To Catch a Queen

by Shanna Swendson

  If he were totally honest with himself, he’d have to admit that he had no idea what he thought he was doing. He knew where Jen was and what was happening to her, and Sophie and the two enchantresses were working to find a way to get her safely out of the Realm, in spite of her long captivity and the fact that she’d consumed fairy food and drink, which often prevented a return to the real world. It was unlikely that he, a relative novice to all this, would stumble upon the solution by himself while searching for fairies in the park.

  But he had to do something. He wasn’t sleeping much, anyway, and he might as well be out searching for news of his wife instead of tossing and turning. At least when he came back after one of his long nightly walks, he was tired enough physically to get a few hours of good sleep. If he stayed home, he barely closed his eyes and had nightmares when he did so. There was always a chance that he’d find some critical piece of information, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to live with himself if they failed and he knew he hadn’t done absolutely everything he could.

  Tonight, though, he had another purpose. He was working a case of his own. It was a chance for him to repay Sophie for everything she was doing for him. She wouldn’t be able to investigate this herself, since it was unlikely that anyone would say anything about a fake fairy queen to the real one.

  They’d just reached a dark patch between lampposts when Beau growled—a serious growl, not his usual mildly irritated at being awakened from a nap growl. “What is it, buddy?” Michael asked softly, then felt like an idiot. The dog wasn’t likely to supply specifics. His own senses on high alert, he detected a menacing vibe, like he’d felt in the park that morning.

  A terrified scream rang out nearby and before he knew what he was doing, he was rushing in the direction of the scream, his cop instincts to run toward trouble kicking in. Only after he’d run several steps did he notice that he didn’t feel any tug on Beau’s leash. The dog was running with him, which put his senses on even higher alert. The enchantresses had told him that animals had keen instincts when it came to the fae, and Beau’s experiences in the Realm made his instincts keener than most.

  Another cry rang out, and this time it sounded like a name. A woman’s voice, shrill with desperation, cried, “Daithi! Daithi!” There was no answering call, and then there came another wordless cry of terror.

  A figure came hurtling out of the darkness toward Michael, and his hand went instinctively to the weapon on his hip before he saw that it was a woman fleeing as though she was in fear for her life. She saw him just before she reached him and pulled up short with a gasp of fright.

  “It’s okay, I’m a police officer,” he said, holding his hands up reassuringly.

  She looked behind her, like she was afraid something was chasing her, then she turned to Michael and said, “Where’s Daithi?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen anyone else,” Michael said, trying to keep his voice calm and soothing. In the dim light, he couldn’t see her well, but he got the impression she was in her late thirties—too old for the prom dress she wore.

  Both of them gasped at a noise coming from behind her. He reached to grab her and pull her behind him as he stepped forward. Beau barked a warning. Michael wasn’t sure whether to go for his weapon or for the iron nails in his pocket. “NYPD. Stop right there!” he shouted in his best cop voice as he grabbed a handful of iron. He figured that anything that still came at him after that warning probably wasn’t from this world. Most common criminals would have run the other way, taking the chance to escape.

  The noise came closer, and he prepared to hurl the iron that would repel any fae, but the woman chose that moment to collapse against him, sagging on his left arm. He struggled to hold her upright while the sense of approaching menace grew ever stronger.

  He smelled smoke and turned to see a burning torch waving nearby. The flames cast his surroundings into sharper darkness, so he couldn’t see who wielded the torch. He didn’t think it was whatever was threatening them, though. That was confirmed when a voice near the torch said, “Oh, be gone with you. This isn’t your place.” Almost instantly, the sense of menace retreated. The torch went out, leaving him momentarily blinded while his eyes readjusted to the darkness.

  He was fumbling for the little LED flashlight in his jacket pocket when the voice he’d just heard said, “You let that woman go, young man.”

  “If I let her go, she’ll fall down,” he said, looking around for the source of the voice. “I’m not hurting her. I’m a police officer. I’d show you my badge, but I’ve kind of got my hands full. I was just about to call an ambulance.”

  “A hospital won’t be able to help her,” the voice said, drawing closer. Now he could see that it belonged to an older woman, sturdy and stout, pushing a battered shopping cart piled with belongings. A still-smoking bundle of branches was propped in the child seat at the front of the cart. A couple of months ago, he might have thought she was just another bag lady, but there was something about her. He suspected that if he grabbed his clover keychain, he’d see what the difference was.

  “I know,” he said, adjusting the woman in his grasp into a more comfortable position. “But if I can find out who she is I might be able to find her family, and that might help.”

  “It might,” the bag lady conceded as she came close enough to examine the unconscious woman. She placed a gnarled hand on the woman’s forehead, frowned, and said, “But first we’d better revive her. Do you have any human food or drink on you?” She asked the question matter-of-factly, as if she didn’t expect him to find it at all odd.

  “I have a candy bar.”

  “That’ll help, but first we need to get some liquid into her. I’ve got some juice.” Returning to her cart, she pulled out a blanket and spread it on the ground, then gestured to Michael to bring the woman over. Michael scooped the limp woman up into his arms, her knees draped over one arm and the other arm under her shoulders. He felt a slight twinge in his right shoulder and realized that although he was mostly back to normal, the muscles that had spent weeks resting while his arm was in a sling weren’t quite up to carrying women around. Fortunately, it was only a few steps. The bag lady helped him lower the woman to the ground.

  Beau waddled over to settle himself on the blanket next to the woman as the bag lady retrieved a bottle from her cart. She knelt beside the woman, gently lifted her head, and spilled a few drops of juice between her lips. A moment later, the woman blinked, moaned, and stirred, and the bag lady gave her more juice. When she was able to sit up on her own, the bag lady gestured impatiently at Michael, and Michael handed her the candy bar. He had to bite his lip to force back a smile when he realized who the bag lady reminded him of: She was essentially Sophie Drake forty years later. She had that same air of taking total control of a situation and acting like she expected everyone to know what was going on.

  When the woman had swallowed half the candy bar, she blinked, returning to her senses. “Where’s Daithi?” she asked plaintively.

  “Who’s Daithi?” Michael asked.

  “He was my friend. He stood up for me when they came for me. I thought they sent him out with me.”

  “Who’s they?” Michael tried to keep his voice gentle, but he couldn’t help feeling some urgency.

  “We can talk about that later,” the bag lady said as she placed her hand on the woman’s forehead. Her eyes fluttered closed, and the bag lady lowered her back to the blanket. “Some rest should do her good,” she declared. “I doubt we’ll get much sense out of her until she’s had a chance to get acclimated.” Turning to Michael, she said, “I’m Mrs. Smith. Don’t ask if that’s an alias because I won’t tell you. I didn’t know we had one of us on the police force.”

  “One of us?”

  “Touched by them.”

  “I’m not really—”

  “Yes, you are,” she interrupted. “I can see it. And you can see, can’t you? You know what’s happening?”

  “I’ve had some dealin
gs with the Realm,” he admitted. “But mostly I can see because I’ve got a four-leaf clover. And I’ve been elf shot.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Elf shot, and you’re still walking? You’re definitely one of us.”

  “I was with people who knew what to do. But apparently it has lasting effects.”

  She laughed in a way that was almost a cackle. “That it does, Officer …” Her voice trailed off in a question.

  He realized he’d never introduced himself. “Oh, sorry. Detective Michael Murray.”

  “And what brought you into dealings with the Realm, Detective Murray?”

  “It’s a long story. And you, do you do this sort of thing a lot?”

  “It’s my job. They picked me for it. In the old days, they’d have called me a wise woman.” She cackled again.

  “She’s been cast out of the Realm, hasn’t she?” he asked.

  “Looks like it. If she’d been rescued, it might have gone better, and she wouldn’t have been alone. Sounds like her fairy friend was cast out, too. And I bet our friends back there, the ones I scared off with my burning rowan, were driving them out.”

  “Are you seeing more of these lately?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I had a case this morning of a pair of brothers who must have been there a long time. One didn’t make it.”

  “Yeah, I suppose I have seen more returnees in the past month or so. It may have something to do with the new queen on the throne. She may have a new policy.”

  “It may be related to there being a new queen, but I’m pretty sure it’s not her policy.”

  “How are you so sure about that?”

  “I know her, and she’s actually human. Mostly. She also knows that just kicking people out is a bad idea. She’s willing to help get captives back home, but she’s a lot more careful about it.”

  “Ah, you’re the queen’s champion,” Mrs. Smith said with a nod.

  “I don’t know that I’d put it that way.”

  “Are you here tonight on her behalf?”

  “No.”

  “Then why are you here? This is my territory, you know.”

  “I’m looking for someone. I have no interest in your territory. I’m no wise person or champion, or anything else. I’m working a case and looking for clues, and I’m trying to find someone. That’s all.”

  “You just keep telling yourself that. You’re neck deep, whether you know it or not.”

  Now Michael had another question for Sophie or the enchantresses. He hoped that this hadn’t become some kind of lifelong responsibility. All he wanted was to get Jen back and then go back to pretending that all of this fairy stuff belonged in storybooks. But while he had Mrs. Smith here, he might as well see if he could learn something. “Does human food work to reintegrate them?”

  “Fairy food traps them, so it makes sense, doesn’t it? It helps ease the way.”

  “Should I call someone for her?” he asked, gesturing toward the sleeping woman.

  She paused, thinking, for some time, then shook her head. “If you’re right that the queen isn’t behind this, then maybe we’d better wait and see if the queen is willing to take her back. That’s probably best for her.”

  “But what about her family? They’ll want her back. They’ll at least want closure.”

  “As long as she’s like this, they won’t really have her back. Have you ever seen someone who’s returned from the Realm?”

  “Actually, I have. I’ve been there, myself.”

  “You knew better than to eat or drink, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah,” he admitted.

  “Then it’s not the same. Someone who’s gone native doesn’t do so well back in the human world, not without a lot of help from the likes of me. It’s not just a case of going home and going back to normal.” She gave that cackling laugh again. “I’d bet you haven’t gone back to normal after your trip, even without eating or drinking.”

  “I don’t really have any urge to go back there, though. I’d be fine leaving it all behind me, and I will, just as soon as—” He cut himself off before he said too much.

  He should have known she’d be too shrewd to miss it, though. “As soon as you find that person you’re looking for?” She made a sound that was somewhere between a snort and a short, sharp bark. But when she spoke again, her voice was softer, gentler. “Who’d you lose?”

  The cop in him thought better of telling her anything, since he didn’t know for certain that he could trust her. But he needed to talk, and she seemed to know something about this. “My wife,” he said. “She was taken seven years ago, almost to the day, in what turned out to be a case of mistaken identity.”

  “You know this for sure?”

  “I’ve seen her in the Realm.”

  “You didn’t bring her out then?”

  “She didn’t want to go.” Realizing how that sounded, he hurried to add, “But she wasn’t herself. She didn’t remember who she was or who I was. We knew better than to just take her then. It’s something that has to be handled delicately. I know she has to want to go, of her own accord, and my friend’s working on that. I’m just worried that she’ll be cast out before she’s ready. And I’m also worried that she won’t be ready before we run out of time.”

  “Your friend the fairy queen’s helping you?”

  He nodded.

  She gave another snort. “Yeah, that’s not gonna work.”

  “Well, if the queen of the Realm can’t do it, then who?”

  She laughed long and hard at this, rocking back and forth in mirth. “You!” she barked between laughs, reaching over to poke him in the chest with a gnarled finger. “I can’t believe your queen doesn’t know this. Then again, it’s not like the fairy queen ever really wants to know anything about letting her captives go. I bet she knows all the things to do, all the rituals, but she’s completely missed the key common element.”

  “And what would that be?”

  Her grin exposed yellowed and missing teeth. “It’s the oldest cliché in the book, but it’s true, which is how it became a cliché. If only those hack writers knew they were getting it right.” She paused for a brief cackle. “Love, of course. In the stories about people being rescued from the fairies, they do all kinds of things to free them, but it’s not about what they do. It’s about who’s doing it and why. It’s always the people who love them—who love them enough to go through all that nonsense. Jumping through the magical hoops is merely a way of proving your love.”

  “So if you get taken by fairies and no one loves you, you’re out of luck?”

  “It doesn’t have to be romantic love. It can be the love of a parent for a child, a child for a parent, a brother, sister, friend—anyone who’s willing to take on a seemingly impossible ordeal for you. And if you don’t have anyone who loves you in any way, well, then maybe you’re better off with the fairies, living it up and forgetting your old life.”

  Michael thought that explained how Sophie had been able to save Emily. She may have known all the right things to do, but it came down to the fact that she’d been willing to do anything to save her sister. Did that mean he’d failed in not even trying to save Jen? A flash of anger at Sophie flared up in his chest. She’d talked him out of trying. If it hadn’t been for her, he might have had Jen home with him by now.

  But no, he hadn’t been up for an ordeal of any kind at the time, and he’d read enough to know that trying and failing could have doomed Jen forever. He was ready now, though. “What—” he began, but his voice failed him and it only came out as a rasp. He cleared his throat to get the lump out of it and tried again. “What do I need to do?”

  “The ordeal usually presents itself when the opportunity arises, so the main thing you need to do is get to your wife. It’s the right time of year for that, when the barriers between worlds are thinner than ever.” It was actually even easier than that, he thought, assuming he could get Sophie to talk to him enough to know he needed her to ge
t him into the Realm. “But there are a few things you could try to initiate your own ordeal and give yourself an advantage.”

  She paused for a long time, and he wondered if she was waiting for him to get out a notebook and take notes. “Such as?” he prodded.

  “I’m thinking! This hasn’t been as big a part of my job as it used to be in the old days. Someone goes missing today and they think serial killer or going off the grid, not stolen by fairies, so no one tries to get their loved ones out. Even a hundred years ago in some places, they’d have been coming to someone like me for help. You’re my first.”

  She leaned over to check on the sleeping woman, got up and went to her cart, rummaged around, and came back with another blanket and an old notebook with a water-stained cardboard cover. She tucked the blanket around her patient, then sat cross-legged, pulled a small flashlight out of the pocket of her baggy sweater, and started reading the notebook. Michael forced himself to wait patiently and resisted the urge to pull his weapon and order her at gunpoint to tell him what he needed to do to save his wife.

  He was starting to suspect she was delaying just to mess with him when she turned off her light, closed the notebook, and said, “Okay, here are a couple of things that usually seem to work.” She held up one knobby finger. “One: Ransom her. Buy her freedom. But money or gold won’t work. It has to be something more valuable than that.”

  “Diamonds?” he guessed.

  “Nope. Valuable in terms of personal cost to you. But it still has to have value to them. What you give can be a simple memento. It gains value as you trade it for something that means something to the person you’re trading it to, and so forth.”

  “Like that thing where someone started with a paper clip and traded until he ended up with a house?”