The Faery Keepers

by Melinda Hellert

  I have no clue where Maggie is. This worries me more than anything at the moment. Why would they separate us? Were we really that dangerous to them? I hope that she’s in the cell next to mine. I knew that it’s what this is. A cell. A jail cell. I try calling out to her. Maybe she can hear me. But all it does is echo around the room and apparently there’s a guard outside my door because they pound on it and tell me to shut it.

  I realize then that I’m crying. More for the fact I’m frustrated because the situation is hopeless than anything. What were we supposed to do? Crawl out of a hole we carve in the wall? Even then we’d have more of a chance of getting caught in the maze of the tree than escaping with our lives. Besides, who knew how thick it was. I am not about to find out, either.

  Since apparently I will get yelled at every time I call out, I sit back down on my mattress. All there is to do is wait, or at least that's all my mind can come up with to do. Maybe I will get lucky and Derek will come to his senses and join our side. I snort at my own sarcasm. Like that was ever going to happen. So I might as well forget about it. Move on to the next problem.

  My mom.

  Isn’t she going to notice that I’m missing? She is, in fact, at work right now but what about when she comes home tonight? She’ll freak out. She’ll call the police or even something worse.

  I can guarantee that the police won’t know to look inside an apple tree. Maybe the apple orchard, but not the apple tree. Do you know how crazy that sounds?

  I am too worked up too sleep, or else I probably would have. Not that this mattress is particularly comfortable or that I am particularly tired, just for something to do. Crying doesn’t count either. I have probably cried enough to fill up a small lake by now.

  I hear footsteps coming from the hall in the next minute. Maggie? I think as

  I start to get up. Derek? I then think, starting to shrink back. Maybe if I pretend to be asleep he’ll leave me alone.

  I do exactly that, lay down and close my eyes. I wish for the best as I listen to whoever it is advance. I hear sobbing, loud and heart wrenching. Anguished wails join in and I know I don’t know how I just do, that it’s Maggie

  My heart races in my chest, blood pounding frantically in my ears. What did they do to her?

  A door close to mine slams shut but I can still hear muffled cries. Maggie never cries.

  I want to scream until I have no voice left. I want to break down the stupid wall and go to her, comfort her, tell her every things going to be okay even though I know it probably won’t be. Can’t be ever again. I want out. I don’t care how many stupid Faery lives I take with me. They can burn in hell for all I care.

  I pace around my allotted space, fuming, for about five seconds before my door swings open. In walks in two guards, one with silver hair braided down his back, a very angular set face, and a limp in his pace. The other has a sable brown mane to his shoulders, is slightly shorter and bulkier then the first, his face pinched in disgust. Their beady eyes dart around to find me flattened to the wall that holds the only light source in the room. I make a split second decision.

  I knock the candles off their holder. They clatter to the floor with some difficulty, after the wax that cements them down cracks loose. The flames gutter out and we’re cast into pitch black darkness.

  “Nice try, child.” One of them grumbles. “You have only hindered yourself.”

  Two pairs of hands grip my arms painfully. I gave a yelp of surprise and flinch back from them. It’s useless though. How far can one possibly get when backed up against the wall while trapped inside a cell inside a ginormous tree? Escape was improbable, and having them there just made the though a reality. My spirits plummet and the fight drains out of me.

  I must have slumped in their grasp because their hands loosened some and they marched me out of the room. I refuse to think of it as mine.

  If you think they are going to walk me along without hiding where I’m at or where I’m going, you clearly haven’t been paying attention. Or you haven’t been in any hostage situations. You’re lucky.

  I hear the door slam shut behind us, can feel my legs walking as I’m being towed along, I can even feel the warmth that has to be more candles as we pass. But can I see? Of course not, it’s like I haven’t even left the room.

  

  When my sight is given back to me what I see isn’t all that beneficial to my plans of escape.

  I’m in a large room. Restraints have been fastened on my wrists, tying them securely together. Judging by the elaborate crown upon her brow, the Queen sits at a long wooden table at the head of the room. She has red hair, braided through with bluish vines. She looks to be about twenty in human years, undoubtedly beautiful if you like the exotic type I suppose. She wears a long floor length gown that’s a purple wine-like color, the bodice of which is made entirely of white chrysanthemums. Its skirt shimmers in the firelight of at least a dozen candelabras mounted at intervals around the walls. Her wings are fanned out behind her, bigger than any other Faeries I’ve seen so far. They don’t look like the other Faeries either, rainbow colors glistening in the light like an oil slick. They are completely clear veined through with shining gold swirls and spirals that look exactly like metal but far more delicate.

  “Bow before Queen Chrysantha,” the guards hiss. Before I can make a voluntary movement I feel my spine bend in an unruly bow that has me bent double. I give a gasp of pain as my face nearly cracks on the floor.

  They snicker beside me, clearly enjoying this.

  I straighten.

  The Queen scrutinizes me with her extremely light green eyes. So light they’re barely distinguishable in her pale face. Her crimson lips quirk in a leer.

  “Tell me child, what did you do to Miruna.”

  “I—What?” I stutter, caught off guard.

  “Miruna. You attempted to murder her then brought her here in hope you could get to me, did you not?”

  “NO!” I exclaim. “I would never kill her.”

  “Perhaps. But you do not deny that you do not want to kill me. Did Miruna persuade you to kill me, child? Did she promise you that you would have extraordinary abilities once you dethroned me? Speak, child.”

  “I honestly have no idea what you are going on about.”

  “Of course. I am sorry, but I do not believe you. Humans have the luxury of lying. We do not.”

  “Then how can you accuse me of killing Miruna and taking your crown when it’s not true, you lying old bat,” I hiss.

  Her eyes become cold. “I am not lying you ignorant little snit. Leave us,” she commands the two guards. They back out of the room bent in respectful bows, their wings flutter upon their backs. I swear they’re smirking.

  “Now, you are going to tell me what you have done. If Miruna spelled you into doing this she will be dealt with accordingly. If you act on your own volition . . . well I am afraid the consequences are dire.”

  “I didn’t do anything!” I scream. “Can’t you see that? We were helping her! Caesleanyx found us and knew we could see you. She was dying when we got there! If we hadn’t helped she would have died!”

  “How dare you! Caesleanyx is a traitor, a fiend. How dare you raise your voice at me! I am the Queen.” Her already high pitch voice shoots up a few octaves on the word queen. “Tell the truth! How can you see us?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. Frustrated tears roll down my cheeks.

  “You lie!” she trills.

  I see a scene unfold before my eyes that is definitely not the brightly lit room before me.

  I see a dark street with a man walking down the sidewalk. Street lights cast pools of orange-yellow light every so often. When he steps under one I recognize him immediately from a picture my mother used to keep on her dresser.

  My father.

  How is this possible? He died before I was born.

  The surroundings aren’t familiar to me but I see storage buildings and abandoned looking warehouses with plywood covering
most of their windows. There’s scarcely a car on the street.

  I see it as if I’m there, walking on the far side of the street from my father but still keeping pace with him.

  I have no clue where he was going or why he was in a shady neighborhood like this. All I know is that it’s definitely him. His hair is the exact same shade as mine. Until I’d seen the photograph I’d always wondered where I got my flaming red locks from. My mother’s hair is a light brown. I used to joke that maybe I was mixed up in the hospital. My mother didn’t like that all too much. She insisted I look just like my daddy. Now I realize how true that is.

  A gut wrenching feeling overtakes me and I know what’s about to happen before it does. A figure steps from the shadows at the mouth of an alley between two buildings. Their face is in the dark but it’s a man. The irony of that fact doesn’t escape me. My father doesn’t notice the man and keeps walking.

  He doesn’t know that the other man is catching up to him.

  He doesn’t see the stranger pull a glinting switchblade from his pocket.

  He doesn’t hear him gaining on him, brandishing the blade.

  He does feel the blade as it’s plunged into his back, piercing straight through his heart.

  My father gives a garbled cry of pain and surprise, his mouth gaping open in an o.

  Blood stains the back of his jacket, growing larger by the second.

  I give a bloodcurdling scream. I yell out, “NO!” even though I know he can’t hear me. Liquid hot tears pour down my face. Even though I know it’s the past. It can’t change.

  He falls to his knees, red running down his chin in a thin line from his parted lips.

  The murderer takes the switchblade from my father’s back and wipes it on some cloth.

  As he leaves, I see that Z shape on his cheek. Eardrum piercing screams escape my lips as the vision begins to fade. The image of his dead body, his glassy eyes staring unseeingly skyward is imprinted on my brain as the Faery Queen comes into focus.

  Sharp pain shoots through my kneecaps and I find that I’m kneeling on the wooden floor. My lip tastes like iron and salt, blood, so I guess I’ve been biting it. I’m sobbing uncontrollably.

  The Queen on the other hand is smiling, a cruel curl of her blood colored lips.

  “You vile, malicious old toad!” I cry. “You’re actually enjoying this!? Does torturing mortals please you?”

  “Now, now my dear. You forced my hand when you did not concede to me. Will you cooperate now?”

  “Don’t you my dear me,” I hiss, standing up. Which is easier said than done when my hands are bound. I back away from her and her table several paces. “How do you know how my father died?” I demand, my voice still trembling from tears. Most of me is trembling, actually.

  “Answer my questions and I will tell you.”

  “I’ve told you already. I don’t know.”

  “I am afraid I do not believe you.”

  “Whatever.”

  I make a break for the door.

  6. Hallucinations “SIEZE HER!!” Queen Chrysantha bellows.

  I’m wrenching the door open when it explodes inwards in my grasp.

  The one person I don’t want to see in the whole world is on the other side. Derek.

  “Take her to her quarters.”

  “Yes, your majesty,” he says, catching me in his iron grip and scooping me easily into his arms. I kick at him to no avail. More frustrated tears stream down my face, strangled sobs heave at my chest. How could I let this happen?

  “AAHHHHGG!” I scream.

  Derek winces, his eyes meeting mine as he carries me down the corridor. I try to pry mine away but the fight has been sucked out of me. He’s mouthing something that I don’t hear until we’re back at my “quarters.”

  “Shh, Katie, shh,” over and over again.

  He says something to the guard outside my door and the Faery leaves.

  “Can you walk?” Derek asks.

  I mumble something that vaguely sounds like, “I don’t know.”

  The door opens and he carries me to the bed, deposits me gently on it, then goes to shut the door.

  “Are you OK?” he asks, sitting on the edge of the mattress, like he’s hesitant to come near me.

  Good, I think as I scoot farther away from him. His keen eyes don’t miss it. They don’t miss anything.

  “How can you even ask me that?” I inquire, scrubbing a hand hastily across my eyes to chase away any stray tears. “After all, this is your fault.” Why does he care, anyways? Why is he here?

  “I know,” he mutters lowly. “I can’t explain right now, they’ll hear. But I promise I’ll be back later.”

  He reaches across the gap between us and rubs a thumb under my eye, catching a lingering tear. I flinch back from the touch.

  “Right, right,” he nods, brown eyes distant. “I’ll be back.”

  And he leaves through the door.

  I let out a huff of a sigh, collapsing sideways on the bed. I curl into a tight ball, trying to hold myself together with my arms. The images I’d just witnessed replay across my mind in an endless loop. I squeeze my eyes shut in hopes of eradicating the memory. But no matter how hard I try I can’t chase it away. I keep seeing his face in the last seconds of his brutally shortened life. It feels like my body is being torn to pieces and the only thing that’s keeping me whole is the pressure of my own arms constricting my torso.

  Eventually I fall asleep through silent tears. Don’t ask me how because it seems impossible even to me but I do. I try to wait for Derek to distract myself, but apparently it doesn’t work. Whatever, I am asleep. That is until I wake up to the sound of the door opening quietly. I think I have sensory overload because I never wake up at such a light noise.

  A Faery walks in bearing a tray of strange looking food. It’s a woman this time. She’s pretty, as Faeries go. A plain brown dress goes to her knees and grass green wings jut from her back.

  “Supper,” she says, setting the tray on the bed. Her jade green eyes never quite meet my face; they flit around the room, anywhere but on me. She probably thinks I’m a grade-A criminal.

  “I’m not hungry,” I shove the food away. It’s probably chock-full of poison anyways. The fruit looks unnatural, not like anything I would find in our local grocery store. At first it looks like ordinary grapes by the size and shape. But where grapes are usually red or green these are a candy corn orange. Definitely not normal. It also had a hunk of grainy bread and a cup (that was wood of course) of some sort of liquid. It sloshes over the rim as she sets it down, yellowish fluid puddling on the flat, wooden tray.

  “Starve then.”

  She leaves with an agitated twitch of her wings.

  I scowl after her, propping myself up on an elbow.

  Part of me wants to eat something, the rumbling stomach part. The other, more careful half of me is screaming at me that if I touch the food something incredibly bad will happen.

  How harmful can it really be?

  I pick up the hunk of bread—the least dangerous looking thing on the plate—and take a bite. Its course on my tongue, riddled through with a kind of nut unfamiliar to me. It tastes alright, so I take another bite. Then another.

  Pretty soon it’s gone, sitting happily in my stomach.

  I’m thirsty but don’t trust the cup and its questionable contents, so I deal with it as best as I can.

  I lie back down and stare at the ceiling. They’d re-lit the candles while I was being interrogated but there was a dried puddle of wax where they had fallen before.

  Vertigo overtakes me. I clap a hand over my eyes to stop the room from spinning.

  I knew I shouldn’t have touched that food! I scold myself as my vision is plagued by faces. My father, mother, Maggie, Derek, Parker. . . All of them disembodied, floating, opaque above my head. I turn to face away from their piercing eyes but they follow in my line of vision.

  “They’re not real,” I tell myself, blinking rapidly to get t
hem to go away. “Just my imagination.”

  Their mouths open in a great yawning hole, distending into an impossibly sized gap no real human can accomplish in their wildest dreams. Each one seems like it is going to suck me into its abyss.

  I squeeze my eyes shut but not before flames erupt from their eye sockets, each face becomes corpse-like, more skull bone than warm, live, flesh. If something that’s nearly see through can be warm or alive.

  A whimper escapes my lips.

  I can’t bear it any longer; I cover my head with the scratchy blanket. I take deep, slow breaths, inhaling the wooly scent of the fabric.

  I’m trembling uncontrollably albeit I keep telling myself that the faces aren’t real. Just some grotesque side effect of whatever was in that food. But the knowledge of my father’s death is still too fresh in my head for that particular image to not strike a nerve.

  I kick my leg blindly at the tray and hear it hit something solid that gives a masculine, “Ow.”

  I throw the blanket off of me and look around for the source of the culprit, plaintively ignoring the shapes clouding my vision.

  “Why’d you do that for?” it demands. “Now I’m wet all over.”

  I squint.

  Derek stands by the bed shaking liquid from his hair and eyes.

  “Sorry,” I mumble, swaying unsteadily as the room starts spinning again.