by L. R. Patton
Zorag looked toward the castle, where he had seen the good king’s fall. Where he had seen the new king slice through his father’s head with hardly an effort. Where he had witnessed a magic stronger than any he had ever seen.
“The new king has magic,” Zorag said, though this is, of course, not the only reason he would not attack the kingdom.
“Magic is nothing to fire,” Blindell said. “He does not deserve to live. I will torch their castle. Only say the word.”
“Stone does not burn,” Zorag said.
“But it breaks,” Blindell said.
“Some of King Brendon’s people are still there,” Zorag said. Blindell did not answer. “You must rid yourself of your anger, cousin. Anger does not solve anything.”
“Neither does peace,” Blindell said.
They remained quiet for a very long time. And then, finally, Blindell said, “Yes. I will be your son.”
Zorag dipped his head, though he felt much too young and ill-equipped to raise a son. But he would do what needed to be done. He would train Blindell. He would find the goodness in his cousin’s heart. He would show him love.
And this, in the end, would save the entire dragon race.
House
CORA stands in the village streets, hidden in shadow. She considers what she must do. She watches the captain of the king’s guard move through the streets in a flash that is uncharacteristic of this captain of the king’s guard. She stands watch outside the window of the house into which he disappeared. She sees him measure the medicine. She sees him inject it into his mother’s leg. She sees him place it in a cupboard, behind a stack of bowls. And after he leans down to kiss his mother’s forehead, after he stands to watch her a moment longer, after he has slipped from the door of the cottage and off toward the castle, but not quite, she slips to the doorway. She turns the knob, for the houses in a village as peaceful as Fairendale have no locks to keep the world outside. She walks inside and moves toward the chair that sits beside the bed of Sir Greyson’s mother. She takes the old woman’s hand.
Why is Cora here? It is difficult to say. Perhaps she loved this woman once. Perhaps she loved this woman’s son. One does many unexplainable things for love.
Cora remains in the chair all that evening and into the night. And when the first light of day appears in the east, she slips out and into her feathers. It is a blackbird that calls for the village people, just as Cora’s plans had told them.
“It is time,” the blackbird calls, and the people stream from their houses and follow the bird to the steps of the castle.
PRINCE Virgil is with his father in the throne room yet again. This time Queen Clarion is with them. They are talking about Sir Greyson and the king’s men and all the children who still remain missing.
Queen Clarion watches her son, sitting beside his father on the throne, and it is with great sadness that she notices how he pays more and more attention to his father’s manner of speaking and manner of doing and manner of being than he once did. What might she do to get her son back? She does not know that yesterday he slipped the captain of the king’s guard a vial of medicine that would keep the captain’s mother alive while he was gone on yet another journey. She does not know that the light has been warring with the dark relentlessly. She only sees which has won now, today. It is, sadly, the darkness once more.
She grieves this loss, as any mother would, for her son is a good boy. He truly is. But in the presence of his father, in the presence, she suspects, of that throne, her son becomes unrecognizable to her. Yet still she loves. Still she tries to grasp for the light and draw it out. This is why she is here, today.
His father has had too much influence of late.
“Do you think more men will come to fight our battles, Father?” Prince Virgil says. “Will they fight the dragons for us?”
“We do not know for sure whether we will fight dragons,” King Willis says. “But the men of my father’s homeland will come.”
Queen Clarion is not so sure. King Sebastien was not a loved man, you see. He did not endear himself to the people of his homeland as King Willis seems to think.
“But what of the dragons, Father?” Prince Virgil says. “What if they should attack before the captain returns?”
“They are too afraid to attack,” King Willis says, as if he has forgotten that his kingdom has no defense against any foe.
“But we have no king’s guard,” Prince Virgil says. “Anyone could attack. And we would not have protection.”
“They do not know of this,” King Willis says. “We lost our guard days ago. They have not attacked yet. There is a reason for that.”
“And what of the children?” Prince Virgil says. “Where are they?”
Thinking of the children brings Prince Virgil back, momentarily, to the light, for love is a strong light. And Prince Virgil, whatever else he may have forgotten, has not forgotten the love he has for Theo and Hazel and Mercy. He has not forgotten that he wishes them, at least in this moment, safe and sound.
The throne seems to glow brighter. Prince Virgil’s gaze is caught, and as quickly as he remembers his love, it is gone. There is only the throne and the kingdom and the rule he must have. He rests his head on the golden legs. They are cold and hard.
King Willis looks at his son. “And how would I know where the children are?” he says. “The captain did not say. They might very well be dead.”
“But we do not know for sure,” Queen Clarion says, for she hopes it is not true. She cares nothing for a throne, you see. She only wants her son to find happiness and love, and, yes, the goodness contained within him. “Perhaps they have escaped.” Prince Virgil turns to her. His eyes are so black they make her shiver. She has never noticed how much he looks like his grandfather.
“They might have the help of the dragons,” Prince Virgil says to his father.
“Perhaps,” King Willis says. “But we will find them. You will see. We shall restore the kingdom, and your claim will be safe.” King Willis pats his son’s head. “You will be safe, my child.”
“And when we find them, what will happen to the children?” Prince Virgil says. “What will we do with them?”
“Well,” King Willis says. “They must die, of course.”
Queen Clarion feels the words wrench open a cavern in her heart, for there was another man who spoke those very words once, when she was but a child. When she loved a boy who was banished forever. When the brother who remained asked his father what would happen if Wendell ever came back.
And Wendell had disappeared forever.
She watches her son’s smile spread across his face, and she feels it snake across her own skin and deep into the pit of her stomach, where it turns thick and cold.
Perhaps he is already too far gone to be pulled back into the light. She had hoped it was not so.
As a mother always does.
THE children and Maude have been searching for a good place to hide all this time. All this time they have hidden in the forest, out in the open air, hoping that no one will be able to see them like they can see through all these burned-down trees, hoping that no one will venture inside the still-smoking forest. The trees, it is true, have begun to show green again, for this is an enchanted wood, after all, but they are not nearly so decorated as they were mere days ago. And without magic, Maude and the children are lost, it seems. Maude has begun to despair, for they have found no food or water or anything that speaks of life. They have wandered to nearly every corner of the woods, though there is one they have yet to find.
And this one, as it happens, is just the right one.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Let us first observe the children. They are tired and thirsty and hungry. But mostly thirsty, for a body, you see, cannot survive for long without water. And they have no Mercy to summon water from the ground. They have only staffs that do not work properly anymore, for children who starve are children with very weak magic.
They run still, l
ooking about them at tree after tree after tree. They have seen them all, or so they think. The children weep. They do not weep noisily, for they do not want to upset Maude. They weep silently, holding hands behind their leader, who, though they cannot see it, weeps as well. Soon they will run out of tears, if they do not find water.
They stopped once to observe the astonishing sight of charred trees bearing green, so soon after a fire, and they stop now, as well, this time because they cannot continue on. Some of them place their hands on their knees and breathe in heaving gasps. Maude lifts her face to the sky and pants.
Hazel moves to her mother’s side. She takes her mother’s hand. She hopes that her presence might comfort Maude, but who can be comforted when they have lost a son and a husband? Maude certainly cannot. She has no plan, no focus, no hope, for grief has begun to steal the very life from her bones. Hazel cannot bear to see her mother walking as if she is nothing more than a sorcerer’s apparition.
“We must keep moving, Mother,” Hazel says.
“I cannot,” Maude says. “I am too weak.”
“We must, Mother,” Hazel says. “We must, or we risk dying.”
“I have already died a thousand deaths,” Maude says, which is, perhaps, a poetic way of saying that grief can often steal our very lives. Maude is not usually so poetic. She is thinking of Arthur. It is something he told her long ago.
“Look at all of us, Mother,” Hazel says. “Look how many look to you, Mother.” And Maude does look, but it does not help to look at the children, for looking at the children only reminds her that she has lost her beloved Theo and her beloved Arthur, and this burden feels much too heavy for her shoulders. Hazel draws her mother to her feet. “We must go,” she says.
Maude gazes at Hazel, and Hazel’s eyes remain focused on her mother’s face. And because Maude can see in her daughter’s eyes a vestige of hope, it becomes a vestige of hope in Maude’s heart as well. She takes a breath and turns to the children. “Come,” she says. “We must move.” But she is too weak to take a step.
Hazel puts her mother’s arm around her, and one of the girls, the one called Ursula, moves to Maude’s other side and stretches her arms around Maude’s waist, though it does not take much stretching. Maude has grown painfully thinner in the days after the roundup. The two girls let Maude lean on them, and they begin to move forward again. The other children follow, no one saying a single word until another set of twins, these two born without the slightest hint of magic, say, at the same exact time, “Look,” and all the children do. They do not see anything.
“It is a house,” says one of the twins, Chester.
“Right there,” Charles says.
The children look again. There is no house.
Have you ever heard of the boy who cried wolf, dear reader? The boy who cried wolf is a boy who went out to tend his sheep and, because he found it funny, would return to the village crying about a wolf trying to eat his sheep. He was never in any danger, but merely wanted to have a little fun. He did this three times, and each time the village people rushed to save the boy’s sheep from a wolf that did not exist. And then, the fourth time, when the boy really was in danger, no one came to rescue him, for the people did not wish to be fooled again.
Chester and his twin brother, Charles, were known among the village children as pranksters. They have never, alas, heard the story of the boy who cried wolf, and so they could not be warned that a boy who initiates too many jokes is a boy who will not be taken seriously.
So it is that when they both say they see a house, and no one else sees it, the children do not believe them.
“Stop trying to fool us, Chester,” Hazel says. “There is no house. There is nothing.”
“But there is,” Charles says. His face is completely serious, but this is a look the children have become quite familiar with over the weeks. This is a look both Charles and Chester wore when they told the story of how their parents descended from a long line of royalty, and it turned out not a bit of their story was true. This is the look they wore when they said they did not set spiders free in the house beneath the ground, though every child knew it was only Chester and Charles who would do such a thing. This is the look they wore one night at dinner, in the underground home, when they said that what they had before them was a hulking slab of roast lamb in a honey sauce, though the children only saw bread.
The children are familiar with these identical faces, and they will not fall for the antics of Chester and Charles once again. Children do not like their hopes dashed so violently as they are dashed when they find that something they hoped was true is, in fact, not true in the slightest. So the children ignore them.
“Hazel,” Chester says, pulling on Hazel’s ragged blue sleeve. “You do not see the beautiful trees?”
Hazel squints her eyes in the direction he is pointing. As far as she can see there are only burned trees with little bits of green to tell they are still alive. “No,” she says. “I see only blackened trees.”
“But they are green!” Charles says. He points to the same place Chester pointed. “A house and flowers and trees. How did they survive the fire? It must be magic.”
The children shake their heads and follow Hazel and Ursula and Maude in the other direction. Chester and Charles take off toward the invisible house that no other children can see. Hazel looks back once, with a “We must stay together,” and then does not look back again until she hears a voice that is most definitely not the voice of a boy or a child at all.
“Well,” the voice says. “I see you have found me.”
Hazel whirls around. Maude stumbles. And now there is a house. There are trees. There are flowers, right in the middle of a burned forest. It is impossible and wonderful all at once. Where did it come from? How did it survive? Who is the woman before them? These are all the questions that fly through Hazel’s mind as she follows the twins toward the house she can finally see.
The woman who stands outside the front door must be royalty, for she wears a flowing green dress trimmed in gold and jewels. It is full and wide and its collar reaches her chin. Her hair is kept back from her face, but Hazel can see it is red, like her lips. The woman’s eyes flash green, and Hazel steps closer. The eyes are somehow familiar and unfamiliar all at the same time. Hazel feels a pain in her chest and drops her eyes to the gold necklace around the woman’s neck. It is a blackbird.
Hazel speaks for Maude and the children. “We search for a safe place to hide,” she says. She cannot keep her eyes from moving toward the house. A soft bed. A warm supper. Water. They need so much.
The woman stands with a straight back and a chin that tilts up and slightly sideways, as if she greets the world with curiosity. She is very beautiful.
“And your search has brought you here,” the woman says. She has a smile that does not quite touch the sides of her eyes.
“Might you help us?” Hazel says.
Maude has come alive beside her. “My husband,” she says.
The woman stares at Maude. “Your husband?”
“Does my husband live?” Maude says.
The woman moves her hands in front of her. “I cannot know such things,” she says. She looks at Hazel. “But I might be of some help.”
“Who are you?” Hazel says.
“I am called the Enchantress,” the woman says.
“We need a place of refuge,” Hazel says. “Perhaps a house that is like yours.”
“Invisible,” the Enchantress says. “To the ones who mean you harm.”
“Yes,” Hazel says. “Or perhaps invisible to everyone, if it can be done.” She looks at the woman, who must have quite a gift of magic, for she lives in an invisible house. Hope begins move, warm and slow, from her heart to her throat.
“You have magic, do you not?” the Enchantress says. “Why not use your own?”
“The children are starving,” Maude says now. She has straightened up beside Hazel and Ursula. “They cannot do magic when they are starvin
g. We have not had enough water for days.”
“So you will need food and water as well,” the Enchantress says.
“Yes,” Maude says. “If it might be arranged.”
“I am quite skilled in the gift of magic,” the Enchantress says. She nods her head in Maude’s direction. “I can do all you ask and more, if you need it. But there is a price to be paid. Surely you know that.”
“Yes,” Maude says. “And what is your price?”
“I will do everything you have asked,” the Enchantress says. “I will give you a house that is invisible to everyone who ventures inside these woods, if anyone is left. I will set up a garden that you and the children might tend. I will give you food and water, and you will eat as you have not eaten in many days.” As she is speaking, the Enchantress looks at the children, each in turn. Then she looks back at Maude. “And I will take her.”
She points to Hazel.
“Oh, no,” Maude says. “No, no, no. Not my daughter.”
The woman’s hands turn up at the palms. She raises them at her side. “Then I am afraid I cannot help you.” She turns.
“Wait,” Hazel says. The Enchantress turns around again. Hazel looks at her mother. She puts her hands on Maude’s cheeks. “Mother,” she says. “Think of the children.”
Maude’s eyes are streaming. She does not try to wipe her tears away. They splash onto Hazel’s small fingers. “I cannot think of the children, dear,” she says. “I have lost everything. You are the only one left.”
Ursula steps forward. “Take me instead,” she says.
The woman shakes her head. “I am afraid that will not do,” she says. Ursula frowns in her direction, but she steps back to Maude and Hazel.
“We will find Father and Theo,” Hazel says. “I promise it. As soon as the danger is over.”
“The danger will never be over,” Maude says. Her voice has grown hysterical. “I cannot lose you, too. You are the only reason I am still running. You are the only reason I am still fighting.”