by Tam Erskine
The Faery Queen’s Daughter
Tam Erskine
Copyright © 2019 by MM Ink
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
To Charles de Lint,
I wrote this one—my first novel—because you inspired me.
Thank you for friendship & words. If I ever end up in a faery realm, I hope you’ll come with me.
* * *
&
To MaryAnn,
This in the world because of you. You’re a treasure, & I remain grateful to know you. Some fine day, I expect you to admit that you’ve been a faery all along.
Contents
Prologue: in which paths cross
Chapter 1: In which Jack Merry discovers that all is not as it would seem
Chapter 2: In which Jack sees the forest in an altogether new way
Chapter 3: In which Ivy's worries are answered
Chapter 4: In which Twitches wait in every alcove
Chapter 5: In which they come to a meadow where a meadow shouldn't be
Chapter 6: In which Jack learns the truth
Chapter 7: In which questions must be answered
Chapter 8: In which the past is revealed
Chapter 9: In which the Bollynoggins appear
Chapter 10: In which revolutions are hinted at
Chapter 11: In which Ivy and Jack leave Pwca Vale
Chapter 12: In which they may have an ally
Chapter 13: In which they come to a moat
Chapter 14: In which they breach the walls
Chapter 15: In which old kindnesses are remembered
Chapter 16: In which the truth is revealed at least
Chapter 17: In which punishment and praise is pondered
Epilogue: in which Jack and Ivy visit the Ellyllon
About the Author
Also by Melissa Marr
Prologue: in which paths cross
Ivy watched Jonquil's face as the little Ellyll peered out from the foliage around them. The tiny faery’s multi-toned skin, like a strange blossom in the dark, made it impossible to truly hide herself Above-Ground.
Most fey were afraid, terrified of the shadows that crept and sent secrets back to the palace. Everything had become so incredibly wrong, but if a faery the size of Ivy’s hand could risk everything, the mad queen’s daughter could do no less.
Ivy stepped closer to the tree and asked, "Do you think the queen is getting any better?”
Jonquil stepped off the edge of the branch, hovering in a sliver of moonlight, wings glimmering and peered into one of Ivy's eyes. "Do you?"
"I don't know . . . If she is, why does the Queen refuse to talk to me? " Ivy stopped, her words barely audible under the belling of the hounds. They echoed through the night, terrible long, low calls coming closer. That sound was only a moment’s warning before the terror followed.
Jonquil paled.
"Run," Ivy said.
The tiny faery’s feet touched down on the mossy soil at the base of a nearby tree. Her hand pushed on the knotty wood where a wee door was hidden before darting through a miniature door to the faery realm, leaving Ivy alone in the face of the oncoming horror of the Huntsmen and their beasts.
Ivy’s feet barely touched the soil as she leapt over branch and bramble
The earth shook as the Huntsmen's horses came into range. Like a nightmare come to life, the skeletal steeds trampled everything in their path. At this distance, only the eerie green glow of their eyes and the sulfurous clouds of their breath were clear.
Even that scant look was enough. Terror surged into the very air around her.
Ivy scrambled into a tree. I shall not fear them. I cannot . . . do not fear. I am not the quarry. She bit down on her lip to keep from whimpering; her knuckles whitened as she clenched a limb.
A crashing rose from the ground, too frantic to be the hounds.
Ivy glanced down, hoping that whatever it was hadn't led the Hunt to her hiding spot.
A mortal man and woman ran into sight, the woman's skirt in tatters, the man's cheek bleeding. The man watched over his shoulder while the woman hoisted a bundle midway up the tree into a hollow, frantically packing leaves and soil in after it.
"Hurry," the man whispered. He tugged the woman's hand so hard she stumbled.
And they were off. Their feet stirred clouds of dust as they ran down the path leading to the nearby mortal village. Without the shadows and the scents of the forest to mask their humanness, they had little chance of escaping the Hunt.
What fool reason would send them into the open like that? Ivy shook her head; mortals seldom made sense.
The Hunt came into view. The hounds were like a black wave under the horse's hooves. Sparks of red flashed in that rolling darkness as the hounds' eyes became visible. Above that awful vision were the Huntsmen themselves, some bare-chested, some armored. They were a strange mix of folk and mortal, plucked from their rightful times to join the Hunt. Sometimes, their armor revealed their era; often, though, trying to focus on any one when they were in motion was like watching a tongue of flame in a roaring fire. Each one was too quickly lost in the mass that surrounded it.
Had things become so bad that the Queen would let loose the Hunt aboveground without sending warning?
They were hers to command, a fierce weapon, but not one released lightly.
Then as swiftly as they'd approached, the Huntsmen shifted course, their thundering hooves veering away from the copse of trees where she hid, following the path the mortals had taken.
Still trembling, Ivy dropped to the forest floor. Even though the Hunt had raced away, dragging their waves of terror with them, she no longer wanted to be Above-Ground. She could pretend they were no more than nursery boggles--harmless to her now that she was older --but her heart hammered still.
The Hunt rides.
Pretending didn't make the terror abate, didn't make the nightmares any less real.
She turned to flee, but then she heard it: an unmistakable cry from the hollow in the tree.
Go. Go before they turn back.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Maybe it's just an animal. Go.
The cry rose louder.
It's not my responsibility.
As daughter to the queen, Ivy had shouldered more than enough responsibility in her fourteen years. She didn’t need this one, too.
I could still run.
With shaking hands, Ivy removed the handful of twigs and moss the woman had packed in.
Why are they after this?
Ivy lifted the dirty length of cloth and the mortal babe it was wrapped around.
If the queen sent the hounds after him, he mattered to Ivy. The queen of faery might be mad, but she didn’t bother with mortals—not unless they were special.
Chapter 1: In which Jack Merry discovers that all is not as it would seem
"Inside the faery hill, they dance to music that plays endlessly, lilting rhythms like the music of the stars in midsummer." Jack Merry grinned at the townsfolk who had paused in the courtyard to listen to his tale while they took their midday meal.
Some of them looked at him, waiting. Even those that didn't look his way were listening.
"Sometimes,” he continued, “if you close your eyes at the moment when the sun slides away at night, you can hear their feet as they dance."
And for a moment, he imagined that he could hear it—the tramp of dozens of feet moving in time to strange songs. Such music couldn't be made by the crude instrume
nts the farmers strummed on the rare occasion when they remembered to rest. The music would be magical, so tempting that no one would remember to do anything but rejoice. Surely, that would be what live in Faery would be life.
"What else do they do, Jackie?" asked a farmer with a creased face. Like the rest of the people in Hollow Groves, he was weatherworn and somber.
Sitting in the dusty street, Jack tried to look past the fading wooden buildings and cheerless faces. What would please them? What will make them stay a little longer to listen?
"Well, they have feasts the like of which we've never known--long tables covered in silver trays piled so high with sweets that it takes a full day to even see them all." He paused and sighed, picturing it in his mind, layers of white icing-covered cakes and creamy puddings. "They're so happy that they laugh as they twirl round the table. Sometimes, they don't even stop dancing to eat. They just reach out a hand as they swing past the table . . ."
Many of them listened, held rapt as they often were when he spun tales, but some of the townsfolk finished their meals and left, returning to their fields and stores. They didn't say anything, just left. Jack felt like his words lost their magic bit-by-bit as people turned away. He knew it was silly, that magic wasn’t real, but he tried.
Keep talking. Maybe a few will linger.
"And the clothes they wear . . ." He shook his head and sighed longingly. "Coats and gowns of spidersilk with dew still clinging to it, just enough that it glitters when they twirl by the giant fires that they tend all through the day and night. It's glorious to see, but it’s never the same twice. In fact, they can only wear their coats and gowns one time. You see, they dance so feverishly that after just the one night of dancing, the cloth is too tattered to be used for anything but rags."
Jack wasn’t sure where to go next, but it didn’t matter. No matter where he wandered with his stories, it wasn’t enough. Before he could even try to add another line to the tale, the last of the townsfolk wandered away.
And Jack was left alone.
Again.
As Jack spun his fanciful tale, Ivy stayed in the shadows, listening. She could almost hear the revelry in Jack's story, and she swayed as if the rhythm had crept inside her skin. Even after his voice had faded and he sat silently, she could still imagine the music, the laughter. She wished his words were true, but her home hadn’t been so lovely in her whole life.
Faery was sick, withering with disease and sadness, just like the queen.
"Ivy!" Jonquil gripped a handful of hair as Ivy had started to dance, and the wee Ellyll was getting tangled in Ivy’s long tumble of red hair. The faery girl said, "Give a bit of warning!"
“Sorry!” Ivy edged forward to see which way Jack went. When the people started leaving, Jack became stiller and quieter.
Ivy ducked behind an old barrel, careful not to touch the metal ring that wrapped around it. One could never be sure with mortal-made things. A foolish brush against the wrong stuff and she'd have an ugly burn to explain--proof she'd been where she shouldn't, reason for a lecture. Fields and woods weren’t littered with iron the way villages were.
Carefully, she rested her cheek on the wood and waited.
"What are you doing?" Jonquil clutched Ivy's earlobe, her fingers curling around the edge, tickling it terribly.
"Shhh!" Ivy reached up and rubbed her ear, pushing her friend further from it.
In front of her, Jack yanked his cap off his head and shoved his curls back—even though he had no pesky Ellyon tickling his ear.
Ivy waited to see if he would go towards the lake or back to the Parson's house. If he went to the Parson’s, Ivy would have no more chance to watch him today. That man’s house was riddled with iron.
But Jack grabbed his bag off the ground and slumped toward the lake.
Ivy had listened as Jack told his tales to the creatures at the lakeside. They weren’t real, but they were a lot prettier than what was real. When he spun stories, Ivy could forget crimson rivers and bone-dry lakes. Jack never spoke of rowan-children struggling to move over earth so foul it began boiling, oozing thick yellow slime. Instead, Jack Merry spoke of the world she wished her home could be, a world where the folk were happy and laughing.
With a nervous catch to her voice, she told Jonquil, "Go on. I'll be along soon."
Then, she headed to the lake.
After she’d been sent away by Ivy, Jonquil paused in the shadow of a dappled tree. She look around to make sure that she wasn't watched, and then she ducked into a door that not even Ivy knew existed.
"Waited for you, days now." The scorpion-wife clacked her pinchers. "Do you think it so easy then to sneak away to meet you?"
She scuttled further into the burrow where she had been pretending to nest. Bits of something stringy and red squished under her many feet.
Trying not to shudder, Jonquil followed her. For an Ellyllon to go into such a place—
Best not to think on it.
"I'm here." Jonquil tucked her hands into her pockets, fingering the poison-pouches she kept there. It'd be a battle to get them into the scorpion-wife's maw, but if it came down to that or joining the remains on the floor, she'd have little choice. "Ivy's near ready to do something. Tell them."
The scorpion-wife grinned, flashing the fang-like chelicerae on either side of her mouth. "If the young one acts, we will wait. I cautioned against it. I wanted to act. Assassination is so satisfying." She closed her eyes for a moment, savoring some image that Jonquil was happy not to share. "But the others . . . They have no vision."
The scorpion-wife waved a pincher, like she was swatting a bog-fly.
"Ivy's growing impatient too,” Jonquil said. “She knows the folk talk of revolt. She may not support the queen, but she doesn't want her mother to be dead."
Jonquil loosened her grip on the poison in her pocket, but she kept it in the palm of her hand. Scorpion-wives weren't the best at controlling their impulses. "Tell the others to wait just a while longer."
"And if I don't like your plan?” The scorpion-wife scuttled closer again, crowding Jonquil. “If no one ever knew you were here? Little winged thing. Not much bigger than a fly . . ."
Jonquil didn't have sharp edges like the creature in front of her, but the poison in her hand would incapacitate even the healthiest of the creatures. She squeezed a pouch so it puddled in her palm, then she pulled both hands out of her pockets, and held them open before her. The slick green ooze shimmered in the low light. In the other, an unbroken pouch sat like a promise.
Loose poison in the eye. Pouch in her mouth. I can do it.
The scorpion-wife scuttled back three steps. “We will wait. Not forever.”
Jonquil backed toward the entrance to the burrow, hands still outstretched.
As Jonquil flew towards them, Daisy plummeted from the branches of the white willow and hovered beside her sister. "Jonquil! Did you hear me? You're late. And why didn't you bring Ivy?"
Jonquil scooped up a beetle and cradled it. "She'll be here."
Daisy zipped back up into the branches to the bird's nest where their sister Clematis had been napping. "You know where's she was going, don't you?" Daisy said.
"No. But I can guess." Clematis grinned like a half-mad cockatrice. "Ivy’s gone off to the same place as always: to stare at her mortal."
The nest shifted as Daisy flopped down. It was sheer foolishness to believe Ivy's status would keep her safe from the Queen's madness. "One day, the Queen won't forgive her. One day, Princess Ada will convince the Queen that Ivy's a threat. And then what?"
Her sisters had no answers. They never did. Ivy was their best hope for the future, but she was too young to think about crowns and revolutions.
Jack strolled down the road out of town, past the houses and porches where townsfolk murmured amongst themselves.
"Boy needs to be sent away. He has fey blood." An elderly man shook his finger at the people around him. "No good comes of the wild ones."
They nodded
, watching Jack warily. Though they were kind enough, they still didn't accept him at their hearths. They never had. He was fine for a story, a scrap or two when they had plenty, but no one trusted Jack Merry.
Normal boys don’t show up out of storms.
In solemn tones, they'd repeat the story of his mysterious arrival. They'd swear the basket on the parson's doorstep was as dry as tinder, despite the terrible storm that night; they’d claim that the long-since-lost blanket wrapped around him that night was as delicate as if it were woven of moonlight. In the telling, they'd convinced themselves that Jack was something Other.
Jack believed none of it.
He was as human as they were. He was ordinary in every way except for being an orphan. They made him extraordinary in their whispers and fears, and the result was that Jack was lonely.
And all he wanted in the world was to have a family or friends.
Widow Stonewell lifted a weathered hand as he strolled by her. She, at least, was kind to him. "Give my regards to the Good Folk, Jackie."
Sure, he'd dreamt it was true, that he was one of them; he hoped, begged, prayed even. Now, he just considered it a good excuse to spin the stories he liked to imagine. If they were going to treat him that way, why not pretend to be what they all thought he was?
"I will." Jack tipped his cap to her.
Then, he continued towards the shore of the lake.
At the lake, Jack leaned against an oak tree and thought of tales to tell the townsfolk. When winter snows lay heavy on the fields, they'd stop longer than those few moments at midday. They'd invite him to sit near the tavern fire; then, he was almost a part of the town.