Fae Queen

by Jen Pretty

  I found a tree stump and sat down to examine my feet. They were cut, bleeding, but I felt safe here on this stump. I tipped my head up to the sky and let the sun kiss my cheeks. I wanted to stay, but I felt I needed to keep moving. I made myself stand, continue through the meadow and into the forest beyond. The forest had less underbrush here and more old growth trees. I moved through it easily, the birds my constant companions.

  When I came to a stream, I knelt and took a sip of the cool water and noticed the bend in the middle of my right hand. It looked as though it had been broken in two and set incorrectly. Staring at it didn’t help me remember, so I waded into the river to rinse the cuts and scrapes on my feet and legs. I noticed a duck bobbing in the water, not twenty feet from me. Its vibrant feathers looked soft and warm, reminding me of something...something else I should know, but no matter how long I stared at the bird, I couldn’t remember that either.

  The duck didn’t seem bothered by my presence, so I carried on rinsing. Once I finished, I gave the duck one last look and continued along the river bank. Unsure where I was going or what I was running from, I kept a steady pace.

  As darkness fell, my legs were giving out. I had been stumbling over tree roots and rocks all day on bare feet and the muscles felt like rubber. Finding a small cave beside the river, I curled up among the leaves and closed my eyes, I was adrift in a strange world and had no idea who I was, but too tired to care, I dozed fitfully.

  I must have finally drifted off completely because when I opened my eyes, the duck was curled up under my chin against my chest. Its feathers were as soft as they appeared, and it produced an astounding amount of heat for such a small thing. I realized it was much colder in the cave now than it was when I fell asleep, though the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon. I was thankful for my new friend. To have so little fear of humans, it must have been someone’s pet duck. I stroked its feathers and rubbed my chin across its neck.

  When I got up and walked to the stream, the duck waddled out beside me. We both got a drink at the shore, then the duck waded in and splashed about, making me laugh.

  I walked along the bank, the duck swimming along beside me.

  Having a companion was nice. When the trees opened this time, there were small buildings in the distance. I stopped to think, but the duck swam on towards them. I saw people in the distance, but I didn’t recognize them. Large dogs or wolves were moving about with the people. That couldn’t be right. The canines were nearly as tall as the humans, with thick shaggy coats in a multitude of colours. Their sharp pointed ears stood upright on their heads.

  I skirted around the village through the trees, being careful not to draw attention to myself by walking silently and staying in the shadows.

  When I was safely past, I moved back to the river edge and found the duck waiting for me.

  I crouched down, and it waddled over and plopped down in front of me, quacking softly in a long string, with a rising and falling inflection like he was telling me a story. When he stopped, he just looked at me expectantly.

  “Do you know where I’m supposed to be going?” I asked.

  The duck quacked once and then waddled back to the water. With nothing better to do, I followed him to the edge and paced him as he swam. When he came to the shore and started eating some berries, I sat beside him and munched on some too. If they were safe for a duck, they were probably safe for me. I started to think about who I was. I couldn’t remember that either and the thought scared me enough to make me stop thinking about that and instead turned my thoughts to who might have tamed the duck beside me. Did he belong to someone from the village? He seemed well fed.

  I sat down in the grass beside the bush we had been grazing from, leaned back against a tree, and closed my eyes for a moment. The duck waddled into my lap and nestled down. I pet him for a while, but between the sunshine, my full belly and the exhaustion, I couldn’t stay awake. I drifted to sleep like the gentle tide pulling me out to sea.

  ✽✽✽

  I could hardly see; the fog was so thick and heavy. It made me nervous, and I wanted to start running, but I didn’t know which way to go.

  “Hello,” a voice said through the fog.

  “Who’s there?” I spun, trying to peer through the gloom.

  “It’s me,” the voice said. I couldn’t see anyone. The sun was trying to shine through from above, but it couldn’t burn it off. “You have to come back to us,” the voice continued.

  “Come back to who?”

  “Please, Lex, come back!” the voice trailed off like the speaker was drifting farther away. I didn’t know who Lex was or who was talking. Nothing made sense in that terrible murkiness.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  I shot forward abruptly, startling the duck out of my lap. I slowed my breathing and pet the upset bird until it was calm again too. What a strange dream. The sun was lower in the sky now, mid-afternoon. My legs were stiff when I rose. I looked up to find a pack, not twenty feet in front of me, like someone had dropped it off. I froze and scoured the area for signs of danger. I couldn’t see anyone now, but someone had been here while I was sleeping. I needed to be more careful.

  I inspected the pack. It didn’t appear to be dangerous or a trap of some type, so I opened it up. Inside I found clothes, shoes, and a container with some cookies and dehydrated meat as well as a bottle of water and some matches. I didn’t know who would have left these things for me, but I pulled on some socks and shoes and a heavier sweater and immediately felt warmer. The shoes fit so well, I wondered if they were mine. Did I wear shoes like these? They looked good for hiking in the wilderness with thick treads, but they were worn and beaten.

  I reached back into the bag and pulled out a cookie, then zipped it all up and pulled it onto my shoulders. If someone was helping me, I could use all the help I could get. I found it easy to carry as I marched along the river edge.

  I took a bite of the cookie, and it tasted like heaven in my mouth. It tasted like home. That thought brought me a soul-crushing sadness. I dropped to my knees and let the emotion crash over me until I was unable to catch my breath. I mourned for something I couldn’t remember. I didn’t know what I had lost, but everything was wrong. My life wasn’t meant to be like this. There was a big part of me missing, but where it was, I didn’t know. The pain fractured my heart and left me breathless in the grass.

  The duck curled up with me as the sun was setting, but we didn’t go to sleep. Instead, the duck looked me in the eyes, willing me to do something. To understand, maybe, but there was nothing. My mind was a maze, and I couldn’t find my way.

  I was still out in the open, and I had promised myself I wouldn’t be so careless. Getting up, I trudged towards the setting sun along the river until I came to a dense thicket of small trees. Beneath them, I would be invisible to anyone passing by. I pushed my pack ahead of me, and crawled through the small trunks, my hair getting caught and tangled among the thorns. Once fully hidden in the hedge, I curled into a tight ball, and fell asleep.

  ✽✽✽

  I woke up invigorated – feeling the best I had since I could remember. I stripped off my heavy layers and bathed in the fresh water. It was a warmer morning than the last two, but the water was still quite cold. I didn’t last long. My duck was still splashing as I walked out and started looking for some sticks to start a fire. It took several tries to get it going, but once it started, it grew steadily until I was warm and dry, settled in clean clothes and munching some dried meat. I felt a weight had lifted.

  When my duck waddled out of the river, flapped his wings, and shook off, I had to laugh. I wasn’t sure why I started thinking of him as my duck, but he was sticking with me, so I was going to claim him as mine until he flew away.

  “You must have a name,” I said and started at my voice. I think we were both shocked to hear it. I hadn’t spoken since yesterday morning. My voice sounded stronger now. “What’s your name then, duck?”

  I chewed my breakfast for a whi
le considering the options. There weren’t many obvious duck names. “Daffy? Donald?” I laughed when the duck just quacked harshly and angrily turned his head away. “Ok, ok, I’ll think of something better.” I patted his back, and he settled in beside me. I wanted to walk away from the river today. I felt a pull from within the forest, dragging my eyes that way every few minutes. I couldn’t see anything through the trees, but my feet itched to get moving.

  Once I finished eating, I put out the fire and packed up my things. I turned away from the river bank and fought the underbrush to get through to the forest. The trees within were giant and beautiful with the sun sparkling through the canopy, never quite reaching the forest floor.

  “How about Dillon?” I asked as we walked along. “Dillon Duck sounds cute.” The harsh quack was a definite ‘nope.’

  The pull I felt got stronger, and I was marching now, trying to get to wherever I had to be. The force of the pull was so strong. Tears welled in my eyes and fell to the forest floor. The duck flew ahead of me into a clearing where I could see people standing around in a campsite with rows of tents. I stopped at the edge of the forest and fell to the ground, my heart pounding in my chest. When the duck flapped noisily into their camp, they all stopped and spun to look at him.

  “Daisy!” someone shouted. What a strange name for a male duck. I wasn’t sure how I knew he was male, but for some reason I was sure he was not a female duck.

  “Is she here?” someone called as they walked out of a tent. The man was slight and pretty. He had floppy hair and a gentle way about him. I wanted to go to him right away, but giant men surrounded him. They had swords strapped to their backs and looked like hardened warriors or gladiators. My eye kept pulling back to the young man, though. He seemed safe. Like a home I couldn’t remember. Why couldn’t I remember? What had happened? Was it all just my imagination?

  “Lex!” he called, but the warrior beside him took his arm gently and kept him where he was. He didn’t seem like a prisoner though. He accepted the larger man’s hold and scanned the tree line. It wrenched my stomach to turn and tiptoe back into the forest. I didn’t go far, as the pull was still so strong that it hurt to try and walk away. Once I was a safe distance, I found a tree and slid down the rough bark to sit beneath it.

  A soft quack alerted me to the return of the duck.

  “So, your name is Daisy,” I said as he curled up in my lap. “Who gave you such a silly name?” He booped my chin with his beak. “Alright, it’s a fine name. A very dignified name,” I laughed. He quacked indignantly but stayed curled up in my lap and dozed off. I wasn’t tired, but I stayed sitting there with Daisy the duck, petting his downy feathers and relaxing in the cool shade of the forest.

  My mind wandered back through the things I knew. Trying to organize the small scraps of information. It was no use. I didn’t know anything.

  When Daisy woke a while later he stood up and fluffed his feathers. He stretched one wing and one leg out together, balancing precariously on the other webbed foot, then switched and stretched the other side. He made a small grunt noise stretching his neck up while pointing his beak towards the ground and then looked at me expectantly, wagging his little feathered tail.

  “What?” I asked him as if he could reply.

  He walked towards the camping men, then looked back at me. I stood up but didn’t move forward.

  “Are you sure they’re ok? They look dangerous.” I wasn’t sure why I was having a conversation with a duck, but he seemed to understand me, and I felt so alone.

  He quacked and waddled farther. I followed behind him, just to the edge of the forest again. When I stopped and didn’t continue to follow him, he took flight and landed in the camp. He quacked at a tent, and a man came out. It was hard to see him from where I stood, but I swore his eyes shone red like a demon. Daisy waddled to his feet, and he squatted down and patted Daisy affectionately, speaking softly to the duck. I couldn’t hear him, but, despite his eyes, his actions weren’t that of a demon at all. Would a demon whisper to a duck and stroke his feathers?

  “You can come back, Lex,” the possible demon called towards where I hid. I decided I must be Lex. Something about the name felt familiar.

  The warriors started coming out of their tents, and there were so many of them, I backed into the forest again.

  “Please, Lex?” The demon sounded almost desperate, but how could I trust anything when I was unsure of everything? I had no starting point. I had wasted the afternoon trying to put a single piece in place, but not one-piece fit.

  I watched for a while as Daisy wandered through the camp, collecting snacks and treats from the people. The floppy-haired man sat on a log, chewing his nails and staring at the forest. After a few hours, I was sure the pull I felt was coming from him. My feet itched to cross the space to him. He was an anchor and I was moored. My eyes burned, and my body trembled, but my mind still raced with uncertainty.

  I watched for more hours. The men walked about, tending the fire, talking, until eventually, my eyes were getting heavy, and the sun was falling below the tops of the trees.

  Backing into the forest was even harder this time. I stayed closer to the camp when I curled up beside a tall tree and fell asleep.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  It was foggy but not as bad as the last time I was here. Through the gloom, I could make out tall tree trunks. They were as wide as a house and disappeared into the mist above me.

  “Are you here, Lex?” a man’s voice called.

  “I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “Who are you?”

  “You know me, Lex. We are family. Do you remember?”

  “No.”

  “Do you remember anything?” As he came through the fog, I recognized him as the slight man from the camp. My anchor. The thought fell into my mind like a brick through a sheet of glass.

  “No.” A tear escaped. I wanted to know him and trust him. My heart burned with loneliness.

  “That’s ok. You can come, and we will help you. You don’t have to be alone,” he said, walking close enough to embrace me, but not reaching out. Like I was a flighty foal. That was how I felt. Wobbly and wary.

  “There are too many giants. I can’t leave the forest.”

  He smiled sadly. “They are yours to command, Lex. They are your warriors and will fight and die for you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you are their Queen.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  When I woke the next morning, I walked to the edge of the clearing with Daisy. I wanted to cross into the morning sunshine. It was just a couple steps away. Those steps seemed like miles though as my heart beat in my chest. I lifted a foot to step over a branch that lay in front of me, like the line between safety and danger. Daisy waited for me to make up my mind, but, finally trusting my dream and my anchor to guide me, I took that step and continued, one foot in front of the other into the clearing. The sun was as warm as I expected, greeting me like a set of arms and a tender embrace.

  The flappy, noisy duck announced my approach, and the monstrous men all came out of their tents and fell to a knee, bowing their heads as I passed. The whole forest fell into silence, even the birds hushing to observe the moment.

  My anchor was straight ahead, and I walked till I fell into his arms, trusting him to catch me. I may not know who I am or what my dream meant, but I was done running.

  It was time to find Lex.

  CHAPTER THREE

  "Thank you," he whispered. I wasn’t sure why he was thanking me, but finally, the pull towards him relaxed. Not that I could get closer. We were nearly occupying the same space.

  When I looked up at him, he had tears in his eyes, too. My face was wet, and my nose ran. Daisy danced around us, quacking happily and flapping his wings. I supposed his objective had been to get me here since he seemed to be trying to lure me into the camp several times.

  “Do you remember, Lex?” one of the warriors asked. I felt a pull to him as well, but not as strong as to the
slender man.

  “I don’t know anything, but everyone keeps calling me Lex, so I assume that’s my name.”

  He smiled and nodded. “My name is Armond. You have known me for several weeks, which I know doesn’t sound like long, but I promise we are friends. You saved my life.”

  Hmm, it seemed unlikely that I saved his life. He was huge, well over six feet and looked like an experienced fighter with those swords on his back.

  “This is your cousin, Luke.” He indicated my anchor. “He came here to help you.”

  “Where is here? I saw giant wolves in a village.” I was still wary of all the gladiator types, but this man, Armond, was starting to feel safe.

  “That’s a story for another day. Let’s stick with trying to remember people for a minute.”

  That seemed pretty bossy. I let him have his way but the look of shock that morphed to concern on his face when I did, suggested that it wasn’t the response he was expecting.

  When I turned to look at the other people in the camp, the demon caught my eye. His eyes flashed bright red then simmered down to a dull red colour. I tensed, my heart pounded in my chest. I took a step back. He was fiercer up close. Otherworldly. I wondered if he had coloured contacts. There was no such thing as demons. He looked at me with a frown, then turned and went into a tent.

  “He will be ok, Lex,” Armond said.

  “Who is he? Why does he have red eyes?”

  “His name is Roman, you and he are, uhm, friends.”

  “Do I have many friends? This could take all day.” I noticed he didn’t answer my question about the man’s eyes; maybe it was an injury.

  Armond smiled and shook his head. Something twanged inside me. Like déjà vu.

  “Of course, you have met Daisy. Your pet duck.”

  “My pet duck? Who named him Daisy?” I laughed.

  Armond laughed too “You did.”

  Man, I was weird. Poor duck.