artists’ area.

Because I can be alone here
.

He wasn’t trying to be maudlin, but he’d lost his sister, seen Irial stabbed, and had no word from Gabriel. In truth, he wasn’t sure if he
would
, either. The gate between Faerie and the mortal world was sealed, open only for Seth unless both the High Court and Shadow Court cooperated.

It wasn’t that Rabbit wanted to go to that world. He just wasn’t sure what he was to do here in Faerie. It had been over a decade since he was without a responsibility.

You do have a responsibility
.

He looked at the Shadow Queen, his baby sister, and smiled. She still needed him. That much was clear.

So stop this
, he reminded himself.

“I was thinking about building a few tattoo machines.” Rabbit stepped away from his sister and opened an old-fashioned squat, dingy white refrigerator that was covered with stickers for old-school punk bands. He pulled out a pitcher of iced tea.

Ani sat at the garish lime-green kitchen table and watched him as he dropped ice cubes into two jelly jars that served as drinking glasses. The ice popped as he poured the tea in, and he paused. The tea was warm.

He opened the fridge; it was working.

“Did you make the tea?” he asked.

His sister shook her head and started to stand, but Rabbit raised a hand. “Don’t drink it.”

After taking the glass from her, Rabbit walked out of the kitchen and into the tiny living room. It was empty. He checked the bedroom, bathroom, studio, and even the patio. No one else was here.

The side door, however, was wide open.

Cautiously, he stepped outside and heard Her voice. “You’re late.”

“Late?” he asked.

“Possibly early.” The artist gave him a once-over, and then she frowned. “I find your timeliness troubling tonight.”

“Oh.” Rabbit looked around. Although he saw no one else, he still asked, “Did you put tea in my house?”

The artist laughed. “I knew it was somewhere.” She took his hand in hers as she walked past him and into his house.

Bemused, he let her lead him to his kitchen.