“It’s coming,” I said, and I could feel my hands shaking with pent up frustration. “And I need your help. I can’t do this on my own and I have no one else to turn to. Please, Mother. Please help me.”
She bit her lip. “I’ll try.”
“I know a safe place where you can take them all, but it must stay secret. It must stay safe. Tell no one until you lead them there. Do you understand?” I quickly explained how to get to the covered wagon that would lead them to the Travelers and she nodded along as if she already knew it was there. Maybe she did. The older village women kept secrets.
“I’ll try, Allie,” she assured me. “I’m proud of your determination, daughter.”
I’d pulled her into a hug, shoving down my sizzling energy so I could embrace this moment. “I love you, too.”
Fuel, Allie. Use it as fuel. All the frustration. All the desperate need to succeed – let it fuel you.
There was nothing more I could do for any of them. I had to trust my mother with the village children. And I had to do my part for the rest.
Which was why I was standing now on the edge of the stone circle, a cage and axe handle tied to my belt, wearing the clothing I’d worn from the Faewald, my pack and bow slung over my back and a rusty sword held in both my hands.
A bird whistled in the pines on the edge of the mountain plain, his lonely call echoing across the snowy field. I could barely see the pines in the heavy falling snow. Phoenixes had come from this stone circle before. What had ever happened to them?
“What are we doing, Mortal?” Vhalot asked.
“Trying to enter your world,” I said grimly. “I’m offering you one last chance to bargain with me for your freedom.”
“I won’t take it.”
“Fine.”
I closed my eyes, took off the blindfold, took a long breath, thought of the Court of Cups where some of the mortal children were hidden now, and swung the sword.
I opened my eyes in time to see a split in the air in the center of the circle – like a tear in the fabric, ragged edges and all. I stepped forward, grabbed the edge of the tear and ripped and beyond it the Faewald rose in colors brighter, fuller, richer than anything in the mortal world. I almost sighed with the relief of seeing it again. Which was crazy. This wasn’t my home.
The towering cedars of the Court of Cups rose before me.
I leapt through the tear before I could lose my chance, landing in the Faewald, my heart beating a thousand beats for every minute and my breath racing to catch up.
Calm down, Allie, think!
Rippling memories of Scouvrel flashed one after another through my mind and I held my breath for a half-second before I came to my senses. I was here for the children, not to find my husband. But there was a tugging feeling in my chest as if a rope was tied to him somehow and I felt compelled to follow it all the way to where he was.
I shook my head, jammed the rusty sword into my belt – good thing it wasn’t sharp! – and pulled the axe handle up, swishing it once through the air to light it. It had better make me invisible in the Faewald like the Travelers had promised, or I was going to be in big trouble.
“We’re here!” Vhalot said in awe. “Actually here!”
“And unless you want to be drowned in wine like I was, you’ll keep quiet. I don’t want anyone knowing I’m here.”
I swallowed as I stared at the cedar-ringed Court before me. I’d been here once before and I knew there were children here but thinking of coming to save them and then actually being here and wondering where to start were two different things entirely. Which of those windows above me had sleeping little ones in them? And even if I managed to sneak in there – invisible – could I convince them to come with me back to the world?
Cold sweat broke out across my brow, but I cleared my throat, rolled my shoulders and held my head high. I was Allie Hunter. A little problem like not having any idea what I was doing wasn’t going to stop me.
With all the purpose born of weeks of frustration and anger, I strode through the maze of boulders and moss toward the cedar-enshrouded Court. I wondered – with my spine tingling – if Hulanna might be here despite Scouvrel’s warning.
Chapter Nineteen
It took longer than I’d expected to make my way to the main gates, but when I arrived, I paused, shocked by what I saw. Last time I’d been here there were guards at the gates. Last time, this Court had been bustling with people. This time, it was empty. A red handkerchief tumbled down the street, whipped up by the wind. The windows hung open, curtains blowing in the breeze. Nothing was burned or broken. It was just empty.
I walked down the main street, looking this way and that. It wasn’t a trick because they couldn’t see me. There was simply no one here. I made my way slowly, all the way up to the Great Hall where I’d been imprisoned before, to the very throne room I’d been contained in. There was a thin layer of dust over it, as if people had been gone for more than a week. There weren’t even golems working. Last time they had been everywhere, hard at work dusting and polishing, serving and child-kidnapping. Where were they all now?
I moved over to the dais before the throne and wrote in the dust.
“Hulanna. Come find me. Allie.”
If she came back here, that should give her pause.
I walked over to the window and looked out furtively over the cedar-shrouded city. Everything seemed so empty.
In the distance, I heard a thump.
Another thump.
Raising my torch high above my head, I slipped through the corridors, following the sound. I hurried down a long, curved corridor on the edge of the city wall. Windows spread bright light through the corridor at regular distances.
Thump.
I opened the nearest door carefully, easing it slowly, slowly open and slipped inside, keeping my torch high. This had better work! It had better make me invisible!
The door came out on a sloped balcony overlooking a gallery below. It was decorated with dripping gilding over the edges of each pillar and balcony, fanciful scenes of Fair Folk and mortals battling with huge armies were painted as murals on the wall. And all across the marble floor, sleeping, crying, eating and even playing – were mortal children. One of them threw a ball against the wall.
Thump. That’s what I’d been hearing! I’d found them!
Standing on the balcony, looking down at the children, was my husband.
I gasped.
Oh no.
He whipped his head around and my hand rose to cover my mouth.
Quiet, Allie! Quiet! Don’t even breathe!
“Something troubling you, Knave?” the voice of the Balance called from the other side of the gallery. “Or do you dislike minding children so much that you aren’t paying them any mind at all? I warn you that if you fail to contain them after I leave, I will take your other ear.”
“Help!” Vhalot yelled and I jerked back, scrambling through the door and into the corridor. “Help!”
Desperately, I ran to the window, fumbling for the cage.
I had it on the ledge by the time Scouvrel ran out the door behind me, looking to the right and left. She shouldn’t have done that. She shouldn’t have given me away like that!
“Knave!” she cried.
He took a step toward me. He was barely a pace away.
I opened the cage door at the same time that I shoved it out the window and shook it until Vhalot fell from it, plunging to the bushes below with a scream.
Scouvrel took the last step to the window and I dodged to the side, the cage clanking against the wall. My heart was in my throat. I took two more silent steps away from him, closing the door to the cage as he leaned out the window looking for what had made the sound.
He was working for the Balance guarding the children. Betrayal tasted sour in my mouth. I snuck back into the balcony door, creeping up to the railing.
There were at least twenty children in the gallery. So many.
On the other side of the
gallery, the Balance leaned over his balcony, peering toward this one as if trying to see what had happened to Scouvrel.
“Knave?” he called.
I bit my lip. I had to be fast. Carefully, I switched my torch hand to hold the cage too, and drew the sword.
Scouvrel slunk back into the gallery balcony with the grace of a tomcat, his eyes glittering with suppressed secrets. What had he seen? What did he know?
He slipped in right beside me. I froze. Afraid to move.
“Nothing of consequence, Balance,” he called back. “Merely a nightmare haunting us by day.”
He knew! He knew it was me!
I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
No time to panic, Allie. Act!
I clenched my jaw and willed the children small as hard as I could. They vanished, filling my cage.
Quick as a hawk, Scouvrel leaned into where I was and winked, his eyes still unfocused as if he couldn’t see me, but his wink suggesting that he knew exactly what was going on.
He laughed as the Balance shouted in alarm. I spun away from him, ignoring the sounds of frightened children in the cage, slashed the air with the sword and leapt through the tear before Scouvrel’s reaching hand could snatch me.
Chapter Twenty
I’d done it. I’d brought the children out of the Faewald.
And now they were all crying.
I stood in the stone circle for a full minute before I calmed down enough to raise the cage and look at them.
“I’m Allie Hunter,” I said. “And I’m going to bring you somewhere safe. Do you understand?”
One of the older children nodded. They weren’t dressed for winter and the howling wind and falling snow – wet and freezing – made them shiver. I patted myself all over. I’d left my pack in the eagle tree. That only left what I was wearing and my cloak wouldn’t fit in the cage.
With a burst of inspiration, I pulled off my boots and removed my stockings, shoving them through the bars.
“Use those to keep warm,” I said. “Like blankets.”
“You look spooky like that,” one of the little ones said. He was maybe five. “Like a hero ghost.”
“I won’t hurt you,” I whispered. “I’m going to take you somewhere safe. Somewhere away from the Faeries. Do you want that?”
“Is it really possible?” he asked and his big eyes held so much hope that it nearly broke my heart.
“Yes. And we’ll try to find your parents.”
Now more than one set of eyes was watery.
“If you say so, hero ghost.”
“I’m not a ghost,” I said.
“I know you won’t hurt us. That’s why you’re a hero,” the boy explained. “But you look creepy with your eyes covered. And that’s why you’re a ghost.”
“I have to cover the cage up so that the wind doesn’t make you cold,” I explained. “Don’t be afraid. I’m right here and you can all come out when it’s safe. Okay?”
They just stared at me with big eyes, so I covered the cage with my cloak and began the long slog through the freezing winds to the wagon. I could only hope my mother was gathering up the children of Skundton to take them to the same place. At least these children were easy to transport inside my magic cage. I hadn’t even considered that I could do that with the children in town. Maybe I should have. Maybe that would have made things easier.
Kidnapping, Allie. You’re thinking about kidnapping. I shook my head at myself. But it was for their own good.
But wasn’t that what Olen and Sir Eckelmeyer were saying about what they were doing? Wasn’t that what Hulanna was saying? Who was to say what was for someone’s “own good”? Maybe you had to let people make their own choices. Even if those choices were terrible.
I strode through the cold, thinking about choices and thinking about Scouvrel. Had he betrayed me? Or had he just saved my life?
And what about Vhalot? Had she survived the fall? I tried not to think about that. It only made my belly roll with guilt.
When I reached the wagon, I checked the ground for signs my mother had been here, but the frozen ground remained undisturbed.
I shook my head, hoping for the best, and hurried inside and through the portal.
The Loremistress was on the other side, mouth open as if she had been speaking. Beyond her, a crowd of Travelers was watching me with wide eyes. She’d been giving a speech, I realized.
Well, I had no time for speeches. I cleared my throat.
“You said you owed me a debt,” I told the Loremistress as I whipped my cloak off the cage and set it on the ground, opening the door for the children. “This is how you will repay me. I’m going to rescue all the children trapped in the Faewald and bring them here and you’re going to help them find their parents. Your wagons travel all over the world. If anyone can find them, it’s you.”
The children stumbled wide-eyed out of the cage, returning to full size as they slipped out – one after the next like a little line of goats walking up a hill.
The Loremistress was already nodding and trying to speak, but I kept going.
“Don’t ask me how long it will take, because I don’t know. Or how many there will be, because I don’t know that either. Or how you will do it, because that’s for you to figure out. But I’m not leaving a single innocent child in that world, do you understand?”
I sounded angry. I knew that. But I wasn’t angry. I was just exhausted and guilty and determined to do better next time. I’d saved these children – but not soon enough. And not enough of them.
One of the little girls ran to me, throwing her arms around my legs. I gaped at her.
“Agreed,” the Loremistress said.
“Please take care of them,” I said in a smaller, more shaky voice as I looked over to the line of children where Traveler adults were already up and busy, wrapping the children in multi-colored blankets, examining cold red toes, wiping dirty faces and offering hot meat pies. For some reason, my eyes felt misty. I must just be tired.
I reached down and lifted the little girl up, passing her to the Loremistress.
“We will,” the Loremistress said and the look on her face was warm and misty, too.
Ridiculous. We were a bunch of fools to get teared up like this. And I was expected for dinner with Sir Eckelmeyer.
I nodded briskly and turned before my first tear fell, scrubbing my eyes with the backs of my hands before I gathered up my cage and cloak and walked through the oak tree and back to the mess I’d left on the other side of this magic door.
I managed to scuff up the footprints in the snow to disguise the path to the wagon and then stumble far enough into the woods to keep anyone from finding the wagon before I collapsed into a heap and fell fast asleep.
When I woke, the sun was orange and low in the sky.
Oh no.
It was long past dark before I reached the Chanters’ home and tried to pull the sticks and pine needles from my hair.
The door opened before I even reached it and my mother ran out, glancing quickly over her shoulder and then leaning in to whisper fiercely in my ear. “I need one more night. Just a little more time to organize our flight away from here.”
Goodie Chanter was on her heels, calling from the porch where my father and Chanter sat humming together, “Allie! Oh, Allie, you’re going to be late!”
“For what?” I asked, still so tired that the world seemed to be moving too quickly while my feet and my brain were trailing through thick mud.
“Your dinner with Sir Eckelmeyer! You were supposed to be there an hour after dark, and it is already that! Goodie Thatcher came with the reminder. Heldra sent her! And she sent a fancy dress you are meant to wear. We have to get you in it. Hurry!”
“Wha – ?”
“Please, Allie,” My mother said aloud, adding in a whisper. “We need you to buy us a little more time. Just one more night.”
I nodded tiredly, but she practically threw me into her room, stripping off my clothing with
appalling speed.
“That’s my shirt!” I protested as she pulled it over my head. It was all I could do to rescue the key and mirror from my pocket and furtively slip them into my boots – I thought I saw a wink when I drew it out and hoped it was my imagination – and then to keep my own boots. My mother threw all my clothing except my underthings into a pile by the fire as Goodie Chanter bustled in with a long dark green dress.
“The bow must stay. You can’t take that.”
“I’ll leave it in its place when you’re done,” I said firmly. They were not going to take my bow from me.
“Oh, what a lovely dress! Goodie Chanter cooed, freezing for a moment when her gaze swept over my Fae tattoos. She tried to hide her flinch by smoothing the dress again.
“That’s far too fancy!” I said. I’d never seen the like except in the Faewald. It practically shone in the light. “Ow!”
My mother was combing my hair like she meant to tear it out by the roots.
“That hair is attached to my head, in case you were wondering!”
“We were not wondering. Stand still!” my mother said as Goodie Chanter pulled the dress up, jamming my arms into it and then beginning to lace the sides. It was form-fitting through the middle with a dipping neckline and puffs at the top of the sleeves. Puffs! Like I was a present meant to be opened!
I was not a gift to be given to anyone!
Not a gift. More like a Nightmare. That thought made me smile.
They should have dressed me in greyish rags that fluttered in the wind or a long black robe with a scythe and a mask with a long nose, or something that suited me more than glowing dresses with puffs.
“Ow!” I protested again as my mother pulled my hair back and began to braid.
“That blindfold has to go,” Goodie Chanter said to twin replies from my mother and me.
“No!”
“It’s terribly out of date.”
“No!”
She shook her head. “Sir Ecklemeyer is an important man, Allie. You need to do what you can to please him for the sake of our town.”
Fae Nightmare Page 9