by Alex Bledsoe
Veronica put Mandalay back on her feet and looked around. Although she’d seen no guns before this, suddenly they were everywhere, and all pointed at the cave.
“Someone’s coming out,” another voice cried.
Figures emerged from the cave, struggling against the wind so that they weren’t blown out like leaves before a twister. At first the rush of dirt and dust hid both their identities and their number. Was this the return of the rescuers, or the first wave of a vanguard riding the hurricane-force winds into this world?
“We should get out of the way,” Veronica said to Mandalay, who still coughed dust from her lungs.
“Wait,” Mandalay called out. “Don’t shoot.”
The wind subsided, revealing three sweaty, bedraggled figures, two black-haired women and one man with white hair.
The scattered Tufa put away their weapons. A few approached the cave. But Veronica got there first.
“Where is he?” she cried, grabbing first Snowy and then Bronwyn. “Did you see him? Is he all right?”
She was about to grab Bliss, but stopped when she saw how the woman was crying. They were big, full-body sobs, and her face was wrenched into a mask of anguish, the dirt and dust streaked by tears.
“No,” Veronica said, assuming this meant Justin was dead. “No!”
She fell to the ground, too numb to cry, as Craig ran to Bronwyn and Tain Wisby rushed to Snowy. No one approached Bliss; she was left in a grief no one could understand.
Finally Mandalay came up to her. “What happened?” the girl asked quietly.
Bliss wiped her nose on her sleeve. “W-we found it … We got through. It was really there. But it was all wrong, too.”
Mandalay kept her own voice steady. “That must’ve been hard for you.”
Bliss nodded.
Mandalay glanced at Veronica, to ensure she wasn’t listening. Quietly she asked, “Did you find him?”
Bliss nodded. “Yes, but he was too far gone. And then … and then…” She just couldn’t get the words out.
At that moment, a cloud drifted across the sun, casting the whole area in shadow. Bliss looked up and screamed, a sound no one who knew her could ever imagine hearing. It brought all conversation and activity to a stop.
Then the cloud drifted on, and sunlight returned.
Bliss continued to stare into the sky. “Sorry,” she said. “I thought it was…”
“The Queen,” Mandalay said in a small, quiet voice. It was the only name that could render her meek.
Bliss looked down, wiped her nose again, and nodded.
“So you saw her?” Mandalay continued.
“We saw her approaching.”
“Did she say anything?”
“We didn’t stick around after she rode in.”
“Rode in?”
“On clouds. Like that one. I thought for a minute she’d followed us here.”
“So you ran?”
Bliss nodded.
“Probably the sensible thing to do.”
This calm response made Bliss laugh, which quickly turned into hysterics. Mandalay put her arms around the woman and let her cry it out.
Bronwyn, holding tightly to Craig’s hand, said to him, “Apparently we’re still banished.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Seriously?” she said with a wry smile.
“Yes. I know how important it was to everyone.”
“You’re not secretly a little glad?”
“I’m relieved. And that’s not a secret. But no, I’m not happy for other people’s disappointment.”
She kissed him as if no one was around them, then said, “You’re going to be one lucky man later on.”
“Luckier than I am right now?”
“Ohhhh, yeah.”
Nearby, Tain pressed herself against Snowy. “I’m really glad you’re back.”
“I can tell,” he said.
“Mmmm, and you seem glad to see me, too. Was it awful?”
“It wasn’t like the stories, that’s for sure,” he said, and patted her behind.
No one paid any attention to Veronica, who sat on the ground where she’d fallen. She looked around at the people all talking and whispering, and made a decision. She jumped up, snatched a pistol from the belt of a nearby man, and ran for the cave.
C.C. was closest, and caught her around the waist. He pushed her arm up, and the gun fired into the sky. The loud crack got everyone’s attention, and when C.C. took the weapon from her hand, Craig Chess was there to catch her as she again collapsed in tears.
“Come on now,” Craig told her with gentle firmness. “There’s no way that running off with a gun is the right thing to do.”
“They didn’t try,” Veronica sobbed. “They didn’t even try.”
“They did the best they could,” he said.
“He wouldn’t leave me,” she said, “I know he wouldn’t, he loves me…”
Tucker took her from C.C.’s arms. “I’ll make sure she gets back to the Catamount Corner,” he said.
Mandalay faced the assembled Tufa. “That’s all, people,” she said loudly. “Time for everyone to go home. Hug your families tonight. Sing all your favorite songs.”
At first no one moved. Then a few wandered off, followed by more. Before long, everyone had picked up whatever they’d brought and packed it for the hike out. People fired up their four-wheelers, and the loud engines faded as they departed.
Junior appeared beside Mandalay. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Mandalay said.
He looked back at the cave. “Wasn’t much to it.”
“No.”
“Are you disappointed?” He wasn’t snide when he said this, just genuinely curious.
“I’m tired, Junior,” Mandalay said honestly. “I want some dinner, and a shower, and some sleep. Take Loretta and Trey home.”
“Yeah,” Junior said sadly. “I think we can all use a drink and a nap. See ya around.”
Thirty minutes later, the hillside was empty; only a few missed beer bottles and crushed undergrowth remained to show how many people had been there. In the distance, the four-wheelers could still be heard, along with the sound of other vehicles starting.
* * *
Once the ridge was empty and silent, Tucker led Veronica out of the woods. He’d pulled her out of sight behind a large tree, and put a finger to her lips. She understood he wanted them to hide, but had no idea why. Still, she was too physically and emotionally beat to resist.
Now he looked at the cave, and then back at her. “They really did try, you know. You ever tried to pull a kid away from a video game he loves? Imagine that about a thousand times worse. That’s what they were up against.”
Veronica was numb. “So he’s gone,” she said simply.
Tucker’s face drew tight as he struggled with his conscience. “I guess I can tell you this now, Veronica. Nobody else here knows. I’m kind of a … secret agent.”
She sniffled. “A what?”
“The Queen banished the Tufa. But the King wanted to keep tabs on them. I’m the tab.”
“Why?”
“Why me, or why tabs?”
“Both.”
“Tabs because he sincerely believes one day the Queen will change her mind. Me because … well, nobody would notice if I was gone.”
“So what now?”
He took a deep breath. “Now, I do it myself.”
“Isn’t it dangerous?”
“Very.”
“Then why?”
“You’re just full of that question, aren’t you?” he said with a grin. “I was with them when the Tufa first came to this world. I started a family line back then that continues to this day. You met one of my descendants, Miss Azure.”
Veronica just nodded. Nothing could surprise her now.
“And every so often, I’d point people toward this cave, to see if they could go through. No one ever did.”
“Until me and Justin.”
“What was her name?”
“Sophronie. I’m the reason Sadieville vanished. I helped the Tufa sing it into that hole, and out of history, to avenge her death.”
“You weren’t quite thorough enough,” she observed dryly.
“Nobody ever is with something like that. There’s always a loose end, something you missed. Like a print of a lost film sitting in someone’s office.”
“So does the fact that we got through, and so did Bronwyn and her friends, mean that the Queen isn’t mad anymore?”
“Apparently not. She wouldn’t come riding out of the clouds just to put down the welcome mat.”
“So how did we manage it?”
“I don’t know. But I do know, to get Justin back, I need to hurry before the Queen redoes her magic.”
“You still haven’t told me why.”
“The real truth?”
“Why not, for a change?”
He chuckled. “Fair enough. You know the story, right? About how the Queen banished the Tufa here after their leader caused her to lose a bet?”
“I do now.” She hadn’t thought to ask Bronwyn why the Tufa were in Appalachia. “I assume you mean the Queen of Fairyland?”
“That’s her. And the bet she made was with me. The Feller, who became the Tufa leader here, bet he could split a chestnut with his ax. The Queen backed him. I bet that he couldn’t.”
“So you won.”
“Yeah. Except I greased the chestnut before he tried so his blade would slip.”
It took her a moment to process that. “So you cheated.”
“Yes.”
“The Tufa were exiled because of you, not the Queen.”
“Technically, yes. She still kinda overreacted.”
“Does she know you cheated?”
“No.”
“Does anyone here?”
“I do. You do.”
She thought that over. “Should I be worried I won’t come down off this mountain?”
“Nah. It’s time for it to come out. A gazillion years is long enough to keep any secret.”
“Is that how long it’s been?”
“Give or take a bazillion.” He turned to look at the cave, still waiting as it had for so long, a dark passage to his bright land. He took a deep breath, hitched up his pants, and said, “I suppose I should get going. Justin’s clearly not going to rescue himself.”
“I’m coming with you,” she said.
“I never doubted that.”
40
“What’s that?” Veronica asked, pointing at the ground.
Tucker picked up one of the iron nuts Bliss had thrown. “It’s iron. Fairies don’t care for iron.”
“It doesn’t seem to bother you.”
“I’ve had a very long time to get used to it.”
Veronica picked it up. “So they’re like garlic is to vampires?”
He barked a laugh, and it echoed through the cave. “More like citronella candles to mosquitoes. They make the air unpleasant for us. They also keep this passage from changing if we leave and come back.”
She didn’t doubt him. The underground passage was completely different from her and Justin’s earlier journey, but with Tucker leading the way it was still a fairly quick trip. In no time at all, they saw illumination ahead.
“Do we have a plan?” she asked.
“I’ve always done better making it up as I go.”
“Not if what you told me before is true.”
“You’ve got me there.”
They crept toward the light. As the land beyond the cave became visible, Veronica said in confusion, “Everything looks different. Did we come out somewhere else?”
“No, that’s just how it works.”
“It must be difficult to find your way around.”
“For some. Not for me.”
This time there was no open plain, like she and Justin saw, or mysterious town, as the rescue party discovered. Instead trees grew right up to the mouth of the cave, thick branches looming over it and trapping it in perpetual shadow. A narrow trail led away into the forest. She heard birdsong and faint wind, but otherwise nothing moved.
Veronica stepped right to the edge of the cave mouth. There was a line, a difference in texture between the cave floor and the dirt of the trail.
“Don’t cross that threshold,” Tucker warned.
“Why?”
“If you do, she will know you’re here.”
“Who is ‘she?’”
“The Queen.”
“Of what?”
“Of everything across that line.”
“Ah. The one you made the bet with.”
“That’s her.”
“Will she be mad at you?”
“Not if I stay on my toes.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“I go get him. You stay here.”
“Not a chance.”
He looked at her seriously. “Veronica, I’m not kidding when I say you got lucky before. It would take very little to get you dancing off into oblivion, just like Justin.”
“I think I’m insulted.”
“Don’t be. Stronger men, and women, than you have been lost to the fairy folk.”
“So I just wait here in the cave?”
“Yes. Don’t go outside. Don’t talk to anyone who might happen by. Don’t eat or drink anything, but I shouldn’t have to tell you that. And above all, follow Lloyd Cole’s advice.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“It’s one of his album titles.”
“Which is?”
“Don’t Get Weird on Me, Babe.”
“Well, in that case, you follow the advice of Barb Wire.”
“Who is that?”
“The hero of my dad’s favorite movie.”
“And what’s her advice?”
“‘Don’t call me babe.’”
* * *
Veronica watched Tucker head down a trail that led into the forest. When he was out of sight, she looked up at the rock of the cave roof, damp with moisture. She caught a drop on her fingertip as it fell from a stalactite tip, almost touched it to her tongue, then remembered.
“Clever,” she said to the fairy world in general, as she wiped her finger on her leg. “But you’ll have to be sharper than that.”
Time passed. Or at least, to her it seemed to; she couldn’t be sure about anything, even that. At least when she’d waited at the other end of the cave, she’d been distracted by all the Tufa playing and singing. Now, though, she had only her thoughts for company. She’d used up her despair and sorrow, which meant that she was now filled with simmering rage.
“You’re gonna pay for this, Justin Johnson,” she said as she paced inside the cave, careful not to cross the threshold. “How dare you just run off with the fairies and leave me standing there? I’ve put too much into this relationship to just throw it away like that. I guess you don’t feel the same way, do you?”
She kicked at what she thought was a loose stone, which turned out to be a protrusion from a rock solidly buried beneath the surface. She bit back her cry of anger, waited until her toe stopped throbbing, then planted herself cross-legged on the ground. Wincing and seething, she stared down the trail into the shadowy forest, wondering what this queen who’d exiled the Tufa was really like.
* * *
Movement caught her eye just before she dozed all the way off. She realized with a start that it was now almost dark outside; she’d missed the afternoon, and the dusk. Had she really been asleep, or was it just that in this place, hidden beneath the heavy trees, there was no twilight?
Someone approached the cave. He walked as fast as he could without blatantly running, and kept glancing behind him as if he were being followed. He was alm
ost on top of her before she recognized him.
“Tucker!” she cried, and started to rush forward to meet him. She skidded to a stop just in time.
He also stopped, just outside the cave. He looked at her with no recognition.
“Tucker? Are you all right?”
He said nothing. He folded his arms and turned to look back down the trail.
Veronica was thoroughly puzzled. Then she remembered glamour. By the rules of this place, this guy might not be Tucker at all. She pulled out the iron nut she’d picked up earlier.
“Hey,” she said. “Catch.”
The maybe-not-Tucker turned, and she tossed it to him. Reflexively he caught it, then dropped it as if it scalded him. “Hey!” he cried in outrage.
“Don’t ignore me, then. Who are you?”
“Right now, I’m Tucker.”
“Oh, yeah? And who is Tucker right now, then?”
But he didn’t answer, and resumed watching down the moonlit trail. He ignored all Veronica’s subsequent attempts to engage him.
* * *
She heard the horse approach before she saw it appear down the trail. In the clear moonlight, two figures rode on its back. The one in front wore strange pointed headgear, and as they drew nearer, she saw that he was dressed in very elaborate, medieval-style clothes, including a cape.
But that registered on a secondary level. Because behind him on the saddle rode Justin.
She started to shriek and rush forward, but once again caught herself. Like the fake Tucker, she had no proof this was the real Justin. Damn, she thought, this place will try anything.
But this actually was Justin, and he slid from the saddle and came into the cave. He looked tired and worried, but she wrapped him in a hug at once.
“You’re back,” she whispered, wanting to believe it but afraid this was some new trick.
“I’m sorry, Veronica,” he said. The weariness in his voice overwhelmed her.
“It’s all right,” she said, and kissed him. He smelled of flowers, sweat, and turned earth. “It’s all right, as long as you’re back.”
She turned to the man in the headgear, who’d also dismounted. His cape was edged with fur and his elaborate clothing glittered with gold and jewels.
“I suppose,” she said, “I should thank you.”
“It’s always smart to thank the Good Folk,” he said, in Tucker Carding’s voice. He took off the strange headgear, which she now realized was a crown.