Hope

by Beth Bracken

  I can see. It’s such a relief.

  My head still hurts, but being able to see—it feels like a miracle. I blink a few times, letting my eyes get used to the light.

  I don’t know what kind of room I’m in. It feels like a place where you wait. Like the waiting room at a doctor’s office. Or a bus stop. The space right outside the principal’s office.

  It has a stone floor and stone walls, but it’s warm.

  Then a man like a bird stands in front of me.

  I try not to panic, but he’s terrifying. He reminds me of the man I saw in the Ladybird tent—an evil shape, a Crow.

  But when he comes closer and takes my cup, I see that his eyes are soft. “You’re the same age as my daughter,” he says.

  “I’m not your daughter, though, right?” I say. “You never know around here.”

  He laughs. “No. Her name is Violet. And she’s at home with her mother. I am Mikael. I’m the one who helped bring you here.”

  He is a Crow, then.

  I don’t know if I can trust anyone.

  “Enough small talk,” Caro says.

  I turn my head and see her, sitting cross-legged on the stone floor. She looks like she did in the cell we shared. Except that now she doesn’t look like someone who could be my friend.

  “Why did you bring me here, Caro?” I ask. “What was the point?”

  “My father needs you here,” she says. “He is the head of the Crows. And that’s all I feel like telling you. For now, anyway.”

  But I sense arrogance in her words. She’s proud to be this man’s daughter. She’ll tell me more, if I ask her right.

  “I knew you were someone important,” I say slowly. Caro straightens and a smile crosses her face. “I could tell from the second I met you.”

  “You were right, then,” she says.

  “And you knew so much,” I say. “About the queen. About how she came to power. About Soli.”

  “I know more,” she says. “I know so much about you. I know why you’re really here, in the faerieground.”

  Now I’m surprised. “I thought we were here because Calandra wanted her daughter back,” I say.

  “No,” she says. “That’s just part of it.”

  Mikael coughs. It sounds like a warning.

  But Caro pays no attention.

  “Don’t you know anything, you stupid girl?” she says. “Don’t you know who your mother is?”

  I wait.

  “Your mother is a witch,” she says. “That’s why we cast her out.”

  Lucy

  In the story Caro tells me, there are two sisters.

  One of the sisters was dark. The other was light.

  Andria and Calandra.

  They lived in Mearston, just outside Willow Forest. And one of them believed in faeries.

  Calandra spent every day in the woods, trying to find faeries. She’d follow the smallest twinkle of light, the merest glimmer. Even as a little girl, she believed that she was meant to find her way to the faerieground.

  And finally, one day, she did.

  She plucked a four-leaf clover, caught a firefly, made a wish.

  She was seventeen.

  The first faerie she saw was the prince.

  “And I think you can imagine how the rest of the story goes,” Caro says.

  So I ask about my mother.

  Soli

  The sun begins to rise.

  We walk through the cold woods.

  Kheelan leads the way, holding my hand.

  Jonn helps Calandra down the path.

  Kheelan moves as though the woods are his playground. His hand is rough, and warm, and safe.

  “How are you?” he asks.

  “I’m mostly tired,” I say. “And worried about Lucy.”

  “I understand,” he says. “I’m worried about her too.”

  A little bubble of jealousy grows inside me.

  Until he squeezes my hand.

  We come to a fork in the path.

  “I don’t know the way,” he says.

  He looks back. Jonn and Calandra are far behind us.

  So he pulls me behind a tree and kisses me.

  “Will we ever be real?” I ask, and he knows what I mean.

  “I think so,” he says. “Once this is over.”

  “What will it be like, once it’s over?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says. “We should have asked the Ladybirds. I expect that they know.”

  It’s comforting, thinking that those old faeries know what’s to come.

  Do they know everything that will happen to me?

  I try to imagine myself a princess.

  A queen.

  But just a few days ago I was a kid at school.

  “Whatever happens—” Kheelan begins, but I cut him off.

  “Whatever happens will happen,” I say.

  And then I kiss him again.

  And then Jonn and Calandra have caught up to us and we must keep on.

  As we walk, Calandra says, “I want Soledad to help me.”

  Jonn catches my eye. “Is that all right with you?” he asks.

  I nod, but I’m nervous.

  I take her arm anyway.

  Jonn and Kheelan walk a few steps ahead of us. Every so often, Kheelan glances back to catch my eye.

  “I think there are things you want to ask me,” Calandra says softly.

  She’s right. “I don’t know where to start,” I admit.

  “Begin with the beginning,” she says. “And I’ll do my best. We have a long walk.”

  “Why would the Crows take Lucy?” I ask. “If they want me, why not take me? Or you? She’s a human girl. And she’s sick.”

  “I was a human girl once,” Calandra says.

  “I thought so,” I say.

  She laughs. “That didn’t stop them from using me to their advantage.”

  “Why you, then?” I ask.

  “Being a sister,” she says. “It came with a price.”

  We are quiet for a while. The woods are darkening, though I know it can’t even be noon yet.

  Maybe, I think, we are getting nearer to the Crows.

  Then I say, “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

  “You know her well,” Calandra says. “She still lives in the house where we grew up. Only now, I think, she stays out of the woods.”

  “Andria,” I whisper.

  Of course.

  So Kheelan was right.

  “But you mustn’t blame yourself,” she says.

  And then I’m confused. “For what?” I ask.

  “For breaking the spell that made us safe here,” she says. “For the blindness. For Lucy being taken.”

  Jonn and Kheelan are beside us. They have heard everything.

  “The spell was bound to her blood,” Kheelan says.

  “That’s right,” Calandra says. “They took my blood to cast it.”

  “And her blood is Lucy’s blood,” Kheelan says. “That makes sense.”

  “But it’s mine, too,” I say.

  “Only half of it,” Jonn says.

  “Yes,” says Calandra. “The rest of yours is faerie.”

  Lucy

  “I only know that she was left behind,” Caro says.

  My mother, she means.

  “She wasn’t the one the queen chose,” Caro goes on.

  “Calandra was forced to choose,” Mikael adds. “Between the king, who she loved, and her sister, who she also loved.”

  “So she chose the king,” I say. “Soli’s father.”

  “And then we chose her,” Caro says. The look of warning that Mikael shoots her is sharp, but she doesn’t care. “We chose her,” she goes on, “and we
made her our spy.”

  Mikael sighs. “We can’t say any more,” he says.

  Then there is a sharp rap at the door. Caro opens it, and a tall, strong man steps inside. He has long black hair and eyes like coals.

  “Father,” she says. “I have brought you the witch’s daughter.”

  The man nods. “Thank you, Caro,” he says. “You’ve done well.”

  Caro smiles. Her teeth glitter white.

  Then the man steps forward and grabs my arm. “Come,” he says.

  Mikael grabs my other arm. The two men pull me down a hallway.

  Mikael’s grasp on my arm is gentle, but the other man’s is not.

  The corridor is empty, except for the two men, Caro, and me.

  This isn’t like Calandra’s palace. This building is perfectly kept up. Every corner sparkles. There are shiny objects on tiny shelves and bright lamps that line the hallway.

  They bring me to a room.

  “We lost Calandra,” Caro’s father tells me. “Now we need her sister.”

  My blood turns cold. “Why?” I ask.

  “She asks a lot of questions,” Mikael says.

  “So I see,” says Caro’s father.

  Then he turns back to me. “We need the witch. You must make her come here.”

  I think of my mother at home. Knowing that I’m here in the faerieground, knowing that I’m in a dangerous place. The place that took her sister.

  Although maybe it wasn’t so dangerous then.

  Is she thinking about me right now? Is she worrying about me?

  “She won’t come,” I say.

  “Not even to save her daughter?” Caro’s father asks. “Doesn’t she love you?”

  Mikael frowns. “Easy, Georg,” he mutters.

  “Well, doesn’t she?” Georg, Caro’s father, asks again. “Wouldn’t she risk anything for you? Don’t you think she’d feel horrible if she knew you were here, dying, and you had decided to not let her save you?”

  “I’m not dying,” I whisper.

  “Yes,” Georg says. “You are.”

  Soli

  We have walked for hours.

  Calandra is doing worse than before. Her body is so warm she gives off waves of heat. But her skin is dry. All the warmth just lives inside her.

  Killing her.

  We walk.

  We take turns helping Calandra cross streams, step over rocks.

  Sometimes she can walk on her own. Other times she must be carried.

  Jonn does that, holds her body up. He treats her gently, like a queen.

  He arranges her skirt so that she is covered. He wipes dirt from her cheek.

  When he catches me watching, he blushes.

  And all the time, there are crows overhead, circling.

  “What will we do once we arrive?” I ask Kheelan.

  He frowns. “That will be up to you,” he says.

  But Motherbird didn’t tell me what to do.

  As if he’s reading my mind, he says, “You’ll know what to do.”

  “Calandra will have to help,” I say.

  But when I turn to look at her, Jonn has laid her body down on the path behind us.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask. Kheelan and I run back toward them.

  “She can’t go any farther,” Jonn says. “She’ll die. She is dying.”

  “Can’t you carry her?” Kheelan asks. Jonn shakes his head.

  “Is it a curse? Maybe the Crows won’t let her near them,” I say.

  Jonn shakes his head again. “I don’t think so,” he tells me. “I think she’s dying. So you have a choice,” he says, looking up at me. His look is even and kind. “She can die in my arms on the way to the Crows. Or she can die here, on our land, in your kingdom.”

  I sink to my knees next to my mother.

  My not-real mother.

  My faerieground mother.

  The mother who birthed me.

  The mother who made me a princess.

  “I need her help, though,” I say. “I don’t even know how to talk to the Crows.”

  “You will have to do that alone, I’m afraid,” Jonn says. “No matter where she dies.”

  “Then she should die here,” I say. “I don’t want her to die on their land.”

  Jonn sighs. “She wouldn’t want that either,” he says. “For all of her faults, for all of her mistakes—she loved her kingdom.”

  My kingdom, now.

  Soli

  “Would you like to say goodbye?” I ask him.

  A tear slips down Jonn’s cheek, and he nods.

  Kheelan looks surprised, but he takes my hand and we step away.

  “I think they were in love,” I say.

  He shakes his head. “Impossible,” he says.

  But I think he’s wrong.

  We glance back.

  Jonn is on his knees.

  He raises Calandra’s hand to his lips, kisses it, and rises.

  She says something we can’t hear, and he nods.

  Then he walks away from her, and away from us.

  “I’ll wait here,” Kheelan tells me.

  I step closer to Calandra and kneel beside her. Her eyes are open, but I know she’s still blind.

  “Soledad,” she whispers, her voice dry and thick. “Soli.”

  I take a deep breath.

  “You can call me Hope,” I say. “If you want to.”

  She smiles.

  “Thank you,” she says. “But I know it isn’t your true name.”

  She and I are quiet for a while. Then she reaches up and strokes my cheek.

  “Beware the Sirens,” she says. “They’ll try to stop you. Hold fast to Kheelan and Jonn, and the three of you can help each other through. Jonn knows the way. I told him the path.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “And when you meet Georg, be careful,” she says. “He is a liar and a cheat.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “He’ll try to trick you,” she says. “You can never trust a Crow. Their stories are always lies.”

  “Okay,” I say. “I understand.”

  She smiles. “I know you do.”

  “How can I save Lucy?” I ask.

  She sighs. “The same way I saved Andria,” she tells me. “You must stay. And Lucy must leave. She isn’t the one they want. Andria is. But they’ll take you.”

  “Andria was in danger once?” I ask. “Here?”

  Calandra nods. “More than danger. She was entranced by the faerieground, by the Crows. She’d have done anything to stay here. She would have become one of them. And they wanted her.”

  Lucy

  They put me into a room.

  I think it must be Caro’s room. It feels like a place where a girl my age would live. It smells like her.

  They leave me on a bed. It’s the softest thing I’ve lain on in days, ever since I first came to the faerieground.

  It’s amazing that it was just a few days ago. I kissed Jaleel at school and Soli saw me, and she was angry, and we fought in the woods, and she wished me away.

  Now she’s a princess. And I’m dying.

  There’s paper in my pocket. A letter. From my mom.

  Andria

  Dear Lucy,

  Soli has just been here. You’ve been taken by the faeries. She’s gone to find you. I helped her as much as I could.

  Now it’s past midnight, and I’m awake, worrying, hoping you’re safe. Thinking about the faerieground.

  I don’t know if I’ll ever give you this letter.

  If I do, it’s because I want to show you that while you were gone, I was thinking about you, wishing with my whole heart I could be the one, instead of Soli, walking into the woods with a jar to fill with fireflies and find my
way to you.

  I can never go back there.

  Oh, Lucy, even now, in this letter I might never give you, I can’t tell you everything. I wish with my whole heart that I could, but I can’t. It wouldn’t be safe for you.

  There are kind people in the faerieground. There really are. There are wonderful people who are as good, or better, than any people in our own world. I’m jealous that you might meet them, no matter how much you’re in danger. There are amazing things there.

  And there is evil in the faerieground just as dark as the evil in our world.

  Just as in our world, it is sometimes very hard to tell the difference.

  I wish I’d told you sooner, what you might find there. I should have known I couldn’t keep you girls out of the woods. After all, you’re my daughter.

  I should have prepared you. Taught you. Helped you. I should have been ready.

  I just hope you’re not afraid.

  Sweet Lucy.

  You’re like a gleaming ray of sunshine.

  Soli was so afraid for you. But so determined to find you and bring you home.

  I think she’ll do it.

  I love you, my darling, and I’m sending my warmest and most protective thoughts through the woods and into the faerieground, where they will find you and keep you safe.

  Love,

  Mom

  Soli

  “Andria wanted to be a Crow?” I ask, shocked.

  Calandra tells me.

  As a girl, Andria loved the woods. She spent every minute there.

  She talked about the faerieground all the time. She never bothered to make real friends, so enchanted was she with the idea of the faeries inside Willow Forest.

  And then one day, she made a wish.

  She found herself in the faerieground, and the first person she saw was a Crow.

  The Crows had a plan.

  They wanted to kill the Willow King, but they didn’t know how.

  When they had Andria, they realized their weapon.

  They would make him fall in love with the human girl, and then she would kill him.