The Castle of Fire and Fable

by Steffanie Holmes

  “Were you baptized, Maeve?” Jane asked. “I’m guessing not, being that you’re a dirty heathen witch.”

  “Actually, I am. In our church, you don’t baptize babies – baptism is something you do when you’re old enough to actively choose a life of God. My sister Kelly and I did it together when I was fifteen. I didn't want to do it, but it made my Dad so happy, and I figured since I didn’t believe in any of it, all it boiled down to was going swimming with my clothes on, so I gritted my teeth and did it so they’d shut up about it. Dad brought me a book about black holes as a baptism gift, so I think I came out of it pretty good in the end.”

  We arrived at the church to find a group of people clamoring at the gate. I grinned as our driver pulled up across the street. “Look at how many people have shown up for Jane and Connor. Not everyone in this town is prudish witch-hunter.”

  “I don’t think they’re here to support Jane,” Flynn said, frowning out the window.

  I pushed open my door in time to see Sheryl Brownley wobbling across the road, holding her skirts up with one hand while she waved with the other. “Jane, Jane, I tried to call you, but the boy at the castle said you’d already left and I couldn’t get you on your mobile.”

  Jane pushed open the door and slid her leg out, tapping the pocket of her jacket. “I’ve been so busy I must’ve left it behind. We’re here now. What is it?”

  “Get back and that car and leave,” she yelled. “We have to cancel the baptism, I’m afraid! All these people are—”

  “What? No.” Jane’s face paled, and I knew exactly what she was thinking. No baptism and Connor is in danger of becoming the fae’s blood sacrifice.

  No way in hell would I let that happen.

  “There she is!” someone yelled. The crowd turned raced toward us, enveloping Sheryl as they swung signs and yelled obscenities. “We can’t have her type in our church!” a woman screamed.

  “Fornicators and witches are not welcome here!” Another bellowed.

  It was Dora.

  Anger welled up inside me. I’d been raised in this same environment of intolerance, of judgement. But through it all, even though I disagreed with almost everything they stood for, my parents never judged me. They put me before their own faith and loved me unconditionally. They showed me that religion and tolerance could go hand in hand and that good people could be found anywhere.

  In that moment, I missed them more than ever.

  My heart tore open and fresh grief spilled over, splattering onto the street below. I gripped the edge of the car door, holding my shaking body upright.

  “What are you doing?” I yelled. “You dare to call yourselves good Christians? You don’t even know the meaning of the word.”

  “How dare you speak the Lord’s name, Satan’s harlot!” Dora spat. “He sees everything you do up there at the castle of sin. He sees all the perverse, deviant acts—”

  “He’s a bit of a pervert himself then, spying on innocent people behind closed doors,” I shouted back. “If your God wants to watch real people being kind to each other, then he’s more than welcome to watch. It would be more than he ever sees in any of your homes!”

  The anger burned and bubbled in my veins, reaching deep inside me and tugging at something deep within my chest – the raw, fresh pain of losing my parents – two people who didn’t deserve to die, but had been taken while judgmental wankers like Dora had been allowed to live.

  My palm slammed down on the front of the car. The cone of power sizzled and bubbled inside of me, and I thought of the nicest, happiest thing I could think of, and I pushed.

  Everyone in the mob gasped as the image entered their hands at the same time. My family and I sitting around at Ruby’s Diner after church, laughing and enjoying each other’s company. A proper family. A family that loved and cared for all its members, no matter their beliefs.

  Dora’s eyes bugged out of her head.

  “Witch!” she yelled, jabbing a shaking finger at me. “She’s a witch, just like her wretched mother!”

  “What is this?” I yelled back. “The seventeenth century? This town is full of witches – your whole main street is full of crystal shops and tarot readers. Don’t try to hide behind righteousness just because you don’t understand your own history. Witches saved your village, they saved the whole world, and—”

  “Time to go,” Flynn’s arms wrapped around me. He tried to drag me back into the car. I struggled against his grip.

  “No. I’ve got to show them—”

  “Don’t let this be another repeat of the window at the pub. Let’s just go.”

  I sagged against Flynn, all the fight gone out of me. He was right. As much as I wanted to burn them all, that was stooping to their level. They were just being idiots because they were scared.

  I waved at Jane to get back in the car. She slammed the door just as someone tossed a tomato at the back window.

  “What the bloody hell?” the driver cried. “That’s my car!”

  I slammed my own door as he stepped on the gas and tore down the street. More rotting fruit pelted the back of the windshield. My heart racing, I turned around to look at Jane. Tears streamed down her face.

  “Connor’s not baptized,” she said, wiping furiously at the tears. “How are we going to keep him safe now?”

  35

  BLAKE

  As soon as Maeve, Flynn, Jane, and the baby were gone, I called the local curry house using the weird voice projection device Rowan had shown me (he called it a telephone, I called it magic, which seemed like an oxymoron – because humans didn’t do magic unless they were witches – except that when I spoke into it, a man on the other end answered in a singsong voice and it was freaky as fuck) and placed a large order for delivery.

  “We don’t usually eat curry for breakfast,” Rowan said, passing through the hallway with an armload of garments.

  “I’ve already eaten breakfast. This is elevenses,” I answered. “I learned that term from the movie last night.”

  Rowan laughed. “I’m just doing the laundry. You got anything to add to my load?”

  After explaining what he was talking about, Rowan showed me how to use the machine that washed garments. More human magic. In the fae realm, we had court servants who washed our clothes for us in the river that ran along the valley. This was way better. Rowan said if the machine didn’t work I could kick it in frustration, which was exactly how we used to treat the court servants.

  The doorbell signaled the arrival of my curries. When I got to the door and took possession of my feast, the delivery man held his hand out and fixed me with this weird knowing stare.

  “That’ll be forty-two pounds, mate.”

  “Am I supposed to lick his palm or something?” I asked Rowan as he walked past on his way back to the kitchen.

  Rowan rushed over and dug some screwed-up bits of parchment from his pocket, shoving them in the man’s hand. “You need to learn about money, Blake. People don’t just make curries for each other out of the kindness of their hearts. You have to pay the man for his work.”

  “But you are an earth witch and he’s a mere mortal. Surely he quakes at your very presence?”

  Rowan sighed. “I’m sure Corbin already explained this. No one knows we’re witches and we have to keep it that way. Humans tend to get very burny and stakey when they find out witches are real.”

  “Humans are so ungrateful,” I said as I slammed the door in the man’s face and carried my curry down to the kitchen.

  “Tell me about it.” Rowan fell in step beside me, shoving a single piece of his parchment back into his pocket.

  The whole thing seemed ridiculous. Fae often spoke of the glittering treasures and metal riches humans hoarded like the dragons of lore. But how could these containers of delicious-smelling food possibly be exchanged for a few bits of printed paper? Had Rowan somehow tricked the guy into thinking he’d been given something of actual value? But no, that kind of compulsion could only be done b
y the fae.

  I shoved four of the containers into the fridge for later. Rowan hovered in the doorway of the kitchen, so I couldn’t sneak them out to Liah in secret. That was fine. I just had to do what I did best – tell a lie with such confidence no one suspected it wasn’t the truth. I grabbed some utensils from the drawer. “I’m going to go eat in the orchard,” I said, hoisting up the bag. “Civilization is cool and all, but having these walls everywhere is starting to remind me of the borders of the fae realm.”

  “You want company? I could do with a walk myself.”

  Fuck no. “Not this time. I really need to clear my head, do a little fae meditation, that sort of thing.”

  Rowan looked at me oddly. “Fine. I’ll see you later, then?”

  “I haven’t got anywhere else to be.”

  I raced across the garden, ducking around the topiary maze to avoid being seen by Arthur, who was prancing across the lawn, swinging his sword at invisible foe. His technique was crude compared to the grace and finesse of fae swordcraft, but he was certainly a brutal killing machine. I hoped he was prepared for just how much blood he’d have to spill before this was all over.

  I passed through the orchard and opened a wooden gate into the small wood. Rowan explained that this wood had once been part of the large Crookshollow Forest that bordered the shire on two sides, but the land next door had been cleared during the Victorian era (whatever that was. I tuned out for Corbin’s explanation) for farming, separating the two.

  The wood breathed around me, her song whistling through the trees. Birds soared overhead, and tiny creatures of the wood scurried through the undergrowth. The place teamed with unadulterated life – animals and plants free to roam wherever they wished. So different from the cloying oppression of the fae forests. In Tir Na Nog, the trees bent toward you like bars on a prison, reminding you with every step that the world had an edge.

  I didn’t understand much of the human realm, but this I got. Nature, unbound and unfettered. Freedom. Joyful abandon. No wonder the fae were ready to go to war for the chance to inhabit it once more.

  “Liah!” I called, my whole body sighing in relief as sunlight shone through the trees and warmed my skin. “Breakfast time.”

  Her head popped up from behind a fallen log. She’d made a circle of wildflowers around her golden hair, which did a little to distract from the violent cuts and bruises marring her skin. The stump of her amputated hand rested against an oak, the sight of it making my stomach turn in an unfamiliar way. “About time. I’m going crazy down here. I want to go back.”

  “Back where?”

  “Back to Tir Na Nog. I can’t stay here.”

  “Liah, that’s stupid. First of all, I don’t know how to send you back. Second, Daigh will kill you.”

  “You do know. I can go through the gateway.”

  “You can’t. It’s still blocked by wards. And I can’t risk opening it to let you through.”

  “So send me back the way you brought me here, in a dream.”

  I shook my head. “Even if I could do that, which I’m not sure I could, there’s still that little matter of Daigh killing you as soon as he sees you.”

  “I never should have left with you,” she said, her violet eyes flashing. “I never should have abandoned my Seelie, not while there’s a chance any of them are still alive.”

  “‘Where’s all this come from? Remorse? That’s a very un-faelike quality. You can probably do more for the Seelie from here, if you help us fight—”

  “I went down to the village during the night,” Liah declared.

  “I told you not to do that.”

  “Of course you did. Because you knew what I would see – the destruction that has been done to this land. How can you stand to remain here?”

  I shrugged. “Remember the iron shards under your toenails? Being here is better than being tortured by Daigh’s princes at court.”

  “It’s not! I could barely breathe for all the poison in the air. And iron, iron everywhere. Even though the fae haven’t been a threat for centuries the humans go about in iron shells that spew still more poison. Buildings made from death and broken things, piled atop each other like bones in an ossuary, while the true world lies in ashes beneath. People locked inside houses, staring at boxes of moving paintings, instead of partaking in revels with song and dance and actual interaction. And everywhere that horrid, wretched iron.” Liah shuddered, the flowers in her garland drooping.

  “I think some of it is cool. Those moving paintings are more entertaining than dancing. They have a machine at the castle that washes clothes for you.”

  “What’s the point? Why destroy the mountains and burn the earth and smelt the iron and poison the water and air, when the stream and a rock and a servant would do the same job?” Liah gestured to the north. “Over there, I spoke to the ghosts of trees felled long ago to make way for farms where animals are forced into servitude before being slaughtered in their thousands for food. For food, while here in the wood are edible roots and berries in abundance. If this is the side you’re fighting for, then I’m not with you.”

  “So you want to go back and join Daigh, and fight against me?”

  “I didn’t say that. But like hell am I going to help you save the earth so the humans can torture it further. The fae are the last line of defense for the trees and the water and the air and land. Somehow, I will make them see that.”

  My fingers tightened around her arm. “Even if I could, I’m not sending you back to be killed on sight.”

  “Show me the gateway. I want to see for myself.”

  “We were there yesterday.”

  “I want to see it today.”

  “Of course. I thought we could go have a look after you’ve eaten.” I pulled out two packages of curry, some rice, and the tinfoil-wrapped naan bread.

  Liah pursed her lips as she sniffed the butter chicken I offered her. “I’m done.”

  “How can you be done?” I stuffed a mouthful of Lamb Rogan Josh into my mouth. “You haven’t even taken a bite.”

  “I’m Seelie, Blake. We don’t eat meat.”

  “Oh, right.” I’d forgotten, truthfully. The Unseelie court relished the tearing and rending of flesh (although they loved to cover it in nectar sauces I couldn’t eat), and the humans I’d encountered so far seemed to be much the same. “Here, have one of these naan breads, then. They’re—”

  “We don’t eat bread, either. The harvesting and grinding of grain is yet another human stain upon the earth.”

  “A delicious human stain.”

  “Blake.” She rolled her eyes. “That bread is wrapped in metal.“

  “You don’t get to have a lot of fun.”

  “I’m not here to have fun.” Liah stood up. “Take me to this gateway.”

  Reluctantly I shut my curry container and led her through the wood to the edge of the field where the three sidhe stood. I scanned the horizon, unable to see any of the other witches nearby. It wouldn’t do to have them find us here. “Come on,” I pulled her out of the forest.

  “This is a fucking tragedy,” Liah whispered. “Can you not see death everywhere?”

  “Well, we did kill a few of Daigh’s fae over the gateway.” I pointed to one of the burned patches. “That’s the scar of a fire witch.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” She swept her arm around. “All of this used to be a living, breathing, thriving forest. Herds of deer came to this very spot to drink from a crystal clear pool. But along came the humans with their fires and axes and blades of iron, and now the forest lives on only as a shade of what once was, haunting the earth from which it was so unfairly torn. And why, so they could erect monstrosities like that?” She jabbed a finger at a tall metal tower on the horizon. “What in Oberon’s name is that?”

  “A mobile phone tower. I don’t know what that means. Corbin said they were a monument to this god called Samsung, who fought off some other deity of apples.” I shrugged. “I can’t remember, actu
ally. Corbin is really boring.”

  “I want to go back,” Liah repeated, her eyes burning into mine. “Now that I’ve seen this, I cannot support you.”

  Great. Now I felt like total shit. I was just trying to save a friend. How was I supposed to know that fae could see the ghosts of long-dead forests? That wasn’t exactly something Daigh confided in me. “Look, I can’t do that right now. But if you can just lay low here in the wood, I’ll find a way for us both to get what we want.”

  “That’s not true and you know it. You’re going to try and destroy the fae, all of them. That’s why you really brought me here, isn’t it? Because you knew I was going to die with the rest of them and you felt bad. But I’m glad you did, because now I see that the world needs the fae more than ever, and I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that in the great battle that’s coming, the tree spirits and the embers of the true earth have their own part to play.”

  Liah stormed off toward the woods, her twin braids swinging behind her.

  Phew. Okay then.

  I’d forgotten how intense Liah used to be, which was ridiculous because it was the defining characteristic of our friendship. I’d do something and she’d lecture me for hours about how stupid it was. I wondered if her and Corbin would get along.

  I circled the sidhe, calling up my spirit magic and using it to reveal the wards. They were still in place, although much weakened. I estimated it would hold only for another day. And we were no closer to figuring out how to create permanent wards. And now Liah was ready to join forces with Daigh to “save” the world from humans.

  We were fucked.

  36

  MAEVE

  Jane didn’t say another word on the drive back to Briarwood. As soon as we got inside, the phone rang. It was Sheryl. I talked to her while Jane got Connor out of his gown.

  “I’m so sorry about what happened today, dearie. I know the village is full of frightful gossips, but I never expected that kind of a show. But don’t you fret – I’ve had a chat with the vicar over in Crooks Worthy. He says they might have an opening, but Jane would have to come meet him today. I can swing by and pick her up?”