Under the Pendulum Sun

by Jeannette Ng

  In this moment, he wore no mask.

  And for the first time, I understood: It was lust.

  A tremor passed through me, strumming at my core. That knot inside my chest, those tightly held hands bound around my heart, I felt them loosen.

  Hunting horns intoned long, brassy notes.

  “The Pale Queen is summoning us,” I said.

  Laon got to his feet, brushing the soot from his breeches. He was shaking still, but the mask had returned. “It would not do to keep her waiting.”

  Chapter 26

  The Rabbit in the Snare

  I have given myself totally to this glorious cause. I have surrendered unto it my time, my gifts, my strength and my very family. My only family. I cannot doubt. I must not doubt.

  The risks, I know them. The temptations, I feel them. The price, I will pay it.

  Let it be enough. I pray that it is enough.

  Rev Jacob Roche, private journals, dated 1842

  GOD will use my blood to seal His truth. He will write in my flesh and I could but turn my whole mind heavenward.

  This blood will not be shed in vain. The truth when this hard won cannot be lost again.

  I trust. I can but trust. There is nothing left to do but trust.

  written in an unidentified hand in the Journals of Rev Jacob Roche,

  dated September 1843

  The hounds were baying, but the hunting party was still incomplete when we arrived.

  Laon mounted his red horse, and I was given an animal that was more shadow than beast. My hand sank into its fetid, inky depths as I mounted. The cold iron bridle seemed to sink into the darkness of the beast, the chain links losing their lustre when engulfed.

  The Pale Queen surveyed us all from atop her own steed. She was dressed quite simply with her owlish crown atop her head. She was in excellent spirits as she, laughing, ordered her retinue to mobilise the dogs.

  The men of sand gathered and herded the great multitude of hounds. They were, I assumed, the huntsmen and the whips. I could not imagine why she needed so many sorts of dogs, since many had specialities and skills that were barely applicable to the hunting of…

  I did not want to finish the thought.

  Speckled spaniels and pointers lounged atop one another, surprisingly docile as they were roused to the ready. Lurchers thumped their tails in anticipation.

  My eyes lingered on the sleek, grey forms of the whippets. They moved with ethereal grace, eyes on the horizon and ears twitching. I felt a pang of home, remembering our father’s own hunting dogs.

  The hyenas I did not expect. It was not until I heard their cackling that I realised what the dark-striped dogs were with their wide, flat heads and coarse manes. Their tongues lolled from their red maws as they swung their faces back and forth, watching and waiting.

  There was a thunder of hoofbeats as the fae rode over. Foremost among them was Penemue, his half-coiled toga streaming behind him like a scarlet banner. His black skin was stark against the red of his toga and the white of his steed. By his side was his sister, a bright flame atop her blood-red mare. Her riding habit was swept up off the ground in their gallop. Mingling with the folds of her long, flickering veil and gleaming through them, shone her goldfish-tail hair in brilliant flashes.

  Mab greeted her guests with her usual smiles and graciousness, the predatory air all the more pronounced on this day. I could barely focus on the sights before me as I sat stiffly atop my shadowy horse.

  Desperately, I wanted my mind to empty but there was no escape. I saw my brother astride his own steed and I felt his eyes upon me. I felt that familiar, hot flush and I cursed my own traitorous skin. A breeze ghosted over me, and I shivered.

  The Pale Queen called for the unleashing of the prey, and there was a great commotion of movement. I dreaded what came next.

  A small streak of blue leapt from the hands of the Master of the Foxhounds.

  “It is done,” announced Mab, a grin splitting her face.

  “Who is it that Mab wants dead today?” said Penemue in the manner of a greeting, as he wound his sinuous steed to my side. No longer wearing a skull over his face, the Enochian marks in golden scars upon his skin were all the more pronounced. “Do you know?”

  “Benjamin Goodfellow,” I heard my own voice say.

  “Really?” said Penemue. The gilded scales of his white steed shone in the sunlight.

  I nodded.

  Kasdaye laughed, appearing beside her brother. “That may be, but why would that amuse Mab? It is no show of power to kill a lowly gardener and groundskeep. There is no sin in the slaying of one without a soul.”

  “Oh but what is a soul, dear sister?” There was a warmth to his voice that I envied, that coiled warmth in the depths of me. “Is it a breath that is passed from the lips of the Creator to his children? Or is it something uniquely belonging to mankind, he who is similar to the divine?”

  “I should never have indulged your penchant for pedantry.”

  He threw his head back in a roaring sound I assumed to be laughter. “Perhaps I have been talking too much with mortal theologians.”

  “They so rarely ask the right questions,” she said, reining in her impatient steed. “So distracted are they by the details. But that doesn’t answer my own question of why a gnome. Where is the joke in that?”

  “Perhaps that itself is the joke,” he said. “It’s murder, not a meditation on the nature of sin.”

  The hunting horns sounded again, and we rode out.

  The air had that crispness of winter, and the pendulum sun shone down bright and clear, lancing through the grey leaves of the forest. The canopy created by the impossibly tangled branches was almost translucent, like old, frosted glass.

  The forest was new.

  Where once had stretched the endless grey mists there was a verdant woodland, thick with trees and undergrowth. Mab had summoned a forest into existence around Gethsemane and she had built it from the mists that surrounded us.

  The undergrowth melted back into mist as our beasts trampled it, with the vague, bleak scent of smoke lingering in the air. Penemue and Kasdaye chattered merrily.

  The hunting party scattered in search of the small blue creature. Some of the packs of dogs pulled back and others disappeared into the grey forest. One of the scenthounds seemed to have found a trail, and we followed.

  I could barely make out what we were looking for. I watched it all unfold around myself as though in a dream. My horse surged under me, paying little attention to the prompts of my hands and knees. It followed the other steeds, flicking its ears at the baying of the hounds. It was its own master.

  Was this how His apostles felt at the eve of Christ’s execution? Am I Peter, fated to thrice deny Jesus before the crowing of the cockerel?

  The baying rippled through the great, unruly mass of the dogs.

  I yanked at the reins, but my steed ignored me, following. I did not want to witness this. I remembered Mr Benjamin’s trusting eyes and his myriad questions, and for all his sudden certainty in the face of martyrdom, I was still clouded over with them.

  I imagined how bare words would one day try to recreate this moment and I could not. The first fae martyr. If nothing else, I should witness this.

  The hyenas chattered amongst themselves before howling loud and long, a painful sound more akin to the scream of a child than the howl of a beast.

  Would Mr Benjamin scream?

  A pack of terriers growled and barked up one of the trees in great excitement, circling and leaping. A blue squirrel was just about visible between the misty leaves.

  “I knew we should have brought the ferrets,” drawled Mab, though she did not sound annoyed. She held out an expectant hand in which was promptly placed a sling and pebble by one of the huntsmen.

  With bare-faced glee she hurled a pebble at the bright blue squirrel. She missed, but it thudded against the tree with considerable force, shuddering from the branches a fall of leaves. Another of the fae loosed s
tones at the darting creature.

  A dozen pebbles later, the blue squirrel fell from the tree.

  The terriers closed in, and I felt my heart leap into my throat. I was holding my breath. I was clutching at the reins, fingernails digging into my flesh.

  I wanted it to be over quickly.

  A huge, blue boar burst from the undergrowth and charged blindly into the woods. A handful of the fae gave chase immediately. A cheer rippled through the remaining hunters, and Mab grinned all the more. The huntsmen rearranged themselves, shouting wordlessly at one another in raspy voices.

  It was obvious to me now that Mr Benjamin was going to cycle through the various prey animals for the entertainment of the party.

  The hunt wore on.

  We rode for hours, and the trail grew hot and cold. Mr Benjamin went from boar to deer to fox. I kindled the hope within myself that Mab would grow bored and call off the cruel chase.

  “Would you like to know a secret?” came the voice of the Pale Queen.

  I turned to see Mab, bringing her steed close to mine.

  Hesitantly, I nodded.

  “I do like the curious ones. You are one, aren’t you?” She was just behind me, speaking her words right into my ear. There was no warmth, no breath to her speech.

  Her enormous, yellow eyes seemed to just swallow me up, and my throat clenched in fear. All warmth drained from me, and I could not breathe. Perhaps this was how a mouse would feel before its demise in the beak of an owl.

  She did not wait for me to answer before saying, “I didn’t break the glamour. You could not possibly think the truth so easy to win. There was no truth. I simply gave you all another lie.”

  “Wait, you mean–” My brow furrowed as the implications of her words unfurled.

  “I wasn’t so bored of illusion after all,” she said, laughing. She sounded like silver bells.

  “And that all was…”

  “An excellent trick, was it not?” She clapped her hands together in unbridled delight. “Not the best trick, of course. The best involve the true truths, but this is almost as good.”

  I nodded slowly, unable to do anything but agree.

  The horns sounded, and Mab laughed. The dogs barked and the hyenas laughed. The beaters had found something.

  My heart gave a dull lurch and I could barely bring myself to look. The hunt was wearing me down. My pulse no longer beat with the frenzied hooves of the chase. I knew only a cold, glacial fear.

  I glanced over at my brother. His face was a beautiful mask. Twilight caressed his features with a gentle glow. I could glean no understanding from his set jaw and proud eyes.

  I wanted him to look at me.

  The dog chased from the burrow a blue fox.

  As the dog’s jaws closed on the fox again, it shook itself. Every hair on its pelt stood on end and, at another tremble, it seemed to grow, its shape shifting into that of a much larger creature. The dogs backed away, barking loudly.

  The blue bundle stirred, its clothes in tatters. It staggered to its feet and without a further glance at us, it bolted. Its brown hair and torn clothes streamed as it dove into the undergrowth.

  It ran on two legs, not four.

  It was Miss Davenport.

  The men of sand marched ever forwards, sticks in hand, beating at the bushes to rouse their prey from hiding.

  There was a distant chattering laugh from the hyenas. The steeds pricked up their red-tipped ears and surged forwards; I felt the tight cords of muscles under me ripple.

  I thought at first that it must be a trick of the light, but as my shadowy horse galloped forwards and I glimpsed again the running form of Miss Davenport, I knew it was her: the turn of her chin, the arc of her shoulders, the splay of her fingers.

  The thickening trees slowed the horses as Miss Davenport headed deeper into the forest. Treacherous roots jutted from uneven soil. A low mist seeped from the trees, forming a second canopy that further fragmented the sunlight.

  “It is rather like cheating to let her run to the edges of the forest,” drawled Penemue. “And this is rather a waste of magic.”

  “Hush, brother,” said Kasdaye, bringing her horse to circle his. She placed an affectionate hand on her brother’s shoulder and, for all their strangeness and their sins, I craved that closeness. “You never like it when things end too soon.”

  “Not all things are meant to take all night.”

  My horse stumbled. My knees gripped hard at the saddle as it danced on its hooves, pawing at the ground. It seemed discontented with its own pace as it turned a brisk circle, seemingly chasing its own tail for a moment.

  It did not matter how I held my reins; the beast had a will of its own.

  I was falling behind.

  Another mocking laugh from the hyenas, this one quieter and further away. I could no longer see the others. My horse remained intractable, flicking its tail in defiance of my instructions.

  Perhaps this was itself a mercy.

  Though I could hear the sound and fury of the hunt in the distance, around me was an unearthly stillness. The grey forest as created by Mab was empty of creatures. No insects crawled upon the bark nor flitted over the decay. No birds lurked upon the branches and nothing scurried underfoot. Like all of fae creations, the illusion was imperfect.

  Another bark, but this one in a different direction, further into the mists. My horse’s ears pricked up at the sound and, despite my urging, it followed.

  Not for the first time, the mists swallowed me.

  I was cut off from the rest. The curling grey smoke around me no longer formed tangible trees, but rather coiled around itself in sinuous tangles. Tangles that briefly formed hands, fingers, lips, before melting again into the mist. It flowed like water, like waves that crested into caressing, clasping, dancing.

  The mist had a way of muffling sound; it blanketed me until I could barely hear my own breathing, my own heartbeat. It engulfed me with a deathly silence.

  That silence was what made me notice that slightest of sounds, the hissing exhale of breath.

  My eyes sought the source even before I thought of the consequences.

  Miss Davenport was huddled quite small in the hollow of a half-created tree, enveloped in mist. She looked up at me through her blood-matted hair and smiled weakly. Thin cuts lined her face and a trickle of blood streaked from her temples. As always, her smile held too many teeth.

  I dismounted and rushed to her. My steed protested, dancing its hooves impatiently as it huffed its scalding breath onto me.

  “Good, Cathy,” she whispered, voice tremulous.

  “Take my horse,” I said. “You should be able to get away. They won’t be expecting you to be mounted and–”

  “No, listen to me: You need to kill me.” Miss Davenport unfolded from the hollow of the tree, shaking. Her dress was torn and her muddy, tattered petticoat clung to her legs.

  “No, what?”

  “The Pale Queen wants me dead. This isn’t a whim. It’s an execution. But don’t worry,” said Miss Davenport. She glanced behind her, fearful. “You don’t have a soul either. So it won’t matter.”

  “Why would you say–”

  “Cathy, forgive me. I’m sorry I have to tell you now, like this. I never told you this before because I did not want you to know the pain that I know. You are not human.”

  “What?” I choked out.

  “You are a changeling, like me.” She gave a shrug, but winced in pain. The cut over her lip split open and seeped red blood into her smile. She licked her lips, colouring them red.

  “You… you lie.” I swallowed. She was voicing a fear that had been lurking in the depths of my mind, but I did not want to believe her. “How could you possibly know?”

  “I had suspicions. And the Pale Queen knows. I’ve seen your human, the real Catherine Helstone.”

  “No, please–” I shook my head.

  “I have that proof. I have seen her. And the Pale Queen is toying with you. She will spring i
t on you when you least expect it, but I have understood her taunting….”

  “No, it’s not true.”

  “I have done all I can to protect you from this knowledge. The Pale Queen was baiting you with this, hinting. She wanted you to meet your original. But I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want you to suffer like I did. When they laid their claim on me.”

  “But–” I was reeling. Her words were rewriting my past, even as I wanted to deny it the urgency of the hunt was overwhelming. It was as though a part of me always knew the truth. It suddenly made sense: my discontentment, my ambitions, my feelings for Laon.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I couldn’t.” She hung her head for a moment, shoulders shaking in silent laughter. “It’s all a cruel joke to them. And now I’m sorry, profoundly so.”

  The reins were still in my hands. I knew what I wanted to say and what I wanted to do. I pressed them into her fragile, shaking fingers, all bruised nails and torn skin. “They’ll catch up. You should run. You could still take my horse.”

  She refused the reins, pushing them back into my hands as she shook her head. “You have to kill me.”

  “I won’t. Please, Ariel.”

  She smiled. There was a softness to her smile that I had never noticed before. “Cathy, please. I can’t allow my blood to stain your brother’s hands. I just won’t.”

  “Ariel…” I said her name again, that familiarity I had of her turning into affection. I had convinced myself that Mr Benjamin could die, that he had prepared himself for martyrdom, that he knew what his life was worth and that he was willing to pay that for the possibility of salvation.

  But this.

  I could not bear this.

  “There aren’t many who have shown me kindness and I want to…” she was speaking to herself now, her half-closed eyes reliving the memory. I could see it shadowed upon her face, a fleeting glimpse of rapture. “I told him I was neither fae nor human but he didn’t care. He worried about my soul when I had none.”