Foxglove

by Aaron McQueen

  Maddie turned away and stared up at the ceiling nervously. “Um… I can go after you. I’ll wait outside.”

  “Nonsense,” Theresa said, undoing her trousers. “It’s just a bath. Go ahead and get in. The water’s warm.”

  Maddie shook her head and stammered. “I-It’s really okay.”

  Theresa laughed. “You humans are so insecure,” she said, pitching her clothes into the hamper. “Haven’t you ever been in a group shower? At camp? At school?”

  Maddie kept her eyes averted. “I never went to camp.”

  It didn’t help that her bathing partner looked like a contender for middle-weight boxing champion. It wasn’t that Maddie had ever been especially insecure about her body. She just resented it. She had her father’s eyes, but the rest came from her mother, who had a great figure. It was a gift that Maddie grimaced at every time she looked herself in the mirror, which was probably the reason she was always dressing down.

  Theresa grabbed a bar of soap and a scrub brush and hopped into the tub.

  “Oh, man,” she said, letting out a satisfied groan. “I’ve been looking forward to this all week. There’s nothing like a bath after a long stay in the woods.”

  Maddie glanced at the water. Her muscles ached so much that she could barely stand up straight, and the steam filling the room was turning the layer of dirt on her skin to a film of sticky mud. A bath was exactly what she needed. She hesitated for only a few more seconds before giving in.

  “Alright, fine,” she said, peeling off her clothes. “Just don’t laugh at me. Not all of us can be Wonder Woman, you know.”

  Theresa kicked a foot up from the water and scrubbed her leg. “Well, you have to work at it.”

  Maddie grabbed a brush and climbed into the tub. The hot water soothed her aching muscles and she groaned.

  Theresa kicked up her other foot. “Better?”

  “Uh huh.”

  Maddie sank down until only her face was above the water.

  “Told you,” Theresa said, tossing her the soap.

  Maddie caught it and turned it over in her hands. It was bright green and swirled with white. The stamp was worn off but Maddie knew the smell by heart.

  “My dad used to use this brand,” she said. “Don’t faeries have their own soap?”

  Theresa chuckled and reached for a bottle in the trunk. The contents were black. She dabbed a little onto a cloth and began massaging it into her puffier scars. “We do, but you humans make some great stuff when it comes to toiletries.”

  “Like that?” Maddie said, pointing to the black sludge.

  “No, this comes from Maeve. It’s supposed to help flatten them out. Can you get my back?”

  Maddie sat up and took the cloth.

  “Just the puffy ones,” Theresa said.

  Maddie started to rub it in. “How did you get all these, anyway?”

  “Here and there. Military life and all, but most of them aren’t from fighting.”

  “Then what are they from?”

  “Hunting,” Theresa said, pointing to her various wounds. “The animals in the Veil get pretty big. This one was from a rat… These were ants… This one was from a grass snake.” She leaned back and looked up at the ceiling, smiling. “Man, now that was a fight. They had to carry me back to the city. I was technically dead for 22 hours. I just wish I could tell the world records people.”

  Maddie stared at the scar. A circle of pale, gnarled flesh wallpapered a third of the woman’s chest.

  “Big snake,” she said.

  Theresa grabbed a bottle of shampoo and soaped up her hair. “You’re telling me. Fang impaled my heart. Left ventricle. I’d have been down for the count if it weren’t for Maeve. She fixed me right up. Just like she did you, actually.”

  Maddie sloshed around to get in front of Theresa. “You’ve got a wooden heart too?”

  “White oak,” she said, thumping her chest. “It was a little weird at first. I’m sure you know the feeling—kind of numb, no real pulse—but now it’s a part of me like all the rest. Truthfully, I don’t even notice it anymore.”

  Maddie was stunned by the casual dismissal of the trauma.

  Theresa pointed to the soap in her hand. “You should get started.”

  Maddie realized she was staring. She began to wash, struggling to recover an idle conversation.

  “Did you always want to be in the military?” she asked.

  Theresa dunked her head in the water. “Actually, I kind of fell into it. When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a professional hunter. Active, outdoors, lots of excitement. But the kingdom needed me. I still find time when I can…” She dunked her head again. “But not as much as I’d like.”

  Maddie confessed to being a little jealous. “It must be nice to know what you want to do,” she said.

  Theresa lay back against the edge of the tub. “We all do, really.”

  Maddie grabbed the shampoo and grumbled. “Not me.”

  The princess scoffed. “I’m sure you do. What do you like?”

  “I don’t know,” Maddie said, massaging her head. The suds ran down her face, and she dunked to rinse off.

  Theresa snorted. “Of course you do. What do you do the most? How do you fill the hours?” She climbed out of the bath, sloshing the water as she grabbed a towel.

  “All I’ve ever done is study,” Maddie said, propping her elbows on the edge of the tub.

  Theresa dried her hair. “Professors study all the time. You could be a teacher.”

  Maddie thought it over. It had never occurred to her, but it didn’t feel like a good fit.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m not so great with people. Plus, what would I teach?”

  Theresa wrapped her hair in a massive towel turban. “Let’s see. Lots of studying, no good with people… Don’t worry, it’ll come to me.” She paused, rooting through the trunk. “All the towels are in the hamper. Let me find you something to dry off with.”

  She hopped to the next room and started searching her drawers. “I really need to keep this place tidier,” she said. “It gets so cluttered. I swear, I could have the Foxglove in here and never know it.”

  “That’s the second time I’ve heard that,” Maddie said, climbing out of the tub. “What are you talking about?”

  Theresa pulled a woolen blanket out of the dresser, and tossed it to Maddie. “There Foxglove? It’s kind of a folk tale. Where’d you hear about it?”

  “From Gwynedd,” she said, looking down at the scar on her chest as she dried off. “She mentioned it when she attacked me. She called me a foxglove.”

  Theresa straightened and stood in the doorway, shoulders square and tight. She was still smiling, but something about her posture told Maddie that her stress level had jumped.

  “Did I say something wrong?” Maddie asked.

  “A foxglove… or the foxglove?”

  Maddie fidgeted with her towel. “I don’t really remember. Neither, I think. Just… foxglove. Is there a difference?”

  Theresa stepped forward and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry, Maddie. But I’m afraid there is.”

  Ancient Animus

  Maddie sat by the fire, across from Rose and Theresa at the bottom of the royal apartment. Kidhe had been sent home.

  “Try to remember,” Rose said. “Tell me her exact words.”

  Maddie pressed her eyes shut and thought back, but the night of the attack was a blur.

  “I don’t remember,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  Maeve came down the steps with a cup of tea. “Drink this,” she said, offering it to Maddie. “It will help your memory.”

  “Is it magic?” Maddie asked, staring down at it.

  “It is,” Maeve said as she sat down. “Drink.”

  Maddie turned to Rose with a distressed look.

  “Please,” Rose said. “It’s important.”

  Maddie took a long breath and brought the cup to her lips. The tea tasted like oran
ge blossom soap, and she gagged. A tense moment passed. The flavor turned to steam in her head. She inhaled a harsh breath as a hot, airy sensation splashed across her face and seeped into the space behind her forehead.

  “Now, try again,” Rose said.

  Maddie thought back. “She was standing over me,” she said. The fog was beginning to clear. “I asked her who she was. She said that she was with me when I was born. She called me ‘Foxglove,’ like it was my name, and said that I belonged to her.” She set the cup down on the table. “What does it mean?”

  Maeve reached into her robes and withdrew a heavy, leather-bound book, which she handed to Rose.

  “It’s a very old story,” Rose said, opening it. “It has a lot to do with our history and, perhaps, a little to do with yours.”

  “Go on.”

  Rose ran her fingers over the leaf-like pages. “Our people are from a world of wilderness and natural beauty, not unlike the Earth in its infancy, but the people who lived there were menaced by a terrible evil. Its true nature was never written down, but we know that the six races of the fair folk spent a hundred years secretly gathering powerful elements from every part of nature as part of a plan to defeat it.”

  “Six races?” Maddie said.

  “We are only aware of two,” Maeve replied. “The Faerie and the Erlkin. We don’t know what happened to the others.”

  “But when their task was complete,” Rose continued. “Gwynedd and the old queen used what they had gathered to create a weapon.”

  Maddie’s chest tightened. “What kind of weapon?”

  Theresa leaned forward. “We don’t know, but it was connected to every part of nature: to every creature, every mind, every breath of air, speck of earth, and blade of grass. It was a construct of unlimited power, capable of safeguarding all of creation.”

  “They called it the Foxglove,” Rose said, “Gwynedd and the old queen planned to use it to destroy the evil that had taken over their world, but something happened that they didn’t anticipate. It manifested a consciousness of its own, possessing infinite knowledge and intelligence, and it refused to carry out its purpose. We don’t know why, but instead of vanquishing the threat, it created the Veil, and brought our people here.”

  Maddie shook her head in disbelief. “How do you know all this?”

  “The queen of the faeries wrote it down,” Rose said. “This diary is all that is left of her.”

  Maddie peered forward at the pages. “What language is that?”

  “We call it the Old Tongue,” Maeve answered. “It is the original language of the fair folk, and not even our most powerful magic reveals its meaning. I’ve spent decades researching it and have only managed to translate a tiny portion.”

  “Why would you have to translate it?”

  “It’s difficult to explain,” said Rose. “But when we arrived in the Veil, we had no idea who we were or where we came from. Our memories had been washed away.”

  “Washed away?” Maddie said. “How?”

  Maeve answered. “In the deepest parts of the Veil, there exists a barrier made up of a mist we call the World Curtain. Any creature that touches it is robbed of their memory: their ideas, their thoughts, their skills, even their language. The magic that brought us here carried us through them, and we arrived in the Veil with no memory of our past.”

  “My husband and I only knew we were married from these,” Rose said, holding up her hand. Two gold bands carved with alien-looking leaves circled her wrist. “They matched.”

  “That’s awful,” Maddie said.

  “As far as we know,” said Maeve. “There is only one person in the world who fully understands the Old Tongue.”

  The letters flowed in strands down the page, unraveling like fabric. Maddie had a feeling she knew who Maeve was referring to.

  “Gwynedd,” she said. “She remembers? Everything?”

  Maeve gave a sinister nod and said, “She does.”

  “We received the diary from a stranger shortly after we arrived,” said Rose. “We didn’t find out she was the queen until much later. As to why she gave it to us… we may never know. Perhaps we knew her in the old world, but when we met her, she told us that soon she would be dead, and that even though we had no memory of her, she trusted us to preserve her life’s work. We accepted her gift, along with a warning: never to reveal that we had the diary to anyone, because one day, a terrible enemy would come in search of it.”

  “All of this was before I was born,” Theresa interjected. “And before the city was founded.”

  “We encountered Gwynedd many years later,” Rose went on. “At the time, she was working as the royal practitioner for the queen of the Erlkin, Morwena. As you know, she gained her position by saving the life of Morwena’s infant son, Morrow. In the years that followed, Morwena’s health steadily declined, and Gwynedd’s influence grew. When the queen passed, Gwynedd assumed the throne. It was only then that she came to us and revealed her true nature.”

  Rose shut the book. “We can’t trust the rest of the story.”

  “Wait, why not?” Maddie said, straightening up. “What’s the rest?”

  “I’ve been able to translate some of the diary,” Maeve answered. “That’s how we learned what you’ve heard so far. What comes after was never written down. We heard it from Gwynedd herself, and we can only assume that her version of events cannot be trusted.”

  Maddie set down her tea. “Still, I’d like to hear it.”

  Rose and Maeve exchanged glances.

  “Very well,” Rose said, setting the book aside. “We don’t know how Gwynedd learned we possessed the diary, but 20 years ago, she tried to convince us to help her locate the Foxglove. She claimed that it was imperfect, and that, over the years, she had developed a spell to strip out its consciousness and control its power. However, she needed our help to find it. According to her, the old queen feared the Foxglove’s power, and in an act of cowardice, sent it away after it brought our people to the Veil.”

  A lump formed in Maddie’s throat. “Sent it where?” she asked.

  “According to Gwynedd, the human world,” Maeve answered. “Nothing with a mind can pass through the barrier, so the old queen transformed the Foxglove into a seed and flung it through. Perhaps she was indeed afraid of it, or perhaps she simply believed that the Foxglove was acting in the best interest of her people when it brought them to the Veil. Either way, she must have hoped it would lie dormant as it passed through the ages, living out its existence as some distant tree, never to return.”

  “But that’s not all,“ Theresa added. “By this point, I was in my twenties, and the city was in the middle of its quest for independence. Gwynedd told us that the diary contained clues as to the Foxglove’s exact location. The old queen, she said, would never allow such a powerful entity to be truly lost. After all, someday, there might be a good reason to try to use it again. She wanted to find it, and use it to open a gateway back to our homeland. Once there, she would command it to destroy the evil it was created to defeat, and we could take our people home.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad,” Maddie said.

  “True,” Theresa replied, “and we might have believed it, were it not for the old queen’s warning, but when we pressed Gwynedd for details, she went nuts. I’ve never seen anyone so angry or obsessed.”

  Rose took over. “We don’t know what really happened, but we assume that Gwynedd killed the old queen. After all, it’s been hundreds of years since we came to the Veil, and no one has seen her. Either way, I wasn’t convinced that Gwynedd’s story was true, and I feared what might happen if the Foxglove’s power was rediscovered. I declined Gwynedd’s request for help, and in response, she gathered her army and tried to conquer the city to obtain the diary. There was a war. The Erlkin were defeated, but during the final battle…”

  Her voice fluttered to a halt.

  “Rose’s husband, Amaranth, was killed,” Maeve said, taking her hand. “Since then, Gwynedd
has descended deeper and deeper into madness, leading her people away from their homes and into a life of desperation and depravity.”

  Rose drew in a slow breath to recover herself. “Few believe the Foxglove really exists, even among the Erlkin, who were taken to war over it, but if Gwynedd truly believes that you are what she seeks, she doesn’t need the diary anymore, and she will never stop hunting you.”

  Maddie stayed quiet for a long moment as she struggled to process the story. She looked into Rose’s luminous eyes and popped the million-dollar question.

  “Are you saying I’m not human?” she asked.

  The queen did her best to smile. “We’re not sure. We’ll have to find out.”

  “And if it’s true? If I am this Foxglove?”

  “Then a great power lives inside you,” Rose said. “And it has been with you your whole life.”

  “It would certainly explain how you survived your injury,” Maeve added.

  Maddie was flabbergasted. “So how do we find out for sure?”

  Maeve reached into her robes, drew out a long, stone knife, and placed it on the table.

  “With this.”

  The Witching Hour

  The ant’s shell crunched as Maddie brought down the cleaver, splitting its skull in half.

  “Separate them,” Maeve said, standing behind her.

  Maddie put her hands on either side of the skull and drove in with her thumbs, pulling the two pieces apart. The viscous goo inside the ant’s head spilled out onto the table. Grimacing, she picked through the mess. “Which one is it?” she asked.

  “Check your diagram.”

  Maddie grumbled and glanced at her notes. The venom sack was located near the front of the skull, where the pincers met the head. She picked up her forceps and stuck them in.

  “Not too fast,” Maeve cautioned her. “You’ll pierce it.”

  Maddie’s stomach heaved. Witchcraft was disgusting. She forced herself to slow down and gently pressed her middle and index fingers into the space behind the ant’s jaw. They brushed against a smooth, oval-shaped gland. Carefully, she slid the neck of the forceps down along her palm, guiding the tip of the scissors with her thumb. Snip.