Foxglove

by Aaron McQueen

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  The Appointed Time

  Uptown Girl

  Alone

  Bad End

  Into the Woods

  Night and Day

  Old Magic

  A Change of Heart

  Back to Life

  Creature Comforts

  First Mover Advantage

  Old School

  Cultural Differences

  Flyboy

  Practical Experience

  Civilized People

  Warrior Princess

  Ancient Animus

  The Witching Hour

  Allsight

  A Noble Pursuit

  Field Trip

  Higher Education

  Dramatis Persona

  Witchcraft 101

  Heart to Heart

  Away From It All

  Concerning Flight

  Delve

  Natural Inclination

  Resolve

  The Matter at Hand

  Tricks of the Trade

  Learning Curve

  The Birds and the Bees

  Matriarch

  Matchmaker

  Friends with Benefits

  Bloom

  The Man from the Woods

  A Formal Affair

  A Century in Review

  Toil and Trouble

  Battle Lines

  Rising Tide

  Fight or Flight

  Heartbeat

  Primeval

  Courage

  Solstice

  Foxglove

  Loose Ends

  Same as the Old Boss

  Heir

  Rosewood

  Author's Note

  Special Thanks

  Foxglove

  Maddie’s Seasons - Book One

  Written by Aaron McQueen

  Book One of the Maddie’s Seasons series by Aaron McQueen

  Copyright © 2019 Aaron McQueen and McQueen Serial Fantasy

  All rights reserved

  ISBN: 978-0-578-55914-8

  Cover Illustration by Jennifer Lange

  Editing by Kara Bernard

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  For Jeannie

  The Appointed Time

  Morrow raged in silence, hiding in the shadows as the dim light of his mistress’s candles sputtered in the dark.

  His people preferred the gloom, despite the dazzling lights of the city that rose above them. They had become strays, roaming the human sewers and alleys hunting for scraps, swimming in runoff from the streets and stinking of excrement. The vaulted halls that once stood as symbols of their way of life were lost and gone. The workshops had closed, the under-ways to the old cities were shut, and the great studios of the masters had all been boarded up. They lived like rats, mounded on top of each other in the catacombs beneath the human metropolis.

  Chicago. The very name was bitter on his tongue.

  Morrow’s people had become vermin, and it disgusted him. There was no pride in their hearts, no sense of accomplishment, and no purpose beyond a certain aimless discontent. The brushes of the painters were dry, the forges were cold, and the strings of the great minstrels lay desolate and still.

  “Come over here.”

  Morrow shuddered as his mistress’s voice emerged like a breath of cold wind from the dark. He took up his gloves and buckled on his sword. It was one of few left in the city, given to him by his mother on her deathbed. These days, it was easier to steal weapons from humans: knives, brass knuckles, and guns. They were poor substitutions for a culture that once lived in moonlight.

  His mistress spoke again. “Now, little prince!”

  Though he despised the pet name she’d given him, there was no point in arguing and little to be gained from petulance. Morrow trudged over. She was in control. The truth of it sat like rotten fruit in his gut as he approached. The contents of the cauldron in front of her oozed black and smelled of blood and sulfur. The acrid smell clung to the back of his throat, and he felt his stomach turn. Were he not so accustomed to the odor, he would have vomited on the spot.

  She handed him a jug with a broad mouth. “Hold this.”

  Morrow obeyed as his mistress picked up a ladle and filled the container. The liquid moved on its own, curling and folding over itself, clawing at the sides of the vessel as it tried to escape. Morrow stuffed a thick cork stopper in the mouth of the jar to trap it inside.

  “Must we do this?” he asked.

  His mistress gave him a stern look.

  “Of course we must. It is the only way.”

  “But it’s murder.”

  “The Foxglove is not a person,” his mistress said with icy indifference. “It cannot be killed like some mortal creature.”

  She spoke the words with disdain, as if it didn’t faze her at all that they were about to ambush a 19-year-old girl in the woods.

  Morrow frowned. “But she’s an innocent woman.”

  His mistress giggled. “And?”

  Anger swelled in Morrow’s chest. “And it’s wrong!” he said.

  His mistress turned, grinding in place like a mill wheel. “Is it?”

  A dark weight dropped heavily behind her words. Morrow tried to take a step back, but his legs froze in place. The witch’s gaze held him like the black coils of a constrictor snake. She put out a hand, clutching, and his sight dimmed. His body weakened as invisible fingers closed around his throat. He writhed under the weight of her will.

  “I didn’t mean…” he said, raking in a breath.

  “Didn’t mean what?”

  Morrow’s eyes fluttered shut, and he coughed. “I’m sorry!”

  The pressure eased. Morrow found himself on the floor, too disoriented to recall when he had fallen. He struggled to his knees as his mistress stood over him. She planted a bare foot his shoulder.

  “You belong to me, little prince,” she said, holding him to the floor. “Never forget that.”

  Morrow strained under her weight. “I apologize. It won’t happen again.”

  She took her foot away as her hollow eyes peered down the slim bridge of her nose. Her skin was like wet paper, thin and pale, revealing the fair lines of her bones. Once, she would have been indescribably beautiful. Morrow’s knees trembled at the mere memory of her former self. Now, she loomed like a marble statue, smooth and cool and laced with black.

  Gwynedd, dark witch of the fair folk, queen of the evening and the night. Among the Erlkin, there were none as old or as powerful. She reached for the table and took up a long, stone knife. The blade was ancient, chipped into shape by her own hand in a time long before the fair races came to the Earth. She set the point against her palm.

  “Open your mouth,” she said. Her voice pounded in the dark.

  Morrow strained against his body’s impulse as it rose to meet her hand. One half of his thoughts cowered, terrified to the point of tears; the other half ached for release. His heart pounded with anticipation as his throat opened wide and his jaw relaxed. His mouth watered as black blood fell from the witch’s palm and dropped onto his lips. His eager tongue collected every drop, powerless to resist.

  When she took her hand away, Morrow fell against the cool, silken flesh of her thigh, resting his cheek against her skin. The fearful half of his mind fell away into silence as his thoughts eased. Resentment faded to dull unease before finally succumbing to contentment.

  Gwynedd scooped the heavy jug up with one arm and tucked it into her robes. The knife disappeared into her sleeve.

  “Now, we must go,” she said. “I’ve waited a thousand years for this night to come, and I do not
intend to be late.”

  Uptown Girl

  There was a knock at the door.

  Maddie jumped awake. “I’m up! I’m up!”

  Sunlight streamed into her bedroom through half-closed blinds. Rubbing her eyes, Maddie leaned back in her chair and wrestled with the cords to pull them shut. As she yanked the wrong string, the blinds flew open, and the afternoon came blazing through. Cursing, Maddie covered her face with one arm and flailed, falling away from her desk as her chair tipped and fell over backwards. She landed on the floor with a thump.

  A familiar voice spoke through the door. “Miss Foster? Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine!” She called back, wincing.

  There was a brief pause. “Have you finished your breakfast?”

  Maddie looked around, disoriented. The tray was still on the bed. She hadn’t touched it.

  “No,” she answered.

  Footsteps retreated down the hall as Maddie crawled to her feet and stared down at her desk. A puddle of drool had spread across her papers. She grumbled and grabbed a tissue to wipe it off. It was no big deal. They were only college forms.

  Maddie tossed the tissue aside and picked up her phone. It was 4pm. She’d slept through more than half the day.

  The last thing she remembered was James dropping off her breakfast. He was her butler, or more to the point, he was her mother’s butler, hired on after her father passed away. Even now, months later, the memory stung, because it was on that morning, when her new caretaker came through the door, that Maddie realized her mother wasn’t coming home either.

  Breakfast was eggs on toast. Maddie grabbed a cold piece and nibbled, sipping water from a sports bottle she kept on her nightstand. James had left her mail on the tray, and she picked up the first envelope. It was marked international and had a Chinese return address. The contents were brief and curt: congratulations on completing your first year at the alma mater.

  Joanna-Lynn Foster was a Booth woman: University of Chicago, class of ‘73, back when Booth was still called the Graduate School of Business, something she was quick to point out whenever the opportunity came up. She worked out of a high-rise in Hong Kong, brokering deals between big internationals and, as of last month, had not set foot in the United States in five years.

  Truthfully, it wasn’t her mother’s absence that bothered Maddie. She and her father had certainly enjoyed the fruits of her labor: big house, nice cars, good schools, the works. She’d provided the two of them with “the good life,” and Maddie didn’t want to be ungrateful.

  Her father used to say that big people needed big dreams, and that her mother liked knowing that she could look after so many people. It was an idea that Maddie grudgingly accepted, but it still just didn’t feel right that her whole life was just another line in a day planner.

  On the other hand, her mother’s inattention had also kept her blissfully unaware of the fact that Maddie hadn’t actually enrolled in college.

  At first, the problem was a curiosity. Honestly, Maddie had never given it any thought. After all, it was the dumbest, simplest question in the world. What do you want to be when you grow up? It had never occurred to her that someday someone would actually be asking. The future, she’d always believed, would arrive on its own. But as the weeks rolled by and the summer after high school came and went, it became increasingly clear that certain choices would not make themselves. Maddie spent months staring at college applications before she was forced to admit that she was in trouble.

  And so here she was, nineteen years old, with a 4.0 grade-point average, a fistful of AP credits, and no idea what the hell she was going to do.

  She got up and changed into shorts and a sports bra. She needed a run. Maybe when she got back, she would be able to finish filling out the forms and get on with the rest of her life.

  Who am I kidding, she thought, grumbling as she laced up her shoes. The run isn’t going to change anything.

  James was by the door, watering the houseplants, as she came thumping down the stairs.

  “Heading out?” he asked.

  Maddie forced a smile. “Yeah. I’m gonna blow off some steam.”

  He gave her a little bow and said, “Enjoy your run.”

  The pavement was hot. Maddie cursed the local weather service for having the gall to refer to the sky as “partly cloudy.” It had to be a hundred degrees in the shade. Her father had taken her all over the world when she was a kid, but there was no place on earth as unforgiving as Chicago in the summer. She stretched, popped in her headphones, and ran. Her music collection was… eccentric: classical, metal, nerd pop. As distractions went, they did an adequate job of helping her forget her troubles. The run took care of the rest. It was a brief escape, but it felt good to get away.

  She passed a group of students relaxing in the park, enjoying the sunshine after the long, cloudy months of the school year. Maddie looked away and headed for the woods. The crowd only served to remind her of the uncomfortable truth that she was now a full year behind.

  At least Tammy would be home for the break, and they could catch up on some serious video game time. She was even nerdier than Maddie was, and Maddie considered herself a connoisseur. They’d been planning the meet up for weeks, and they had a whole library of games to get through. The marathon would continue until they either passed out from exhaustion or killed each other over whether or not infinite-hit combos were legal.

  The path turned and led her into the Cook County Forest Preserve system, 70,000 acres of bona fide green space smack in the middle of one of the largest urban centers in the country, complete with parks, picnic benches, nature trails, and more than a hundred miles of well-lit bike path.

  Maddie brought in a deep breath of contentment as she jogged toward the shade, taking in the tweeting of the birds and the soft buzz of the insects. The pollen was so thick she could practically brush it away from her face with an open palm. Her heart ached. Before her father’s accident, these woods had always made her feel at home; now they only made her feel like running away.

  It was an old story, and a short one. It began downtown with a drunk driver at the corner of Michigan and East Adams; it ended with her father in the trauma ward of Mercy Medical on Polk. She didn’t even get to say goodbye. The doctors said it was quick and that he wouldn’t have felt any pain. Small comfort. Her father deserved better.

  Her mother paid for the funeral, but she didn’t come back for it.

  Her assistant had called. There was a big deal at stake, and she couldn’t get away. Something about a bridge. Things went downhill pretty fast after that. Conversations rapidly became arguments, then shouting matches, until, in the end, Maddie stopped picking up the phone. They hadn’t spoken in eight months.

  Maddie turned onto an unpaved trail, and it carried her into the forest. The woods became a sea of ferns and patchy sunlight as Maddie’s heels pounded against the earth. She’d forgotten how much she loved running on dirt. It felt more natural, and didn’t have the plastic quality that seemed so inescapable in modern society. There were no lamps. There was no concrete. There were no curbs, and no people. She was alone on the planet, lost in her own little piece of the world.

  She sprinted down the trail until her lungs burned. Sweat beaded on her brow and ran down her back, darkening the orange of her tank top. The world became a blur of green. She forgot about her mother, the application forms, college… There was only the rush of the wind, the glare of the sun, and the soft cushion of leaves beneath her feet.

  Eventually, her breath gave out, and she leaned over onto her knees. Panting, she reached for the water bottle on her hip, realizing with a curse that it was still in her room on the nightstand.

  She trudged back up the trail, heading for the parking lot. How far had she gone? A mile? Two?

  She stopped when she heard the sound of running water. She knew about the dangers of drinking untreated water, but at this point, sweltering in the heat, she didn’t give one hot damn. Maddie left
the path and shouldered her way through the undergrowth to find the source of the sound, skin prickling as she wobbled on her feet.

  The thickness of the brush parted after a dozen yards, and she found herself standing in a field of tall wildflowers. It looked like the whole world had been painted over in brilliant, dazzling color. Maddie stumbled through the rainbow display until she came to a pool fed by a natural spring. Clear water drained into it, emerging from a cleft between two huge gray stones, smooth from age and weather.

  Throwing dignity to the wind, Maddie thrust her face into the pool and drank. The cool liquid was like ice in her throat. When she felt her belly would burst if she drank any more, she rolled over and lay in the flowers. The wind was warm, the sun flooded in red through her closed eyelids, and for the first time since her father passed away, she felt at peace.

  Alone

  When Maddie woke up, it was dark.

  The pool lay beside her, still bubbling softly, but the flowers had all closed. A thin crescent moon hung in the sky. Its reflection cut like burning silver across the surface of the water.

  Crap, she thought.

  She checked her phone. It was eleven o’ clock. She was five hours late for her evening with Tammy. James had probably already called the cops. The last thing she needed was for her mother to hear she’d had a run-in with the Chicago PD. Her mother would never let her leave the house again.

  Tammy would know what to do. If she got a hold of her right now, maybe the two of them could work together and come up with an alibi. Maddie heaved herself off the ground and went to call.

  No signal. Perfect. She was doomed.

  How could there be no signal in the middle of the suburbs?

  Maddie started back towards the trail, growling in frustration, phone held high in a useless attempt to snag a connection. She plunged into the brush, eyes locked onto the little screen hovering over her head as her mind raced. What did they do to you if you mobilized the whole police department in the middle of the night for no reason? Would she be fined? Arrested? She wasn’t a kid anymore. Would there be jail time involved?