by Ameriie
Marigold splashed through the water and ran toward the monster. George grabbed her and pulled her, writhing, against him. He pressed the pistol to his sister’s jaw, and she began to cry out: a hoarse, enraged sound. Her breast heaved as the Erl-queen watched them, her face betraying nothing through the veil.
“Isaac,” Marigold gasped, “Isaac, you must see what he is.”
“Quiet.” George only had eyes for the Erl-queen. “You will stand aside and let us leave.”
“If she leaves,” the Erl-queen whispered, “she dies young.”
Isaac swallowed. “And Princess Alice?”
When the Erl-queen turned to look at him, the forest seemed to move with her. Leaves and petals clung to her veil. The birds warbled a frenzy of song. The wind sighed. He almost lost courage, but he said, “Will the princess also die young?”
“Her wedding will be held in the shadow of death. She will be melancholy all her life and will not outlive her mother. Two of her children will be slain,” the Erl-queen said. “Two more will die before they truly lived. She was happy in the Forest of Erl.”
“She protects us, Isaac,” Marigold said, her voice low and strained. “The Erl-queen protects us from being hurt, being killed. She brings us here to save us from our fates, to give us a happy life. She is kind to us. She saw in the pool that George would—”
“Riddles and blasphemy.” George gripped her arm. “Back to London we go, my dear. Isaac, with me.” His face was almost bloodless. “We must get Marigold away from here. She needs protection from a man, not this monster.”
Isaac hesitated.
He ought to listen to Marigold. He thought he had loved her . . . but he had loved a façade. Whatever might or might not be true of George, he was her blood, and a shrewd man—he knew what was best for her. And to leave her with this hellish thing that had worked such an enchantment on her mind was surely to leave her for dead.
“No, Marigold,” he said thickly. “I want you too much.”
She closed her eyes and turned her face away.
That was when the Erl-queen’s son appeared beside his mother. As Isaac beheld the creature he was certain they had killed, he turned cold to his very soul.
“If we Erl-folk had any weaknesses, we would take care for humans not to know them.” The mouth of thorns smiled at them both. “I did ask you, Isaac Fairfax,” it said, “if you believed everything you heard about me. You believed that girls were easily distracted. You believed I could be slaughtered with metal.”
Steel had never harmed them. It had been a lie, all of it—baseless gossip, London whispers.
They had no weapons. No means by which to guarantee their safe passage. As Isaac realized how grave a mistake they had made, George ran, hauling Marigold with him by the hair. She screamed at him in fury. In his wake, Isaac desperately swung his sword at the Erl-queen’s son, shouting “Get back, villain,” no longer knowing whether he was fighting to reach Marigold or to protect George, or simply to preserve his own life—but when he slashed open that glistening skin, all that came out were sap and flies. Thousands of flies. He screamed as they surrounded him, as they infested him. The last thing he saw were the rose-thorn teeth.
It must have been hours later when he woke. George was nowhere to be seen. Isaac’s sword lay dull and stained among the leaves, too far away to grasp.
The Erl-queen and her son stood over him. Bloodied mouths. Glinting black eyes.
Oh, those teeth, those terrible teeth, red with death.
“Do not weep, Isaac Fairfax,” the Erl-queen said softly. “This story has a happy ending. Marigold is safe at last from the monsters who imprisoned her.”
A whimper was the only sound that passed his lips. He could not move; he could not speak; he could not scream as the forest drank him into its embrace. Somewhere in the dancing shadows, Marigold was singing. And darkness was encroaching on the glade.
REGAN PERUSSE’S VILLAIN CHALLENGE TO SAMANTHA SHANNON:
Erl-Queen Retelling in Nineteenth-Century London
EVIL REVEALED
BY REGAN PERUSSE
Folklore is awesome because, historically, it is both a tool for entertainment and for warning against dangers—both natural and human-made. Societal expectations of behavior are woven into these fantastical stories, and they are used as guides to explain what is “right” and what is “wrong.”
Within the realm of folklore, the Erl-queen fascinated me the most. Originating in Scandinavian folklore, she is a faerie queen who lives deep in the forest, where she lures young children and kidnaps them. She is a villain created to scare young children from straying too far from home and also a story to scare society about women who seek too much power, or any power at all. Because while the Erl-queen is “evil,” she is also inherently a very formidable (badass) independent woman. Enter Samantha Shannon’s “Marigold” . . .
MARIGOLD, AKA VICTORIAN ENGLAND’S MOST DESIRABLE BACHELORETTE:
Why, why did it have to be her? How had Marigold caught the eye of the Erl-queen? She was quiet as a doll, and delicate, too, more of a household spirit than a living girl.
Samantha turns this “maiden in a tower” trope on its head when it’s revealed that the saviors are, in fact, Marigold’s captors. Men, if they desired, had the power to not only control but also destroy every aspect of a woman’s life in Victorian society. This twist also showed how easily a woman’s desires are dismissed without a thought.
GEORGE BEING THE ABSOLUTE WORST PERSON ON THE PLANET:
“Riddles and blasphemy.” George gripped her arm. “Back to London we go, my dear. Isaac, with me.” His face was almost bloodless. “We must get Marigold away from here. She needs protection from a man, not this monster.”
Marigold did not want to be saved. The Erl-queen’s reign was not a prison but a sanctuary. For the first time in her existence, Marigold could make her own choices regarding her happiness, and she would do anything to not have to forfeit that to anyone.
MARIGOLD KILLIN’ IT BOTH LITERALLY AND METAPHORICALLY:
A whimper was the only sound that passed his lips. He could not move; he could not speak; he could not scream as the forest drank him into its embrace. Somewhere in the dancing shadows, Marigold was singing.
Marigold and the Erl-queen show women taking power back in their own hands and ultimately shattering the notion of female fragility and meekness with a hammer.
Oh man, was it an interesting contrast to place this powerful woman in nineteenth-century England! Did you know that Victorian England was one of the most visibly conservative times for women in Western history? Women were not only oppressed politically and socially, but in many ways physically as well. They were confined to their “separate sphere,” deemed only able to exist to rear children and to balance out the moral taint that their husbands produced in the outside world. They were the moral light to civilization, too weak for work and surely too weak for evil.
All this historical baggage came to a head wonderfully in Samantha’s story, which makes the reader confront the ambiguity of evil head-on. Two men set out, determined to save this “poor girl” from the grasp of the evil Erl-queen, only to have the tables turned on them—and the reader. Evil in many cases is a matter of perspective, and society tends to villainize things they don’t understand (such as female independence). Sometimes true evil isn’t understood until it’s too late, but sometimes, if we’re lucky, it is immortalized as a lesson for others.
Folklore is funny that way.
YOU, YOU, IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU
BY ADAM SILVERA
You’ve made a name for yourself. And no one remembers the old one.
You threw away your birth name because an eighteen-year-old building a reputation as a respectable crime lord was difficult enough without being held back by the name Amanda. For the past four months, you’ve gone by Slate, the dealer of the finest memory drugs. You’re worshipped for the way Daze can make the city forget. You’re celebrated for the way Toke
n can revive memories as far back as childhood. You’re feared for the way Trance can implant false stories others forge. Your reputation is godly, but precautions such as your mask are still to be taken.
Hiding doesn’t bother you. If believers never see God’s face, why should they see yours?
These days, unfortunately, you’re a god who has to get her hands dirty. You shouldn’t be out here at the dock for this deal. Neither should Karl, who’s parked a couple of blocks north to take you home once this transaction is done. But your last assistant, some clown who was twice your age, thought it would be funny to sell your drugs at half price and skip town. He certainly wasn’t laughing when you tracked him down, brought him back, and force-fed him an entire bottle of Daze until he could only remember six select words. Now he spends his days and nights walking the streets and uttering your warning to anyone passing him: “Slate is not to be betrayed.”
You let him live, but you took his life.
Fair trade.
You walk to the edge of the dock, the stink of floating trash overpowering the rotted flesh that makes up your mask. You stare at the decapitated Statue of Liberty beneath the moon, finding it oddly beautiful. You expected destruction like this after little gangbangers working for Pierce started spiking people’s drinks with his new Brawn serum last month, but you didn’t think the steroids were so charged that it’d make the users psychotic enough to scale up the statue and pound away at its face with their fists until it crumbled onto the island. Thankfully, Lady Liberty got the last laugh when she took those bastards down with her, crushing them.
Footsteps cautiously approach you.
You know your client is on time without checking your watch. No one gets a second chance at an appointment with you, the most wanted girl in the city. The cops want you and the junkies want you. You’re more wanted than Pierce and his superstrength serum. You’re more wanted than Local and his tracking bugs, which are so reliable that even cops are illegally using them. But no one wanted you dead or locked up in prison more than Franklin Ladeaux, the young scientist undoing all your work with his Retrieve vaccine; you took care of that. Now you’re wanted most by Karl, thankfully. You need this one good connection in this life of masks that makes you want to be yourself.
“Are you her?”
You turn around and answer with your mask.
The client is supposed to be eighteen, but he looks to be in his early twenties instead; heartbreak can age a person. He’s six feet, a little taller than you, but you knew to expect this. You stalked him online to see if there was actually a chance he had enough money to pay for your most illegal drug. Turns out his father launched a successful new app for college students looking to date. The irony of this meeting doesn’t surprise you.
He avoids your face, backing away, the gym bag in his hand trailing along the ground.
It’s not news to you that you look like you’re attending the creepiest masquerade ever. What would be news to the world is how the rotted flesh pulled across your face once belonged to your father’s hand. The bones of his fingers, entwined by rope, keep the mask tight across dozens of tiny scars he inflicted upon you. But that story isn’t anyone’s business but your own. Not even Karl knows about this.
“You’re her,” he says.
The certainty in his voice is rewarding considering how many posers are out there pretending they’re you. You’re as unmistakable as your product is unrivaled.
“I’m Mike,” he says.
You know.
You know his name and you know why he’s here.
You reach into your jacket pocket, and your fingers brush against the small pistol while grabbing the drugs. “It’s eight thousand for Trance.” You’ve never killed before, but if he tries haggling on this evening when you’re desperate to get back home for some normalcy with Karl, this boy will have a third eye before he even realizes you’ve grabbed your only-for-absolute-emergencies gun.
He tries handing over his gym bag, but you hold up your hand and he halts. You point to the backpack leaning against a grimy crane that’s missing a wheel. “Put the money in there,” you say. The aluminum inside the backpack will interfere with any signals in the event Mike was recruited by Local to bug you. The price on your head for being the most wanted girl in the city is huge.
You should start increasing your rates for how risky this is becoming.
Mike kneels between the bags, shuffling cash from one to the next. If there’s even one dollar missing, you’ll put him through a pain he won’t be able to forget even with a strong dose of Daze.
“I need my girlfriend back,” Mike says, looking up at you as if this is a surprise. Even if you hadn’t stalked him online to see his recent relationship status switch from IN A RELATIONSHIP to SINGLE, you’d know what was up. Love is the reason Trance is such a top-seller. “She found out I was cheating on her. It was a mistake, seriously. I’ll never do it again. We just need a fresh start.”
You hate hearing the stories. You didn’t care about the woman who needed Daze to forget the sins against her sister and start anew. You didn’t care about the man who needed Token to remember his dead stepfather more vividly. You didn’t care about the man who needed Trance to trick his boss into giving him a promotion he didn’t deserve. You don’t care about this kid needing Daze to get his girlfriend back. But you listen because a god is only a god when they know how to serve their worshippers.
“Daze will work, right?”
“Your doubts are not my problem. My reputation has gotten you this far.”
This is why the cops and bounty hunters want you so badly. The authorities don’t care as much about people forgetting their own drama or taking a stroll down memory lane. They care when Daze, Trance, and Token are used against others. The authorities are too caught up in locking you away to see the good of what you do. How some takers are better off. Some were nobodies off the streets. Others needed escapes from abusive situations, new identities. But they don’t see that. They chase you down because they think what you’re doing is unethical. Except you don’t force this on anyone.
Not anyone who doesn’t deserve it, at least.
Mike finishes depositing all the cash into your bag and looks up at you.
You toss him the drugs, which he catches with shaky hands. He stares at the small velvet pouch containing the four Daze seeds. “How should I—”
“Your move, not mine,” you say.
You only supply the seeds. It’s up to them to plant it.
You’re betting on him bowing out of this completely. You doubt his desperation. You also care so little you’re already thinking about putting his father’s eight thousand dollars toward a yacht for you and Karl.
Mike stares at the pouch with a loser’s smile. “Who said you can’t buy happiness, eh?”
You roll your eyes.
He takes a couple of steps toward you, and the gun is out of your pocket so fast the smile is still on his face. But he doesn’t beg for his life. “You’re an angel,” he says. Even as he looks upon your face, masked with flesh so rotten it’s gone charcoal black, he calls you an angel. This is a first. You’ve been called a god for your power and you’ve been called the devil for your fierceness, but you’ve never been called an angel for your services.
Mike looks as if he wants to bow before you and kiss your feet, but instead he turns away from you and the gun you’re pointing at him.
An angel. Interesting.
“Put the gun down!” This new voice rips you out of your reverie. A bald, muscular brute in a tacky denim vest and wielding a shotgun steps out from behind the crooked crane.
You hate being told what to do.
You almost shoot Mike while the gun is fixed on him, but you can see the pure terror and surprise on Mike’s face—he didn’t set you up. The accomplices in these ambushes are always so proud to have gotten you, but that doesn’t last long. In the past, you’ve used Trance on your opponents, turning them all against one another. I
t’s always amusing when you force the accomplice to strangle the mercenary who recruited him.
You nod at Mike, and he gets your signal, fleeing with the powerful seeds you’ve sold him. He was right. You are an angel.
But even an angel has to put her halo down from time to time.
You turn your attention to the tacky brute, and you wonder how you’ll make him kill himself. A bullet to the head is too easy.
“You probably shouldn’t let someone run off with the drugs you’re hunting me down for,” you say, eyeing the bag of cash from your transaction. You’ll go home with the bag and whatever money is in this clown’s pocket, if anything.
“We don’t care about your drugs,” the brute says.
Two more figures file in from your left, where Mike ran away. One is a woman, pretty if you’re into faces with less personality than a mannequin’s, and slender enough that breaking her arms should be easy. The other is a young man in a black lab coat with a face in desperate need of a mask—swollen nose, black eye, receding hairline.
“Let me guess. You work for Pierce.” Only power-hungry junkies hopped up on Brawn would be bold enough to take you on weaponless.
“We know you kidnapped Franklin,” the wannabe scientist says.
You cringe. You’ve always hated the name Franklin.
“Where is he?” the girl asks. She looks to be in her early twenties. She’s likely the victim of many poor life choices, but stepping into the arena with you will be the one she loses her life over.
“He’s gone forever,” you happily report.
“You don’t kill,” the girl says.
“Oh, I kill. I just don’t get blood on my hands.”
This confuses them. You’re sure they’re picturing the manner in which you killed their boss. You take advantage by dashing left, hiding behind a collapsed dumpster piled high with stained planks. Four bullets sail past you. You wonder how long those bullets will fly before they drop and sink through the ocean.