Bad Luck Girl

by Sarah Zettel

  The human world is alive, but it’s nothing like the life in the fairy world. I couldn’t touch that world the way I could touch the world around me now. I couldn’t know it instantly, couldn’t feel each atom of it like I could feel my fingers and toes, and move them about just as easily. This world was beautiful. It was everything and everywhere I wanted to be. There was no more helplessness or confusion for me here, and there never would be again. I was a part of everything. The Unseelie land was what I was, and who I was and would be forever.

  “You should close the gate, Callie,” said my uncle. “We don’t want any uninvited guests at your homecoming, do we?”

  As soon as those words reached me, I agreed with them. No. We certainly did not. I understood that instantly and completely, and I knew the Seelie king agreed as well. I turned lightly on my toes, and just as lightly, I reached out with my powers. I found the ragged edges of that ratty, broken gate that led to Chicago and the human world. I pulled it shut and turned the key.

  My father smiled down at me, approval shining in his eyes. I took his hand so together we could follow the king and my uncle as they led us farther into our home.

  We passed through the Bone Forest first. Trees with mottled, pale trunks drew down the light from the stars so it pulsed in the ripples of their white bark and the veins of their thick, pale leaves. Ferns made of smoke clustered around their roots. White moss curled and billowed like the morning mist over bone trees that had broken and been left to fall. The ground itself held a thousand thousand separate lives in its insects and the grains of its dark loam.

  Next came the Emerald Fields, and the Ebony Road that would lead us to the Twilight Gardens. I knew the name of each place we passed through. I knew how they’d been born and all the lives that made them up. I could have walked through them with my own eyes closed, because there were other eyes everywhere and they all belonged to me.

  Not all life held the shape of plants or insects. Those were the lesser of our kind. There were people too. My true kindred, the Unseelie, were all tall and beautiful, with the light of our world in their eyes. Like my father. Their skin was midnight or ochre or amber or sand or pure white. Some had translucent wings and carried the scent of jasmine or hyacinth with them. Others were like the purest, most perfect ideal of the human form. My uncle wanted all these to see our passage to the palace of the Midnight Throne, and they came at his wish. They lined the Ebony Road. The Seelie king made Ivy’s mouth smile and Ivy’s hand wave, and the Unseelie nobles cheered. But as soon as we passed by, they all fell silent. I thought about glancing back to see what was going on behind us, but that idea didn’t last, and I never did see.

  Beyond the Twilight Gardens waited the palace of the Midnight Throne, but not in its full glory. There had been resistance to the Seelie king’s arrival, and it had broken the palace apart. The towers were cracked like the oldest trees in the Bone Forest, and smoke moss and blood ivy were already crawling up their sides. The great star dome of the center was broken open like an eggshell, and I thought I saw the memory of crow men rising out of it toward the indigo sky, which held both the stars and the distant promise of full night. A sadness hung about the broken palace, but that was no surprise to me. I’d known it was coming, after all, just like I knew the road to the palace and all its history.

  No one was concerned much with my reactions just then. My uncle and the Seelie king were looking at my father. Papa gazed at that shattered palace, seeing it both for the first time and the hundredth, because he was wholly a part of the Unseelie Lands, just like me. He was sad but accepting, just like me. What were the king and my uncle finding to look at? We were all one and the same here. None of us could surprise the other. That was a human thing, and we’d left all human things far behind.

  We entered the palace through the Blue Moon gates, and the First Hall, and the Great Hall, and the Antechamber. The guards, servants, and messengers scurried or stumped or glided past the stones that had fallen from the dome and the moss and mist creeping through the cracked walls. Ten guards pushed open the great doors to the Throne Room, even though those doors were cracked so badly we could have stepped through without effort.

  The Throne Room was made of midnight-black marble shot through with veins of starlight, so it looked like the stone had captured lightning in its heart. Like everything else, the room was alive, though badly wounded from the war. It hoped if it held out long enough, it would be fed. The dais at the far end of the great room was still in one piece, though. So were the two thrones carved from pure darkness, one for the king and one for the queen. My grandparents were also in one piece. Mostly.

  The king and queen of the Midnight Throne sat as still as wooden puppets in their places of honor. I could feel they were alive. But they’d been cut off from the land and pushed deep down into themselves until they couldn’t even see up anymore. Their heads lolled on their shoulders, their eyes were wide open, and their jaws gaped. They looked so funny I had to laugh.

  “You’re gonna catch flies!” I giggled. I couldn’t remember who’d said that to me, but they’d said it a lot, and I liked the sound of it.

  Grandma’s diamond crown had slipped down over one ear and that only made her look funnier. I nudged at it with a flick of magic, and it fell clattering to the stone floor. My uncle laughed and with an even lighter flick, sent the crown rolling across the floor to scatter a pile of tough, papery leaves that had fallen from the new bone trees sprouting outside.

  There was memory here too. It cowered between the shadows and the shining marble. In memory, Grandfather barred the door against his own army after the Seelie king had turned it against him. Grandmother stationed herself on the dais, and raised her spear, because they already knew the doors would not hold. The door split open with enormous thunder, so the Seelie king in the skin of his lovely, golden dead daughter could walk through, with my uncle right beside him. The king spoke my grandparents’ names; Faelen, Twilight Lord, King of the Midnight Throne. Luigsech, Midnight’s Consort, Twilight’s Queen, Daughter of the Ebony Road and the Bone Forest. All his will and desire infused those words. He wished that they would fall into their thrones, unable to move until someone said those names again. Because the Seelie king wished it, because he knew the names, and because he was the strongest here, that was exactly what happened.

  “Why?” asked Papa. The word echoed back and forth in that broken chamber, and the stones themselves strained to listen. “Why leave them alive at all?”

  “Because it would not do for Princess Calliope to take on her heritage before we’re sure she’s ready,” said my uncle. “While our parents live, the throne is theirs, not hers, and wiser heads can act as regents for her.”

  “Of course.” Papa smiled. “Just how it should be. We must be completely certain all things are in readiness before we make the final move, mustn’t we?”

  “Oh, yes,” agreed the Seelie king. “They were careless, those two. They kept themselves too sated, too happy, and dabbled too much in the dangers of creation.” Ivy’s head shook sadly. “They gave their names to others.” He meant my uncle, of course, and my father a little, but mostly my uncle. “You should always keep one name back.” The king was looking at me, but I couldn’t understand why. I did know my grandparents had been careless, and now they were funny. I started to laugh again, but an uncomfortable sensation rumbled through me, and I pressed my hands to my stomach.

  “What’s the matter, Callie? Hungry?” asked my uncle.

  “They are … They’re hungry.” I meant my grandparents. Cut off from the magic of the Unseelie country, they were slowly starving. But it wasn’t just them. “The whole world is hungry. Why are they hungry?”

  “What else will keep them in line?” asked the Seelie king mildly. “If the lesser ones are fed, they’ll only grow stronger. If we let them be strong, what will stop them from challenging us if they feel like it?”

  I felt my face scrunch up. I was seeing something from far away. A cro
wd of mismade creatures gathering around a table. They were talking about payment for what they’d taken. I was thinking about a white boy and a dusty street and the shame of not having payment for food.…

  Why was I thinking of such ugly things?

  “Do you want to feed them, Your Highness?” my uncle asked. “And perhaps you’d like something to eat for yourself?”

  Another image flashed through my mind. I saw the goblin stones split open and pale Seelies scooping up the life as it ran out of them like liquid silver. My uncle laughed, and the vision was gone. “Oh, no, Your Highness. That is for the lesser ones. For us, there are much daintier foods.”

  “But so soon?” murmured my father. “We just arrived. Perhaps she should see her room first.”

  “I disagree,” said the Seelie king. “I think Her Highness should see the Kitchen Garden.”

  So, of course we went to the Kitchen Garden, which was less a garden and more a greenhouse. A bunch of its frosted panes had shattered, but some were still whole, and they shone down bright daylight for the garden. There were gardeners—lean and knob-jointed Unseelies with broad, forked hands for digging, or scissor fingers for pruning. They picked their way between beds of earth that held the fruit trees and ordered rows of plants. Not that all of them looked like the plants I’d gotten used to in the human world. One tree had the shape of a bearded man with boots and a sword in his arm that had become a branch and hung now with bloodred cherries. I knew as soon as I looked at him that he was Feodor Alexi Alexeovich. In another bed, a mottled brown-and-white woman stretched out on the earth like she’d lain down for a nap. She was Berta. Mushrooms sprouted from her, in a way that made me think of feathers. Another tree had gotten itself tangled. A long, colorful strip of paper twined around it like a vine. The tree held the paper tightly, though it rattled in the breeze like it was trying to get free. Bunches of grapes dangled from twisting paper stems. I couldn’t see anything left of her real shape, she’d been twisted so tight, but I knew this paper was named Tola. I’d called her and Berta both something else before, but that didn’t matter now. They couldn’t hide their real names from us here. They weren’t strong enough. Neither were any of the others. I looked at the beds that stretched out for long yards in every direction. Many were filled with trees and plants. Every one of them had a name, and every one grew a new fruit or other tasty treat. Some were empty, though, nothing but bare dirt waiting to be planted over.

  “We know you came here planning to bargain for your Undone, Callie,” said my uncle. “But you can see now that simply isn’t possible, can’t you?”

  Of course it was. Had I ever had such a silly plan? I couldn’t take the food from my family and my king.

  “What do you think, Callie? Are you still hungry?” The king turned Ivy’s face toward me. The blue of her eyes was only a thin ring around her black, blank pupils. “Maybe you should try the grapes.”

  I moved forward. The purple grapes looked sweet and ripe, and I really was hungry. I stretched up on my toes, but stopped. Something was clouding my vision. Another memory. A memory of the hot sun on my back and watching while bark closed over my fingertips. Slowly, I settled back down on my heels. Why didn’t I pull the grapes? What was the matter with me?

  “Not ready,” said the Seelie king softly. “Not yet, but almost. There’s still something we don’t have.” Ivy’s mouth smiled. “You should go to your room, Your Highness. There’s going to be a dance tonight, to welcome you home, and you want to be ready, don’t you?”

  Of course I did. I didn’t want anything else. I especially did not want to look back to see who was trying to scream. They had nothing to do with me.

  There is no time in the fairy lands. No sunrise or sunset. Everything bleeds together, just like a dream. I danced with the Unseelie nobles in a dress of diamonds and stars with a diamond tiara on my head. I sat at a table that stretched out under the bone trees and watched those trees bowing to my uncle and the Seelie king.

  Eventually, I walked out with my uncle and the king all across the Emerald Fields and up the Scarlet Hills. There, we could see all the way to the border of the Unseelie land, where the twilight shadows ended and the pure white cliffs waited. That was the Seelie country. It hadn’t always been there, of course. Fairy lands were as fluid as magic and could travel as easily as wishes and dreams, if their rulers wanted them to. The Seelie land had rolled right up to the border when the king won the war over my grandparents, but it couldn’t come any farther. It was pushing against a barrier, but there was no way through. There could be, of course. I could make one if I reached out. I knew where to touch and turn to open the way up wide, or close it down so small a mouse wouldn’t have been able to wedge a whisker through. It was strange that that other country was struggling to discover a thing I could see with one glance. It was funny.

  “Open the gate, Calliope Margaret LeRoux deMinuit,” the king made Ivy say. “Open the gate to the Seelie land.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want you to,” answered Ivy’s voice. “Prophecy Girl, Bad Luck Girl. Open the gate.”

  That confused me. “But it’s perfect here. What do you need with that old place?”

  The Seelie king was angry. I felt it burning all around me, and I didn’t like it. It reminded me of all kinds of things from long ago and far away, beyond the borders of the Unseelie country, and I didn’t want to think about any of them, ever again.

  “Not yet,” my uncle said. “Not quite.”

  “Why not?” Ivy stamped her foot. “What’s left? How many names can she possibly have?”

  “We will find out,” said my uncle. “It will happen. She cannot keep the secret from us forever.”

  And that was how it went. My uncle walked me round and round the Unseelie lands. This country was a simple, ordered place, not like the jumbled-up chaos of the human world. There was the forest, the field, the hills, the road, the two gardens, and the palace. All was as it should be, and my uncle showed me everything, great and small. He let me walk alone sometimes, through the forest, over the fields, and up the hills. We even walked all the way back to the spot where I’d locked the other gate, the one that led to the human city. All the time, he watched me. I could feel him watching me as clearly as I could feel all the other hungry lives that made up our home. He especially watched when I went down to the Kitchen Garden and reached for the grapes, and came a little closer each time.

  Usually, the Seelie king met me in the broken greenhouse. When he did, he made Ivy’s voice ask, “Who are you? What is your name?”

  Each time I answered, “Calliope Margaret LeRoux deMinuit, Prophecy Girl, Bad Luck Girl, Heir to the Midnight Throne.” Because those were the names that came to me. I couldn’t think what else I was supposed to say. I just knew my uncle and the king wanted me to remember something more. But I hadn’t brought any other names with me from the human world, and I didn’t know anything more about myself than what they shared with me.

  One time, I wandered into the Throne Room to see the Seelie king standing in front of my grandparents. He was angry at them. Even though the heart of their kingdom was crumbling around them, there was still something between them and him, and he hated that. He was so angry at them he wanted to swallow them whole. But he couldn’t. They couldn’t move, they couldn’t speak, but this country still belonged to them. He’d have to kill them to take it away, but if he killed them, the Unseelie country would come to me, not him, and he didn’t want that either. Not yet. I watched for a while, because the hate was something new and it was interesting in its way. But it got familiar after a time, and I wandered away again.

  Once it was certain I knew every inch of the world, and every inch of it knew me, I was allowed to walk as I chose. But it was strange. If my uncle and the Seelie king weren’t with me, I frequently didn’t want to walk outside at all. I sat in my silver chamber, or I just wandered through the palace. I noted without surprise that new trees and new ivy had grown since I’d
last been by. They drank their sustenance from the starving stones, slowly hollowing them out. Even if the Seelie lands never rolled over this place, the palace would eventually dissolve into the trees and ivy and smoke moss. If I opened the gate to the Seelie land, it would happen that much sooner. That would be different. It would be nice to see something different, I thought. Maybe one day. Maybe soon.

  Sometimes when I sat in my silver chamber, I saw things in the reflections on the polished floor and the smooth curve of the bedposts. There was only starlight and twilight, so those reflections weren’t very bright, and they didn’t last long. But I liked it when I could see them, because they were new and different. They didn’t fit the world around me, though, and I liked that part less.

  Sometimes, I saw a human boy with blue eyes in a frail house talking seriously with ugly creatures. They wanted to listen to him, but they were afraid. He kept on talking anyway, which was silly of him, but it made me sad for some reason. I didn’t watch him that much.

  Other times, I saw a green place where a thin human woman moved among more of the ugly creatures. They were clustered around kettles of hot oil. They tossed lumps of pale dough into the golden liquid so it bubbled violently. It was interesting for a while, but not for long, and I turned my eyes away.

  One time, as I wandered through the palace, I found my father. He sat in a golden chamber, much like my silver one. In fact, he never left it. The Seelie king and my uncle wanted him to stay here, so he did. He didn’t come to the dances or the feasts, the hills, the gardens, or the fields. I never wondered why. He didn’t need to be near me, after all. I always knew where he was. So did they.

  But now that I saw him with my actual eyes, I saw he was writing in a book. Something rippled through me, and I realized it was surprise. I could see the book, but couldn’t touch it, not the way I could touch the stones and the trees, and the guards and the servants. It was different. I moved closer, and I read,