The Treachery of Beautiful Things

by Ruth Long

  “Oberon, you’re the king. If you chose to, you could stop it. Stop her. Set free those she has enslaved. If you only took responsibility for your actions instead of simply trying to find another queen…”

  Oberon stared at her. “You would lecture me, Gwenhyfer?”

  She set her jaw. “My name is Jenny. And I’m not your May Queen. I will never be. Your May Queen was Titania, but you let Mab engulf her, overpower her. Or perhaps it was Mab as well, long ago, and you let her become that bitter and twisted thing. If you don’t choose to love her, then how on earth could I believe that you would love me?”

  Oberon lifted his lip in a sneer. “You disappoint me. You’re just a girl. A child with a head full of fancies. Get out, and take him with you. Freedom from this place is all I offer him. Curses still stand, promises cannot be unmade. Take your Kobold with you. He has not defeated me. I could have protected you, Jenny. Now I will not. I release you both to the forest, where my queen is hunting.”

  The world wavered, shifted, and re-formed. Stones and fire became leaves and trees, and the light of the setting sun. Jack grabbed Jenny’s hand, pulled her back against his chest. She turned into his arms, lifted her face, and his lips captured hers in a slow kiss that reached deep inside her. The breeze lifted her hair, and the scents of the forest wrapped around them.

  The distant sound of a hunting horn pulled them back. Jack’s eyes widened, the pupils dilating to pools of darkness inside a ring of vibrant color. He glanced at the sky. “We have to run. We have to get to the Edge.”

  He took off, pulling her after him, fleet and surefooted in his forest. They sprinted through the trees, and the forest seemed to fold itself out of their way to speed them along, just as it had when Puck had brought her to the Edge.

  “Puck,” Jenny called to Jack. “Puck promised to help us. If we made it out.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it. Puck is Oberon’s creature.”

  “But he—”

  The hounds bounded into the clearing ahead of them, white as albinos in the dimness, with burning red eyes. The points of their ears and muzzles were scarlet, as if dipped in blood. Jack cursed and pulled her back, bringing the sword up in an arc of light.

  “Stay behind me, Jenny.”

  The nearest hound snarled, baring razor-sharp teeth. Its muscles bunched, but it moved too fast for her to see it leap. It was just a ghostly blur in the fading light. Jack’s sword took it from the air, with a ribbon of bright blood trailing after it. Another attacked, and another, but he moved even faster than they did, his blade mightier than their teeth and claws.

  The remaining dogs barked and snarled, but finally turned tail and ran.

  “They’re off to get the hunt, to lead them to us,” Jack said. “There isn’t much time. Hurry.”

  But someone else stood at the edge of the narrow clearing now, a small brown body with goats’ legs and horns. Puck.

  “You didn’t think I’d lie to her, did you, Jack? I gave you my promise too. Her brother is safely home. There’s just Jenny to get out of the Realm now.”

  Jack turned on him. There was a wildness in his eyes. “It’s almost time, Puck. Can I trust you? Can you get her out?”

  “I’m not going anywhere without you,” Jenny said. “Not now.”

  “The hunt is coming, Jenny, and night is coming with them. I can’t…”

  “Yes you can, because I’m not going anywhere without you.”

  “I can’t, Jenny. I just…” Panic entered his eyes now and he glanced from her to Puck and back again. He caught her wrist. “We must get you to the Edge. And quickly.”

  But even as they raced onward, the sound of hooves grew louder, the shouts and whistles, the cries and the baying of the hounds.

  The light changed as they sped onward, redder, darker, staining the leaves and the branches gold and scarlet, like looking at the world through stained-glass windows. Jenny stumbled as she ran, but Jack’s grip, strong and unyielding as a tree root, kept her upright, kept her going. Though her heart hammered in her chest, and the base of her throat ached as if it might tear apart, she ran, with Puck leading the way, heading for the Edge and freedom.

  The ground shook and trembled as the hunt thundered behind them, around them, encircling them and bringing them to a halt, just yards from their goal. Beyond the trees, cut by brambles and bushes, Jenny could see the hill, the flickering lights of evening, the way home. It was blocked.

  Horses danced on the spot, reined in by their riders while the remaining dogs milled around them, snarling and snapping at Jack and Puck. But Titania’s mare stood like a sculpture, with the queen just as still. She wore a gown of lavender and silver that trailed almost to the ground at the side, and strands of silver wound through her golden hair, contrasting with its sheen. Her eyes pierced the growing twilight and she smiled.

  “Too late, Jack o’ the Forest. Too late. Night is falling and you didn’t run fast enough with your Wren. Now she’s going to be our sacrifice and I will take your heartwood from my husband just to watch it burn.”

  But Jack stood firm, pulling Jenny to his side, Wayland’s sword their only defense now. His hand shook, the vibration traveling up the blade to the tip, and he stared at it in alarm. His knuckles turned bone-white against the grip, his tendons and bones starkly visible through his skin.

  “Take it,” Jack whispered. Jenny’s hand closed around the hilt and she took the weight of the blade. She wrapped her other arm around Jack’s neck, bracing herself against its weight.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Trust me. Please trust me.”

  And with those words, the change took him. His back arched, his limbs stiffening in agony as his skin transformed to wood and briar, to bark and thorn. Leaves erupted from his hair, vines tumbled down his back, and his eyes became like polished knots as hard as any stone. His mouth opened in a silent scream and the tendons in his neck stood out like wires. His grip on her loosened but she held on to him, refusing to let go.

  “And now you see what he is?” asked Titania. “A creature, not man nor beast, but wild, as wild and untameable as the forest itself. For he is the forest. And the heart he forsook is made of wood. Our poor defeated Oak King. He couldn’t love me enough. And he cannot love you. He never will.”

  Jenny’s hand slipped on the hilt, then tightened as she saw the locket, the golden heart she had given Jack, looped around his neck. All Titania’s words were lies. Jack had a heart after all. And yet, they were true as well. It was Titania’s strength—twisting truth to lies and back again.

  “Look at him, Jennifer,” Titania growled. “Look and see what he is, what he really is, this thing you claim to love.”

  Spikes ripped their way down Jack’s side. Jenny cried out, trying in vain to avoid them, but she held on to him nonetheless. If she let go, every instinct screamed she would lose him. A long briar lashed out, encircling her waist and tearing the gown, but she clung to him more tightly than ever. If she let him go, she knew with all her heart that she would never see him again, that they would both be lost.

  “I was wrong,” Jack hissed in a voice made of the rasp of bark and the crack of branches. “Let go. Let me go!”

  His fingers fumbled with her hands, trying to tear her from him, to set her free, even if it meant losing himself forever. But she held on. Even as the transformation continued, and the pain grew worse, so much worse. Thorns and bark, briars and spikes couldn’t hurt her as much as the agony that blazed in his eyes.

  Trust me, he’d asked her, without really thinking what he was asking. Please trust me. And she did. He tried to shake her off, twisting and turning. His gaze pleaded with her through the anger, through the wildness. Blood made her hands slick and tears blinded her, but she dug her fingers into his wooden body, clinging to him as she would to her life.

  With a roar like the breaking of the greatest tree in the forest, Jack threw back his head. His mouth distended as he screamed, a howl of pain that went on
and on, echoing through the twilight. Titania stretched out her hand, drawing out the process, Jenny realized, making him suffer even more. Jenny screamed his name and held on. Blood covered him. The same blood that blossomed like roses on the pristine white of her gown. Her blood.

  “Hurts,” Titania snarled. “Doesn’t it, Jenny? Can you see how it hurts him? Putting him out of his misery would be a kindness. He’s not even an animal. Certainly not human. So what is he?”

  “He’s Jack.” Jenny’s voice was harsh in her throat. “And I will not let him go.”

  Jack’s head turned toward her. His eyes burned with the same wild light as the Jacks in Oberon’s cave. Feral eyes, one blue, one green, like fireflies before her.

  And sentient. Dear God, he was still in there somewhere, though he might not realize it himself, or remember it in the morning. He was there. Jack. Her Jack.

  “I will not let him go,” she insisted again and dug her fingers into the bark covering him, finding a curious calm deep inside her. And from inside his body, pressed against hers, she felt a deep slow sound, a rhythmic drumbeat, his heart.

  Before she could make sense of it, Jack’s grip on her loosened. The wooden exterior melted away and beneath it, she saw his face. Her Jack. He tried to smile, but when he saw the damage he had done to her, his features crumpled, and shame and grief filled his face.

  “Kill them,” snarled Titania to her hunting party, her face twisting. “Kill them both.”

  Huntsmen and hounds moved forward and Jack took the sword from Jenny, his jaw tightening, his body tensing for attack. But they were too many, all those fluid and dangerously beautiful Sidhe warriors. They drew weapons that gleamed and glinted in the growing moonlight, like water, like death.

  Jenny sucked in a breath, ready to shout, but before she could, the forest became absolutely still and another voice spoke instead.

  “I don’t think that will happen,” said Puck. “No. Not likely at all.”

  The forest silenced all around them, every bird, every leaf, every creak and rustle.

  From the undergrowth and the upper canopy, from holes in the ground and from the trunks of the trees themselves figures appeared. They slid out of the bark, bearing its patterns on their skin. They descended from the upper branches, their hair dappled with light and shade. Dames Vertes slipped between saplings and gnomes pushed their way out into the air. Rocks unfolded into misshapen goblins and leaves unfurled to reveal pixies. Even the Foletti appeared in blurs of rainbow colors.

  Puck stood firm at the forefront of them, glaring at the queen with an ancient antagonism. The Sidhe stopped in their tracks, staring at the creatures all around them as if some ancient, slumbering cur they’d never paid any mind had suddenly risen from its place by the fire and snarled at them.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Titania found her voice first, her face ugly in a sneer. “You have no place here, Goodfellow. You serve the king.”

  The forest fae far outnumbered the Sidhe. More appeared every second. Each of them bore a similar expression—one of cold and implacable hatred.

  “Who is the King of the Forest?” asked Puck.

  “The Oak,” they cried, in a thousand creaking voices. “The Oak is King of the Forest.”

  Puck took a single step forward, and all the forest fae followed him. Just one step. The Sidhe fought not to recoil. Most of them failed.

  “Who is the King of the Forest?” Puck repeated.

  “The Oak!” The sound roared through the trees, rumbled through the ground.

  “Puck,” Jack groaned. “What are you doing?”

  Puck paid him no mind. He kept his eyes fixed on Titania. “The Oak is King of the Forest. Our king has been freed, made our king once again.” He turned to Jenny and bowed, as graceful and stately a bow as she had ever seen. “The May Queen chooses her king. Her blood is on him. Her sacrifice given. I serve the king, Titania,” Puck said solemnly. “I always have.”

  The Sidhe retreated, trying to move without appearing to do so. But the forest was having none of that, tripping them and toppling them to the ground. Only Titania stood firm, her horse still poised like a statue beneath her, held by her will.

  All around Jenny, the forest fae bowed. She held on to Jack, feeling the beat of his heart. The heart Oberon had stolen. The heart they had won back.

  “The old queen has no place here,” said Puck to Titania. “You are no longer welcome in the forest. It rejects you. It rejects all your kind.”

  A branch lashed out toward Titania and for a moment it seemed likely to knock her from her saddle. The queen raised a dismissive hand and the branch burst into flames. The sound of shrieking wood rang out for a moment and the forest fae hissed in raw hatred. Leaves, mulch, and living things smothered the flames, and the forest fell silent again, terrible in its absolute unnatural quiet. Titania gazed down on them. She was still powerful, more powerful than any single one of them. But together, they presented a threat even to her.

  “You may have your new queen,” she said. “Aye, and your old king. But it cannot last. She won’t stay. He can’t go. The Realm will not allow it. He can’t pass the Edge. And the old magic doesn’t just require blood, as well you know, Puck. It calls for a death. Like the tithe. Like all the old magic.”

  She tightened the reins and the spell on her horse finally cracked. It whinnied and paced back, trying to retreat from this hostile place.

  “Go then,” said Titania. “Go and relish your victory. It won’t last long. Nothing does. Nothing in this world or your own.” She turned the horse’s head toward her home. Her shoulders sagged, her head hung forward.

  Jenny let her breath out softly. Everything ached, from her feet to her fingertips. For a moment, just a moment, the tension in her began to uncoil and Jack, sensing it perhaps, let her go.

  Titania spun around, twisting in her saddle. One hand lashed out, twisted like a claw, and a sheet of flames sprang up between them, cutting Jenny off from the others. The heat drove her back with its intensity, the flames licking into the night.

  The old queen leaped down from the bucking horse, which fled, whinnying with terror, bells jangling in a cacophony. Titania crouched low, moving so slowly, like a spider advancing along her web. In her face, in the black depths of her endless eyes, Jenny saw nothing of the austere beauty from before. Hardly a trace of Titania remained. The twisted smile, the deviant glint in her eyes, it was Mab. The beauty drained away to leave something else behind, something shriveled, corpselike, ancient.

  An obsidian knife rang against its jeweled scabbard as Mab drew it forth. The firelight turned the blade a deep crimson, the color of old blood. Jenny stumbled back, fell, but continued to scramble away until she’d backed up against a tree and there was nowhere else to go. She tried to push herself upright, but as Mab advanced, fear robbed her of the strength to move. She could only stare in horror.

  The flames caught the leaves and branches above them, devoured the undergrowth, spreading through Jack’s precious forest like a living thing consuming all in its path. The forest fought back, but all Jenny could see was the spiderlike figure advancing on her.

  Mab crept forward, her head tilting this way and that as if expecting Jenny to run, daring her to do so. She spread her arms wide, the knife making intricate patterns in the air.

  “Mine now.” Her voice cracked, the silken purr discarded. Or else Titania was no more. “Mine to have and hold. Mine to taste. Mine to consume.”

  Less than a foot away now. Less than that. Inexorable, relentless. Jenny scrambled back, but there was nowhere to go.

  Mab reached out, one gnarled hand stroking the length of Jenny’s hair, as if she was testing the texture of fabric. She smiled—or at least bared her teeth, yellow and broken from age—and her hand closed around Jenny’s throat. The fine sleeve of her gown hung loose around a wrist skeletal rather than elegant. She stank of the grave, of blood and sacrifice.

  “What did you think the May Queen was, little girl
?” She lifted the knife and pressed the point against the underside of Jenny’s left breast.

  Images flickered through Jenny’s mind—girls in white, crowned with flowers, paraded through villages, fêted and celebrated and brought to the edge of the forest.

  Oberon only asked for her heart in the figurative sense. Mab was actually going to take it. Just as she had taken all the others. All of them. Those who won and those who lost, through conquest or deceit. Mab always won.

  The obsidian knife-tip dug into Jenny’s skin through the gown, and she closed her eyes. Mab’s hand felt like desiccated leather on her skin, tightening until she couldn’t breathe.

  “Ancient magic calls for blood, for sacrifice, so the earth can be made new. You’ve given your heart to the trees, and now you must give it to me, so the earth will be made new. And when this fire purges the deadwood, we’ll make the forest anew as well. We’ll make it better. You’ll see. Jack will love us and he will be king. And we will be queen again. Oh yes.”

  Mab leaned in, her stench engulfing Jenny, her lips rasping against Jenny’s cheek.

  “Ready yourself, child. This is your moment of sacrifice. It’s a little price to pay and now you’ll live forever in me. And I in you.”

  Jenny’s hands scrabbled against her own body, seeking something, anything that might help her. It couldn’t end like this. She didn’t want to die. And she didn’t want to be reborn as that thing.

  Jack burst through the sheet of flames, sword in hand, his body smoldering, fire catching on his arms and legs. “Leave her be!”

  At the same time, Jenny thrust her hands into her pocket, and closed her grasping hand on something.

  Something hard and spiky and cold, so cold.

  Mab turned, distracted by the arrival. When she saw Jack, she grinned again, gloating. Her mouth opened wide as she cackled.

  With all the strength in her, Jenny thrust the iron jack into Mab’s mouth. For a moment the queen froze. Jenny shoved her back and Mab choked. The knife tumbled from her fingers, which now grasped at her own throat. She thrashed, clawing at her leathery skin, tearing at her neck. A sound came from her, something between a scream and a clogged drain.