The Faerie Path (12 page)

She came to the far end of the bridge. She made her way down to the jetty where she had been standing when she had first arrived.

She stood in the same spot, her feet firmly planted, her arms stretched out, her head tilted back, and her face to the sky. “I want to go back!” she shouted.

The trees rustled. The river flowed softly by.

The white stars gazed impassively down at her.

She shook her head. It wasn’t going to work, not like this. Then how?

Behind her, a rough, stony track led from the bridge into the forest. Was that the direction from which Gabriel had brought her? Was that her path back?

She jumped down off the jetty and ran under the arch of branches.

The wind rushed in her ears. The blood pounded in her temples.

She gasped for breath, her feet hammering on the packed earth. The trees seemed to tighten around her like a closing fist. The pathway dwindled in the distance to a black pinpoint.

The wind began to roar and bellow in her ears. The world spun like a pinwheel in front of her. She was running on tree trunks, in the branches, upside down with the leaves crunching under her feet. Spinning out of control.

And then the trees were gone and she was running along a white corridor.

She smelled disinfectant. Electric strip-lighting flickered above her head. She saw a sign.

MERCY WARD
.

She was back in the hospital.

For a few moments, Tania just stood in the corridor, bent over, one hand to her side, sucking in air; recovering from the insanity of that long race between the worlds.

She heard voices and glanced around. There was a large metal-framed cart parked against the wall, filled with laundry. It was nighttime; if she was seen, she would be asked what she was doing there, and probably why she was wearing an old-fashioned dress. She didn’t want to waste time with that kind of thing right now.

She slipped behind the cart and pressed herself against the wall, holding her breath as two doctors walked toward her.

“I already do longer hours than any other surgeon in this hospital,” one of them was saying. “They don’t seem to appreciate that I have a family at home that’s
being neglected because of this place.”

The two doctors didn’t notice Tania standing in the shadows.

She breathed out shakily as they turned off the corridor.

She glanced at the chrome rails of the laundry cart. Should she try it? Yes, she had to make sure. Very gingerly, she reached out a forefinger toward the metal. A blue spark arced from the rail, biting at her fingertip, sharp as a wasp sting.

She pulled back her hand, sucking her tingling finger. If anything, the shock was even fiercer than before.
Isenmort
, she thought with a shudder.

She listened for more voices. There didn’t seem to be anyone around. She walked quickly along the corridor, heading for Mercy Ward, the same ward she had been in a couple of days ago before her life had been turned inside out.

Was it really only a couple of days? As she walked through the lobby that led to the ward, she felt as if she was revisiting a place she had known years and years before, like returning to a childhood haunt and finding it quite different from the way she remembered it. Not because the place had changed, but because
she
had.

The ward was dimly lit and very quiet. She saw the night-nurse’s station with its small pool of light. But no one was sitting at the desk. She walked softly to the end of the room that had held her bed.

She felt an odd, disturbing chill when she saw
there was someone in the bed. What if it was
her
?

But it was a middle-aged man. And he was snoring.

She heard approaching footsteps sharp as the cracking of broken glass in the stillness.

She slid out of sight behind the folded-back curtains.

She could see two nurses approaching. She recognized one as the dark-haired nurse who had picked her up off the bathroom floor the other night; the other one she didn’t know.

“…monitoring bed nine,” the dark-haired nurse was saying. “But apart from that you should have a quiet time. You missed all the fun while you were on leave.”

“Why, what happened?”

“Only that we had two patients go missing off this ward in one day,” the dark-haired nurse told the newcomer. “Unbelievable. And there are supposed to be security people on all the doors down there. Management hit the roof. They’ve had us on high alert ever since, although what good that’s supposed to do is anyone’s guess.”

“How do you mean, they went missing?” the new nurse asked.

“Well, there was a young man who’d been in a speedboat accident. There wasn’t anything seriously wrong with him except that he hadn’t regained consciousness. He was the first to do a vanishing act, just disappeared overnight. And then the next morning,
in broad daylight, the girl he was brought in with vanished as well. Can you believe that? If you want my opinion, the boy came back and fetched her away and they’re halfway to Gretna Green to get married. She’s only sixteen, the little fool. And not a thought for her parents, poor things. Isn’t that just typical?”

“Didn’t anyone see her leave?” said the other nurse.

“A couple of people said they saw her go through the TV room and out onto the balcony. They don’t remember her coming back in again, but there’s no way she could have made it down to street level off that balcony, it’s far too high up. Not unless she flew down.” The dark-haired nurse paused to unhook a clipboard from the end of a patient’s bed. She checked the notes, then looked up at her colleague. “Mind you, she was a bit odd—odd in the head, I mean.”

“In what way?”

“Well, the night before she vanished,” the dark-haired nurse began, “I found her on the floor in…Oh, good lord, look at the time. I’ll miss my bus. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. Have a nice quiet shift. Oh, speaking of that girl, her belongings have been packed in a box and left in the family room. Her parents are meant to be picking them up in the morning. I just thought I’d mention it in case they come in early and you’re still around.”

She hooked the clipboard back onto the bed, walked briskly over to the nurse’s station to retrieve her coat, and vanished down the corridor.

A bit odd, am I?
Tania mused.
And I’ve run off with my boyfriend? Well, it makes more sense than the truth.

She waited behind the curtain until the new nurse had taken her seat behind the desk and was busy with some documents. Then she slipped quietly back the way she had come, heading for the family room.

She felt a tight pain in her chest when she thought of her mum and dad. What was worse? Imagining your daughter has been abducted against her will, or assuming that she’d run off with some boy without bothering to say a word about it?

Now that she was back here, her first priority was to make contact with them, to let them know she was all right. But how to explain what had happened?

Tania wasn’t concerned that her parents would think she was lying when she told them about Faerie. They’d probably accept that
she
believed it all, but they’d also probably think she was delusional because of the bang on the head.
Off her rocker
, as her dad would say.

She needed some way of proving to them that she wasn’t out of her mind.

She thought of the leather-bound book. It would be among her belongings. It had been blank when she had first received it, but now it told the story of her Faerie childhood, right up to the point when she stepped out of Faerie on the eve of her wedding. She had no idea why the writing had been invisible or missing when she had first opened it, but the important thing was that the story was there now. She would
be able to show it to her mum and dad. Proof that she wasn’t out of her mind.

Tania still had no idea who could have sent the book. Gabriel had never mentioned it, so it was unlikely to be part of his plans. But whoever was responsible, she was in no doubt that it was a Faerie book. At first, when she had believed that her Faerie life was all in her head, she had assumed that the dream had been inspired by the book. But now she knew that wasn’t the case at all. The book was the chronicle of her life, all the way from her birth to her disappearance.

But who had sent it to her? Evan? If so, why? To help her come to terms with the truth? To learn about who she really was? Possibly, but why would he send it to her through the mail? Why not just give it to her on the boat trip?

She peered along the corridor, watching for any movement. There was no one around. She opened the door to the family room and slipped inside. The walls were covered in cheerful paintings and posters. The cardboard box stood on a cabinet under the window. She walked over to it and lifted the lid.

She saw her neatly folded jacket on top. She drew it out and stood for a few moments just looking at it. There was a long ragged tear down one sleeve and signs of scuffing on the shoulder and back. But it was clean and dry, not rumpled and drenched and smelling of the river as it must have been when she arrived at the hospital.

She put down the jacket and looked into the box
again. Her shoulder bag lay on the top. Tania reached out and ran her finger over the faded canvas. She knew that it held all the normal, everyday things that proved who she was. Who
Anita Palmer
was. Her school ID card. Her bus pass. Old movie tickets. Lip balm. Elastic hair bands. Her address book. House keys. Her cell phone.

Her cell phone!

If there was any power left in the battery, she could call her mum and dad right now to tell them she was okay, tell them she was on her way home. She could even get them to drive over and pick her up.

Her heart leaped. She picked up the bag. Lying under it was the leather-bound book.

Tania reached down into the cardboard box to pick it up.

The moment her fingers touched the ancient brown leather a howling tornado ripped upward from the box, almost lifting her off her feet.

“No!”

The colored walls began to revolve around her. She tried to pull her fingers away from the book, but it was too late. The room spun, the colors stretching and blurring until she was surrounded by whirling bands of painted light. Red. Green. Blue. Yellow. Red. Green. Blue. Yellow. Faster and faster. And then the lights began to swivel around her, making a nonsense of up and down and left and right, and she lost her balance and fell, screaming, into the terrifying maelstrom.

She was crouched on the ground with her arms folded against her chest, her body bent double so that her head was almost on her knees. From somewhere close by she heard the liquid call of a nightingale. A warm breeze rustled the leaves above her head. She could smell the pungent scents of earth and trees.

“Oh, great!” she groaned, lifting her head. “Perfect!”

She was back in the forest.

The only difference from her previous world slips was that there was no feeling of nausea this time. Maybe she was just too plain angry for that.

She knelt up, sitting on her heels. She was still clutching the leather-bound book. In a fit of rage, she flung it away. It thudded onto the path, falling open in a flurry of thick ivory-colored pages.

“Why can’t I control it?” she shouted. “What’s the use of having this power if I can’t
control
it?”

The canopy of branches deadened her voice.

She gave a snarl of frustration. Ahead of her, the forest trail opened up and she could see part of the white bridge. She looked over her shoulder, staring deeper into the forest. Was it worth trying to get back again?

She shook her head. She was too tired. Her legs felt like lead. She just wanted to get back to her room.

She glared at the book lying open in front of her.

“This is all your fault,” she snarled at it. “Stupid, stupid book!”

She crawled over to it.

It had fallen open on the page with the poem.

The book was only a record of her life. Of Princess Tania’s life. It wasn’t the book’s fault she couldn’t control her power.

Tania picked it up and got to her feet. She gently closed it and smoothed the leather cover, as if trying to make up for her burst of anger.

She began the weary hike back to the palace.

She paused in the middle of the bridge and leaned over the sliding star-speckled water, remembering how Gabriel had given her his cloak when he had first brought her into Faerie, how he had been so gentle
and kind, as if he understood how confused she must have been.

There was a small stone lying on the parapet of the bridge. She picked it up and reached out over the water to drop it. It was swallowed up by the river with a soft
clop
. The field of mirrored stars wavered and ripples rimmed with tiny points of light spread out below her.

“The thing is,” she said quietly, “if I’m really Princess Tania, then
everything
here is real.” A cold shiver ran down her spine. “Everything!”

Including the dreadful truth that Edric really was Gabriel’s servant and that he…that Evan…had
never
loved her. That the boy she loved more than she had ever loved anyone in her life had never really existed. That it had all been pretense.

She turned around and slid forlornly down the wall of the bridge. She sat there, huddled up, clutching the book against her chest and staring up into the sky.

Tears began to flow down her cheeks, and for an endless, desolate time, she surrendered herself to a misery more profound than anything she had ever known before.

She had lost all track of time. Gradually, the tears had stopped. Gradually she had pulled herself to her feet to continue the long walk back to her chamber.

She was glad that she met no one on the way.

She opened the door to her chamber and went
inside. Candles had been lit and placed inside red glass flutes; they bathed the room in a warm ruby glow. She glanced at the tapestries. Night brooded in sultry colors on every embroidered panel, and she could see from the movement of clouds, the rippling of leaves, the wash of the sea, that they were still alive. But they gave her no comfort now. She walked across to the bed and slipped the book under her pillow. Then she crossed to open a window.

She heard a sound behind her, the sharp creak of a floorboard.

There was someone in the room. She spun around.

It was Edric. He must have been standing behind the door. But now he was in full view, blocking her way out.

He was dressed in a dark gray doublet and hose, his blond hair swept back off his face. The face she loved. The face of the man who had betrayed her.

A surge of fury rose in Tania.

“What do you want?” she demanded.

He took a step toward her. “I need to talk to you.”

She backed away. “Well, I don’t need to talk to you, Evan,” she said between gritted teeth. “Oh, sorry, it isn’t Evan, is it? What was your real name again? Edric? Yes, that’s it. Edric.” She glared at him. “Do you know what I hate most about you right now, Edric? It’s not that you were hired to drag me here whether I liked it or not. It’s the fact that you tricked me into believing you loved me. You must have
thought I was such a fool!” She choked, and it was a second or two before she could continue. “That’s why I am never, ever going to forgive you. And that’s why I want you out of my room.” Her voice rose to a shout. “Now!”

Edric strode toward her. She took another step backward, feeling the paneled wall against her back. His hands came down on her shoulders, holding her there.

“You must listen to me!” he said fiercely.

She brought one arm up to knock his hand away. Her other hand rammed into his chest and sent him staggering backward.

“Get your hands off me!”

“I’m sorry.” he gasped. “But you have to know the truth.”

“What would you know about the truth? You lied to me from the moment we met!” she screamed. “Get out! Get out! Get
out
!” She lunged at him, flailing with her fists.

He fell back, holding his hands up to defend himself.

“What coil is this?” A new voice cut across the room.

Tania saw Gabriel standing in the open doorway, his eyes shining like moons.

“Gabriel!” She gasped, relief flooding through her.

Gabriel swept into the room. He glowered at his servant. “Edric? What mischief do you make in Princess Tania’s bedchamber?”

Edric fell onto one knee, his head bowed low. “My lord,” he said. “I only came here to beg the princess’s pardon for my pretenses of affection in the Mortal World. I wanted to explain that everything that I did was for her own sake.” He glanced up at Tania. “I wish only for her most gracious forgiveness.”

Tania stared down at him, filled with contempt and loathing. “Fat chance!” she hissed.

Her fingers moved up to the warm amber teardrop that hung from her throat, the pendant she had believed had been a gift from the boy who loved her. Her fist closed around it; she intended to rip it from around her neck and throw it in Edric’s face.

Gabriel raised his hand to stop her. “Do not, my lady,” he said. She stared at him—it was almost as if he had read her mind. “The Amber Stone was never a gift from this man. It was my gift to you. I had meant to give it to you on our wedding eve.”

Tania blinked. “Oh.”

“It was because of the Amber Stone that I was able to come to you in the Mortal World and bring you back home,” Gabriel said. “While you wear it, I will always be able to find you, both in this world and in the other.”

The teardrop glowed in her hand as she clutched it.

Gabriel turned back to the kneeling servant.

“Get you hence from here,” he growled, all the velvet gone from his voice. “If you force your company upon Princess Tania again, it will be the worse for
you.” He pointed a warning finger at him. “Beware the Amber Prison, Master Chanticleer! Beware!”

Edric slunk from the room like a beaten dog. Tania was glad to see him go; he deserved worse than a reprimand, in her opinion. As the door closed behind him, Gabriel took hold of Tania’s hands.

“I apologize for my servant’s actions,” he said. “I would not have you distressed by such things.” He smiled at her. “All this world must be a confusion and a bitter torment to you. Memories of your mortal life must flock like ravens in your mind. I wish that I could find a way to ease your suffering.”

“It is kind of freaky,” Tania agreed. “But I suppose I’ll find some way to get over it…eventually.”

“I pray that it be so.”

She looked into his face. “This is all really happening, isn’t it?” she said quietly.

“It is.” His eyes were warm and comforting as he gazed back at her.

She frowned. “Back…back where I came from,” she began hesitantly, “Edric was a real person. But you were, kind of, not quite there. I could see through you. Why was that?”

“I sent Edric to you as a real man,” he said. “He was protected by black amber, a rare stone that holds back the poison of Isenmort.”

“His wristband,” Tania said. “That’s why he always wore it.”

“Indeed,” Gabriel said. “It would have been perilous indeed for him to have taken it off. But I, my
lady, I was but an image in your mind.”

“But I touched you, on the balcony; I had hold of your hand.”

Gabriel smiled. “That was not I, my lady—that was done by your own powers—reaching to me across the worlds.”

Tania looked thoughtfully into his face.

“I was about to marry you when I disappeared, wasn’t I?”

He closed his eyes for a moment before replying. “You need not speak of that, my lady,” he said. “As earth covers earth, so let the past bury the past.”

“I’m not exactly sure what you mean by that,” Tania said. “But I’d like to talk about it now, if that’s okay with you.” She gave a half-smile. “I suppose we must have been…well,
fond
of each other.”

“There was great affection,” he said quietly. “For my part, at the very least.”

“So you must have been upset when I just vanished like that,” she said.

“Truly,” he said, his voice only just above a whisper. “I searched for you down all the long ages until at last I found you.”

“How did you find me?” Tania asked. “Was it something to do with that school trip to Hampton Court? I felt weird all the time I was there, as if I knew the place without ever having been there. And parts of this palace are just like it.”

“Indeed, my lady. There are places where Faerie and the Mortal World come close to each other.”

“Yes, Rathina told me about that,” Tania said. “And Hampton Court and this palace are one of them. Did you
see
me when I was on the school trip?”

“I did not see you with my eyes,” Gabriel said. “But I felt your presence.” He touched his fingers to his head and to his chest. “In my mind and in my heart. For a long time, I worked with the Mystic Arts to find a way of sending an emissary into the Mortal World. I chose Edric, believing him faithful and keen of wit, and I sent him through the portal in pursuit of you.” He smiled. “And he performed his duties well, my lady.”

“Yes,” Tania said dryly. “A bit too well, in some cases.” She looked at him. “I’m sorry if this is a difficult question for you,” she said. “But are you still hoping that we’ll get married?”

It was a few moments before Gabriel replied. “I brought you here for the good of the King and for the Realm of Faerie,” he said. “I had no thought for myself. You have no memory of our bond of affection, and I would never ask you to fulfill a promise made five centuries ago by a woman you do not even remember being.” He gazed over her shoulder and out of the window. “To see the sun rise each morn over Faerie, and to watch the stars revolve in their ancient nighttime dance is blessing enough, my lady. I desire nothing more.”

“Call me Tania,” she said. “And tell me about a Faerie Wedding. I’d like to know what happens when a duke and a princess get married.”

Gabriel let out a gentle laugh. “Surely, I will,” he
said. “Have you a mirror, Tania?”

“Yes, over there.”

“Come, then, and I shall show you great wonders.”

She led him to the chest-of-drawers and picked up the hand mirror.

“Sit you down,” he said. She pulled a chair from against the wall and sat on it. Gabriel stood behind her, one hand resting on the back of the chair. He leaned over her and passed his hand across the mirror, whispering words she didn’t catch.

“A royal wedding lasts for three days and three nights.” His soft voice came from close behind her. “It begins with the Ritual of Hand-Fasting, which takes place in the Hall of Light.”

As he spoke, the mirror clouded over; when the mist had gone, Tania found herself staring into a huge, bright hall. But moments later, with no sensation of movement at all, she was no longer holding the mirror and seeing the hall through it; she was actually in the huge room.

It had a high-vaulted ceiling and walls pierced by many tall stained glass windows burning with sunlight so that the whole hall was filled with rainbows of color. Choral music filled the air, and the hall was crowded with people in gorgeous, glittering clothes.

A narrow aisle ran the length of the hall, ending at a platform where a cauldron stood on four stout feet. The air above the cauldron shimmered as if there was something hot inside. Gabriel was standing beside the cauldron, looking every inch the Duke of Faerie.

Oberon and Titania were seated on thrones behind the cauldron. They wore slender crystal crowns, and great white cloaks of silk and ermine, fur-lined and sparkling with star white jewels, were draped over their shoulders.

Tania looked down at herself and realized she was dressed in a white wedding gown. As she walked along the aisle, she felt the weight of a long train dragging behind her. White rose petals fluttered down from the ceiling until the air was sweet and heavy with their scent.

She heard light steps at her back, and, turning her head, she saw her sisters walking behind her, their arms filled with white flowers.

When she came to the end of the aisle, Gabriel reached down to help her onto the dais. The touch of his fingers made her tremble with anticipation. Now she could see that the cauldron was full of a restless amber liquid that seethed and fumed and shone like trapped sunlight.

Gabriel took a small glass jug from a table beside the cauldron. He dipped it into the swirling liquid and lifted it out. Glistening amber drops ran down the sides of the jug and fell back into the cauldron. Tania held her hand out over the liquid, feeling the rising warmth on her skin. Gabriel clasped her hand. He tipped the jug and a flood of thick fluid amber poured down over their hands. Tania winced, expecting it to burn, but it was only warm and as heavy as honey, coating their joined hands and running off in big golden drops.