“I cannot do that.”
“How about you, Penn?” Derek appeals to the younger. “Five minutes, that’s all.”
Penn’s eyes narrow at him. “Merely five minutes, and that is it?” the door/man/face asks.
“Yes.”
“All right. But you tortured it out of me,” a wry smile spreads across Penn’s face
“Penn!” Rowan roared indignantly. “She will have your head.”
“Well then she will not have a door to guard her room, now will she?” Penn chortled. “Make haste!” he urges and swings forward to admit us. We step through quickly. I can still hear Rowan’s protests through the thick wood as it closes behind us.
The throne room is huge. It must take up the whole underneath of the castle. Dozens upon dozens of tables are gathered in rows on either side. A long narrow strip of floor leads from the door up to a couple of steps where atop the rise sits a grand chair. It’s wing backed and glistens in the soft yellow light filling the room like some sort of precious metal, two brightly colored canaries sit perched on the back and in it sits Ceara.
But she isn’t alone.
My heart stops in my chest.
Pacing the floor below her is the unmistakable figure of Queen Chrysantha. Her silver hair is pinned up in an intricate braid atop her head, her crown entwined with great care into it. She wears a black traveling cloak atop a midnight blue gown that billows out behind her as she walks.
Derek drags us back towards the doors, behind one of many pillars that dot the room, swearing an oath beneath his breath. So far they hadn’t noticed our entrance and I’m going to keep it that way.
“Am I to believe that you had nothing to do with the disappearance of two of my prisoners last night?” Chrysantha’s voice echoes through the room. “Forgive me for I do not think you had no part in it, sister. I’ve allowed you to live out of my rule for this long. Do not make me re-think my decision.”
“Well you must believe my innocence, dear mother. For I am. Take your leave now. This is my domain and you will treat it as such.”
“Do not disappoint me, Ceara. Or will you have to learn your sister’s lesson as well?”
“Leave. Now.” There’s a tremor to Ceara’s always calm voice. Something about it sends shivers down my spine.
Footsteps click-clack across the floor and we move around the pillar so that Chrysantha doesn’t see us. But not before I get one last glance at her. Fury paints her face and I cringe back. The sound of the door being slammed reverberates through my skull long after she’s gone. I feel sorry for Penn and Rowan.
“You three may as well come out now,” Ceara calls to us.
Derek has the decency to look sheepish as we clamber up to the front of the room.
“How’d you know we were here?” I ask.
“Darling, there is not a thing that happens in my house that I do not know about. What brings you here?”
Summoning all my courage before Derek can open his mouth I blurt, “there are Faeries tormenting a boy in your lands. A teenager. Can’t we stop them?”
“Alas, we cannot. They are free folk. They do what they please. But I will see what I can do. I see you two are safe and out of my mother’s clutches. This pleases me. Well done, Master Carson.”
“It wasn’t without difficulty,” Derek mutters with a glance at me.
“Tut, tut. What is life without a few trials?” she says with a small smile.
“There’s truth to that.”
“Now,” she stands up and floats over to us, “what do we do with you two charming girls now? You will need training, this is evident. Carson, would you mind teaching them?”
“He already is, your Majesty,” I interject. “Sorry,” I mumble. “It’s just, isn’t there anyone else who can teach us?”
Derek’s mouth drops open.
“Why do you not want Carson to teach you, mistress Katelyn?” she asks, genuinely surprised.
“It’s just . . . I . . .” I couldn’t word why I didn’t want Derek teaching us. It’s just when you think of a teacher you think of someone much older and wiser than you. Not someone who is your age and learning just as much as you are. Like earlier when I’d nearly lost my unborn child because he hadn’t prepared me for it. What kind of teacher does that?
“No matter,” Ceara shakes her head. “He is the only one available. So I am afraid you will have to be taught by Master Carson.”
“Okay,” I agree timidly.
“Now, what are your thoughts on the matter?” she turns to Maggie who has been unusually silent since the forest. That’s been happening a lot lately.
“I guess I’m stuck,” she says. I get what she means completely. It’s not like we can back out of this. We gave this woman our blood. I’m pretty sure there’s something wrong with that that Derek hasn’t warned us against yet. First born child. . . Eternal servitude. . . Where does blood fit into that? I’m sure it isn’t good.
Ceara shakes her head. “Very well. Mr. Carson, take these two home. They look as if they could use a good rest. Good day, ladies, Mr. Carson.”
She sits back down on her throne and I take that as all the dismissal we will get.
We depart.
“I presume neither of us will lose our heads, Master Carson?” Penn asks as he shuts behind us. Rowan is deathly silent, his eyes closed impassive slits. Probably moping about before. Well let him I think.
“Her majesty is in a tolerant mood today, I believe you’ll be pardoned,” Derek smiles at him.
Penn chuckles. “Run along now, mortals, before she changes her mind.”
“Bye Penn,” I smile back at him as we walk away even though my feelings are anything but cheerful.
Chrysantha knew we were missing. Of Course she knew we were gone. How couldn’t she? It’s her Court. Ceara even said there isn’t much that goes on in her own that she doesn’t know about. Does that make Chrysantha any different? No. It doesn’t. But . . .
Derek.
If she knows that we are gone then she has to know that he was behind it. She has to know that he helped us escape, that he never intended for her to keep us in the first place.
Doesn’t she? And where does that leave him? He says that he’s a double agent, so to speak. If she found him out he’d be dead. Or worse . . . But then why isn’t he worried? Why didn’t Ceara tell him to go hide and lay low for a while? Why is he calmly walking with us out of the mansion/castle and back through the woods as if he hasn’t a care in the world?
“Say something!” I shout when we get back in the Jeep, it rings loudly in my ears in the enclosed space. “I know that you can’t be taking this that well! Chrysantha knows! She has to know you did it! Why aren’t you upset? Why aren’t you worried?!”
Derek turns off his radio, cutting some metal song off, shuts the car back off and sits back against his seat and looks at me coolly. “I’m good at what I do. She doesn’t know that it was me. If she thought it was then I would be hauled to her house faster than you can say her name. Do you think that I don’t know what I’m doing, what I’ve gotten us into? News flash; I do. And it would be a lot easier if you would trust me already.”
“Well that’s a little hard to do!” I retort.
“He’s right,” Maggie says softly, so low I’m not sure if it’s what she said at all.
“What?”
“We do need to start trusting him. He’s our mentor now. We have to. Like I said before, we’re stuck. There’s not much else for us to do right now except let things play out for a while. Whether or not Chrysantha figures it out . . . we’ll just have to see. I’m not saying we sit by and do nothing in the meantime. I want to learn. If this is what we were meant to do, I want to know how to control it. I want to know what I’m capable of. Don’t you?”
“Yes,” I say slowly. I consider her words and realize that I was just freaking out. Why am I the only one freaking out about this? I know the answer to that. Chrysantha’s appearance in Ceara’s thrown room ra
ttled me. Hard. It made everything that happened in her tree all the more real. I close my eyes, pressing the palms of my hands over them as visions of my dad flit across the insides of my eyelids. I want to know who killed him and why. I want to know this more than anything right now. But I know that if I’m going to receive any help on the matter I have to go along with what Maggie and Derek are saying. I can’t face my father’s killer alone.
I take a breath. “Okay. I’m sorry I jumped down your throat about it. I’ll try and be more reasonable from now on, I promise. But you can’t expect me to be ambushed by Chrysantha and not flip out even just a tiny bit.”
“That was a tiny bit?” Derek snorts. “I’d hate to see your definition of being really distressed.”
“Shut. Up.” I snarl.
“Don’t bite my head off, I’m only joking. Partly. How about I take you two home and you get some sleep? Ceara’s right, you’ll need your strength.”
I drop my keys in the dish on the table by my front door and step lightly through my house towards my bedroom hoping to make it without my mother noticing I’m home.
Lucky I am not.
“Where have you been? I came in this morning and you weren’t in your room.” Mom gets up from the couch, muting some soap opera she was previously engrossed in. She’s still in her mint green nurse’s scrubs and her sand colored hair wisps out in a halo around her face from her ponytail.
“Maggie and some friends and I went out for an early breakfast.” It isn’t the entire truth, but it’s enough to keep the red creeping blush from my cheeks that normally happens when I’m lying.
“‘Some friends’? What friends were they? Have I met them?”
Harsh. Talk about the third degree. Since when has she started caring who I see and when? “Just a boy,” I allow as annoyance coils at the pit of my stomach. Who is this woman and what has she done with my real mom?
“I want names, Katelyn Alexandra.”
The middle name card. Very inventive, mom.
“What does it matter?! He’s a friend from school. It’s not like I was sneaking out to drink beer and go to some wild party. It was breakfast. That was all.” I shouldn’t be too mad at her after Faeries have probably meddled with her brain. She’s probably taking out my disappearance from yesterday on me and not even realizing it. But still. Now I know what Maggie meant about teenage brattiness erupting when parental units talk like this. It’s so degrading.
“Did you ride in this boy’s car? Were his parents there? I want to meet him if he’s important enough to go out to breakfast with you two. I’m sure Parker will too.”
“Parker has already met him,” I say, sidestepping the other more dangerous questions.
This gives her pause. “Really?”
“Yes.” I don’t mention that he practically hates Derek.
She deflates. “Okay. But I still want to meet him and his parents. And I’ll be talking to Parker later, too.”
I’m afraid of that, but I’m too tired to really fret about it right now. “Sure. Can I go now?”
She un-mutes the TV and I take that as the only dismissal I’ll get.
I shuffle down the hall to my bedroom. Practically every available surface is some shade of bright green. My bedclothes and walls are the exact same shade of lime green. The outlines of white butterflies flurry about the wall opposite my bed, varying from about the size of a fifty cent piece to the size of a dinner plate. What can I say? I like green and butterflies. My furniture is all white. From my four-poster bed to my Armoire sitting in the corner next to the window, and my tall dresser with the big knobby drawers. No closet, sadly. I have limited clothes space. Not that I really need it. I could probably fit all of my articles of clothing in one large suitcase.
I climb into my bed after turning on my ceiling fan and replay everything that happened today in my mind’s eye. Shockingly it helps me fall asleep despite the menacing presence of Chrysantha.
Screaming. Someone’s screaming a horrible high pitched keening noise that grates on my eardrums.
I start awake.
The screaming stops.
Oh. It’s me.
My throat is raw and my tongue is dry as parchment. I sit up groggily just as my bedroom door opens. “Baby, are you OK?” Mom demands as she bursts into the room. It’s dimly lit with the soft blue glow of predawn light. I glance at my clock. Just after six.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “Bad dream.”
“You wanna talk about it?”
“I don’t really remember it, Mom. You can go to sleep.” It’s not a total lie. I don’t remember most of it. But I do know the more gory details. I hold back a shudder, covering the slight tremor with a yawn.
She doesn’t move.
“Really, I’m fine. Go. Get your rest.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, Mom.”
She leaves and I hear her bedroom door close a few seconds later.
I take a deep breath and allow the images to flood back to me, trying to decipher what they could mean. The man, the one who killed my father and the same one who was chasing Maggie and I the day we ran into Derek, was in some sort of room that had benches everywhere, raising from the floor to the wall so that there was a circle of space in the center. It kind of reminded me of a courtroom. But why would he be in a courthouse? We were there. Maggie, Derek and I. It was obviously some sort of face off. Derek and the guy circled each other like lions in an arena. I could only see it as if through a window cut into the wall and watched in horrified fascination as they fought. Derek’s moves were blindingly quick, reducing him to a blur for a millisecond so that when you blinked he wasn’t where he was before. That all ended when the man pulled out a long curved blade that was black as night and had no shine and plunged it into Derek’s chest. He fell to the floor, his body drained of blood, his skin ghostly white. The look of pain and surprise still painted upon his face even in death haunts me even though I’m wide awake now.
I shuffle to the kitchen and gulp down a glass of water, wondering what the day will bring. I’m too wired to go back to sleep now.
I decide to call Maggie.
“Hey Mags, sorry it’s so early.” I apologize when she picks up.
“It’s cool, I couldn’t really sleep anyways.”
“I know what you mean,” I confess.
“You too, huh?” She pauses. “You wanna go out? I could use some air.”
Code for I’m overwhelmed and could use some major space in Maggie speak.
“Sure,” I say, wanting out myself. “What do you have in mind?”
“How about the lighthouse? Meet me there in an hour?”
“Sounds good. Bye.”
“Love you, babe.”
“Love you, too.”
We hang up.
The Hawthorne Hollow lighthouse is one of our old haunts. We used to sit on the pier and dangle our bare feet into the water on less choppy days, avoiding all of the annoying tourists by going early in the day. The original red cylinder was destroyed in a storm 1852 but it was rebuilt three years later. It still stands tall today but no one’s allowed inside it which is a bummer to Maggie. Terror of heights and all. There’s a small house at the end of the pier, the front of which was remodeled to look like the prow of a boat to protect it from the stronger waves of the lake. The whole thing freezes over in the winter creating a thick shell of ice. It’s really eerie.
When I arrive I find Maggie already sitting on the wooden planks of the pier not too far off shore. Not many people are here yet because it’s only a few minutes after seven o’ clock and the grounds open at seven. Guess it’s good neither of us can sleep.
I sit down next to her.
“Hey, babe,” she greets. “Uh-oh, what’s wrong?” she asks, peering at my forlorn face.
“Do you want the bad or worst first?”
She ponders for a moment. “The worst. At least then nothing can get anymore aw
ful.”
“Mom wants to meet Derek. She’s going to call Parker about him.”
She sucks in a whistling breath. Nods. “Next.”
I fiddle with a stray strand of string on my cutoff jean shorts. “I had a nightmare earlier,” I confess, my face flaming like a tomato.
Her eyebrows quirk. “Want to tell me?”
I recount everything I’ve been replaying over and over so that I didn’t forget anything.
“Man . . . Are you OK? I mean obviously you aren’t but . . .” she grows silent. I know what she’s thinking. How can I ever be OK again? I know who killed my dad. I was poisoned. I nearly died myself. I mean sure, I’ll get over it. But after this, my take on life will be different.
I’ve grown in the last few days. I’ve went from a semi-carefree teenager to someone burdened with watching over Faeries who also knows who her dad’s murderer is. And also the fact that he’d been murdered not just some random person who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was a rhyme and reason to why he died. And I will have to live with that for the rest of my existence. I want revenge. Something I’d never felt before boiled through my veins. I’d never hated anyone. Not really. I dislike people, I don’t hate them. I don’t like people who think killing an animal for consumption is justified. I don’t like when people cheat or line jump or unfairly judge others. But I’ve never hated anyone. Ever.
“What are we going to do about it?” She looks at me with her sapphire eyes.
“What do you think?” I ask, grabbing a stone near me and tossing it angrily into the sparkling water beneath us.
“I know, but do you really think that it’s wise? This vendetta? Don’t you think your dad would want you to stay safe? Keep away from all of this?”
“That’s just it, I don’t know. He’s dead. He was dead before I was born because of this man. You can’t expect me to sit around and do nothing. I can’t sit around and do nothing. Wouldn’t you want to bring justice to the driver responsible for your mom and dad’s accident?”
“That’s different. But would your dad want you to bare your neck for this guy like a deer to a mountain lion? It’d be easy for him to kill you, Katie.”
The Faery Keepers Page 9