13 Curses

by Michelle Harrison

  “You can do something,” said Red fiercely. “You can make a glamour that makes him look younger—I can’t take him back like this! That’s not the way it works in my world!”

  “As you wish.” The horned king bowed. “When you leave the realm, it shall be done.” He nodded to the back of the court, and once again, the doors at the rear opened. This time, a lone prisoner was brought forward in chains, shoved spitefully to his knees once he was level with Red. Warwick looked up at her—and in that one glance Red knew that he had never expected to see her again.

  Grunting, the guard removed the chains and retreated, leaving Warwick on the floor. He looked thinner but otherwise unharmed.

  “You’re free to go,” the horned man told them pleasantly.

  The fairy woman continued to sob into her husband’s shoulder.

  Red leaned toward the child. Gently, she reached out and brushed her fingers over the birthmark. Then, reaching down, she took his hand in hers.

  “Come on, James. It’s time to go home.”

  The child snatched his hand back at once, shaking his head and burying himself against the woman he believed to be his mother. His blond curls bobbed around his head with the movement, and the fairy mother cried harder.

  “James, come on,” Red pleaded. “Don’t make this any harder for me….” She put her arm around the child and tried to pull him away.

  “NO!” he screamed, kicking out at her. “I don’t want to go with you!”

  “Well, you’re coming,” said Red. She lifted the child up, despite his struggles. Her eyes were blurring with tears at his words. “You don’t belong here, James!”

  “I’m not James!” The child sobbed, collapsing against her in exhaustion. “That’s not my name! I don’t want to go with you, I don’t know you! I want my mother!”

  Red was crying too now, openly. For finally she knew that, despite everything, it really was too late. James did not remember her. If she took him now, all he would remember was being torn from a family he loved by a stranger he didn’t know and didn’t want. It was the crueler choice. The selfish choice. And she knew she couldn’t go through with it.

  She sank to her knees, releasing the child, who ran to his mother and was swept up in her arms. The fairy mother stared at her through tears of grief and confusion.

  “I can’t,” Red said, beaten. “I can’t do it.”

  “Why not?” the horned king demanded, jumping to his feet. “This is what you wanted, so take him!”

  Red looked into his cruel, arrogant face and saw the truth: this was not what he’d wanted. He’d wanted the chaos, and the upset.

  “I won’t take him,” she said. And suddenly, an image of Rose came to mind, and the way she had spoken of doing what she thought best. Now Red understood. It was called sacrifice. “I can’t, because I love him too much.” She braced herself for jeers from the court, but only silence met her ears.

  “Then how about a compromise?” the horned king suggested slyly.

  “What kind of compromise?”

  “The kind where you stay here, with us… as one of us. After all, you know what you really are now, don’t you?”

  “You’re talking about my real father. Aren’t you?” she said. “That he was fey.”

  Another flash of those sharp little teeth.

  “Indeed.”

  She saw Warwick look up at her in bewilderment, and nodded very slightly to inform him that what had been said was true.

  “You can even visit the child,” the smooth voice continued. “There. He’ll have the best of both worlds, and you will finally have somewhere to belong.”

  His words stung her to the core, reaching the part of her she’d fought to keep hidden. She had been about to tell him how absurd the idea of her staying in the fairy realm was until he had spoken those last words. For they were true. She had always felt like an outsider, but now she really did belong nowhere and with no one.

  “What is there to go back to?” the horned king coaxed. “Except more trouble?”

  “Don’t listen to him, Red.” Warwick stood up, his jaw squared. “Don’t listen to a word they say. It’s all a game, just words.”

  “But it’s true,” Red said, her voice as broken as her spirit. “What is there for me to go back to? Nothing. Nothing but trouble. And if I’m half fey, then maybe I should stay… maybe I could belong.”

  Warwick grabbed her and shook her.

  “Listen to me! That’s what they want you to think! They want you to give up, and think like them, and be like them! And maybe you are half fey, but you’re half human too. And that half has a heart, and a place back in our world, not in this twisted one. There is somewhere you belong—with us. At Elvesden Manor! We want you there.” He released her shoulders suddenly, aware that perhaps he had said too much. “Only you can choose, Red. You must decide what you want.”

  “But what will I say if I do go back?” Tears streamed down Red’s face. “I’ve done things, things that can’t easily be put right.”

  “Running away isn’t going to make them right,” said Warwick sadly. “And some things aren’t easily repaired, but it doesn’t make them impossible.”

  “But they are!” Red cried. “I don’t see a way to fix things!”

  “There’s always a way,” Warwick answered.

  Red stared back at him, looking from his kind eyes to the horned king’s dark, emotionless ones. She thought of Tanya, Fabian, Warwick—and even Nell—and how they had gone out of their way to help her. And she thought of Rose again—so alone, and desperate to make it up to the daughter she had lost. There were still choices to be made and things to put right. But none of them were here. She felt it in her heart.

  “I choose to leave,” she said.

  “I don’t think you mean that,” the horned king said, settling back into his relaxed place on the throne.

  “Yes, I do. I do mean it.”

  At the forefront of the crowd, two figures emerged and watched from afar: Raven and Gredin. They nodded, encouraging her to go on.

  “I don’t think you do,” the horned king repeated. “You don’t know your own mind, or yourself. You don’t even know who you are.”

  The fire of Red’s anger started to go out, clinging only now to the tiniest embers of hope. The horned king glowed, feeding off her sapped hope and strength, drawing power from her weakness. She replayed the words in her mind, over and over until only one thing remained, the one thing that was true.

  “I know enough,” she said. “Because I know that my name is Rowan.”

  A collective gasp went up around her, including Warwick. The horned king’s smug expression fell.

  “Red, what are you doing?” Warwick hissed. “You can’t give them your…” He trailed off as he saw the triumphant light in her eyes.

  “It was the name given to me by my mother,” she continued, her strength flooding back. It all made sense… what Rose had been trying to tell her. The Hedgewitch, and Snatcher… everything finally fell into place.

  “The name I’ve been called all my life, except since my brother has been missing I denied it, kept it secret and hidden. But even then, it protected me—protected me from harm. I defeated your Hedgewitch, even if I didn’t understand how at the time—but now I do. I defeated her because she tried to harm me, but she couldn’t because of my name and what it means. And she paid the price because of it. I’m Rowan… and you have no power over me!” She shouted the last words at the horned king, who sat glowering on his throne. He could do nothing—for he knew as well as she did that she spoke the truth.

  “You can’t touch me,” said Rowan. “All you could do was crumble what was around me—my lie of a life. But now I know the truth, and I accept it. I’m going back, and I’ll face up to the things I’ve done, no matter what happens. Because I’d rather be there than here with you!”

  She turned to James and his fairy parents, taking one long, last look at the little golden-haired boy.

  �
�Take good care of him,” she told them. “I know you will.” She reached out and tousled the boy’s hair. “Good-bye,” she whispered under her breath. “Good-bye, James.”

  Fresh tears leaked from the fey woman’s eyes as she hugged her son to her.

  “Someday,” the woman said, “we’ll repay you for your kindness, in a time of need—”

  Rowan shook her head. “You don’t owe me anything. Just… look after him.” She began to walk away, with Warwick at her side. Then suddenly, she turned back. “Wait,” she called to the fairy parents, who were hugging and sobbing.

  They looked up, their expressions fearful, and she knew they thought she had changed her mind. Hurriedly she took off her bag and searched inside until she found what she was looking for. Pulling it out, she offered it to them.

  “There is something you can do,” she said, holding the book of fairy tales. “This was our mother’s.” She ran her fingers over the rough fabric of the cover, touched the smooth gilt edges of the pages for the final time. “Perhaps… perhaps you could read it to him, from time to time.”

  The fairy mother accepted it, smiling through her tears, and then Rowan and Warwick vanished into the crowd of fairies, which was now bubbling with excitement and anger. The horned king remained on his throne, his face shrouded in fury at his defeat, but powerless to stop them.

  As they ascended the stairs, the guards parted warily to let them pass.

  Halfway up, Rowan reached out and took Warwick’s hand.

  “Stitch?” she whispered, not daring to say his real name aloud. “I’m scared. What’s going to happen to me when we get back? How do I make things right? What do I say?”

  Warwick squeezed her hand as they continued to climb. The entrance to the hilltop was almost upon them.

  “You just tell the truth,” he said, staring straight ahead. “That’s all. You tell them that you missed your brother, and that you wanted him back, but no matter what you did, no matter which children you took, nothing could replace him. Because that is the truth, isn’t it?”

  Cool air washed over their faces as the hillside rolled back to allow them to pass. They ran the final few steps, leaping free of the staircase and jumping onto the boggy grass, saturated with rain. Fat drops fell from the sky, soaking them in seconds, and as the hillside closed behind them, a terrible roar of anger erupted from the horned king. It was cut off as the entrance sealed itself once more, breaking the connection between the two worlds.

  Or perhaps, not quite.

  A low rumble began in the distance, rolling over the hills and vales surrounding the Tor. As they started on the stone path on the way down, Warwick turned to her and grinned.

  “I think there’s a storm coming,” he said.

  Epilogue

  There was thick snow on the ground when the Land Rover pulled up outside Elvesden Manor.

  Two people got out of it: a man with long, gray-streaked dark hair and a tall, thin teenager. From the back of the vehicle, the man pulled out a battered brown suitcase, and then, together, they walked up the gravel path to the front of the house, hunched up against the biting cold.

  The hallway smelled a little musty as they went in, the way most old places do, and it was quiet and still except for a matted ginger tail slinking beneath the telephone table, keen to keep out of sight.

  Farther back through the house, voices and the smell of roasting food wafted out from the kitchen like an invisible invitation. As the kitchen door was pushed open and the new arrivals went in, the voices inside quieted, then erupted into a chorus of shouts and cheers. Chairs scraped as their inhabitants jumped out of them, and the teenage girl who had entered with the man was enveloped into hug after hug, a large brown dog jumping up at her and a parrot cackling in excitement all the while.

  Only one person remained seated at the old oak table: a woman with a pointed and pale face, and long red hair worn loose. She looked up at the girl, her eyes searching.

  “Your hair has grown,” the woman said. “It suits you.”

  Rowan lifted a hand to her head, where her hair, an identical auburn to that of the woman who had spoken, now skimmed her jawline in a neat bob. She gave a shy smile. “Thanks.”

  Rose stood up, and for a moment they regarded each other awkwardly before embracing.

  When they released each other, Tanya stepped forward and tugged at Rowan’s sleeve. “I’ll show you your room,” she said, her eyes shining. “It’s next to mine, so we share a bathroom—”

  “And a drain-dweller!” Fabian crowed. “It’s already had a necklace of Nell’s—”

  “And a thimble from my sewing kit,” Florence put in, with a smile. “It’s a particularly troublesome breed.”

  “I don’t mind,” said Rowan, laughing as Tanya and Fabian dragged her from the kitchen. She followed them as they ran up the stairs, past the grandfather clock, and stopped outside a door on the first-floor landing.

  Hanging from an iron nail in its center was a wreath of green leaves and masses of dried red berries.

  Rowan took a deep breath, closed her eyes… and went in.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to my family and friends for their support—special thanks to Darren for making me thousands of cups of tea while I was away with the fairies, and to Carolyn and Janice for helping me to research children’s homes.

  Thanks to Maddie and all at the Darley Anderson Agency, and to Nancy and the team at Little, Brown and Company.

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  COMING JUNE 2012.

  Rowan Fox hovered by the school gate, scanning the yard as pupils spilled out, jostling in their eagerness to begin the summer holiday. There was no sign of Fabian’s fair head in the crowd, and so, impatiently, she headed over to the shop opposite the gate. Jingling some loose change left over from her lunch money, she went in and bought two bars of chocolate. When she came out most of the crowd had gone, and the melody of someone playing a guitar had begun nearby.

  Fabian was still nowhere to be seen. She wondered if he had walked to the bus stop without her for some reason. Tucking one of the chocolate bars into her bag, she held on to the other and began to walk. Then she saw the girl—the player of the guitar.

  She sat cross-legged in the doorway of an empty shop two down from the sweet shop, leaning back against the door as her fingers swept over the guitar strings. Her straggly white-blond hair was in need of a wash. Next to her, a tattered knapsack rested on a grubby sleeping bag.

  As Rowan drew near she paused by the girl’s open guitar case, lying on the pavement. It contained pitifully few coins. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out her last few pennies and added them to the meager pile. Then, looking down at the chocolate bar in her hand, she threw that in too, and continued on her way.

  “Thanks,” the girl called.

  Rowan turned back. The girl had stopped playing and was staring at her. “I was starting to think I was invisible. You’re the first person to give me anything all afternoon.”

  Rowan’s eyes moved to the coins already in the case.

  “Mine,” the girl said. “I just put them there to… well, never mind.”

  Rowan came over and put her schoolbag on the ground. “You put the coins in to make it look like you weren’t being ignored,” she finished.

  “Right.” The girl gave a little laugh and stood her guitar against the shop door. Reaching for the chocolate bar, she tore the wrapper off and took a huge bite, closing her eyes in pleasure.

  “Not the friendliest of places, this,” she said, between munches. “Don’t think I’ll stay.”

  “Probably best not to,” Rowan answered, eyeing the girl sympathetically. It was difficult to put an age to her, but she looked older than Rowan—eighteen, perhaps. “Yo
u’d be better off somewhere bigger. Busier, with more people.”

  “You sound like you’re talking from experience,” the girl said. She licked chocolate from her thumb and trained her eyes on Rowan.

  “That’s because I am,” Rowan muttered. “It’s the reason I stopped—” She broke off and met the girl’s eyes. “I was on the streets for over a year. I know what it’s like.”

  “Really? What happened to you?”

  “My parents died in a car crash, and me and my little brother were put into care. But my brother… he went missing. So I ran away to look for him.”

  “Did you find him?” the girl asked.

  Rowan hesitated before answering carefully. “I never got him back, no.”

  “So what did you do?”

  Rowan shrugged. “I was lucky. Met some people who… cared. I live with them now.”

  “Lucky,” the girl echoed. She eyed Rowan’s neat school uniform with envy. “It certainly looks like you’re doing all right now.”

  “What are you doing here, anyway?” said Rowan. “Tickey End isn’t the place to be if you want to stay unnoticed. I mean, people will act like they don’t see you, but they don’t miss a thing around here.”

  “I’ll be gone before the day’s out,” the girl answered quietly. “I wasn’t planning on staying long.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Just long enough to deliver a message, after finding the right person.”

  “Message? To who?”

  “To you, Red.”

  Rowan’s breath caught in her throat. “What did you just say?”

  “Red. That’s what you used to call yourself, isn’t it?”

  Rowan dragged her schoolbag closer to her feet. “Who are you? What do you mean you have a message? From who?”

  “From the Coven.”

  Rowan stood up. “Leave me alone.”

  “Wait!”

  She turned back. “Who sent you?”

  “Sparrow,” the girl said in a low voice.

  “Why didn’t he come to give me the message himself if he knew where to find me?”