un/FAIR

by Steven Harper

  Time passed. The woman’s moans grew weaker, and Eric became more agitated. He paced around the room. He had red-blond hair, just like Ryan, and it was messy, as if he hadn’t combed it in a long time.

  A knock came at the door. Eric jumped. Outside, the sun was just setting. Eric glanced at the woman on the bed, then at the door. The knock came again. Ryan very much wanted him to answer the door. Door knocks and ringing phones had to be answered. Those were the rules. But Eric seemed hesitant. The knock came a third time, and, to Ryan’s relief, Eric cautiously opened the front door.

  An old woman stood there. Actually, she wasn’t old—she was ancient. Her long nose drooped past wrinkled cheeks nearly to her equally long chin. Her hands were withered into claws, each tipped with discolored nails. She had thrown a bright patchwork shawl over her head, and the scraggles of hair that escaped it were thin and gray. Her dress was gray and worn, but she wore brand new boots and hunched over a twisted walking stick. Under her other arm she carried a basket.

  A thought struck Ryan. Is that you? he asked the voice.

  No. You’re looking in the wrong place, my prince.

  “You can’t have her back,” Eric said to the old woman, and Ryan wondered what he meant. “She’s my wife. Her home is here.”

  “I’m not here to take her home, boy,” the old woman replied in a creaky voice. “I can’t do that, though I would in a moment if I could. She’s dying.”

  “Her home is here,” Eric replied stubbornly. “She loves me.”

  “That won’t keep her alive. A string is a poor dowry, boy. Return what’s hers.”

  All expression left Eric’s face, though his body trembled. “You know I can’t do that.”

  “Let me in, then,” the old woman said, “and your wife may live. Turn me away, and she’ll certainly die.”

  “You can help the baby come?” Eric asked.

  “I can, but on one condition: any children born of this woman must be allowed to visit their true home for seven days once every year.”

  “And after those seven days, they will return?” Eric countered.

  The old woman nodded. Eric stood aside, and let her in.

  Ryan wanted to know who she was, where she had come from, what the basket held. It took her sixteen steps to hobble to the woman’s bed, and Ryan didn’t like that. Sixteen was nearly as bad as twelve, so easy to divide and conquer. At the bedside, the old woman stopped, cocked her head, then hitched herself one more step forward, making seventeen, a prime number. Ryan felt better. The old woman nodded, and he wondered if she had been thinking the same way.

  You’re very observant, Time Child, said the voice. We like that. Observe further.

  Why are you testing me? Ryan railed again. You don’t have the right!

  When you can stop us, we’ll stop.

  To Ryan, that sounded a lot like, “Make me,” and he didn’t like that, either. Anger began a slow boil behind his eyes at the unfairness, but he couldn’t even see owner of the voice, let alone do anything about what it said. That was even more unfair.

  The old woman touched the young woman’s face with the back of a finger, and the young woman stirred.

  “Mother’s here, Star,” she said. “I can help.”

  “Her name is Star?” Eric said. “She never told me.”

  “She wouldn’t.” The old woman removed an object from her basket and set it on the table next to the bed. It was a wooden clock, the old-fashioned kind with hands and a round dial instead of digital numbers. The base was carved to look like a tree, with the clock face in the upper branches. The branches twisted in odd directions. They seemed to move on their own, and this gave Ryan a small headache. A pair of clockwork arms stretched across the back of the tree, one tipped by a golden sun and one tipped by a silver moon. The moon arm was ticking above the tree, and the sun arm was just ticking down out of sight behind it. At the very moment, both sun and moon were half visible above the branches.

  The young woman—Star—opened her eyes. “Mother? Did you—”

  “Seventeen steps, my shining one. But I’m afraid I haven’t enough time.”

  “Will I die?”

  Here, Eric put a fist into his mouth and Ryan had a thought: was Eric keeping Star a prisoner? Ryan saw no locks on the doors or windows, but the string was nowhere in sight, and

  Star probably needed it to go home. If Eric was keeping Star a prisoner, that made him evil and he couldn’t possibly love her. If Eric did love her, he would give her the string back. Therefore, he must not love her.

  But his expression bothered Ryan. When Ryan had been little, Mom had cut pictures of faces from magazines and labeled them with emotions like happy and surprised and angry to help Ryan learn to recognize how other people felt. Ryan still remembered every face, and Eric’s expression looked exactly like a man on the worried page. How could he be worried about someone he didn’t love? Ryan found it very confusing.

  The old woman set her basket on the bed. “I won’t let my daughter or my grandchild die.”

  But what followed made it hard for Ryan to believe the old woman’s words. The room filled with screams and pain. Ryan wanted to run away, but he had no way to run. As the moon reached the highest point of the clock, Star’s cries became weaker and weaker.

  “You said she wouldn’t die.” Eric sounded like he was going to cry. “You said you could help her.”

  The old woman remained silent. The pile of bloody cloths at the bedside had grown. At last she said, “The baby is coming, but I need more time. Shall I take it, Master Eric?”

  “Take what?”

  “The time, you fool. This is your house and you have iron in it, so I can only do what you allow. Shall I take the time?”

  “Take it,” Eric blurted. “Take all the time you need.”

  That seemed to Ryan a foolish thing to say to a woman with magic powers. But Eric looked like the picture in the magazine for scared, so maybe he wasn’t thinking.

  You’re very intelligent, my prince, said the voice.

  Star said the old woman was her mother, Ryan said. If Star is my grandmother, the old woman is my great-grandmother.

  That, said the voice, took very little intelligence.

  Star screamed once more. The old woman reached beneath her and pulled forth a baby. It cried, but there was more blood. The old woman wrapped the baby in a blanket and all but flung it at Eric. “Hold your baby. I need time to save my daughter.”

  The old woman touched the clock and the room wavered like air on a hot day. The moon at the top of the clock clicked backward. Star screamed again, and it was the exact same scream she had given before. Ryan couldn’t see what the old woman was doing, but the open basket sat next to her on the bed. She pulled forth another crying baby, wrapped it, and pushed it at the surprised Eric.

  “Hold your baby,” she said. “I need time to save my daughter.”

  The room wavered again, the moon jumped back, and Star gave a third identical scream. The woman pulled forth a third baby and wrapped it. Eric’s arms were full, so the old woman lay the baby on the bed, where it cried. Ryan knew then that these babies were his mother and his aunts. The knowledge made him feel both heavy and light at the same time, and he didn’t know what to do with himself. At home, he would have run to his room and drawn a set of flowcharts to calm himself down, but he wasn’t at home.

  Ryan still couldn’t see what the old woman was doing for Star, but Star’s breathing seemed easier, and the color was returning to her face. At last she kissed Star on the forehead and turned to Eric, who was still holding the other two babies.

  “I took the time,” she said, “and my daughter and granddaughters will live. Don’t forget your promise.”

  I think your time here is coming to an end, my prince. Remember what happened here. Your loving family isn’t always loving. But that’s all right—power is more important than love. Power lasts longer than love.

  It does? Ryan said.

  Eric clai
ms he loves his wife, but he won’t give up the power he holds over her. It’s more important to him. Your parents and your aunts claim to love you, but they keep you from finding your true power, dear prince. Power always comes first.

  “Mother?” Star was sitting up in the bed now, holding the third baby. “Mother, must you go?”

  “I can’t stay in a house with iron in it,” the old woman said. “But I have given you the means to return home one day.”

  “That she can’t do,” Eric said.

  “Mortal lives are short, boy. And men don’t always watch what needs watching.” She turned to Star. “Will you come home?”

  “I want to,” Star said.

  “Do you love him?”

  Star fell silent.

  She loves him, Ryan said.

  Ask your mother what happened next. Our time here grows short.

  “Hm,” said the old woman. “You make everything complicated, my thirteenth. But I will see you again.”

  A new voice broke in. It said, I break this curse. I break this curse! I BREAK THIS CURSE!

  There was an awful wrench, and Ryan was back in his own living room.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Ryan’s right side burned. Something was pressing into him, and it hurt and made him sick at the same time. His entire skin tried to crawl away from the feeling. Mom was helping him sit up, and her uncontrolled palms pressed his shirt tight and harsh against him, which made him uncomfortable and unhappy, but not as unhappy as the burning thing against his side. His stomach oozed, and he was afraid he would throw up, something else he hated. The living room was blurry, and Ryan blinked, trying to see better. Dad was kneeling next to him, and he could make out the hazy forms of Ysabeth and Zara on the couch. Alison huddled in an easy chair.

  “Hm! Get that away, Harrison,” Mom said. “It’s making all of us sick.”

  Dad pulled the sledgehammer head free of Ryan’s side and took it across the room. Ryan’s vision cleared and he felt immediately better, though he didn’t like Mom’s hands on him. He didn’t like anyone’s hands on him. He wriggled free and sat up. For a moment Mom looked like the disappointed flashcard in Ryan’s childhood collection.

  “What happened?” he demanded. “The string is gone. It was unhappy.”

  “We broke the curse, I think,” Aunt Zara said. “Can you talk about what happened outside?”

  “Fairy,” Ryan said, like Alison had. “Undine. Water woman.”

  “Oh, thank heavens!” Mom scooped Ryan into a hug. Ryan stiffened. It was nearly as bad as the iron hammer touching him. Arms around him, even Mom’s, made a tight circle on him, and they squeezed with uncomfortable pressure that changed at frightening and unexpected moments. Ryan wouldn’t have minded hugs if he could control the pressure and how long they lasted. But huggers never got it right, and Ryan felt trapped, frightened, and confused, as if he would never get free and the arms might stop his breath. On rare occasions he was able to put up with it, but today he had been through too much.

  It was as if he had no power.

  “Mom!” he shouted. “The circle is too tight!”

  Mom let go and backed away. Then she rubbed at her eyes a little, and Ryan wondered if she had something in them.

  “I’m glad you’re okay, buddy,” Dad said without touching him. “You had us worried. And scared.”

  “Me, too,” Alison said. “You really freaked when they touched you with the hammer and the water. What happened?”

  “It hurt.” Ryan glanced at his left palm. The raised circle made a perfect ring around the rim, enclosing the half-pie shape of the blue and yellow designs. The string was underneath it, the same kind of string the thirteen women had used. The thirteenth woman—Star—was his grandmother. The old woman was his great-grandmother. She had somehow delivered the same baby three times, making three babies. Triplets. Ryan looked at his mother, then at Aunt Ysabeth and Aunt Zara. They were all so different. Mom kept her blond hair pulled back and wore neatly-pressed clothes. Aunt Ysabeth braided her hair and wore sweat pants and slip-ons or jeans and tennis shoes, like she was wearing right now. And Aunt Zara wore her hair loose and preferred to go barefoot under flowing, watery dresses that reminded Ryan of the fairy woman at the lake. Ryan had lived with them all his life, and he always had no trouble telling them apart because they looked and acted so different. Now, though, he could only see how they were exactly alike. They were the same woman. The thought made him feel all crawly again. He wanted to say something about it, but the words jumbled into a chaotic mass and refused to do what he wanted. He worked his mouth and tried again.

  “You sent me somewhere else,” he managed. “I saw the farmer with the strings.”

  “What are you talking about, buddy?” Dad asked. “I’m not following you.”

  But all three of the women went pale. As one, they sank down on the sofa in a row, their identical hands in their identical laps.

  “Harrison, he knows,” Mom said. “He saw something when we broke the curse, and he knows.”

  “Knows what?” Alison demanded from her own chair. Nox, still in water snake form, coiled on her shoulder, and she automatically touched his head. “What’s going on?”

  Dad dropped onto an ottoman. “How much does he know, then?”

  “We knew this day was coming, and there are a lot of unanswered questions,” Ysabeth said. “Indeed there are. Not only that, we’re under attack. Let’s start at the beginning at see what we can do, all right?”

  “My, my. Maybe I should make some tea,” Aunt Zara said, but she didn’t get up from the sofa.

  “Hm. Ryan, can you tell us what you saw when we were breaking the curse?” Mom said. “Tell us however you can, or text us if you need to.”

  Ryan touched the cell phone in his pocket, but decided to try for actual words. They eluded him for a long moment. Everyone, even Alison, sat patiently. He stared at the floor so he wouldn’t see their eyes on him. He could pretend he was the only one in the room then.

  “It was the strings,” he said at last. “I saw the man from the picture cutting one of the strings.”

  “Which picture?” Dad asked.

  Ryan pointed at the fireplace and the picture of the three girls with Eric, the grandfather Ryan had never met. The three sisters all sighed, but Ryan kept his gaze on the wooden floor. The straight, parallel lines of the boards slipped off into infinity, carrying his mind with them and making it easier to talk.

  “He stole one of the strings so the thirteenth woman couldn’t climb back home,” he said. “She became sad.”

  And in fits and starts, the rest of the his strange vision came out of him. When he finished, silence hovered in the air like a nervous dragonfly.

  “There’s more, I think,” Mom said at last. “It’s all right, Ryan. You can tell us everything. We won’t be angry.”

  Ryan wasn’t so sure about that. He kept his eyes down and held up his left palm. “I can see the future,” he whispered to the floor, and told the rest, how he had found the string on his floor, how he had seen the future at breakfast, how he and Alison had fought the undine down at the lake, how Nox had called him the Time Child, how the undine wanted to take him to her palace under the lake, and how the blue and yellow designs appeared on his hand. Alison helped out. She mentioned that Ryan had screamed when he saw a future that scared him, and she showed them the text message Ryan had sent her about it when they were talking in his room.

  “I saw a huge fire. I saw you fight a rock. I saw our people trapped in cages,” Dad read aloud. “And I saw total destruction from someone who loves me. What does this mean?”

  Ryan was tensing up again. The words brought back the awful memory of that future. He fought to say more and decided it would be easier to say what he said before. “We were gone. The house was gone. The world was gone. The whole function of time as a quantum existence was gone. It was bad. It was bad. It was bad.” This time he looked up.

  “We understand.” Mom reached ou
t a hand to touch him, then changed her mind and pushed a lock of hair back into place. It made her hair more tidy, and Ryan liked that. “We can help, honey. The future doesn’t have to come true, you know. You changed it when you stopped Alison spilling her milk.”

  “That’s what I said,” Alison put in.

  “Nox,” said Nox. “Nox rocks socks. Nox!”

  “Who was the voice that spoke to you?” Mom asked. There was a note in her voice that Ryan couldn’t understand.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  Mom said, “Was it a man or a woman?”

  Ryan thought about that. “I don’t know. It wasn’t really a voice. The words were just there. The voice said it was a test.”

  “What kind of test?” Mom asked.

  “The voice never says.”

  “Hm. I’ll tell you what frightens me,” Mom said. “The tests have been getting worse. The undine tried just to snatch Ryan away. Then an entire flight of sylphs tried to”—her voice cracked—“shoot him with dozens of arrows. What’s next?”

  “It feels strange,” put in Aunt Zara. “Even for fairies. Either they should test Ryan or want him dead. Not both.”

  “We need to know who the voice is,” Dad said.

  Mom and the aunts exchanged glances. “Do you think it was Mother?” Aunt Ysabeth asked slowly.

  “Who else would call him a prince?” Mom said. “It must have been her. Is she sending the army to attack him?”

  “Why would that be a test?” said Aunt Zara. “And what’s the test for?”

  “Army?” Alison broke in. “What do you mean army?”

  “There are many kinds of fairy,” Aunt Zara explained. “Nox is a water sprite. You’ve probably heard of leprechauns and brownies and naiads and other such things, too. They’re all divided among the four ancient elements: earth, air, fire, and water. Brownies are earth spirits, for example, and naiads belong with water. They all have a certain amount of power, and they used to rule the world. Then humans discovered iron. No fairy can bear the touch of iron. Most can’t even bear to hear the sound iron makes when it strikes another object. That was a bad time for the fair folk. They were pushed out of the physical world into the world they’d originally come from.”