The Treachery of Beautiful Things

by Ruth Long

  “But he’s not dead,” she said. “He’s still alive.”

  Puck turned sharply, his eyes narrowed to slits. “You don’t understand. He might as well be. Jack isn’t human, Jenny.”

  Her temper flared then, and she turned around slowly, glaring at all of them in turn, all the gnomes and sprites, the Foletti and the Dames Vertes, all the fairy-tale creatures who had been proved real to her. “And who among you is?” she asked. “I won’t give him up, Puck. I won’t let him be a sacrifice for me. I won’t let him die in my place.” That was Titania’s way. Not hers. It would never be hers.

  The forest path fell hushed. They stared at her as if she had just uttered something earth-shattering. And perhaps she had, for the unexpected words that had just come from her mouth had indeed come from her heart.

  Puck’s voice broke the silence.

  “Will you be Queen o’ the May, Jenny Wren?” His eyes shone in the dark. “With all that it entails? The tithe is not the only sacrifice in the Realm, you know. The May Queen too. She must give up all in the end. She must die, to reign.”

  “This is madness,” Tom interrupted. “You said you’d get her out, Robin. What’s this talk of sacrifice now?”

  Puck’s lips quirked up at the corners. “Ah, but here we are.”

  And they were. The trees before them were the ones she knew from Branley Copse. Old bags and wrappers tangled in the briars still shrouded in morning shadow. Beyond, the morning sunlight streamed onto the top of the mound, casting shadows of trees in long lines across the sports field. The sound of traffic on Guildford Road hummed in the distance, a murmuring, and on the air a smell that made her nostrils flare. Tart and chemical. The tang of iron. The modern world. Her world.

  Without hesitating, Tom stepped forward, through the trees, over the Edge, and into the scattered sunlight. He turned around with his arms stretched wide and laughed, a sound that spoke as music as much as anything he might play on his flute. This was her brother. The rumpled hair, the smile that turned up one cheek. His clothes transformed to a simple T-shirt and jeans, not so terribly different from those in which he had vanished, though larger to suit the body of a man instead of a boy. The flute was tucked into a leather belt at his waist, still with him. Always with him. He tilted back his head so the sunlight fell full on his face.

  He was back in their own world and free of the Realm. All she had to do was follow and she would finally have her dream of so many years. She had brought her brother home.

  Just step through. And it would all be over. All the nightmares, all the lies. Just a step.

  “Go,” said Puck, and he gave her a little push.

  Jenny didn’t move. She stood between worlds, right on the Edge.

  “Jenny,” Tom said, reaching out his hand in the sunlight, joy making his face look young again. “You did it. Come on. You can go home.”

  chapter twenty-four

  Jenny didn’t move. Her feet felt rooted to the spot, though she longed to follow her brother.

  “Is Tom safe?” she whispered to Puck.

  “Aye, lass. Safe as houses.”

  “He can’t come back. You made sure?”

  “I’ve sealed it to him, just as you asked. And she can’t touch him now that he’s out there. Not without great sacrifice, which isn’t worth her while. And you?”

  She smiled, wishing with all her heart to step out of the woods, into the sun, into the newborn morning, to join her brother and go home. Oh God, almost all she wanted was just to go home.

  But it wasn’t to be. Not yet.

  Tom seemed to realize. He stood there, staring back through the trees, the sunlight gilding the top of his head, his mouth open, eyes wide. “Jenny?”

  “I—” She cleared her throat and turned to face her brother. “I have to stay,” she called to him, and even to her own ears her voice was forlorn. “I have to find Jack, Tom. I owe him…that much at least.”

  “Owe him?” Tom exclaimed. “He sold you to the queen, Jenny! Are you insane?”

  The word made her bristle, made the fire lick up inside her and strengthen her resolve. Insane. No. Definitely not.

  “If he sold me, he never got paid,” she said with a calm that belied her rage. She wasn’t angry at her brother, no. She was angry that everything had gotten so twisted around that he couldn’t see who was worth saving. She knew the feeling. Or had, at least. “He was duped as well. I have to stay, Tom. I have to help him.”

  “So be it,” said Puck. “Then turn away. Come back with us, Jenny, for you’re to be Queen o’ the May. What is your wish, Highness?”

  Jenny squirmed at the word. But a wish—her breath caught in her throat. She still had a wish. The wish for her heart’s desire that the Leczi had promised her. She fumbled in the deep pockets of the apron, trying to find it.

  She tore the apron off and tried to shake it out, catching the jack as it fell.

  Puck and Tom looked at her, so very different from each other but wearing matching bewildered expressions.

  “Don’t you understand? I could wish for Jack. I could get him back with the stone!”

  “Ah, Jenny Wren,” Puck sighed and sank down to the mossy earth. “It’s not that easy. It’s never that easy.”

  With a soft chink, the stone fell to the ground, bright green, shining in the light.

  Jenny snatched it up, scraped back the dirt, and buried it, patting the soil over it feverishly. “Jack, I wish for Jack. I want him back. I want…I love him…” She closed her eyes and pressed her hands down on the pile of earth. “Please…”

  The ground beneath her rippled, as if deep inside the earth a tremor tore rocks apart, but nothing else happened.

  Nothing happened at all. She stared at the spot where she’d buried the stone and then cursed loudly, words she shouldn’t know, not caring who heard her anymore. She wanted to scream, to pound the earth.

  Nothing happened.

  Another trick, another lie, another betrayal in this wretched place that thrived on such things. Why would the Leczi be any different? Why had she even dared to hope?

  She opened her eyes to see Puck shaking his head. Her dirty hands trembled and she couldn’t bear the look of pity in his eyes.

  “It’s the long road, lass,” he told her. “It has to be. Leczi stones work when the time is right, when they want to, and not a moment before.”

  No, nothing was ever easy, she thought. But just once—just one miserable time in her life—it would have been good to have something go her way. She looked at Tom, standing there, waiting for her. He looked young. A boy. And she felt suddenly so much older than him. The expression on his face broke her heart.

  “Go home, Tom,” she said to him. “They’ve missed you so much. Just—just go home. I’ll come as soon as I can.”

  “Jenny, you can’t be serious. You can’t go back in there and face Oberon. If you thought Titania was bad…You can’t!”

  She didn’t move. Everything in her wanted to go with him. Everything. She laid her arms across the spot where she’d buried the stone and briefly rested her forehead on them. Everything except her heart.

  “I’ve got to,” she told him.

  “What?” Tom called from beyond the trees.

  She sat up and turned to him. “I’ve got to,” she repeated, louder.

  He started forward, heading for the trees to grab her and pull her out with him, but stopped at the Edge like he’d run into a wall of air.

  “Damn it, Puck,” he yelled. “Let her go. I know you and who you serve. He’s Oberon’s through and through, Jenny. He’s worse than Jack. He serves the king. Don’t trust him. Not even for a moment.”

  “I won’t,” she said softly, and turned away, looking down at Puck. “I really won’t.”

  Walking through the forest seemed different this time, less rescue and more…procession. She could hear no sound of the hunt, and if the queen still pursued them, the forest hid them far away from her. The faerie folk sang as they wove a g
arland of white flowers and settled them on her head as a crown. Flowering hawthorn twisted together—a May crown for the May Queen, but this time the thorns didn’t hurt her. The petals brushed gently against her forehead.

  As they passed beneath the trees, pale blossoms rained down on them. The gray servant’s dress melted to white, as if the petals falling about her blended into the fabric. Strips of silver-birch bark wound themselves around her. They twisted together to make a shimmering material in elegant strips of iridescent white that clung lightly to her body. Tiny flowers of Queen Anne’s lace and dandelion seeds, and fronds of Old Man’s Beard, knotted in a delicate web like the finest filigree lace around her bodice, sweeping down to the skirts. Threads of gossamer wound about her waist, and gleamed as they caught the light. It was the dress from her vision, the dreamlike creation she had worn to the ball, but this time woven by the forest, from the forest, and far more beautiful for that. She turned slowly, admiring it, and yet fearing this magic. Fearing what it might mean. But she had agreed to be Queen of the May. Behind her, the gown’s train swept through the forest, an abundance of flowers leaping up from the rich earth—lily of the valley, snowdrops, wood anemone, wild strawberries, daisies, and a hundred others, all pale and perfect. Sunlight followed her path, picking out the flowers like jewels.

  “You’re old, right?” she asked Puck.

  “Old as the hills, old as the dales.”

  “And when you said the May Queen was a sacrifice?”

  “I meant just that. She was a sacrifice, brought to the forest, brought to the king, and down through the centuries she became a myth. May is the month of rebirth, Jenny Wren. And to bring about a rebirth—”

  “All right, all right. I get it. Something has to die first. So you’re taking me to Oberon?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you’ve no choice in the matter. I mean, you’d help me, if you could. Right?”

  He glanced up at her. “I would. But…I’m bound. As bound as Jack was. I serve the king. You have a heart like no other, Jenny, and we respect that. All of us. And you might just be strong enough.”

  “What does he want from me?”

  “He wants a willing queen. Then his power will be complete.”

  “And if I don’t want that?”

  “He’ll ask a riddle, most like. Or a test. Or offer you a choice. You can never tell. It’ll be a trick, though. He’s never without his tricks, and he doesn’t lose his wagers.”

  “And Jack? I can free him?”

  “What’s a Jack?” Puck asked. Jenny scowled down at him. What game was it this time?

  “You tell me,” she replied coolly.

  “Jack the lad, Jackanapes, Jack Frost, Jack Tar, Jack O’Lantern…there are so many. Which one, sweetling?”

  “Just Jack.” She buried her hands in the folds of the skirt, where flowers became fabric. The gown had no weight at all. She twisted the material around her fingers. It was soft and smooth as silk. “You’re the riddler, Puck. I get that. You’re the trickster and you serve the king, but I thought…I thought you were my friend too. And his friend. Tell me what you know.”

  Puck’s eyes darkened. He loved Jack too, she could see that, could recognize it as clearly as she knew it in herself. “He’s everyman, and no one. He’s the guardian of the Edge of Faerie, once the mightiest of the forest folk, as near to a king as we’ve ever had among the lesser fae, now the lowest of the court. Oberon stole him from us.”

  “To be his servant?”

  “Yes. And no. He’s a knight, the knight of the Edge.”

  “Titania seemed to hate him.”

  Puck laughed then, a bitter twist of his face. “Despise is nearer the mark. Yet she still wants him. Always will. He serves only Oberon, though the queen has power over him as well. He could have been hers. Titania doesn’t care about holding the line against your world. If anything, she wants to bring the barriers down. She just wants to experience what you have, all of it, for good or ill. So Jack stands against her, but sometimes, doing that means conceding to her. Your brother was a case in point. But it isn’t Jack’s fault. He’s the knight of the Edge, holding the barriers from both sides. Jack rejected her long ago, and again for you. He gave her up or failed her, she would say. He lost to Oberon and she can’t ever forgive him that. It’s a tale of something darker than love turned to hate. Jack is his knight. His, mine, and yours.” Puck made a sound, something primal deep in his throat. “Don’t you see it yet, Jenny Wren? On every border between the mortal and the Faerie Realm—in the earth, on the sea, on every front—there’s a Jack, a guardian. And here, in the forest, he’s Jack o’ the Forest, Jack in Green. He’s the knight, like in that game of yours—chess or cards or…”

  “Every game has its Jacks,” she said, the sadness of it pulling down the elation of sudden understanding. “The thing that acts as a wild card. It can’t be counted on or predicted. A weapon, even. But he’s in other places too, isn’t he? And do you know what else a Jack is, Puck?”

  He eyed her suspiciously, rubbing his neck.

  Jenny smiled. “I do.” And she closed her hand around the tiny spike of iron in her palm.

  chapter twenty-five

  The sun rose high in the sky as they walked through the forest, that curious procession of faerie folk accompanying Jenny. The white gown didn’t hinder her, and she barely noticed the crown of flowers on her head. But the iron jack was heavy in her hand. Still, she clung to it. One piece of her world in all this madness. One thing to hold on to. Eventually the faerie folk fell away, until only Puck remained with her and they stood at the mouth of a cave, a dark hole in a cliff face. Endless dark amid the life of the forest.

  It was dark as a pit, a deep and ancient, fetid darkness that spoke of hidden monsters. Jenny forced herself forward. Every muscle protested, every nerve warned, but she made herself step into the shadows.

  “Be careful, Jenny,” Puck whispered.

  “You aren’t coming?”

  She didn’t need to look at him for an answer. Some things had to be faced alone. She understood that now. And if she ever wanted to see Jack again, she had no choice.

  “I’ve brought you here, fulfilled my part to both you and the king. You’re here and you’re here willingly. Be careful. Keep your wits about you. I’ll be right here. I’ll wait and, if the Elders will it, I’ll see you out of the Realm again. With or without him.”

  She smiled and then bent to kiss his cheek. Puck inhaled sharply, but she didn’t care. “Thank you. But I won’t be coming back without him.”

  “I know,” he agreed. “But I’ll still wait. I meant it, about your heart. And my folk both know and appreciate that. We kept watch for Jack by the riverside. We’ll be here for you.”

  She nodded, and walked into the darkness.

  The path wound down into the earth, deep and endless. She followed it for what seemed like hours without being able to see it, using one hand on the strangely smooth walls to guide her on her way, the other clenched tightly around the jack. Once her eyes adjusted to the complete darkness, she thought she saw a glow coming from the depths, the hint of a fire in the distance. Hellfire, she thought briefly and dismissed it. That was an old confusion. Oberon was not the devil. He was just tied to ancient traditions that suggested it.

  Traditions like sacrificing a maiden to him on May Day.

  May Day, m’aider, help me…Words tangled together in her mind, twisted into one another with panic and fear.

  Jenny took a breath and forced herself onward. The light bloomed, and up ahead, she saw the tunnel open out into a chamber.

  “Jenny Wren,” said a molten voice. It shivered through her body, touching something deep, making her legs weaken and her stomach knot. Her lips warmed as if she could still feel Jack’s lips pressed against them. She drew in a breath and opened eyes she hadn’t realized were closed to find the vast darkness falling away with firelight.

  “Brave, Jenny Wren. But not ready for me yet, not
quite.” There was amusement in the voice, but it went beyond simple pleasure. A modicum of malice, perhaps, the hint of a threat, and the promise of things Jenny didn’t understand yet. Things that called to her, tempting, taunting. “So what brings you here? I take it this is no social call.” Oberon laughed, and Jenny felt a powerful urge to turn and run. She knew him now. The magic of the May Queen filled in the gaps in her meager knowledge. Oberon had so many names. Alberich, king of the elves, Amadán, the trickster, Cernunnos. Ancient memories whispered in the back of her mind, memories she didn’t know she had, names that chimed with power. The horned god. And the mask he wore now was Oberon. Charming, elegant, terrible.

  A man stepped from the shadows of the cave, the king from her vision, swathed in a cloak of leaves much like Jack’s. But these leaves were spiked and glossy, holly leaves. Clumps of red berries stood out against the cloak like drops of blood. Through the black curls of his hair, she was sure she could make out horns, a crown of antlers. He was handsome too, devilishly handsome.

  He’s not the devil, she warned herself, though that was the image that immediately sprang back into her mind. No more than Mab is. But it felt like he was. The devil of the old stories Grams used to tell—the suave, silver-tongued persuader in black at the back door at midnight. The one who charmed every member of the household before destroying them with their own greed. Oberon was the one who seduced the chambermaid and left her with a bastard child, or the one who spirited away a baby, leaving a changeling in its place. He was the card shark who stole their last penny and then offered to play for their souls with his marked cards in a game they could never win.

  And when he smiled at her, something in her treacherous heart wanted to see that smile forever.

  The king. Her mind filled with the litany of his names, a sea of echoes across time and cultures. She felt her knees go slack. If he touched her now, she’d be lost; she knew that. He was the king from her dream. The one who had put her on the hawthorn throne and commanded it to build the cage around her so she could not flee.