The Master

by Melanie Jackson

  He hadn’t said how large such a tree should be, but if people brought them inside, they couldn’t be all that tall—not like the wonderful display of metal trees at the mall. Anyway, she wouldn’t have time to find decorations for a large tree. All she had was aluminum foil and some dog biscuits.

  Zee pulled on her cape and turned to look at Nick and the children. She had a moment’s qualm. Should she go? It felt safe; whatever evil magic had conjured that storm was now gone. The children and Nick were deeply asleep. The fire was dying, but it would hold for another hour. She would build it up when she got back. Yet . . .

  Feeling the compulsion prick at her again, she turned away. Picking up a small rusted hatchet she had concealed in the small pile of firewood, Zee went to the door and opened it.

  The morning was cold, the air a sharp thing that stung her lungs with invisible needles. She understood why Nick hadn’t wanted to work outside. Even in heavy clothing, the weather was a punishment. Still, it helped her keep awake. Moments of sleepiness were coming upon her in waves now; she would soon need to sleep. But not yet. She needed to do this thing for Nick . . . before it was too late and the moment had passed.

  Zee looked about carefully, waiting for something nearby to present itself as an obvious candidate. The most obvious choice was one of the ubiquitous pines. But there were also a handful of twisted oaks and also several attractive manzanita bushes, which were more conveniently sized.

  “Why not a Christmas bush?” she asked the early light. Zee bit her lip, wishing she had questioned Nick more carefully. She reviewed their short conversation. Nick had talked about the European tradition of singing to the trees. They didn’t have manzanita in Europe. That left the oaks and the pines.

  Personally, she preferred oak trees. They weren’t so sappy, and they had beautiful branches. But Christmas was largely about smells, or so it seemed, and there was no denying the sharp pleasantness of freshly cut pine. It was a pity that there were no small ones nearby. Maybe she could just cut off a branch. It would be easier to move and it would save the tree.

  But, no. If she was going to do this, she wanted to do it right. Nick hadn’t said that he missed having a Christmas branch. He wanted a tree. It was important to do this right, to bring the correct offering so everything would be well.

  Familiar hunger began to gnaw at Zee as she hesitated, but it wasn’t because of her empty stomach.

  Thanks to Nick, for the first time in the last two days she was not having hunger of the body. It was odd but, sometimes, when she was feeling especially lonely or frightened, Zee liked to think about food—all the wonderful dishes that she had read about in cooking magazines at the human grocery store in town when she was twelve but had never actually tasted. She thought sometimes that she would like to be fat, all filled up with wonderful things made by people who cooked with what for humans was a sort of magic. Other magazines—fashion magazines—said that to be fat was wrong, that Zee should want to be skinny because that was the key to success. But Zee’s body had always been magazine-thin, and it had very rarely been happy. And since her father died, she had felt perpetually empty inside. She needed to fill the hollow space with something.

  Sighing, Zee started into the cold forest, so dark with fir-scented shadows. She didn’t like walking alone—but not because she was afraid of wild animals. It was just that being alone gave her too much time to think, to question, to doubt . . . and she was doing a lot of doubting these days.

  Zee had always been aware that she wasn’t a real goblin, nor really a human, nor a fey. She was a freak, a crossbreed who was actually forbidden in many lutin cultures. Some days the aloneness of that identity pressed in on her, but never so hard as it had the last few weeks. The autumn had been brutal, dark and cold outside and inside her soul. She had kept on going only because she had to, because turning back would have meant that there really was something in the world to be afraid of after all. It was to admit that she might try to find a new life and still fail. And she had persisted because of the children. She had to go on for them, even when her own strength and courage wore thin and her dreams ran out. She couldn’t let fear stop her. If she did, then Luz would win. Destruction of her hopes and dreams was his favorite form of thievery. He had sucked her mother dry; she would not let him have this victory as well!

  Leaving home hadn’t been an easy decision; it was not the lutin way. True, her life there had not been happy since her father died, but it hadn’t been so bad at first, when it was just her mother and uncles. But her mother had eventually remarried a goblin from another hive, and the creature, Luz, was a human-hating bigot who never tired of trying to turn Zee’s birth family against her and the children because they looked more human than lutin. And without her mother’s support, the campaign of alienation had slowly worked. Zee’s family’s disappointment in the trio’s increasingly human appearance, and eventual distrust of their hive loyalties, had grown until it was the only thing she ever saw in their faces. Except for her stepfather: He had looked triumphant.

  And then there was her cousin, Paspar. He had steadily grown more sullen and nasty the longer he hung around with Luz, and the longer Zee resisted him. He had at first thought of her as perfect wife material—someone who wouldn’t be fussy because she was a half-breed and therefore didn’t deserve to have any standards about men. Then he had become physically and verbally abusive, telling her plainly that half-breed sluts didn’t have any right to be selective about whose bed they warmed.

  But she did deserve to have standards, damn it!

  And the children did too. And they never would have had any if she’d left them behind again while she made a life for herself. She had been gone for only a couple of weeks, trying to set up her business and arrange a place to live, and had been appalled at the change in them when she returned. They had been pale and silent, their eyes downcast. Asenatha, as Gretel was then called, had looked up with sad eyes and asked, “Zee, am I bad?”

  Asenatha was a beautiful child—sweet, thoughtful and gifted with a passion for learning that Zee realized would never be fulfilled if she stayed with her family. They saw the child as nothing more than burdensome half-breed chattel, to be sold off to the first male who would have her. Asenatha’s psyche would store up scars as surely as her body. And she was too young to defend herself. She was too kind— and too lutin—to get angry and fight back. Zee understood. She, too, had been good and obedient as a child and allowed the others of her hive to eat away at her self-confidence and self-esteem. She had let them pull her creative teeth and claws. The thought of that passivity made her despise herself.

  Perhaps it wasn’t all her fault; expressing anger was never something she had seen demonstrated by the women of her hive. Even possessing such emotion was a sin. Those who lived in a hive—especially the females—weren’t supposed to feel or think anything unapproved by the hive master. That their actual master was dead didn’t matter, that he’d been killed in the destruction of the Las Vegas hive—Luz was now the one in control. And anger, like personal ambition, had to be kept hidden from him, no matter the cost to the soul. But while the others could do it, Zee had trouble: Possessing that hidden anger and denying her dreams was like having gravel buried in the skin. Some days it was all she could do to ignore it and get on with her life. Many times she had thought about what it would be like to grow long fangs and sharp claws so that she could tear herself open and let the fear and anger and frustration out. She sometimes wanted fangs and talons for other reasons as well.

  And then there was Gaust. What would happen to Gaust—Hansel—if she left him behind? Already an angry boy, would the neglect and abuse eventually teach him to be a monster, too? She feared that he would grow claws—giant, tearing talons—and would use them on anyone who got near him.

  Zee had gone to her mother one last time to ask for help, but took a single look at her parent and knew the question had been decided already; it was useless to enlist her aid. Her mother had always
been a quiet creature, somber in nature, but the woman who looked at Zee was more than that. She was grim and petulant, all joy snuffed out from her first husband’s death, left with nothing but her lutin family who, though they’d taken her back, would not allow her to keep her human luxuries and would never accept her half-breed children. Want for worldly, forbidden things now distorted her face and lined her forehead and deadened her eyes until she was barely recognizable. Zee knew that there would be no help from her; she’d feed her children to Luz’s family without a single protest if it made her own life more comfortable.

  Nor would Zee’s other kin intervene. She had an aunt and an uncle by marriage who were gentle and sympathetic—and who kept Zee’s human books so her mother wouldn’t find them—but they were just too afraid to cross Luz. They had urged Zee to give in and seek safety in marrying Paspar, even knowing how she would likely be abused by him. That had seemed far better to them than Zee’s idea of leaving.

  So Zee could not stay with any of her family. To do so would be to bite the poison apple like the human princess doomed to a sleeping death—a horrible human story that haunted Zee because she knew it was true and not just a tall tale.

  There were many poisonous things in her world; Zee had learned this from watching her mother. Always a quiet woman, anxious to please, Zee’s mother had become nothing more than a drone, a slave to her new husband. What was that story— Tristan and Isolde?—where the hero was told that by taking the love potion he’d drunk his death. That had been her poor mother. She had fallen in love with a half-human, half-fey. He, being kind and generous, had given her something wonderful, a gift that was fabulous—the chance to dream and see a wider world than a goblin hive. But it also was a gift that had been taken away with his life. Because she hadn’t the tools or nature to fight, she had given up her place in the world without a struggle. And though she hated it, in part Zee understood her mother’s choice to return to the hive.

  Yes, the world outside could be hostile, especially for an uneducated woman with children. Returning to the lutin fold had looked the easiest, safest course. But if Zee herself followed that path, she would be trapped, lost—her soul first, then her mind and finally probably her body, because her cousins were not gentle and most hive women did not live long; they were worn out by endless breeding as the men tried to strengthen their numbers.

  Luz and his kin had called Zee a subversive thinker—a charge she had always denied—but perhaps they were right. She hated the way her family lived in the hive, and she didn’t believe that life in a larger, organized hive would be any better. All the stories suggested Lilith was a monster, though Zee herself hadn’t lived under the goblin queen because her father had taken them away when she was small. Zee didn’t recall much of the outside world from her childhood, but she had read the books her father gave her, and she even thought in the human tongue when she was angry. And many small human, rebellious thoughts—and then deeds—had begun to creep into her life. She’d had secret dreams of independence, of friendships outside the hive, of travel—of a fuller life, a life self-created and not handed to her by someone else whose soul and dreams were dead.

  Was it so wrong to want to leave footprints behind to mark her journey in the world, so that she wouldn’t disappear without a trace as all her lutin ancestors had done?

  Of course, it was more than that which moved her. In time, she had come to believe in personal freedom within the hive—even for females—and if she could have her way, democracy would break out all over the lutin empire, giving hive members a chance to decide their own fates. Someday they might even have elections to choose their leaders!

  But these thoughts, as seductive as they were, hadn’t been enough to compel her to act. It was seeing the light in the children slowly snuffed out that had been the thing that finally moved her to extreme action. Her mother couldn’t—or wouldn’t— protect them, so Zee had to. The time to leave her family had come, and she couldn’t impede her destiny any more than a woman in labor could halt her contractions and abandon giving birth. She’d decided that she and the children were leaving and were going to be reborn . . . somewhere, somehow.

  In that moment of awareness, something had risen up inside Zee, and the tide of loyalty had turned and begun pulling her away from the past and her family. She renounced her lutin blood. And she wasn’t sorry to see her past life go. Most days, Zee was certain she would eventually find another, more hospitable shore, where she and the children could put down roots and allow themselves to grow into whatever it was that nature meant them to be. In time, she might even forget everything that had happened before and learn to be trusting again. And why not? Very little of the past was worth remembering. She would just treat it as a bad dream.

  It was simply unfortunate that her journey had turned out darker than she had guessed it would be. Privation and physical hardship she had expected. But who could have known about the monster that stalked her dreams? It seemed so unfair that he had been at the mall. She had taken the children inside because of the big red-and-gold banner that had proclaimed peace on earth. And because of all the wonderful lights. It was wrong that a monster should be hiding with all that beauty.

  Still, she was winning the war, one small battle at a time. She had managed to take back her confiscated life from the sadistic Luz, and done whatever she had to in order to keep herself—and the children—safe from him. She would win against this other monster, too.

  Of course, it was a pity that the only place where she could think to take the children was to the human world. They would probably never be fully accepted, perhaps never marry or have close friends. But that was how it had to be. They had the human language, more or less; Zee had seen to that. And they could pass for human as long as they kept their clothes on. They would even be able to go to school and learn to read and write and to do math, just like all the human children. They could have a dog, or maybe a cat. Zee loved cats and had always wanted a pet.

  And the humans were turning out to be kind after all. Look at Nick—no one could be more generous or sweet. If only . . .

  Zee touched the pendant that she wore over her heart, seeking comfort. It was her father’s pendant, an heirloom. On one side was a family crest, and on the other were the three faces of the goddess whom she had never been taught to worship. Though she often wore it, Zee never felt like the medallion was truly hers. It had belonged to her father, and to his father before him—and to all his grandfathers back to its creation. It had belonged to those of before, and perhaps it would belong to one who came after, but it could not belong to her because, though born in her father’s family, she did not know them—did not know who and what she was herself. And she did not know the Goddess. She wanted to, sometimes desperately, but she did not know how to find Her.

  Zee didn’t know why, but she had never been taught how to touch that side of herself. Her father had said only that it was too dangerous to be fey. But though she trusted her father, Zee realized this ignorance of her nature kept her from many things that she needed to know in order to live a good life, a life where she wasn’t wasting precious energy fighting her very nature. A life that had love and a family . . . and hope.

  Zee shook her head. Her father had told her once that because of the magic in her, she would know the right man when he came along. His magic would speak to hers and—whether he was goblin or fey—they would come together because the magic willed it so. But, though hugely fond of the human culture, he hadn’t said anything about humans as mates—ever. And that was worrisome. Everyone knew that humans didn’t have magic. And perhaps that was fine, since Zee was trying to be like them and she didn’t have much magic either. But how would she know the right man if he didn’t have any enchantment in him?

  Of course, that begged the question—could any human be the right one for her? Carrying goblin blood, could she ever be the right woman for a human? She looked almost like them, except for those scars on her chest. But she wasn’t hum
an—not all the way, not down deep inside.

  Zee wished she had a scrying stone, some clear gem she could gaze into to focus her thoughts. Perhaps then she could find an answer. Nick certainly seemed like the right man. Even before his car had appeared, she had felt his approaching heartbeat outside her door, knocking, asking to be let inside. And what had passed between them later when they made love had felt like magic—at least magic as she understood it. He was generous, passionate, caring— and gentle with the children, too—and he made her want to do wonderful things to please him.

  Oh, how she wanted to be the right woman for him! She wanted to be the one who would share his life and dreams, which had to be rich and wonderful, and she’d never go hungry again. This thought was nearly an obsession now. And if this change of thinking wasn’t magic, then what was? That they had made love at all was amazing. She had resisted this transition for so long, resentful and also fearful of the changes that happened to lutin women when they gave themselves to men. Until tonight, Zee had thought she would rather endure the worst beatings, torture and even death, before she gave away her body and will. Yet, she had made love to Nick only hours after meeting him, and was even now wandering in a dark forest in the freezing cold trying to do something to please him.

  That had to be magic, didn’t it?

  Which led her thoughts back to Christmas trees. She had to find one before the sun rose over the mountains. She had to find it and bring it back as an offering to Nick. Only then would everything be well.

  Zee trudged on. The cold had frozen a tiny stream that she had to cross over. It had also made the ground harder and less forgiving. Sticks and branches, which once would have bent with her passage, became weapons—cudgels and knives that gorged her flesh when she touched them. The cold had also rarified the air so that every breath of wind seemed loud. This had to be the coldest night of the year.