Except the Queen

by Jane Yolen

  Oh, for love that aches, that heals, that makes all things possible.

  And so you have come alone, treading the paths that no longer announce themselves. But you know it is here, in a city of glass and iron and stone that you must seek first. You must find the hound. You must stop him. Leash him. Or take his heart.

  54

  Serana Castigates the Arum, Her Sister, the Boy, the Girl

  Meteora, sister, oh fool, fools both of us. Me to write the word arum in a letter when I already knew that someone—even someones—could read what I wrote. And you for leaving the letter about.

  Why did you not move forward against the arum the moment you saw it? Surely you could have guessed that if there was arum—the Wake Robin—in the garden, that you should root it out, burn it, bury it, cut it into a million pieces and scatter those pieces into dry sea sand. You were bright enough to know what the mandrake root meant, but not this? Sister, I weep. It is not only Robin the plant will awaken. Someone else is waking, too. Not just your Red Cap. He is dangerous, true. But we both know what the true danger is.

  The crows know it. The stars know it.

  The sleeper wakened is someone more twisty, more devious, more cunning than we can guess. And how did I discover this? I read all this in the tea leaves—spearmint for settling my already unsettled stomach—upon receiving your latest letter. The leaves formed a kind of crown, though, when I turned the cup around, I saw that it was not a crown but a fence, a hedge, a knot of vines.

  I am so horribly afraid, sister. We have meddled in something larger than we are prepared for. It is a Matter of Kings, of this I am sure. What are such homey tricksters as ourselves doing in this hedge? Surely we will not come out of it whole.

  And here I was just thinking we knew what we were about. And I playing with falling in love with an old man. I, who am still young in my heart and giddy.

  Fool you, but more fool I not to warn in the letter both top and bottom in code.

  Wait! The above was written but an hour ago. An hour. Sixty small minutes. A tick of the human clock. Outside the wind has ceased its moan. The stars are looking coldly down, except for the Red Star. It alone shines like an ember in a long-banked fire.

  I have been watching out of my window and feel rather than see something below, coming through the spindly trees. Time is stilled, my sister. The clock that came with this place, stands with its hands clasped at midnight and does not move.

  I hear the bells on her horse’s bridle. Just the one horse I think, not the entire Fairie Rade. And what is odder than that—the Queen riding alone along a human street? What is she thinking? Who is she seeking? I am so afraid, I am like a mountain shivering through an avalanche.

  So I do the only thing I can. I am sending this message stuffed into a wooden locket, tied with twine to a pigeon’s neck. The hawk did not stay for an answer. In a moment I shall whisper your name and your city and your street in the bird’s ear.

  If you do not hear from me again, or if I write and do not say the name of your favorites, consider me dead. She comes now through the trees as if down a straight road. She has already crossed the river of blood, and her coming has stopped all the clocks of Christendom. Even the recorded holy man on the mosque down the block no longer calls out.

  It is a moment of reckoning. I shall not give her your name. I will not tell her where you stay. Not even if she plucks out my too human eyes and replaces them with eyes of wood.

  Sister, speak of me with love. It is something the Queen will never do. I send a kiss for eternity. I will not mind the pain as long as you are safe.

  Serana

  55

  Sparrow Longs

  Sparrow plunged her hands into the bathroom sink, the foaming soap clinging to her forearms. She was washing her lingerie—not the cotton panties that were unraveling around the waistband, but the green silk pair, lined with black lace. The bra that matched had a bit of padding to give her too slender body some shape. She almost never wore them, and the few times she had, she’d been too reluctant to go through with any romantic entanglements. Looking up in the steamed mirror, she saw that her normally pale cheeks were pink. The black hair clung to her temples, and her eyes glittered, pale gold grains of pollen still lurking in her eyebrows.

  “What are you doing?” she asked the image, still gently squeezing the underwear in the soapy water. The face smiled back, giddy and ridiculously happy, a new emotion for her.

  Two days ago, when she’d gone to the Market in search of the arum, there were so many different vendors hawking herbs and wild plants that she’d spent the better half of the morning strolling through the individual stands, chatting with organic gardeners, and rolling leaves between her palms to loose the aromatic oils. A farmer’s wife had talked her into buying a bouquet of early fall flowers, yellow black-eyed Susans and purple cone flowers, sprigs of orange bittersweet, and a handful of blue delphiniums. Another had convinced her to purchase a handful of dried lavender. “Sprinkle the buds in your clothes,” she said and winked.

  Finally, in a small stand nestled beneath a huge spreading oak, Sparrow found the arum. She’d gone online at the bookstore to make sure she knew what it looked like, and she could not imagine why Serana had considered it so dangerous. And yet when she saw its single funnel-shaped blossom, green on the outside and burnt red on the inside, sheltering the tall brown stamen, she felt her pulse race. The closer she got to the plant, the harder it was to breathe properly. And yet the feeling was pleasant, even heady. She’d touched the waxy leaves, and leaned down to sniff the blossom, hoping that—like the herbs—it too would have a lovely aroma. A faint perfume, sweet and dusty, emanated from the yellow pollen packed against the base of the upright stamen. Inhaling deeply, she was suddenly warm all over, smiling.

  “Are you interested?” asked the vendor. “Not too many are turned on by this beauty.”

  Sparrow thought him attractive enough: reddish hair that fell in loose curls to the collar of his shirt, a squared jaw, hazel eyes. His teeth were white and much too even to be entirely natural. Not the real deal, she found herself thinking, a suburban boy slumming on the land. In another year he’ll be sick of peddling plants and go back to law school.

  “Yeah. I have a friend who will dig it,” she said.

  She studied him as he bagged the pot in a paper bag. Next to Robin’s angular face, with the narrow gap between his front teeth, and the dark haunted pools of his eyes, this spoon-fed boy in a farmer’s dirt-splatter T-shirt was too perfect and therefore uninteresting. She gave him a full smile, conscious that he was staring at her body. For once, that didn’t frighten her. In fact she let her hips sway as she walked away carrying the plant.

  * * *

  SPARROW HADN’T BEEN SURE TWO days earlier why the arum was dangerous. It simply felt right. Especially when she’d seen Robin sprawled on the porch taking a break from gardening.

  When he saw her, he straightened up. She approached carefully, like a temple acolyte bearing an offering. He’d opened his hands to receive the gift even before he knew it was a gift.

  “For you,” she said in a husky voice. “For the garden.”

  “Thanks.” He opened the bag to glance inside. His head shot up and his eyes gleamed. “Really, thanks.”

  She’d nodded then, afraid to say more and started toward the stairs, feeling the heat from his body on her thighs. At the threshold of the door, even though she tried not to, she’d turned and looked over her shoulder. He’d been staring at her, holding tightly to the bag.

  * * *

  THAT DAY, SPARROW HAD WATCHED Robin from her balcony. Watched him dig in the garden, watched him throw back his head to laugh at something Jack said, watched him tease Sophia. She’d seen Sophia’s eyebrows shoot up to the crown of her russet hair and the alarmed expression on her face when Robin showed her the arum.

  So, Sparrow thought, everybody knows it’s here to start something. Even Jack knew, for he’d pulled Sophia aside to whisper in her
ear and nod at the plant.

  And on the following day, when the afternoon sun had been at its longest point, Robin had looked up and acknowledged her where she stood, leaning into the warm, burnished light. He hadn’t said anything, just stared with a smile that was at once hungry and sorrowful. She knew that feeling and as the heat flared in her chest, a ribbon of gold dust lifted from the red throat of the arum flower, swirled around the turgid stamen, and cast its pollen over the garden. She inhaled and caught the familiar scent of its dusty perfume, tasting its sweetness on her lips.

  * * *

  AT THE BATHROOM SINK, SPARROW squeezed the last of the soap and water out of her lace panties and bra and hung them to dry. Standing back to look at them, she rolled her eyes, abashed at the sight, and yet wanting to somehow be ready. She hoped that for once she might feel beautiful. She hoped that making love might be as lovely as she imagined it could be. That for once the invitation to sex would be about sharing not owning, about tenderness and not violence.

  Turning off the bathroom light, she returned to the bedroom and shimmied into her old cotton nightgown with the border of white embroidery. Although it was falling apart at the hem and neck, the flimsy fabric around her legs made her feel feminine. And desirable.

  As she lay down on the bed, hands resting lightly on her breasts, with Lily dozing the floor, Sparrow waited for Robin’s fiddle to play. The melodies were soft that night, and insinuating. As were her dreams.

  56

  Robin and Sparrow in the Garden

  I was asleep and then suddenly awake, all parts of me. Getting up, I played the fiddle softly for a few minutes, then went downstairs past her door.

  Listening at the keyhole, I could hear the dog’s paws trembling on the floor as she raced through a dream forest chasing a hare. She houghed a little, then settled. I could not hear her mistress, though, and while I longed to tap on the door, to go into the room, which would be hot with Sparrow’s breath, I dared not. She needed the healing sleep.

  So I tiptoed outside, sat for a bit on the front stoop, all a-tremble. Looking up at the moon, the stars, Mars with its bloody halo, I promised myself not to think on my father, lest it call him to me. But I sniffed the air. It was free of everything except the scent of Sparrow—heather and heat.

  I wiped a hand across my brow because I was sweating profusely even though the night air was cool. So I decided to walk swiftly around the garden in the hope that the odors would take me out of my fevered longing.

  The ground was still warm beneath my bare feet, the overturned earth comfortable between my toes. In the small, puzzling breeze, the smells of the newly planted flowers and herbs were almost overwhelming. But then the arum, brought hungrily to life under the moon, forced its violent, acrid smell into my nostrils. I could feel it traveling down into my throat. Dragon Root. Wild Turnip. Cuckoopint. Devil’s Ear. It was all of that and more. For some reason I began to weep, though the way a dog does, without actual tears.

  “Boy, why are you crying?” She whispered it, the sound caressing my ears.

  I spun around. Sparrow was standing there, haloed by moonlight, in a long, white, sleeveless, slightly tattered nightgown, the neck scooped low in front. I could see the mounds of her breasts, and below the shadow of her pubic hair. The faded tattoos on her arms took on an unearthly look, as if the snaky forms were beckoning to me.

  “What makes you think I’m crying?” I asked.

  “Sorry. It’s a line from a book I love.” She smiled. I could not tell if she was mocking me or simply stating a fact.

  “What book?”

  “A book called Peter Pan. I was given it in one of the twenty or so foster homes I was put in. The only halfway decent one, actually. I took the book with me when I ran away.” She smiled. “I always ran away.”

  I stepped a moment closer to her, hoping, praying she would not run away now. “Do you still have the book?”

  She didn’t step back. “Of course not. That was years ago.”

  “I thought you were asleep, that the fiddle might have soothed you enough to . . .”

  “I needed to think. I was sitting on the dark side of the porch when you came out. I watched you walk out into the garden.”

  I hadn’t smelt her. Or rather, I thought I was carrying the smell from upstairs. I hadn’t even heard her. What kind of a tracker . . . ? It was that bloody arum that fuddled me.

  Well, no more, I thought, taking another step toward her. Now I could truly smell her, the heather, the blood under the fragile shield of skin. The sour/sweet smell between her legs, wet, welcoming. I smiled back thinking that the heat was not just coming from me. She was as aroused as I.

  And then she pushed into my opening arms and we kissed, mouths open, tongues thrusting, until we were both so dizzy with the kisses, we sank down into one of the furrows, first she on top of me, then me on top of her.

  I waited till she had opened entirely like a flower, pushed her gown above her knees, so tight and taut from my desire and the arum and the moon and the heather smell, I thought I would burst before entering her.

  “I am a . . .” she whispered, “I never before . . .”

  But I already knew. Virgins simply smell different, new, honest. And then her legs went around my back and we were both ready. I was on my knees and about to . . .

  She screamed.

  Someone tumbled across my shoulders. There was a startled laugh. A shout.

  Sparrow pushed herself away from all of us, her gown once again covering her long, beautiful legs, and she was away, like a deer in the forest pursued by dogs, though none of us—not me or the old lady or the Jack—tried to follow.

  57

  Meteora Regrets

  That damned stalk festered for two nights in the garden. That was all it took for its power to wake the dragons in us all.

  Walking out that second night, Jack and I stumbled over Sparrow and Robin in the gardens, twined as in Serana’s vision. I laughed in delight and embarrassment, trying to extricate myself. But Sparrow rose from the soil, drew her clothes about her in dark shame and fled before I could stop her. Robin lay there erect, miserable and moaning in the moon.

  If only Sparrow could have trusted me. If only she could have believed that such a joyful sight is as old as earth to me. But she did not trust, and ran from us, locking herself away.

  In the morning I stood on the landing before her door trying to find the words that might soften her humiliation. I left without knocking, feeling strongly the bolt and lock that shut all of us out.

  That night I listened for sounds of her in the room below, as I am sure did Robin, but it was quiet. And after, she would walk the dog, go to work, come home, feed the dog, and then leave again. I caught a glimpse of her on the sidewalk one evening and was shocked to see her looking more like a common tart than the young woman I knew.

  I fumed, full of doubt and worry. Was she the one who had read my letter? Did she tear away the lines of warning? Was the arum a gift to Robin from her own hands? Or was she being used by another to sow discord?

  My anxiety grew even more when Serana’s pigeon arrived on my sill bearing the awful news, the missing lines that warned of the arum. As well as telling of the Queen seeking someone in the streets of a mortal city. Like Red Cap, like the glamoured Highborn. Serana’s words of warning deepened my resolve to watch over these two nest-starved birds. It was the least I could do for allowing the arum to root in the garden.

  58

  Sparrow’s Anguish

  Sparrow reached down and plucked up another shot of Jameson’s—one in a long row of them—and tossed it down her throat to the encouraging shouts of the college boys around her. The wire bone of her padded bra dug into her flesh, but she didn’t care. It was doing its job to attract buyers, pushing her small breasts up into twin white mounds over the low edge of her T-shirt. Her tattoos and kohl-smeared eyes just made her seem more exotic to the boys goading her into downing the next shot.

  Sparrow s
norted a laugh and reached for the glass but the bartender leaned over and grabbed her hand.

  “That’s enough.”

  “Fuck that,” she said, squinting up at him. He was cute enough, hell they were all cute enough. She’d take any of them. What did it matter anymore anyway? She should just give it up and be done with it.

  “I’m serious,” the bartender said, leaning in to take the drink from her fingers. “Folks drop dead, pounding shots like that.”

  “I can handle it. Really. I never get too drunk. I mean, I just can’t ’cause I’m . . .”

  “You’re what?” asked a soft voice over her shoulder. “What are you?”

  She lurched around on the stool, and gasped, the alcohol in her veins like frost.

  Hawk smiled at her and inclined his head. His hand began to stroke her neck, the tattooed knot throbbing to life under his fingers. It prickled and then stung like nettles, and she flinched at the pain.

  “Leave me alone,” Sparrow said, sobriety waking her to his danger.

  “Come back with me.”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “Hey, dude, who said you could join the party?” a beefy-faced boy snarled at Hawk. “Why don’t you fuck off and find someone your own age, asshole.” He put a hand on Hawk’s shoulder, trying to spin him around.

  Effortlessly, Hawk snagged the boy’s hand and quickly snapped it back at the wrist. As the boy shrieked in sudden agony, Hawk turned, driving his weight against the wrist bones until the boy stumbled to his knees trying to escape the fierce pain.

  “That’s it,” the bartender shouted. “Get out, you and the girl. You’re done here.”