Small Favors

by Erin A. Craig

  “What do you mean?”

  He stepped away, wandering deeper into the glade, shame weighing down his every footstep. “We don’t always stay together, the Kindred. If there’s not a game afoot, we wander the land on our own, looking for diversions, looking for the next hunt.” He twisted his fingers, balling them into fists. “Two years ago, maybe three, I came across this range. At first I didn’t think much of it….It’s so isolated, so wild. But then I heard the Bells. Everywhere I went, there were more and more of them, their chimes pulling me in, drawing me out of the mountains, down to this valley. I saw the lake and I saw the village. And then I saw you….”

  His eyes shifted, meeting mine with pained remorse.

  “I saw a girl—this beautiful, radiant girl, with honey-colored hair—standing at the edge of the forest. It was almost as if she was making up her mind about something. Indecision was written all over her face; her eyes were raw with yearning. One foot was in the fields, solidly planted in her world, but the other foot trembled over the tree line, wanting to take to the woods, to learn its mysteries, to come find me—even if she didn’t know it at the time.” He flicked his fingers as if picking something from his nail. “I couldn’t get her out of my mind, no matter how I tried. She was always there, just on the edge of everything, waiting. Wanting. I wanted to be there when she was brave enough to take that next step.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  It wasn’t quite a lie.

  Though I wasn’t sure of the exact day in question, I’d always felt a certain watchfulness standing before the pines. I’d thought it was the trees themselves, holding their breaths, waiting for something to happen.

  Had they been waiting on Whitaker all along? Waiting and watching him watch me?

  Goose bumps rose along my arms, pebbled against the stifling humidity.

  “I kept watch from the woods, kept returning season after season to watch her. Her honey-colored hair became the loveliest strands of gold,” he whispered, gesturing with spindle-thin fingers. Breath caught in the hollow of my throat as though he’d actually touched me. The thought of him stroking my hair set my teeth on edge with a strange, aching pleasure.

  Though he remained motionless, I could feel him reaching toward me, beckoning, begging for me to come forward. I wanted to, wanted to move, to step toward him until there was no longer any space between us, but my feet stayed resolutely in place, anchored to the forest floor, unmoving and still.

  “What happened then?”

  “The others found their way back to me. We never can stay apart for long. They came and they watched. And then she decided it was time to be seen.”

  “Levi Barton,” I guessed. “The farmer who…” I couldn’t bear to finish the thought.

  He nodded, weary. “He wasn’t well. Such a broken soul, longing for so much more than he already had. She gave him fistfuls of gold, just as he’d wanted. He was supposed to—I don’t even remember now—but he grew paranoid, fearful his newfound wealth would be stolen. He didn’t trust his neighbors, his own wife.”

  I remembered the burning, desperate suspicion that had come over me once I’d been given the sugar. I understood with perfect, horrible clarity how such a gift could be corrupted by fear. Tainted and twisted. Taken over by the darkness. We truly were no different from the animals in the forest, our very nature grown distorted and perverse in the presence of the Dark Watchers.

  “Then…she decided to stay. Amity Falls seemed like the perfect place for a new game.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry I ever stumbled across this place. If I could take it back…” He sighed. “I want to say I would, but…” He paced, drawing closer. “You’re the only person who’s ever known I lied about my name.”

  His voice echoed strangely in the glade, a trick that made it seem as if he was directly behind me, heating the air around my ear with his breath, his lips brushing the hairs of my skin.

  “You look at me in a way I’ve never seen before.” He brushed his fingertips across the softness of my cheek, looking at me as if I was the wonder. “Others see me as a means to an end…but to you, I was only ever a man.”

  He cupped my face, tilting it toward his. His eyes shone, dark and haunted.

  “I would give everything I have to be that man for you,” he whispered. “But I never will be. I…I can’t. I don’t remember how and…I can’t change who I’ve been, what I’ve done.” He let out a short bark of a laugh. “You’ve no idea of the things I’ve done.”

  “Why don’t you just leave? You could walk away, leave them all, and never look back. You could…” I ran fingers over his shoulders, recalling every silly, sentimental thought I’d ever dared to dream about him. “You could stay with me. I don’t care about your past. We’re here, right now, in this moment. Your past can’t touch this. It can’t define your future. Our future,” I added firmly.

  “These,” he said, holding up his wrists, displaying the encircling green tattoos. Some of the bands were thick, with circles of un-inked skin perforating them like moon phases. Others were impossibly thin, stacked on one another like layers of Mama’s honey cakes. “Every new place, new village, new town…every time I watch…another band is added. I don’t know how; they just appear when the job is done.”

  I stared at the emerald ink with a sick fascination. There were so many lines. Dozens of them. How many lives had he watched fall apart? How many towns had been destroyed? Families devastated?

  “The others see them as trophies, marking victories well won, but they’re nothing more than shackles, reminders of the things, the awful things, I’ve done. They’re on me forever, never letting me forget. I tried to go—to leave the Kindred—earlier this spring, but they pulled me back anyway. I can’t escape my past, Ellerie. There’s no point in trying.”

  I fell to my knees, grasping at his hands, desperate to change his mind. Hot tears streamed down my face. “You can. Just tell me her name. Whitaker, please.”

  He shook his head. “I wish I could.”

  “Then do it! Just say it,” I pleaded.

  His eyebrows furrowed together. “She won’t let me. It’s impossible.” He opened his mouth, and his lips pursed as if to form a word, but nothing came out.

  I tangled my fingers through his. They’d always felt so strong and sure before. Now they hung between mine, wavering and complacent.

  “There must be something…” I trailed off as a bit of movement caught my attention. A white dress flickered in and out of the trees, always on the edge of my vision. Silver eyes, there one moment and gone the next. It was like trying to focus on heat waves in the dog days of summer.

  I’d almost convinced myself the movement was a figment of my imagination, but then Whitaker froze, confirming her presence. His face hardened, growing distant. The edges of his eyes flickered like a predator’s at night.

  Not the boy I knew and loved.

  The creature.

  “There’s nothing. Not even for the girl who can name every flower. The girl who thinks she can name the stars. The girl who thought she could name me.”

  His voice rang cold, his tone barbed and cruel. Was he acting for her benefit, or did her presence simply reveal him as he’d always been?

  “Whitaker, I—”

  He pulled me to my feet, swift and strong. And then his lips were on mine, moving with thorough deliberateness. He swept me against him, his hands curved at the back of my neck, loosening my braid. Silky strands whispered across his fingers.

  It was a kiss goodbye, I realized too late, tasting of salt and regret.

  When he broke away, he trailed his thumb over my lips, memorizing their lines before pushing me backward, causing me to stumble from him.

  “Whitaker!” I gasped, stunned.

  He turned, unable to meet my gaze. “Go back, Ellerie. Go back and get out of
Amity Falls. Go now before you can’t.”

  “I can’t leave Samuel to die.”

  He bared his teeth once before fading into the woods’ embrace. “He would you.”

  I stared after his retreating form, blinking with incoherence. He’d left me. He’d admitted to all the terrible things his twisted family had planned—the terrible things he’d already done himself—and then he’d left me.

  Alone.

  With her.

  I spun back to where I’d last seen the almost-not-quite suggestion of her form, but there was nothing but pines now, dark and unyielding.

  Then, a shift behind me.

  Her.

  I whirled around.

  She was smaller than I’d imagined, clothed in a fine dress of white eyelet lace. An afternoon dress, as if she was civil enough to be on her way to a tea.

  Her hair was as dark as a midnight sky, worn half up, with the loose ringlets curled so perfectly, they looked like a porcelain doll’s. Her cheeks held a rosy hue, just shy of a blush. Thick lashes framed her eyes, which were an impossibly vivid shade of green, though they reflected light like a feral animal’s as they shifted directions, giving off quick flashes of silver.

  “Ellerie Downing,” she drawled, soft and sweet. “We finally meet, face to face.”

  “I’m not accustomed to not knowing my companion’s name,” I called out, my bravado ringing false in my ears.

  Her full lips curved into a smile, and she waggled one finger back and forth as if I was a naughty child. It was too long. Much too long, with painfully gnarled knuckles and a talon-like claw for a nail.

  “You’ve caused quite a stir among my Kindred,” she said. “Your name rings hot on all our lips.”

  “I can’t imagine why.”

  Her carefully composed expression twisted into a smirk. “In all our years, we’ve never encountered someone with the audacity to name one of us. What was the ridiculous moniker you came up with? Whitten? Whitehead?”

  “Whitaker,” I said, taking the bait.

  Another smirk. “Whitaker. He’s grown quite fond of you. Too fond, really. It’s actually rather a nuisance.”

  I called upon every bit of mettle within me to not tremble before her. “Am I meant to apologize?”

  She shrugged lightly. “It doesn’t matter in any case. Even without Whitaker’s help, the die has been cast.”

  “Without his help? He brought you here in the first place!”

  She nodded. “For what it’s worth, I suppose that’s true. It really was quite the idyllic spot for a hunt. I certainly didn’t expect the game to take such a turn. It’s been fascinating to watch. And of course, you’ve added such a delightful twist to the play.” She grinned, flashing the sharp barbs of her teeth.

  “Me?” I blinked, hoping it was a trick of light, but no. Her teeth fanged into points, strange and translucent. They reminded me of the pike Papa often caught in the Greenswold, with rows and rows of teeth, waiting to sink and tear.

  “Oh yes. It’s why I wanted to meet you. I’ve come to make you an offer, you see.”

  “What on earth could you possibly have to offer me?”

  Her head tilted, cocking to the side and spilling her lustrous hair down one shoulder. “I would have thought that was obvious.”

  “What?”

  “Why, the safety of your family, of course. Merry and…who’s the little one? Sadie!”

  Hearing my sisters’ names on her lips made my stomach ache, feeling oily and sick. “Stay away from them.” Warning laced my words, however futilely. If she decided to harm them, how was I to stop her?

  Her laughter rang out, as bright as tinkling glass, silver spoons chiming against fine crystal. It almost dazzled me into forgetting the parts of her that were so terribly wrong. “If you were to do something for me, I can guarantee your sisters will make it through alive and well.” She leaned closer, and I could smell her perfume, floral and coy. “I will keep them safe.”

  “Just them?” I asked. “What about Sam?”

  “Oh…Sam has already seen fit to take care of himself. Don’t spend a moment’s worry on him.”

  My mouth felt dry and sour. “What do you mean?”

  “He’ll be fine, Ellerie. Just fine. But your sisters…”

  “What…what would I have to do?”

  She beamed and made a small gesture out to the trees. “Join us.”

  A stream of figures emerged from the forest. A tall man, his skin dark and gleaming, took off his top hat, doffing it in my direction. He wore buckskin breeches, fringed and beaded.

  Whitaker’s Burnish, I thought, before shoving the thought aside. That wasn’t his name. It had never been his name.

  There was an older woman wearing a plain black dress, accented only by a wide white yoke and cuffs. Her graying hair was parted severely down the center, neatly covered by an outdated bonnet.

  And a little girl—the so-called Abigail—a blur of motion, danced about the meadow, spinning in a dress of dazzling blue satin, trimmed with lace so intricate, she resembled more a child of days gone by, a fairy-tale princess or a bedecked infanta. Her wrists were so decorated with green marks, they nearly reached her elbows. She skipped gaily about, ignoring us all.

  Whitaker was noticeably absent.

  “Join you?” I repeated.

  “Become like us. Become one of us. We’ve been wanting to add to our Kindred for years, but the right someone had eluded us.” She smiled again. “Until now.”

  “Become like you—you mean you’re not…you’ve not always been…” My mouth dried, realizing what she implied.

  “They were human once too,” the Queen said, putting words to my struggles of the idea. “Before.”

  “Whitaker was human,” I said slowly, letting the idea sink in.

  It shouldn’t have changed anything.

  It didn’t, not truly.

  But it felt like it could.

  She nodded.

  I glanced at the others dotting the meadow. “And you…you all chose this? You knew the destruction she causes, and you—”

  “I saved my daughter,” said the woman in the plain dress. “My Sally. We were new to this land. Struggling every day just to get by. No food. Little water. Supplies raided. Children taken right out from their tents in the dead of night. Our colony was on the brink of madness. None of us would have made it out alive.” She paused. “And none of us did—except for her. Sally. I traded my life—as I’d known it—for hers.”

  The man nodded, eyes flashing and beguiling. “My brother.”

  It was said with such simple stoicism, I ached.

  The little girl who wasn’t Abigail stopped dancing. “My maman and papa.” Her voice had a musical lilt, like the old fur trapper Jean Garreau’s. “The Great Sickness swept through our town. Our servants brought it to the manor, dying right and left, sweating and stinking.” Her nose crinkled as she remembered. “Papa caught it first, then me. Maman never left our side, looking after us even as she fell ill.” She paused, offering a grateful smile to her Queen. “They’re long dead now, but I have a new maman.”

  “And Whitaker?” I turned back to the Queen, seeking her answer.

  Her lips pressed into a thin line. “A sister. Such a sickly thing, if I remember right.” She raised her shoulders in a delicate shrug. “It’s been decades.”

  I thought back to Sadie’s birthday and the flower crowns he and I had woven alongside the lake. He’d spoken of a sister then.

  Amelia.

  “Where is he now?” I asked, glancing around the meadow. “They’re all here. Where is he?”

  “I didn’t need him interfering. Not while we have this little chat, you and I.”

  I remembered his abrupt change once he’d spotted her among the trees, and understanding rippled throug
h me. “You…you can control them?”

  She glanced toward the other Dark Watchers. Without a flicker of effort from her, they began to walk backward, moving in perfectly eerie unison, their faces as blank as poppets, their silver eyes as flat as beaten nickels. Abigail’s legs had to stretch into impossibly long strides to keep pace with the two adults. They all stopped at the same moment and stood, frozen and waiting to be of use.

  My mouth hung open, astonished. “How did you do that?”

  “How does the moon hold sway over the waves? How do your queens rule their hives? It’s just our nature.”

  “But Whitaker…I’ve never seen him look like…look like that.” My eyes darted to Burnish’s expressionless eyes, and then snapped away. It was uncomfortable to witness such complete servitude.

  She frowned. “No. He’s proved to be less malleable than the others.”

  “The luck,” I whispered, thinking of his endless supply of trinkets. “It holds back the darkness.”

  “Holds back me,” she corrected me. She tilted her head as if it was inconsequential. “It’s not enough to truly override my desires, but it’s enough to grant him the illusion of control.”

  “He chose…this…to save his sister,” I murmured, piecing everything together.

  His reluctance to speak of his past.

  Mentions of a debt to be paid.

  She nodded. “To save her from certain death. Just as you can save yours. If…” She left the word hanging in midair, silvery and slippery with potential.

  “If I join you.”

  Her face remained placid, as if it didn’t matter to her which path I chose, but I noticed a burning edge in her eyes. She wanted me to say yes. Badly.

  “But I don’t want to save only my sisters. I want to free the whole town.”

  She raised one eyebrow with amusement. “That’s not what I offered.”

  “You wouldn’t have to offer it—not if I know your name. Your true name,” I clarified, cutting off whatever pithy remark she’d undoubtedly planned to counter with.