The Unready Queen

by William Ritter

  A piercing buzz broke the stillness of the morning and drew the queen away from the glittering waters and her own thoughts. She brushed aside the curtain of leaves and emerged back into the thick of the Wild Wood.

  Not far off, a cloud of angry pixies swarmed a grumbling bogle. He was a grubby thing, his hair coarse and thin, his hide a blotchy gray. He didn’t even bother batting the pixies away as he went about plucking toadstools from their ring one by one and stuffing them into a tattered sack on his side. The pixies screamed and bombarded the creature with scratches and kicks and bites, none of which fazed the bogle.

  “What do you think you are doing?” said the queen. The bogle glanced up, unimpressed.

  “They wasn’t eating them,” he grunted, gesturing at the screaming figures around his head.

  “You know perfectly well that fairy circles denote sacred ground. Step out of that ring at once and return their property.”

  For several long seconds, the bogle just stared at the queen, scowling, his eyes half-lidded but sharp. She found something in his expression disquieting. For a fraction of a second, his gaze flickered upward, and then back to the queen. She looked up. On a tree branch hanging over them perched a single pale brown spriggan. The figure watched in stony silence through narrowed eyes. She noted the tiny pouch hanging from the creature’s neck—a war satchel. Her shoulders tensed.

  The last thing she needed with spriggans literally hanging over her head and humans pushing their limits on all sides was a drawn-out conflict between forest factions.

  The bogle watched her expression through keen, beady eyes as circling pixies screeched. The queen felt the blood rush to her face. She was being tested. Here, in her own forest, she was being tested by a grubby little bogle!

  She arched an eyebrow. It was an expression that had cowed far more dangerous beasts in the past. She held her breath. If the bogle did not relent, she did not want to think about what she would need to do to him to regain the fear and respect she had once held over the Wild Wood. As if coming to this thought himself, the bogle finally took two very slow, deliberate steps out of the ring and turned his filthy bag upside down. The toadstools landed in the grass with a quiet plut-plut-plut. He did this without taking his eyes off of the queen, and then he gave her an exaggerated bow.

  The queen breathed.

  “Wise choice,” said a voice from behind them both.

  With a flash of red cardinal feathers, a familiar weathered top hat peeked out of the ferns, followed by an even more weathered face.

  “Thief King. You have been spending an awful lot of time away from Hollowcliff of late.”

  “Just keepin’ a weathered eye on things, Yer Majesty.”

  “Are you? Then tell me,” said the queen, “what exactly is happening in my forest? Something has changed. I don’t like it.”

  “Cogs are turnin’,” Nudd said. “Big ones.”

  “Your weathered eye leaves a lot to be desired.”

  Nudd shrugged. “My goblins is on hand ta help turn the tides if need be,” he said.

  “If you want to be helpful, then you could try to talk them”—she gestured up at the spriggan still perched above them—“out of getting everyone overexcited and inciting an all-out war.”

  “I dinna think so,” said Nudd. “That sorta politicking isn’a really goblin style.”

  The queen rolled her eyes. “Won’t commit to a side. Won’t broker peace. How exactly do you expect your horde to turn the tides? By standing back and watching the flood?”

  “Doin’ an important thing doesn’a always mean bendin’ a whole forest ta yer will,” Nudd said. “We canna all be Witchies o’ the Wood. Sometimes a small thing just needs a small nudge at exactly the right time. That’s what goblins keeps our weathered eyes out fer: the small things ta nudge. And the right times ta nudge ’em.”

  Before the queen could respond, a shrieking blue blur streaked through the forest and into the pixie ring, collapsing in the pile of mushrooms. A bedraggled blue pixie with wings like a dragonfly and flour in her hair panted and squeaked at her compatriots. The swarm fell silent as they listened to her chitter.

  “I’m not fluent in pixie,” the queen said quietly, “but that does not sound good.”

  “Dialects is tricky,” Nudd whispered to the queen, “but I can tell they’re chirpin’ about humans and about traps and about . . . I’m fair sure that last word was revenge.”

  The queen winced.

  The air was suddenly hot as the whole colony began to buzz. Blue appeared to have concluded her report, and the hive was breaking into a flurry of furious discussion. Instinctively, the queen glanced up at the spriggan sentinel.

  The sober watchman had become not one but a dozen spriggans now, all following the developments silently from the branch. Glistening, beady eyes narrowed as they took in the news unfolding below them. Oh, perfect, thought the queen. The whole forest seemed to have become a coiled spring.

  The pixies rose into the air as a single entity, the swarm humming with wrathful energy.

  “No, no, no. Stay calm.” The queen held out her hands, but the pixies burst past her like azure arrows launching from an invisible bowstring. “Stop!” she commanded.

  The pixies did not spare her a backward glance.

  “This,” said the queen, “is going to end badly.”

  The branch above them shook, and when the queen glanced up, the spriggans were gone, too.

  “This is going to end very badly,” said Nudd.

  “I have a feeling that pixie might have been your small thing,” the queen mused darkly. “And if you were waiting for your chance to nudge the Wild Wood away from a war—your right time may have just passed.”

  The scruffy bogle watched the cloud of pixies vanish into the woods before turning back to the queen. “I takes the mushrooms now?”

  The queen’s eye twitched. “Have them.” And without another word, she took off after the pixies as quickly as her legs could carry her, Chief Nudd close at her heels.

  Twenty-Two

  Endsborough simmered. The streets were still crowded, but the tension in the air had shifted from a purposeful rush to a restless discontent. Townsfolk paced the sidewalks or leaned against buildings, gossiping and shaking their heads. Several people had charcoal-black smudges up and down their arms.

  “Boys!”

  Annie heaved a sigh of relief as her twins jogged across the street to meet her. Soot streaked her face, and her dress was damp at the hip and ash gray at the hem. “The fire is finally out. They had to refill the pumper twice before it was fully doused. Fable! Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” said Fable, catching up to the boys. “I think your town is kinda broken, though.”

  “Can’t argue with that. Oh, your dress is an absolute mess. But I suppose mine isn’t much better at the moment.”

  “Yeah.” Fable looked down at herself. “Washing things is not as much fun as getting them dirty.”

  “And mark my words, ladies and gentlemen!” a voice was booming from the town square. “It will only get worse unless we take a stand! It will only get worse!”

  A crowd was gradually coalescing around the center of the grass, where Jacob Hill was orating like a preacher.

  “What is he going on about now?” Annie mumbled, and they moved closer to listen in.

  “These creatures constitute a public menace!” Hill continued. He stood in front of the same bench where he had carried Oliver Warner after the accident. “A threat to your homes, your families, your children. Now, I’ve come to know a lot of you personally over the past several weeks. I know Endsborough is full of good, salt-of-the-earth folks. But frankly, I am shocked you’ve let this go on for so long! Shocked!”

  “Hold on just a minute,” Mr. Zervos called from the back of the crowd. “I’ve lived here my whole life, and w
e’ve never seen anything like this before.”

  “Haven’t you, though?” Hill mused aloud. “How many of you have had an experience?” He passed his eyes over the crowd. “Strange occurrences? Bumps in the night?”

  Heads began to nod and meaningful glances were exchanged.

  “When I stand on my back porch I can see some kind of lights floating around the garden,” someone said. “They show up around sundown, every night, like they’re watchin’ us.”

  “Sometimes I find things all moved about in my kitchen in the morning,” said someone else. “Feel like I’m going crazy.”

  “Something took a piece out of my dog’s ear,” yet another voice cried. “Poor thing growls at the tree line to this day.”

  “Everyone knows you can’t trust them!” said another.

  Them. Fable’s heart was starting to beat hard against her ribs. She was a them.

  “They’ve taken people,” Old Jim Warner declared loudly. The whispers in the crowd quieted. His eyes turned to Cole and Tinn. “They’ve stolen people.”

  Fable could see Tinn shrink under Jim’s gaze. If Kull had not botched the changeling ritual thirteen years ago, that’s exactly what would have happened to the Burtons—Cole would have been stolen away and sold to the fairies, and Tinn would have returned to the Wild Wood to be raised by goblins like he was supposed to be. Old Jim might have gotten used to seeing the twins around town, but he never let them forget that there should only have been one of them. Tinn’s obvious discomfort made Fable bristle with anger.

  “It’s true,” Helen Grouse blurted. “Tell him about Joseph, Annie!”

  “I don’t want to talk about Joseph,” Annie said.

  “People kept trying to say Annie’s husband ran away because of the boys,” Helen persisted.

  Cole gritted his teeth.

  “But she always insisted he would never, didn’t you, Annie?” Eyes moved from Mrs. Grouse to Annie. “Those things tried to steal your baby, and when they couldn’t take him, they stole your husband instead!”

  “Helen, stop.” Annie’s face was pained.

  “Is it true?” Jacob Hill leaned in, his voice softening. “I’m sure you knew your dear husband better than anyone, ma’am. Tell us. Do you believe he left you?” He raised his eyebrows. “Or was he taken?”

  Cole’s fingers clenched around the slim disc in his pocket, feeling the coolness of the stone and the etching on its surface. He reached up with his other hand and held his mother’s arm. Annie closed her eyes. “Joseph would never leave us,” she said.

  “Stolen!” Hill raised his hands at the confirmation. “And they made you swallow a lie about your sweet husband running away rather than deal with the truth. Yes, I’m beginning to see the pattern here. I’m so sorry, my dear. You deserved better. You all deserve better!”

  Hill stepped up onto the bench and addressed the whole group now filling the town square. “It doesn’t have to be this way, ladies and gentlemen! For generations you’ve allowed the creatures of this forest to terrorize you, but if we work together, we can send every last one of the wretched things scurrying for the hills!”

  Fable’s whole face was hot. “They were already in the hills,” she growled.

  “Fable, don’t—” Annie said.

  “But it’s true!” she yelled. She turned to face Hill directly. “They were in the hills that you drilled into when this all started. You’re the one who made the forest mad. Maybe the monsters are just showing you what happens when you cross their line!”

  “That!” Hill jabbed a finger at the girl. “That right there! See? That is precisely the attitude they have come to expect from you! How long have you blamed one another for daring to wake the dragon rather than facing the dragon together? My dear, sweet child, human beings do not need permission from beasts to tame the land around us! It is our world, my friends, not theirs—or it can be, if you’ve got the mettle. You will never be free from this tyranny unless you make them see what happens when they cross your line!”

  Heads nodded in grim agreement.

  “What happens?” a voice from the crowd asked, timidly.

  Hill’s zealous expression clouded. “What?”

  “What happens when they cross our line? What exactly are we going to do?”

  There was a pause. “You tell me,” said Mr. Hill.

  Old Jim stepped up to the front of the crowd. “We take a stand,” he said. “Hill’s right. My nephew is laid up with a broken leg. Our city is on fire. It’s time. I think you’ll find we’ve got the mettle, Mr. Hill. And you’ve got our attention—so what do you propose to do with it?”

  Hill lifted his head. “Hm.” He surveyed the faces around him. A hundred sets of eyes peered up at him across the crowded square. “Are you all ready,” he said, “to stand up for yourselves?”

  “Yes!” came a staggered chorus of shouts.

  “Are you ready to take back your homes?” he called.

  “Yes! Yes!” The voices grew louder.

  “Are you ready”—a glint sparkled in Hill’s eyes as he gazed around the assembly—“to slay some monsters?”

  The blood drained from Fable’s face. She sank back against Annie Burton as the energy around her built feverishly. No, she thought. No, no, no.

  “Yes!” the crowd bellowed. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

  “Rally your neighbors,” Hill instructed. “Fetch every weapon you can muster. Axes and saws, too. We’ll march together to the Roberson Hills and make our stand where they crossed the line! Let’s send them a message they won’t soon forget!”

  The whole world was spinning. Fable couldn’t breathe.

  “We will make this land ours again, ladies and gentlemen, once and for all,” Hill crowed as the crowd began to move out like a pot boiling over. “Even if we have to level the whole miserable forest to do it!”

  Twenty-Three

  Blue led the swarm. Her name was not Blue, of course, but there is no translation in any human language for the customary pixie title that her kinfolk had given her. She had been raised to be wary, to distrust humankind and to shun their gifts. Blue knew better.

  But still, the honeyed milk had smelled so sweet. She had allowed it to draw her out of the safety of the trees. Now that was proper tribute, she had thought. It was laid out in a saucer just her size, a ring of flower petals around it, just like in the old days. She had fluttered over cautiously, her eyes fixed on the offering. She had not noticed the human. Or the net.

  The glass prison had come next, and then the human building full of horrible human implements. That had been offense enough. She had thought, perhaps, they had seen the error of their ways when they slid in the second offering—an apology, surely. She did not imagine that they would be so cruel as to imprison her twice. But then the metal bars had snapped shut, and Blue had been hauled into the air and shaken mercilessly. The whole ordeal had been beyond an injustice.

  If that forest girl had not freed her, surely the humans would have torn her limb from limb or eaten her wings or plucked off her toes one by one. The tales of barbaric human cruelty were legendary. This affront could not go unanswered.

  The problem was, now that the town was drawing closer, Blue still did not have any specific answers in mind. Revenge was all well and good—but how? In the old days they had tormented the sheep or tied an offender’s hair in miserable knots as they slept. But the men who had harassed her possessed neither sheep nor hair enough to knot. And besides, it felt unequal to their crimes. They deserved far worse punishment.

  The swarm slowed as the buildings rose up before them. They were at the forest’s edge now. The time for bold actions had arrived. She hesitated, her mind whirring.

  And then Blue became aware that the swarm was not alone. Spriggans appeared in the branches and leapt from stump to stone below her. A slate gray spriggan with a face like bro
ken flint called out a formal pixie greeting. His accent was excellent.

  Blue nodded to the flinty soldier. The spriggan’s eyes looked sharp enough to cut glass. “We are with you,” he said in Pixie. “And with us is the whole of the Wild Wood.”

  Blue looked from her swarm back to the spriggan. “We wish,” she stammered, “to do harm to humans.”

  Flinty smiled coldly. “Some wishes can be granted.”

  “You will help us?”

  A nod.

  Blue bowed her head. “What can our humble ring offer your colony to help make the humans pay for a grave injustice?”

  “You have already given us the only thing we need,” Flinty crooned. His eyes flashed silver in the light that filtered down through the leaves.

  Blue’s heart beat fast against her chest. “What have we given you?” she asked.

  “A reason,” he said.

  “Mr. Hill, you must end this madness,” Annie called, keeping pace with the mob as they plowed forward up the serpentine road. The hum and buzz of the forest around them was growing louder with every step.

  “I fully intend to, madam,” Hill replied. He pressed forward, using his iron rod like a walking stick. “It’s high time somebody did.”

  Annie shook her head, turning to her neighbors as they soldiered past. “Helen, stop. Amos, this isn’t the way! Jim, you’re going to get people killed.”

  “Doing nothing is going to get people killed,” Old Jim said gruffly, shouldering his rifle. His resolve softened for a fraction of a moment as he caught her eyes. “He was a good man, Annie. Didn’t deserve to get took.”

  “Don’t you dare make this absurd crusade about my family,” Annie hissed.

  Jim shook his head and turned back to the road. “Stand with us or stand aside.”

  Evie hurried up the road after her great uncle. “Uncle Jim, wait!” she called.

  “No. Go back home and tend to your daddy like I told you.”

  “But—”

  “Now, Evelyn!”