Trixter (10 page)

Now that Trix knew what to look for, he began scanning the trees, their trunks, their roots, their leaves, the grass, even the fire itself. Tesera was there somewhere, he knew it, or would be there soon, and he would be ready to spot her. What he was not prepared for was the small rock that randomly tossed itself into the fire. Within seconds the clearing was filled with a sparkly violet fog not unlike the curtain that kept revealing these images to him. When the fog dispersed, there was a knife at the ragwoman’s throat. But the attacker was not Tesera.

It was Sorrow.

The evil fairy godmother’s ebony hair melted into the darkness around her, but her midnight blue eyes flickered with the flames from the campfire. “It is a rare day indeed that I get the upper hand on you, my slippery, stealthy, sister dearest,” Sorrow said in silky tones.

Trix gasped. Tesera had not been hiding from the ragwoman. Tesera
was
the ragwoman.

“What do you want, Sorrow?” Tesera asked in bored tones.

“What do I always want?” Sorrow’s grin was even more disturbing than Papa Gatto’s. “To make mischief, darling. Same as you.”

“I’ve retired from that life,” said Tesera. “I’m naught but an actress now.”

“Interesting.” Sorrow did not move from behind her sister, nor did she remove the knife from her throat. “I wasn’t aware that we could stop being what we are just by deciding it. How marvelous for you.”

“You are a pest, Sorrow.”

“And you are one of my greatest achievements.” Sorrow shifted about, rummaging for something in the pockets of her voluminous cloak. The dagger bit into Tesera’s neck, drawing blood and making her wince. Sorrow didn’t seem to care. “Drink this.” She held out a vial to Tesera with her free hand.

“No, thank you,” said Tesera. “I’m afraid you’ll just have to kill me.”

“Drink it,
Ghost
. Or I will tell him where to find you.”

Tesera’s body tensed, and then relaxed. She took the vial from Sorrow, pulled the stopper, and drained it.

“NO!” Trix cried futilely. He was baffled. Who was “him?” Friedrich? Trix’s birthfather? Trix himself? Someone else entirely? Whoever it was had a powerful enough sway over Tesera to force her to do her chaotic eldest sister’s bidding.

Tesera slumped back into Sorrow’s arms, unconscious. Sorrow drew a symbol on Tesera’s forehead before leaning down to kiss it. The clearing glowed a violet blue again, and then faded.

“Family must stick together,” Sorrow whispered to her. “Sweet dreams, my sister.” With that, Sorrow shifted into a ragwoman, lifted Tesera’s pack, and exited the scene.

Trix tried to run into the Wood to chase Sorrow, to help Tesera, but the stage had already vanished. When he turned back Tesera had reappeared, bedecked once more in white gossamer and flowers.

“Do you understand now?” she asked in a coy voice.
His
voice, when it had been higher pitched and coming from a smaller body.

He understood a lot of things now. Tesera—and no doubt her seamstress sister—was not dead but asleep, under a powerful spell cast by Sorrow. With this spell it seemed that Sorrow had appropriated the sisters’ fey gifts as well. Trix also understood that his birthmother’s gift was not simply acting, as Aunt Joy had recounted in her stories. Tesera was a glamourist. A chameleon. A ghost.

An assassin.

“Yes,” Trix said. “I get it.”

“And you do not regret your family?” She honestly sounded like she cared.

He shook his head ever so slightly, his eyes never leaving her translucent form.

“Good,” she said. “The Woodcutters were the family you were meant to have. That is how it was meant to be.
You
were meant to be, sweet Trix. You and I….well…we never were. And that will always make me sad, a little. But I will never regret it, as I do not regret the young man standing before me now.”

Trix allowed one tear to escape down his cheek.

Tesera slid the large signet ring off her finger and placed it in Trix’s hand. “You must take this to the King of the Eagles,” she told him. “Will you do that for me?”

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that he owed her nothing, but the words dissolved in his brain the moment after he thought them. He could not blame Tesera for being the person she was, nor could he blame her for giving him a family he wouldn’t have wanted to grow up without. As much as he wished to be angry, he could not be. However, there was one thing he could do.

He could save her.

“Yes,” he said again.

For his acceptance, Tesera gave him a smile that nearly tore his heart in two. “Earth breaks. Fire breathes. Waters bless. Fly away, my son.” She reached up, as if to touch him. He felt a cold breeze and the slightest ruffle of hair on the nape of his neck. And then she was gone.

The room did not return right away, nor did the sparkling curtain. Trix took a deep breath into the nothingness and waited.

“DO NOT FEAR, TRIX. I AM WITH YOU.”

Trix felt the booming voice deep in his chest. It was a woman’s, to be sure, but not his mother’s. Before he could ponder it further, the nothingness was gone and the gray sacristy had returned, just as he’d left it.

“If you recognize her at all, then you know her better than you think, child,” Rose Red was still in the middle of saying. Now that he fully understood what his aunt meant, he smiled. Trix lifted his hand from his birthmother’s. The ring that had previously bit into his fingers now rested loosely in his palm. He clenched the bit of metal in his fist, raising it up to his lips. When he stepped back from the oaken table, he staggered.

Lizinia was by his side in an instant. “Are you all right?”

Trix quickly regained his composure. “I’m fine. I just…” He looked down again at the thick gold and ruby ring in his hand.

“What did she say to you?” asked Rose Red.

Trix gaped at his aunt. “How did you know?”

“There is magic here,” Rose Red replied. “I have had visions too, of loved ones passed. A specter came to me last night, as a matter of fact, and informed me of your impending arrival.”

“Tesera came to you as well?” he asked.

“It was not my dead sister who spoke to me,” said Rose Red. “It was yours.”

Trix’s heart skipped a beat. Monday’s twin Tuesday had danced herself to death in a pair of red shoes not long after his arrival in the Woodcutter home. He’d been but a babe then. It spoke volumes of her character that Tuesday’s shade would still concern herself with her family—never mind her foster brother—even in death.

“But I don’t…” As much as Trix would have liked to compare visions and inquire after the possible identity of the goddess who had addressed him at the end of this last one, he decided it was more important to stick to the task at hand. So he started again. “Tesera is not actually dead. She mentioned something about this being a rehearsal, and then I saw… I saw Sorrow. She made Tesera drink a potion, and then she stole her gift.”

“
Goddess
.” Rose Red cursed under her breath. “It does explain how she managed to overwhelm our other sister so soon after. It explains a great many things.” Rose Red lifted her eyes to the heavens. “And I am afraid of them all.” She crossed to the oaken table and adjusted the flowers in Tesera’s hair. “Either way, I will keep her body safe from harm. I can promise you that.”

“Thank you,” said Trix. “But there was something else. She told me to take her ring to the King of Eagles. I hope he’ll know why, because I’m sure I don’t. Do you?”

He opened his hand to reveal the ring in his outstretched palm. The look his aunt gave him was one of patient benevolence. Trix had seen that same look on his sister Friday’s face whenever she delivered bad news.

“My dear nephew,” said Rose Red. “The King of Eagles is your father.”

“
T
he Boy Who Talks
to Animals is an age old prophecy,” said Rose Red. She had invited Lizinia and Trix back to her rooms for tea and refreshment and further clarification.

Trix was glad for all of those things, but mostly the food. This new body seemed to require far more sustenance than Trix was used to and he was
starving
.

“After Sorrow and Joy turned out to be such forces of nature, it was always thought that my twin would be the one in whose womb that prophecy would be fulfilled. We were the fifth and sixth daughters born to our family,” she explained to Lizinia. “Unlike Seven, Trix’s foster mother, the rest of us took names instead of numbers as we grew into ourselves. And so my twin and I became Snow White and Rose Red, after the roses outside our front door.”

“Like the roses on the abbey wall,” said Lizinia.

The abbess smiled at the golden girl. “Those grew from clippings of the very same bushes.”

The red velvet cushion of the abbess’s guest chair was thin and lumpy. Trix didn’t relish the thought of sitting here all afternoon chatting about flowers. “The lingworm said that I was ‘a story told before the gods were gods,’ and that I was meant to be a voice for all the animals. When were the gods not gods?”

Rose Red closed her eyes and shook her head. “Of course you met the lingworm.”

Before his aunt could answer his question, Lizinia asked another one. “If this prophecy has been around for so long, why hasn’t it come to fruition before now?” She sat perfectly still, the picture of ease and contentment. Trix was convinced that the layer of gold on her skin and clothes made Lizinia impervious to discomfort.

“This has been the issue of much theological debate,” answered Rose Red. “A boy who could communicate with every animal on earth would need powers beyond that of the ancient Animal Kings.”

Trix agreed. There were three kinds of animals in the world: regular animals, humans who had been cursed into taking animal form, and magical animals with the enchanted blood of the Animal Kings. It was said that this last group had the power to change form under the light of the full moon. To the best of Trix’s knowledge, he had never met one of the enchanted beasts in human form, but the Animal Kings certainly knew of his existence.

“So the prophetic progeny would need to be one half Animal King, and one half…god?” asked Lizinia.

“Or fey,” said Trix. “There are some fey powerful enough to be gods.” His aunts were two of them. His sister Wednesday was a third.

“Snow White and I befriended a bear when we were young,” Rose Red said to Trix. “Did your Papa ever tell you that tale?”

“No,” said Trix. Aunt Joy had revealed their family’s true magical nature to the Woodcutter siblings only that spring. What with the killing of the giant and Sunday becoming Queen and all, there hadn’t been time for Papa to tell many tales.

“That is a shame. You’ll have to ask him sometime. I can’t do it justice, for all that it happened to me. Suffice it to say that my sister and I saved the bear from a wretched little man. Mother allowed him to stay with us. Upon the full moon, he revealed that he was the son of the King of Bears, and he asked Snow White to marry him.”

“Weren’t you jealous?” asked Lizinia. “I know a thing or two about jealous sisters.”

“Not in the slightest,” said Rose Red. “I loved Bear, truly, but I have never been as romantic as my sister.”

“So a Bear Prince married one of the most powerful fey daughters that has ever lived,” said Trix.

“It was the perfect match,” said Rose Red. “Unfortunately, Snow White is barren.”

Lizinia gave a small gasp. “Oh! How sad.”

“I agree,” said the abbess. “They would have had many happy children together, raised them all in a household where they knew they were loved.”

“As I was,” murmured Trix.

“As you were meant to,” said Rose Red. “The stars had aligned. Our world shook with chaos. It was time for the Boy Who Talks to Animals to be born. And since Snow White and Bear could not have that child, the gods arranged a dalliance between your birthmother and the King of Eagles.”

A brown-robed monk finally appeared with a tray of tea that smelled of jasmine and raspberries and a pile of cakes, which Trix immediately fell upon and devoured. “So what happened between Tesera and the King of Eagles?” he asked between bites.

“You’ll have to ask him,” was all Rose Red supplied before she sipped her tea.

“Do you know where we can find him?”

“Farther to the north and east, for his is one of the Lands of Immortality. Beyond that, I cannot tell you.”

Trix contemplated the small weight of Wisdom’s tooth, still hung around his neck. “My animal friends will help. I’m sure we can manage.”

Slowly, Lizinia’s head turned to him and her amber eyes met his. “We?” she asked.

Trix froze with a third cake halfway to his mouth. He had forgotten the deal that they’d made. Lizinia had offered to accompany him to his mother’s grave, and she had done that. As much as he would have loved her company on this next leg of his journey, the image of her golden form smothered in black wasps niggled at the back of his mind. Yes, she could hold her own in a fight well enough, and he could learn to deal with her smarmy feline godfather. But even in this new body, he didn’t want to be the one responsible for her getting hurt. To whatever extent Lizinia
could
be hurt.

“The abbey does seem to be lovely this time of year,” he said. “There are tons of people here you could meet and make friends with. You could probably do any job you want here, and I bet they wouldn’t ever make you eat apples again if you didn’t want to. In time you could settle down in a new home, in a new place, though I’m sure Rose Red wouldn’t mind if you stayed.” He didn’t sound quite as convincing as he wanted to. Trix looked to his aunt for help, but Rose Red suddenly seemed very interested in her tea.

Lizinia tilted her head in that very Lizinia way of hers. Trix would miss that about her. “Don’t you want me to come with you?” she asked plainly.

“Of course I do,” said Trix. “But I cannot promise you safe passage and easy roads.”

“We took no safe passages or easy roads to get here, Trix Woodcutter. But we arrived all the same.”

“We did,” he said. “But I’m not… My family is not like normal families.”

“As I have seen.”

“Then you can believe me when I say that my life is not a normal life. Chaos follows me around, Lizinia. I suspect your godfather knew that, or he wouldn’t have done
this
to me. You may choose to travel with me at your peril.”

“The decision of every adventurer,” Rose Red said from inside her teacup, “is whether or not it’s worth the risk. This is the most important decision.”

“So, what do you think?” Trix asked his golden girl. “Am I worth the risk?”

“Yes,” Lizinia said with a smile. And because her answer made him incredibly happy, Trix smiled back.

“Then I will ready supplies for your journey without delay,” Rose Red said, and left the room.

“I’m going to walk the gardens one more time before we leave if that’s all right,” said Lizinia.

“That’s fine,” he said. “I’ll come collect you when everything’s ready. In the meantime, I’m going to hunt down some more of those cakes.”

Lizinia turned down the corridor that led to the courtyard, while Trix made his way down the winding hallways of the great abbey in an attempt to find either the kitchens or the monk who’d brought the tea tray. He disturbed room after room of acolytes at study and dedicates in prayer and Sisters in their private chambers. Finally, Trix found the monk, just inside the grand mahogany doors of Rose Abbey’s entranceway.

The hood of the Brother’s brown robes was pulled down over his face, but Trix recognized him because of his size—few people were both as tall as Saturday and as broad shouldered as Papa. Miraculously, the tray he carried was once again filled with cakes. Trix sent up a prayer to the Earth Goddess. This was her place, after all, and it very well might have been she who had addressed him in his vision.

“Excuse me, Brother!” Trix called out as he caught up with the monk. “Would it be possible to get my hands on a few more of those tasty cakes?”

The monk stopped his forward progress and chuckled low as he turned around. He set the tray of cakes down on the seat of a bench in the hall. “Of course, little brother. Help yourself.”

Trix did indeed, stuffing cakes into his mouth and pockets at the same time. The delicate desserts melted on his tongue. Some were buttery and filled with berries; some were heavier and thick with spice. All of them were creamy and fluffy and delicious. It might have been his fey blood that craved the sweetness. If he could eat cakes every day of his life, he would die a happy boy. Man. Prince. Whatever.

“I suppose they won’t have those where you’re going?” Trix could tell the Brother was smiling.

As Trix chewed in blissful delight, he considered the carnivorous carrion diet of eagles. Cakes were definitely not on the menu. “No sir,” he said to the Brother. “I plan to enjoy them while I can.”

“Good man,” said the monk.

“Why do you wear your hood so low?” It was a good thing Mama wasn’t around to scold Trix for asking impertinent questions of strangers or talking with his mouth full.

“I have taken a vow of humility,” said the monk.

Trix swallowed the berry cake. The Brother was lying. He wasn’t sure why a monk would lie, but Trix had enough experience stretching the truth to recognize it in others. Before he could ask about that, too, there was a pounding knock on the enormous entranceway doors. The monk did not move to answer the summons. Instead, he stomped on the ground beneath the table, took Trix by the neck of his shirt, and shoved him into a tapestry across the hallway. But Trix did not slam into the wall; he fell through the secret door that had been opened by the catch on the floor. Quickly, the monk ducked under the tapestry as well.

The secret room was dark with shadow, but light shone through the tapestry here and there, revealing gaps in the weave. Fascinated, Trix picked himself up off the flagstones. He stepped up to the tapestry and peered through one of larger holes. He could still see the entranceway and the table and the tray of cakes.

The knock stopped, and then started again with renewed vigor. “Shouldn’t someone see to that?” whispered Trix. “It sounds…important.”

“It is not for you,” the Brother whispered back. He, too, peered through a gap higher up in the design’s weave. Why the secrecy? Was the abbey being invaded? Had the evil Sorrow sent an army of goblins to attack them? Had the wasps hunted him down? Trix convinced himself that each of these things were possible, and yet in none of the scenarios did it make sense for the enemy to knock on the front door.

After several more rounds of pounding, Rose Red appeared. She straightened her robes, and then gave the order for the guards to pull the doors open. The abbess obviously suspected the identity of the impatient visitor. She was just as obviously surprised to discover their true identity.

“Thursday!” she cried.

Trix was as shocked as his aunt. “Thursday?”

The monk held him back, placing an enormous hand over his mouth. “Shh. Wait.”

Annoyed, Trix nodded and the Brother lowered his hand. They watched as a lithe woman with a riot of red curls burst over the threshold to embrace the abbess. Trix gaped. Thursday had run away to sea when he was but a child. In all the years she’d been gone, he had half expected the Pirate Queen to have become a giantess like Saturday. Compared to their warrior sister, Thursday was
petite
.

Behind her, several men carried a stretcher that bore… He strained to see through the tapestry, but Trix could not make out if it was a man or a woman.

Rose Red stepped forward and examined the body herself. She raised her eyes to the ceiling, as she did when praying to the goddess. Then she sighed and shook her head. “Oh, Seven.”

This time, Trix’s hand rose to cover his own mouth. The body the men carried was Mama Woodcutter.

Sorrow had struck again.

“She fell asleep and I couldn’t wake her,” said Thursday. “I would say she’s sick, but there are no symptoms. I can’t even make out a heartbeat.”

“But you know she’s not dead.” It was a statement more than a question, but well enough asked; Rose Red herself had not recognized this same sleeping spell on her other sisters.

“I know,” said Thursday. “I have seen enough dead men to know.”

“Take her to the chapel,” Rose Red said to the men. And then to Thursday, “Do not worry, child. All will be well. Now, come in. Rest yourself. And then tell me what happened.” The abbess put an arm around the Pirate Queen and led her down the hallway in the opposite direction from the room behind the tapestry.

Thursday was here
. Trix gave the knowledge a moment to sink in. He couldn’t wait to talk with her. She might have some idea of what to do about Sorrow. Thursday always did seem to know a little bit about everything. Now that Mama had been struck down as well, something definitely needed to be done. Whatever Sorrow’s plans, her actions were escalating. With the stolen gifts of three sisters under her belt, who knew how powerful she was now? She had to be stopped. This business with the King of Eagles could wait…though he suspected Tesera would haunt him mercilessly until he completed his task.

“It seems that the abbess will be too busy to tend to your supplies,” the monk said softly. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides. “I’ll see to your packs myself so you can be on your way.”

Trix was no longer concerned with remaining undiscovered. “
On my way
? My renegade sister just showed up with the cursed body of my mother and I’m supposed to turn my back on them for a fool’s errand?”

“You know for sure she’s cursed?” asked the monk.

“Okay, not really a curse, but it’s hard to explain.”

“Try.”

“See, I have this evil aunt. For whatever reason, it seems she is stealing the powers of her sisters to use for her own devices. That”—Trix pointed in the direction of the entranceway—“was my mother, and Mama’s gift is really powerful, so we’re all in pretty big trouble and
I
need to help now
.”