The Unready Queen

by William Ritter

  Fable couldn’t breathe. She felt her vision starting to dim. She struggled and scratched, but Hill’s grip was too strong. She twisted and squirmed, and in a muffled whumpf, Hill found himself holding not a girl but a bear, fangs bared and fur bristling. Fable’s transformation caught him off guard, and she clawed at his arms. He recoiled, and Fable tumbled backward, rolling off the stump onto the roots of the old Grandmother Tree, gasping for air.

  Hill hopped down from the stump, taking unhurried steps as he approached the gasping cub. He regarded the rod in his hands. “Iron,” he said. “Versatile material. Always liked it.” Fable flinched as he bent the rod into a smooth U with a squeal of protesting metal. “Also good against many of your lot, or so I hear.”

  He lunged, and without enough time to scramble out of the way, Fable could only brace herself for the blow. Hill drove both ends of the rod into the dirt, piercing the ground on either side of her. She felt the cold metal press her down into the soil, stapling her to the earth. Her lungs protested under the pressure, and her arms were too tight against her sides to pull them free.

  Hill’s mouth twitched in a smile as she struggled, turning into a girl and back again to a bear in vain. It was no use. Fable was caught tight.

  Cole’s whole right side pulsed in agony with each beat of his heart. With tremendous effort, he pushed himself upright, ribbons of tight pain running up and down his side, meeting at his rib cage. “Ow,” he groaned.

  From the hills in front of him, he could see his neighbors, just beginning to venture back down the hillside. He turned his eyes to the forest, where tentative hooves and pads were moving out of the shadows once more. The spell holding both sides back appeared to have broken.

  “Now stay put,” Mr. Hill was saying.

  Cole blinked. “Fable?” he called, weakly.

  Hill straightened up, and his gaze turned to Cole. “Don’t think I’m done with you,” he said.

  “Jacob?” called a voice from behind them.

  As one, Hill and Cole turned to watch Oliver Warner hobble forward, his cane catching here and there on the rocky terrain.

  “Oliver? What in blazes are you doing here?” Hill’s voice was tight, and Cole could sense his fear. Hill’s whole plan hinged on the townspeople believing that he was the noble hero. But if Mr. Warner learned the truth—if he knew Hill had manufactured the whole thing . . .

  “Mr. Warner,” wheezed Cole. “You have to stop him!”

  “Don’t listen to him,” said Hill. “Don’t trust either of them, whatever they say.”

  “I . . . I don’t understand,” said Mr. Warner. “These are Evie’s friends.”

  “They only want you to think that,” insisted Hill, urgently. “They are beasts!”

  “I . . . I thought I saw that one turn into an animal,” Mr. Warner said.

  “That’s right, she did!” Hill nodded. “Believe the evidence of your own eyes, my friend, not what these monsters would have you believe. They are the worst sort of deceivers!”

  “Don’t listen to him!” Fable growled from the dirt. “He’s lying! He caused all of this! He’s a bad man!”

  “See what I mean?” Hill shook his head. “Feeble, obvious lies, but sinister ones if you allow them to poison your mind. Now, really, Oliver, what are you doing here? You’re in no shape for a fight.”

  “I just wanted to help.” Mr. Warner took another wobbly step forward, glancing at Cole nervously.

  “You were already helping me, Oliver,” Hill said with the barely patient tone that a parent uses on a child. “I told you to keep an eye on those containers, remember? It’s not safe for you to be out here, and it’s not safe for those samples to be left unguarded.”

  The powder! Cole’s heat beat faster, and his chest throbbed all the more painfully.

  Mr. Warner nodded and allowed himself to be turned around. He leaned heavily on Hill’s shoulder, his leg nearly giving out on him. “Yes. I remember now. I’m sorry.”

  “Wait,” Cole wheezed.

  “It’s fine, Oliver. It’s fine.” Hill’s lips were tight as he supported Mr. Warner by the arm, urging him away from the field and up toward the hills again. “Just get yourself back home now. Can you manage that?”

  “Of course.” Warner nodded. “Right away, sir. Just remind me where those samples are and I’ll go see to them.”

  “Oh, for—” Hill pinched the bridge of his nose. “The steamer trunk, Oliver. They are in my steamer trunk right at the foot of your—”

  Hill stopped talking abruptly. He released Warner’s shoulder and stepped back a pace, his eyes narrowing. Oliver Warner wobbled. He looked increasingly nervous under Hill’s scrutinizing gaze.

  “Wrong leg,” Hill said.

  “Oh, that. Yeah,” said Mr. Warner. Except suddenly his voice did not sound like Evie’s father’s. He sounded much too young. Warner’s features blurred and wobbled like the far end of a road on a hot summer day, and his face transformed into Tinn’s face. “I was hoping maybe you wouldn’t notice.” Tinn shrugged feebly. “Not sure how much longer I could’ve kept it up, anyway.”

  The sunlight caught a hint of glass in the changeling’s hand and Hill patted his jacket reflexively. “You little thief,” he said, but he sounded almost impressed. “You’ve stolen one of my vials.”

  “Noticed that, too, huh?” Tinn swallowed. “Evie! Egg toss!”

  He whipped the glass tube high over Hill’s head. It sailed across the field until it came to land in the cupped hands of Evie Warner.

  “Run!” Tinn shouted. Evie nodded and bolted away over the uneven terrain.

  Hill snarled. “You,” he spat, kicking the makeshift cane out from under Tinn and giving him a shove. The boy crumpled to the ground beside his brother. “. . . Are beginning to test my patience.”

  Hill sneered down at them, and then something in the grass caught his eye. He leaned down and picked up Old Jim’s discarded rifle. The barrel opened with a click. “Just one shot,” he said, snapping it closed again. “Choices, choices.”

  Annie Burton raced down the hill. The entire town had just watched Tinn transform. They had felt Fable’s power. There would be no hiding them after this. So much for secrets.

  “You see what we’re up against?” Jacob Hill was yelling from the center of the field. In his hands he held a gleaming rifle. “They will stop at nothing to manipulate you!”

  Annie’s stomach lurched. Hill’s contagious zeal had turned maniacal. His eyes looked eerily black. She ran faster.

  “They are shape-shifters, my friends! Demons! They are—”

  “My boys!” Annie cried. “Stop! Please!” She was still so far away, her legs pumping as she raced over the scarred landscape.

  Hill glowered, but then his face became a mask of indulgent sympathy, and he addressed the hills all the more loudly. “This poor woman has suffered enough, ladies and gentlemen. She has been under the thrall of these monsters for too long. All of you have!” He lifted the rifle and drew back the hammer. “But that ends now.”

  “NO!” Annie yelled.

  Fable screamed.

  It was the scream that did it. The queen had already nearly reached the stump of the Grandmother Tree when she heard it. She pulled the cloak over her head as she ran. In a blur of motion, a mountain of furry muscles, sharp fangs, and wicked claws was suddenly barreling toward Jacob Hill. The queen roared.

  Mr. Hill spun, the loaded rifle in his hands, the hammer drawn.

  The bear leapt.

  Hill pulled the trigger.

  The gun went off with a ferocious BANG.

  Fable did not stop screaming, not even after the air had left her lungs. It was a scream beyond sound.

  She watched in horror as her mother’s body jerked back midair as if caught on an invisible wire. She watched the unstoppable Queen of the Deep Dark drop like a
bear-shaped boulder into the dirt at Hill’s feet.

  Then there was stillness—there was the echo of that lone gunshot bouncing across the hills—and there was the screaming. The screaming was everywhere. It made Fable’s vision reel. It came from every tree, every rock, every blade of grass. The forest was screaming with her.

  And Fable could hear it. She could hear the forest, clear as day.

  She couldn’t not hear it—it was deafening.

  And the forest heard Fable, as well.

  And their cries were one cry.

  And then the earth moved.

  Thirty

  Reality bent.

  The hillside rolled like waves in a storm, throwing wary combatants off of their feet before they had even rejoined the fight. The entire horizon had become a writhing serpent. Raw power crackled in the air like lightning.

  Fable did not remember rising, but she was suddenly upright and free, the soil no longer pressing into her back. Many days later, a confused hinkypunk would find a warped iron rod lodged deeply in the trunk of a mossy tree three miles away. The hinkypunk—not knowing that the twisted metal had once restrained the most powerful being in the Wild Wood—would use it to hang wild garlic for drying.

  Fable filled her lungs. High above her, dark clouds began to churn. She slid her foot forward and the ground beneath her swelled in response. She clenched her fists, and a hundred knotty roots writhed like serpents under her feet. She and the forest spoke wordlessly, connected by an understanding beyond language.

  Jacob Hill dropped the smoking rifle.

  Fable’s eyes narrowed, and vines erupted from the earth like geysers, whipping around Hill’s wrists. With a yowl, he ripped his arms free just as a fresh tangle of roots wrapped themselves around his legs. He kicked wildly, tearing loose again, the strength of a giant still coursing through his veins.

  Hill glowered at the girl, his gaze like fire. He took a step toward her, uprooting creeping plants each time he moved. Another step. A third. The wind whipped across the field and Fable’s vegetative assault increased. Hill’s progress slowed. He was strong, but Fable and the forest were relentless. For a moment they seemed to have reached a stalemate.

  Then Hill ripped a hand free and plunged it into his jacket pocket. He drew out not just one but a whole handful of delicate glass vials. He must have had at least half a dozen left, the glimmering powder shining like diamonds inside the tubes. A scratchy howl rang out in the field below—first one spriggan, then two, and soon dozens were crying out in rage and indignation at the sight of the remains clutched in Hill’s unworthy hands.

  Hill ignored the noise. He reached to uncork a vial, but Fable caught his free hand with a whippy vine and held it back. “I think you’ve had enough,” she said.

  Hill tugged against the winding cord, but his power was waning. With his free hand, he drew the vials to his mouth and ripped the wax off one of them with his teeth—but before he could tip the precious powder into his mouth, another leafy vine yanked that arm back. He shuddered with effort as he tried to pull free, but the cords held tight to both wrists now.

  Hill was trapped, his chest heaving, his feet barely visible within a tangled web of roots that climbed nearly to his knees, his arms pulled tight in opposite directions. Struggle all he might, the restraints held fast.

  Fable panted. Her arms fell limp at her sides. The earth settled once more, and the winds died away. With weary, stumbling steps, she staggered at last to the figure lying still and silent on the broken earth.

  Head swimming, Fable collapsed to her knees at her mother’s side. She could still feel the heat rising from the woman’s body.

  Get up, she thought. Move.

  Hot, heavy tears ran down her cheeks, but Fable could not seem to find the strength to wipe them away. Get up. Please.

  Her chest began to shake with heavy sobs. Fable could hear her mother’s voice, chiding her. You are the future queen of this forest, and it is long past time you began to act like it. The memory only made it worse.

  In spite of his unyielding position, Hill’s lips drew back in a sneer and he laughed. The sound made Fable’s stomach turn. She heard a soft crunch and a tinkle of glass.

  “This isn’t over yet,” the man whispered.

  Numbly, Fable turned. She blinked away hot tears.

  Blood was dripping from Hill’s closed fist. He grimaced and clenched his fingers around the wet shards.

  Fable’s mind struggled to make sense of what she was seeing. Her eyes widened. The vials. He’d crushed them all at once. Their contents were now coursing straight through Hill’s bloodstream. Jacob Hill began to shudder.

  Evie scrambled over the broken earth as quickly as she could. The skies boiled above her. She could hear Mr. Hill’s furious growls behind her, but she dared not look back. The man she thought she knew was gone, replaced by something awful. Her searching eyes finally locked on to a miniature gray figure in the dust ahead.

  Flinty tore his eyes away from the battle as Evie neared.

  “You,” the spriggan rasped.

  “Me,” panted Evie, and with one hand she reverently held out the vial.

  Flinty’s eyes widened. He looked at the tube, his deep scowl carving hard lines into the rocky ridges of his brow. “You know what it is?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

  “I know,” said Evie. “And I know what it does.”

  The spriggan drew in a sharp breath, his beady eyes narrowing in indignation.

  “It was an accident,” Evie explained. “But I felt it. It made me strong.”

  Flinty’s scowl deepened.

  “I didn’t know what it was,” said Evie. “But I understand now. I’m sorry.”

  The field had fallen silent once more as Flinty reached gingerly up and took the vial from Evie. The tube was easily half his height, but he held it like it might blow away in the wind at any moment.

  “We’ll help you get the rest back, too,” said Evie. “I promise.”

  He eyed her suspiciously. “You will help us defeat the humans?”

  “No,” Evie said. “Not like that. Not through fighting.”

  The spriggan’s lips sank into a scowl.

  “Listen,” Evie insisted. “Those people didn’t know. None of this is their fault. Well, except for one of them. You don’t need to defeat all the humans. Just help me stop that one.”

  Behind her, in the distance, there came the quiet tinkling of glass and a cruel laugh. Evie looked over her shoulder just in time to see the transformation.

  Jacob Hill shook. He bellowed—it was a raw, animal sound of pain and wrath and unbridled power. It echoed across the hills. A ghostly apparition materialized around his body, and then it was no mere glimmer of light, but a material form, growing and bulging outward, solidifying until it was as dense as rock and as tall as a pine tree. The vines that had held him prisoner now snapped and fell away like cheap twine. The enormous figure that towered over the clearing looked like Hill, but also like something else at the same time—a grotesque, inhuman version of the man he had been.

  “Just one?” rasped Flinty.

  “Yep.” Evie gulped. “Guess which one.”

  Fable stood up. Hill was four stories tall, his body hideous and undulating, too much magic trying to contain itself in too small a package. A fist like a slab of granite slammed into Fable before she saw it coming, and suddenly the girl was airborne. She was falling, tumbling through empty air, plummeting toward the Wild Wood. As she fell, her mind cleared.

  The forest caught Fable. The ground rose to meet her, and she landed gently on her feet. She swayed for only a moment and wiped her nose. It was bleeding, but only a little. She was going to have a wicked bruise later. It was oddly peaceful here, just a short way from the battlefield. The monstrous figure of Jacob Hill was visible over the treetops, silhouetted against
the white smoke of the battlefield.

  “Thanks, trees,” Fable breathed.

  The branches rustled.

  “You ready?” she said.

  A pinecone bounced off her shoulder and landed beside her.

  “Me, too.” Fable cracked her knuckles. “Let’s do this.”

  “Too much,” Flinty croaked. His eyes were frozen on the giant Jacob Hill.

  “Then make yourself big again!” Evie urged. “Stop him! You’re supposed to protect the forest, right?”

  Flinty took a deep breath and made a hollow clicking sound with the back of his throat. Within seconds, a pair of spriggan sentries had materialized on his left and right. He gave them each a short chirp and a solemn nod. They bowed and then reverently removed the tiniest pinch of powder from each of their war satchels. As one, they threw back their heads and swallowed the glittering shards before vanishing again into the tall grasses.

  Evie looked back at Flinty. “What about you? Aren’t you going to make yourself giant, too?”

  “Cannot.” Flinty’s face was even harder than usual. Evie couldn’t tell if the expression was misery or fury. “Mine is already spent.”

  “What do you mean? You’ve got a whole big vial of it right in your hands!”

  “Cannot. Must not.” Flinty shook his head wretchedly. “Too much makes us wrong—makes us forget who we are.”

  Evie swallowed. “You think Mr. Hill remembers who he is right now?”

  Flinty turned a solemn gaze back to the grotesque Jacob Hill and shook his head.

  Tinn tried to stand and crumpled at once. Jolts of pain hammered into his leg like nails. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The earth rumbled with every movement of the monstrous Jacob Hill.

  “You okay?” groaned a voice beside him.

  Tinn opened his eyes. Cole was holding his own chest as he crept closer. His brother’s face looked pale and his movements were stiff.

  “I’m good,” Tinn lied. “Just need . . . a minute. You?”