by Beth Bracken
And in exchange, they would make her appear as a faerie.
She could stay there forever.
“They didn’t know she had a sister,” Calandra tells me. “They didn’t know I would follow her, and fight for her.”
“What did you do?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I took her place.”
“So you did trick my father,” I say. “And you did kill him.”
Her blind eyes close.
“No,” she whispers.
She tells me more.
Once she had convinced them to let her stay in Andria’s place, the Crows sent Calandra to the Willow Kingdom.
They made her look like a faerie and cast their spell.
If anyone found out she was human and removed the spell, she would become sick and die.
She found the king and she told him the Crows’ plan. She assumed he would remove the glamour and send her home.
But he couldn’t.
He tried.
They spent days, weeks, months together, trying to break the spell, trying to send her home. But the Crows’ spell was too difficult and he couldn’t do it.
Instead, quite by accident, they fell in love.
They were married and happy and a baby was born. They named her Hope.
And then the king became ill, and he died.
As Calandra mourned, the kingdom fell into disrepair. Her people turned on Calandra.
They knew she had been with the Crows. They did not know she was human. They thought she was a Crow, sent to kill the king and destroy the kingdom so that the Crows could take it over.
The Ladybirds came in the night and took the baby away.
And after that, Calandra was at war with everyone.
Only her guards were her friends. She spent the next years waiting for someone to make a wish in the woods.
She finishes the tale.
Then she takes my hand.
“I dreamed of seeing you again,” she says. “I thought I never would.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I hope you know I was safe and loved.”
“Yes, I know,” she says. “You are strong and beautiful and brave. My precious girl. My Hope. Remember to always turn the stones.”
Then she takes a deep breath, squeezes my hand, and is gone.
Soli
We keep walking through the woods, her body left behind.
I don’t like leaving it.
It seems cruel and unfair.
But Jonn says—he promises, tears in his eyes—someone will be sent for it, and she will be buried as a queen.
Kheelan takes my hand.
He and Jonn and I walk, silent, through the forest. We come to a small, gnarled plum tree dripping with fruit, and we stop.
“The Sirens are beyond this tree,” Jonn says. “You mustn’t listen to them.”
Kheelan and I nod.
Then I grab Jonn’s hand.
We all squeeze hands, take deep breaths, and run.
Soli
Jonn, Kheelan, and I run toward the Crows’ nest, holding hands.
Lucy waits in the Crow palace, somewhere. She’s dying.
This is the fastest I’ve ever run.
The Sirens are nearby, and I know I’m not to listen to them.
I’ve heard of Sirens. We read about them in school. I never knew they could be real.
They have a song, the legend goes, that takes you in.
I think I’m strong enough to hear it and not give in. What could a song do, anyway?
Then I hear the whispers.
I hear them calling my name.
Their sweet song.
Come to us, Soledad.
Come to us, princess.
Wouldn’t it be so much safer, so much better, to be there with them? To give up my crown, to give it all up.
Come to us, Soledad.
Come to us, princess.
And I stop running.
I let their song swim into my heart.
Lucy
I wait in Caro’s room.
I know I should be mad at her—I am mad at her, in a way—but mostly I feel bad for her. She thought that stealing me away from the Ladybirds would get her some attention. And I don’t think it’s going to work. She’s not going to get what she wants. Poor Caro. Caro, the Betrayer. And, it seems, the Lonely.
My mother’s letter has made me feel strong. I know she wrote it days ago, but I can still feel her love flowing toward me through the forest.
The door opens, and Caro walks in, carrying a tray. She puts it on the bed in front of me. “Don’t spill on my bed,” she tells me, turning up her nose.
I pull the tray closer. “I won’t,” I say.
There is a bowl of some kind of thin soup. A hard roll. A glass of brackish water. Prison food.
“You’re still dying, you know,” she says. Like she’s telling me the weather.
“I know,” I say. “I didn’t think the milk, or whatever it was, would cure me.” It gave me my sight back. That was all. My body still feels hot and sick.
“Bee pollen, I think,” she says. “And probably some other stuff.”
“Yeah, I assume,” I mutter. I wish she’d leave, but she sits down at the other end of the bed.
“I know you want me to leave,” she says. “But this is my room.”
“I know,” I say. I sip the soup. It needs salt, but it’s warm. “I didn’t ask to be put here. You brought me here.”
“Sorry about that,” she says, and I look up at her. She does look sorry. Then she sighs. “It’s not that I don’t like you, Lucy,” she says. “I just needed to do the right thing for my father.”
“I get it,” I say. “This has been going on for a really long time, right?”
She nods. “Longer than any of us have been alive,” she says. “And we’re so close. He doesn’t want to lose the Willow Kingdom. It’s important to him. He wants to win the war. We were so close—until you and Soli came here. We were almost done. The queen would have died and we would have taken over and it would be ours.”
“But then the queen’s daughter came ba
ck,” I say, suddenly understanding. “So now they’ll try to use me to get her to leave. Right? They’ll say they’ll only cure me if she leaves. Or maybe they’ll make her choose between me and Kheelan, and say they’ll kill whoever she doesn’t choose. And she’ll say that they can have the kingdom instead. Right, Caro? Is that what they’re trying to do? Make her leave? Or maybe it’s that they want to make my mother angry. She’s been here before, but she doesn’t want to come again. But if I’m in danger, she’ll come, and—”
Caro stands up, her face flushed. The soup sloshes out of the bowl and onto the tray. “Shut up!” she says. “I never told you any of that!”
Soli
I sway with the music, toward the music, toward the whispers.
Toward the Sirens.
I close my eyes.
But then hands grasp my shoulders.
I open my eyes. Kheelan’s face blocks my sight of the Sirens, his hands over his ears. I push hard against him, trying to see them again. He covers my ears, and I can’t hear the voices anymore.
My self floods back.
But now Kheelan can hear the Sirens.
“Cover my ears,” he yells, and Jonn comes toward us.
I reach up and cover Kheelan’s ears.
Jonn has his own hands clamped against his head.
“Run,” Jonn mouths, and his eyes dart toward the black castle beyond the lake.
At the same moment, Kheelan and I take our hands from each other’s heads and put them on our own, and in the brief second my ears are open, the sweet voices slide in again.
But I keep my eyes on Kheelan’s.
I cover my ears.
I turn my body.
And we all run, again, toward the nest where the Crows live.
When we are far enough away from the lake, Jonn lowers his arms. Kheelan and I do the same.
“That was awful,” I say. “I didn’t think it would be that hard.”
“You did a wonderful job,” Jonn says. He smiles at me.
“Thanks,” I say. “But it was Kheelan’s help that got me past.”
Kheelan grabs my hand, and I squeeze his fingers.
The forest is open here, in the valley where we stand at the foot of a rocky hill. The Crows’ castle seems so far in the distance.
“There’s a shortcut,” Jonn says. “Calandra said to follow the sound of the water.”
My eyes swell with tears, but I don’t let any of them fall.
As we walk, I am the first to hear it. “I think I hear a waterfall,” I say.
Jonn tilts his head to the side, and he nods. “I hear it too,” he says. “Come.”
The sound of water becomes overwhelming as we climb to the top of a large boulder. There’s a waterfall beyond it, falling from jagged, dark rocks.
“There,” Jonn says.
He points. “We cross that water.”
Lucy
Caro storms out of the room, but I know what I said was right.
I will die unless Soli agrees to leave. But if she leaves, her kingdom falls to the Crows.
I finish every bite of my food. Whatever happens, I’ll need as much strength as I can get.
Then I gaze out the window for a while. I try to imagine what it would be like to be Caro. For this to be my life.
The grounds outside the castle are beautiful, even if there are guards tromping back and forth. And her room is warm and pretty.
Her father is someone important, so she’s had privilege and luxury. I imagine her bossing around servants. Wearing beautiful dresses. Having fancy parties. Being Caro, not Caro the Betrayer.
I stand and begin to look around the room.
A chest of drawers holds her clothes, but I don’t want to invade her privacy by going through them. I slide the drawers closed without touching the silk and leather and woolen clothes inside.
A shelf is lined with books and little trinkets—shells, pinecones, dried flowers. It reminds me of the things my mother would leave at the edge of the woods for the faeries. The things she did to keep Soli—and me—safe.
An armoire made of dark wood stands in the corner. I tug at the doors, and though they are hard to open, one side finally does.
The wardrobe is full of weapons. Girl-sized ones.
So this has been Caro’s life.
Soli
The water is fast.
The water is cold.
The water is everywhere.
I’ve rolled up my jeans, but my clothes are soaking.
We walk in a line, not touching each other.
First Jonn.
Then me.
Then Kheelan.
If one of them falls, we have agreed that we have to let him fall. If I fall, they will save me.
I argued, but they would not listen.
They work for the queen.
And now the queen is me.
I can’t look up.
I can’t look anywhere except into the water, to watch where I place each foot.
A rock is slick with weeds, and my foot slips, but Kheelan, swift as a fox, reaches forward. He holds me steady until I have my balance back.
I still don’t dare to look up, to look anywhere besides down at my feet on the rocks in the water.
My heart pounds.
And when Jonn reaches for my waist and pulls me onto shore, I am shocked.
“We made it,” I say.
He nods, unsmiling. Then he helps Kheelan to shore.
The Crows’ castle-nest looms ahead of us. “How do we get in?” I ask. “What’s our plan?”
Kheelan and his father look at each other. “We are just your guides,” Jonn says finally.
I feel panic rise in my throat. “So . . . we don’t have a plan?” I ask. “What am I supposed to do?”
“No one can tell you that,” Kheelan says. “You are the queen.”
“But I’ve only been the queen for a few days,” I say. “Really, a few hours, since she died. I don’t know what to do. No one has told me what to do.”
“There is one thing,” Jonn says. “I can help you one way.”
He pulls a vial from his pocket. “Your mother used this often,” he says. “It’s liquid magic. She had none of her own, so—she needed its aid. It will help you.”
Something makes me stop, pull my crown from my backpack, and place it on my head.
He holds the little glass vial toward me. Inside, a dark liquid swirls.
“I don’t need it,” I tell him. “I have magic of my own.
Lucy
On the bottom of the wardrobe full of weapons lies a boy’s cap.
A leather coat is crumpled at its side. And a pair of boots sits in the corner of Caro’s room.
Suddenly I know what to do.
I put on the cap and shove my hair under its brim. The coat is too big, but the sleeves aren’t so long that I look like I’m wearing my dad’s coat. The boots fit perfectly. I toss my shoes under the bed and try the door.
It opens. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to see, so I have to go now.
The hallway is empty, but once I turn a corner guards are everywhere. I keep my head lowered, and no one stops me. They all act like I’m not even there.
I don’t know what it is, but something is telling me to keep walking. And the same something tells me to stop at a plain wooden door, and to open it.
It’s a storage closet, or something. Just shelves and buckets and brooms. But when I look up, I see a wooden box on the top shelf.
I climb up and grab the box. Inside, there’s a necklace a lot like the one my mom used to wear. The one with the pendant that’s now in Soli’s crown.
But this pendant is blue, not green.
I wind the chain around my throat and clasp it.
Soli
My magic has stopped the guards.
It has opened the door.
It has let us into the nest.
All I have to do is touch the stone in my crown, and what I want is what happens.
The Crow guards shout, but we don’t stop. We walk slowly down the hallway, and they have to let us pass by. They raise their weapons, but they can’t use them.
The magic won’t allow it.
It’s as though Lucy is calling my name: I know where to go.
We walk faster, faster.
Once we find Lucy, I will get the Crows to heal her. I don’t know how, but I will.
I know it in my bones.
And then we will go back to my kingdom, where I will help the people heal.
One more room. Then a hallway.
And then we’ll find her.
I don’t know how I know, but I do.
We march through a set of wooden doors into a room. And my magic suddenly can’t help anymore.
Caro stands in the room. And beside her, a man. He wears a crown.
“Queen Soledad,” he says.
He bows, but his nostrils flare as if Jonn and Kheelan and I are disgusting to him.
“I’m here for my friend,” I say.
“She is safe, and still alive,” he tells me. “Do you dare to doubt me?”
“It doesn’t matter whether I doubt you,” I say.
I can feel that Lucy is alive.
I don’t know how I know, but I know.
“You sound like your mother,” he says, walking closer. “And look like her, too.”
The man reach
es for my chin. I see Caro wince.
“Don’t touch her, Georg,” Jonn says.
“Protecting her, are you, Jonn?” the man—Georg—says. “Just like the last queen, I suppose.”
“That is my job,” Jonn says, straightening his back. “I am sworn to protect the Willow Queen.”
“And who is this?” Georg asks, gesturing at Kheelan.
“He is my son,” says Jonn. “And my apprentice.”
“Sworn to protect the queen,” Caro says, a mean smile spreading across her face. “I knew there was a reason he was paying attention to you.”
“Be quiet, child,” Georg says, and Caro’s smile disappears.
I try to call forth the magic, to quiet Georg so that I can find Lucy.
She’s just down the hallway.
I can feel her there.
“Your magic won’t work in my presence,” he says.
“That’s what you think,” I mutter. I reach up and touch Andria’s pendant, safe in my crown.
The king, if that’s what he is, is enjoying this. He moves his hand and my own hand goes numb, falls to my side.
“Just like your mother,” he says again. “And like her, you’ll never reach what you came for. And like her, you will have to choose.”
He points at Kheelan. “The boy, or your friend,” he says. “One of them must die. You choose Lucy, I’ll kill the boy. You choose the boy, I’ll kill the girl.”
And just like that, my eyes fill with tears. “Both,” I whisper.
Soli
“Choose Lucy,” Kheelan says. “It’s okay, Soli. I promise.”
“No,” I say. “I won’t choose against you. And I won’t choose against her.”
“Both was never an option,” Georg says.
He moves his hand again, and a shoot of pain courses through my body.
Suddenly I understand my mother, my real mother.
She had to choose.
It was a different choice, and it ended up trapping her.
I won’t make the same mistake.
“I have made my choice,” I say, and my voice sounds clear and strong.