The Unready Queen

by William Ritter

  “I like your hair,” said Fable. “I like how it’s all white and sort of swooshy.”

  The lady gave a little chuckle and the creases around her eyes deepened. “It wasn’t always so white. It used to be as dark as yours, if you can believe it. Are you sure we haven’t met?”

  “I’m not from here.”

  “Mm. You must remind me of somebody I used to know.” The woman settled back into her chair as Fable climbed gingerly back out of the barrel.

  “I’m sorry I sat on your hazelnuts,” said Fable. “I didn’t take any. Promise.”

  The woman looked out over the street. “You’ll miss a whole lot, you know, hiding away.” She took a deep breath. “Quite the show lately. The iceman let some children ride on the back of his cart on Saturday. I assumed that was the highlight of the week. But then there was all the excitement with that Mr. Hill fellow a few days ago, and I thought for sure that was the topper. The whole town has been talking about monsters and giants ever since. But now here’s this.”

  “I don’t like Mr. Hill,” said Fable. “He cut down a tree my mama really liked.”

  “That grand old oak? I was sad to hear about that, too.” The woman looked out over the rooftops and fidgeted with the end of her necklace.

  “Why were you sad about it?” said Fable. “It wasn’t your tree. It was a forest tree.”

  “Mm.” The woman’s eyes sparkled as she looked at Fable. “I was a little girl once,” she said at last, “if you can believe it. Long before the white hair and the wrinkles, before I got married and moved away from my daddy’s farm. I was Maggie Roberson back then.” She smiled and reached behind her neck to unclasp her necklace. She held it out for Fable to see. “I know you young people call me Old Mrs. Stewart these days. I don’t mind. Everybody seems young lately. But I keep a bit of little Maggie with me still.”

  The necklace was nothing more than a thin chain that ended in a polished green stone. Fable held out a hand, and the woman let it rest in her palm. The gem was smooth and almost clear enough to see through—cloudy white with a spray of dark green veins spreading out from the center. It was pretty, but Fable had seen countless like it. The narrow path leading up to her grandmother’s old cabin was lined with scores of them.

  “I used to have an imaginary friend,” the woman said, watching Fable’s fingers as they turned the stone around and around. “I just called her my lady. She lived in the woods behind our farm when I was very young, and whenever I went picking berries or playing near the forest’s edge, I would invent songs to cheer her up.”

  “Why did your imaginary friend need cheering up?”

  “You know, I can’t for the life of me remember,” said the old woman. “But that is an excellent question.”

  “I’m good at questions,” Fable said.

  The woman smiled. “One day I made up a song about finding rubies and emeralds and buried pirate treasure, and the next morning, a whole pile of these was waiting for me in my favorite tree.”

  “Are they valuable?”

  “In their way.” She smiled and held out her hand. Fable returned the necklace, and the woman slid the chain back around her neck. “Moss agate. They used to say it was good luck for gardens or babies or new beginnings. I scooped them out of that old oak tree and carried them up the hill in my skirts. My brothers and I spent a whole day hiding them around our field. We thought it might make the crops grow better. This one I kept for myself, though. It reminds me to have courage to try something new from time to time.”

  A tingle went up Fable’s back. “You found those in the Grandmother Tree?”

  “The Grandmother Tree? I like that. Yes, I found them in that old oak. My brothers never believed me, but it’s true. Such a shame about that tree. It was my favorite place when I was young. I sang a lot of songs to my lady from its branches.” She smiled wistfully. “I must have had such an imagination back then. She was so real to me. I can almost see her eyes.”

  Fable stared at the stone around the woman’s neck.

  “You’re sure we haven’t met?” the woman said. “It’s just that you are so familiar.”

  “I’m pretty sure,” said Fable.

  “Hm. Never mind. I do believe your friends are here, little hazelnut.”

  Fable looked up. “Huh?”

  Tinn and Cole came sliding to a stop in front of Mrs. Stewart’s porch. “Fable!” said Tinn. “When did you get here?”

  Fable glanced back at the old woman. “I should go. But it was very nice to meet you, Maggie. Thank you for telling me about your lady.”

  The old woman smiled politely, and Fable hopped off the porch to join the boys.

  “What’s going on?” she said when they had ushered her half a block up the road.

  “The paper store just blew up!” Cole said as they rounded the corner. “And that’s not all. It’s been nuts. Mostly little stuff: chicken coops keep getting unlocked, windows have gotten broken all over town, and there’s been weird noises during the night. People are getting really mad.”

  “They’re saying gremlins spooked the post office horses this morning,” said Tinn.

  “Gremlins?” said Fable. “But gremlins don’t even live on this side of the Wild Wood. They’re butts, but they almost never go out of their way for a prank.”

  “It looks like they made the trip,” said Tinn. “There were claw marks and everything.”

  They turned the corner and the stationery store came into view at the end of the block, flames dancing from the windows and smoke pouring into the sky. The kids scurried out of the way as the fire brigade howled past in its shiny pumper, bells clanging. The firefighters ground to a stop in front of the burning store and raced around, fiddling with hoses and big brass knobs. Fable couldn’t help but think that now would be a really good time to have an invisible brain-hand that could put out fires.

  “Old Jim thinks it was fire salamanders,” said Tinn. “And people are starting to listen to him.”

  Fable sniffed the smoky air. Salamanders did occasionally get overexcited around this time of year. She had helped her mother control a few minor forest fires near the southern bend of the mire, where they liked to nest. But something wasn’t right.

  “I don’t think it was salamanders,” she said. She sniffed more deeply, and her nose crinkled. “I know what salamander fire smells like, and it’s not this.”

  “Well,” said Cole, lowering his voice, “whatever it is, everybody is talking about it, so be extra careful. Being from the Wild Wood will not make you friends in town today.”

  The heat of the burning building rolled over them from the far end of the block. The roar and crackle of the fire mixed with urgent shouts. The firefighters had taken up a position right in front, and with a whoosh the pumper let out a stream of water that punched through the flames on the ground floor.

  “What makes everybody so sure all this stuff was done by forest folk?” Fable said.

  Tinn and Cole glanced at each other.

  “I mean,” said Tinn. “This is the kind of stuff they do.”

  “Who’s they?” Fable’s scowl deepened. “I’m forest folk,” she said. “And this is not what I do. This isn’t normal at all.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” said Tinn.

  “This wasn’t salamanders,” Fable said. “And I don’t know if I believe it was gremlins, either. Did anybody actually see gremlins spook the horses? Has anyone caught any actual creatures from my forest running amok?”

  “Well, no,” said Cole.

  “See? Then maybe it’s just . . . maybe it’s—”

  Before Fable could think of a theory to replace the forest folk invasion, half a dozen townspeople hurried across the street in front of them. Old Jim was keeping a steady gait at the back of the pack, his rifle slung over one shoulder and an empty wire trap under his arm. Beside him
, Evie was jogging to keep up.

  “Evie!” called Tinn. “What’s happening now?”

  “You didn’t hear?” she said. “They caught one!”

  Twenty

  Mr. Zervos’ shop was not far from the burning stationery store. As the children approached, they could see fifteen or sixteen townspeople already crowding around the front window, leaning over one another’s shoulders and craning their necks to peer inside.

  “Mr. Zervos found it,” Evie said with breathless excitement. “It was already inside when he opened the door. He said he heard the sound of glass breaking, and whoom! It flew right up in his face!”

  “What did?” Fable asked.

  “An itty-bitty person with blue skin and wings like a dragonfly.”

  “It’s true!” said Mr. Zervos, emerging from the huddle around the window. His eyes were wide. “It was flying around my head, waving tiny arms and buzzing like a cicada. It’s still in there somewhere, smashing up furniture and knocking things off of shelves. I’ve heard stories, of course, but I’ve never seen anything like it up close.”

  “That sounds like a pixie,” said Fable. She pushed her way between onlookers and shielded her eyes from the sun with her hand as she peered in through the glass. “But why would there be a pixie all the way out here?” Evie squeezed in beside her, and the boys joined them on either side. The front room was a mess, with beef jerky strewn across the counter, magazines torn to shreds, and tin cans rolling across the floor, but the creature itself was nowhere to be seen. A loud crash and a thump issued from somewhere in the back of the shop, and a white cloud of flour began to descend like gently settling snow.

  “Smart girl. It does sound like a pixie,” said a voice behind them. Old Jim Warner shoved his way forward. “Outta the way, folks. Somebody’s got to roll up their shirtsleeves and deal with this thing instead of standing around gawking. Looks like it’s me, as usual.”

  “What are you going to do to it?” asked Tinn.

  “You’re not shooting it,” said Fable, squaring off between Jim and the front door of the shop. “No guns.”

  “Of course I ain’t shooting it.” Old Jim snorted. “Do I look like a crazy person to you, kid?”

  “I don’t know,” said Fable soberly. “What does a crazy person look like?”

  “Not like me,” said Old Jim. “For example, I am not about to go firing a rifle in the middle of a busy town to try and hit a moving target the size of a golf ball. I do, however, have this trap”—he plopped the wire cage down on the step—“and a secret weapon.” He gave Evie a wink.

  Faces peered over shoulders to see the old man’s secret weapon. Evie pulled a dented tin can out of the pocket of her dress. The label read Sweetened Condensed Milk.

  “Give it here, kiddo,” said Old Jim.

  He handed the rifle to Mr. Zervos, who pointed it cautiously at the dirt while Old Jim got to work. He pulled a penknife from his back pocket and popped open the can, then poured a spoonful of sweetened milk into a shallow metal cup at the back of the trap. He gently positioned the mechanism, and when he was done, he picked the whole thing up with one hand and cracked open the door with the other. He slid the cage inside, ever so gently so as not to trip the spring, and then shut the door with a click.

  “And now, we wait.” He peered into the broad picture window. Mr. Zervos and all of the others stared into the window, too. Nothing moved. A muffled clatter issued from somewhere in the back storage room, then all was still again.

  “Come on,” whispered Cole. “Let’s go around back and see if we can see anything.” Tinn, Fable, and Evie followed him to the rear of the building. They scooted past the trash bins and clambered up onto the loading dock. There was a single dusty window, and the four of them crowded around it. Evie stepped up on a wooden milk crate to get a better look.

  “I don’t see a pixie,” said Cole. “Man. It got flour everywhere, though.”

  “Hang on,” said Tinn. “Look at the window.”

  “Where do you think we’re looking?” said Cole.

  “No, not inside it. I mean look at it. The window frame is all scratched and cracked, and the latch is broken. It looks like somebody broke in.”

  “You think this is how the pixie got in there in the first place?” said Evie.

  “We don’t even know for sure it’s a pixie,” whispered Fable.

  THWAP!

  All four of them jumped as a miniature blue woman thudded against the window. She was only about three inches tall, with a wingspan twice as broad. She bonked her shoulder against the window a few times, looking confused and agitated, her delicate wings fluttering like a moth’s, tiny fists pinging uselessly against the glass. And then, as quickly as she had appeared, she was gone again into the depths of the shop.

  “Definitely a pixie,” said Fable. “Angry, angry pixie.”

  “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh!” Evie nearly tottered backward off of her milk crate.

  “She’s stuck in there,” said Cole.

  “If she was strong enough to break the frame to get in, then why doesn’t she just bust back out again?” said Tinn.

  Fable leaned forward and sniffed the glass. “Guys. I smell pixies all the time. I mean . . . not on purpose—they don’t like it when you smell them on purpose—but I know their scent. This window does not smell like pixies.” She regarded the pixie-shaped imprint the creature had left in the thin layer of flour on the inside of the glass. “At least not on the outside. I imagine the inside probably does now.”

  “If she didn’t break in, then someone must have let her in there,” said Cole.

  There was a muffled snap, and voices cheered from the front of the building.

  The kids vaulted off the loading dock and raced around to the other side of the shop just in time to see Old Jim step out the door with the rattling cage in his hand. The noise coming from the trap was something between the drone of an insect and the piteous mewl of a cat.

  “And that, boys and girls,” Old Jim said, “is how you catch a pixie.”

  The creature’s wail grew louder and louder until she slammed herself against the wires with a shriek. A boy a few years younger than the twins jumped and fell over backward. Even the adults in the crowd gasped. One woman held tight to the cross hanging from her neck and mumbled a prayer. Mr. Zervos looked pale.

  “We hear you, you little pest,” Old Jim said, giving the cage a rattle that sent the pixie stumbling off her feet.

  “She’s frightened,” said Fable. “Stop shaking her!”

  “Kid, this critter might be small, but she just went through that store like a tornado,” said Old Jim. “She’s no wilting flower. Don’t let that pretty face fool you. She would bite your nose clean off given half a chance. And she wouldn’t feel bad about it. Trust me. She can handle a jiggle.” The pixie snarled at Old Jim, and he chuckled.

  “She doesn’t want to bite noses off. She just wants to go home,” said Fable. “Can’t you see that?”

  “I know what I’m dealing with,” Old Jim grunted. “I’ve been dealing with nonsense out of that forest my whole life.”

  Fable’s lips tightened. All around them, anxious murmurs were making their way through the crowd.

  “Did you see its teeth?” someone whispered.

  “Lord Almighty.”

  “Not so close, Timothy! Stay away from it!”

  Jim set the cage down on the step and signaled for Mr. Zervos to hand him his rifle back. “I guess I’ll take our unwanted guest back home with me and decide what to do with her there. I bet my Evie can get some real nice drawings out of—hey!” Old Jim spun around so fast that Mr. Zervos almost dropped the rifle before he could hand it to him. “Get away from that cage!” Old Jim yelled.

  “No,” said Fable. And she opened the trap.

  “Fable, wait!” said Evie, a moment
too late.

  Someone screamed. The whole crowd leapt back, and a woman toward the front tripped over her own legs and fell. Old Jim threw his hands over his face as a blue blur exploded out of the opening and careened over the rooftops until it vanished into the trees beyond.

  “You wanted to know what crazy looks like?” Old Jim barked. “That!”

  “I was right,” said Fable. “She went home.”

  “If all that miniature monster wanted was to be home,” growled Old Jim, “then what was she doing way out here in the first place?”

  Fable had no answer.

  Mr. Zervos helped the fallen woman to her feet, and all around them faces looked visibly shaken.

  “Brazen,” somebody said.

  “You think that thing caused the paper fire, too?” another voice mused.

  “Not big enough to be the one left those marks on the stable,” added a third.

  “What about the broken pots in my garden?”

  Fable tried to ignore them. Her brow crinkled. Smashed drills, frightened horses, burned-up buildings—admittedly, there were plenty of creatures in the wood capable of this kind of mayhem, but there was no way that one little pixie was the cause. The poor thing couldn’t even open a window.

  “You’ve got your grumpy face on,” said Cole. “What are you thinking about?”

  “Okay,” she said with a sigh. “So, there might be some creatures from my forest running amok. What I can’t figure out is why.”

  Twenty-One

  Kallra was gone. Her reflecting pool sat still and empty, disturbed only by the occasional gentle wind. The queen stood over it anyway, her cloak brushing the soft grass at the water’s edge. She gazed into the glistening pool, wishing for answers she knew it would not surrender.

  She closed her eyes. In her mind, the Grandmother Tree came crashing to earth for the hundredth time, and with it came those spiteful words: She does nothing.

  She did not mean to think about it, but it was like a hand brushing over a scar. It was as if she had allowed a piece of herself to be lopped off. And she had done nothing.