Wayfarer

by R. J. Anderson

  “Oh, this is impossible,” the girl said with a huff. She folded her arms and sat back, her brows an angry line. “How am I supposed to explain when you won’t even believe the first thing I say?”

  “Look,” said Timothy, trying to sound reasonable; there was no point upsetting her, especially if she was mentally ill. “You got me away from…whatever Veronica was going to do to me, and I appreciate that. But Linden-” All at once he stopped. “Linden,” he breathed.

  “What?”

  “Paul and Peri. I overheard them talking about you last night, when they thought I was asleep. But if you really did come with me all the way from Oakhaven…” His mind flashed back to all the places he’d been since he left the house: the road to the village, the station, the train carriage. “Why didn’t I notice you before?”

  Linden’s lips pursed. She leaned out into the aisle and looked around, as though to reassure herself that no one was watching. Then, quick as a blink, she disappeared.

  Timothy jumped, heart jarring against his rib cage, and then he heard a high-pitched voice coming from around knee level, “Look under the table.”

  Dry mouthed, he leaned sideways and peered under the table’s edge to see a tiny version of Linden sitting across from him, balanced on the edge of the plastic seat. Spread out behind her back were a pair of delicate-looking translucent…wings?

  “Have you seen enough now?” she demanded.

  Numbly, Timothy nodded.

  “Is anybody looking at us?”

  He shook his head.

  Immediately Linden flashed back into view on the other side of the table, human-sized and wingless again. She looked tired but triumphant. “So now you have to believe me. Right?”

  Timothy grabbed a forkful of chips, just to have something to do with his hands and his mouth while he struggled for composure. When he tried to speak again his voice sounded squeaky, and he had to clear his throat: “Do they know that you’re a…er, I mean, Paul and Peri, if you know them, have they ever…”

  “Of course they know,” said Linden. “The woman you call Peri-she used to be a faery herself.”

  That was it, he was going insane. Timothy pushed his chips away. “I have to go.”

  Linden caught his arm. “It’s the truth, I swear. She started out as our Hunter, back when she was just a little older than me, and we called her Knife…well, we still call her that, actually, even though she’s a human now and goes by her true name of Perianth instead. But anyway, she met Paul and they fell in love, and in the end Queen Amaryllis made her human so she could stay with him, but she had to promise to go on hunting food for us and protecting us from the crows as her part of the bargain. That’s why she looked sad when you were talking about Uganda. She knows she can never travel, never even leave the Oakenwyld for more than an hour or two, so long as the rest of us need her.”

  So she’d overheard their conversation at the dinner table as well? “How long have you been spying on me?” Timothy demanded.

  A flush crept into Linden’s cheeks. “Since you came to the House, off and on. I know I shouldn’t have, but you were young like me, and I saw the way you looked at the Oak, and…” She played with her straw. “I wanted to find out more about you. What things you liked or needed, if there was anything that I might be able to offer you as a bargain…I had to know if there was any chance you might take me away with you when you left.”

  Oh. He understood now-or thought he did. “The Oak is where you live?” he said. “You and your Queen and…the rest of you?”

  She nodded.

  That explained a lot, thought Timothy. He went on, “Okay, so you wanted to see some more of the world. I get that. But what about your parents? Aren’t they going to be upset that you just took off with me?”

  “Parents.” She ran the word around her tongue as though it were unfamiliar. “I don’t have any parents.”

  Whoops. He should have guessed she was an orphan, with those worn-looking clothes and tangled hair. That must be why Paul and Peri had been concerned about her. “Sorry,” he said.

  “Why should you be?” Now she looked confused. “No one in the Oak has parents, because there aren’t any male faeries. Knife is my foster mother-well, one of them, anyway. She looked after me when I first hatched.”

  Hatched? thought Timothy in disbelief, but Linden was still talking: “But that’s not the point. I didn’t come with you because I wanted to see the world. I came with you to try and find more faeries. Because my people have lost their magic, and we need to get it back.”

  Over the next few minutes Linden did her best to make Timothy understand about Jasmine and the spell she had cast on the Oakenfolk, and how vital it was that their people’s magic be restored. “There are only a few of us left now,” she said, “and if it weren’t for Knife and the Queen there’d be even fewer. We’re so afraid of being eaten by crows and foxes that most of us won’t set foot outside the Oak unless we have to. But now there’s even more for us to worry about, because the Queen is dying-and though she gave me a half share of her power, I can’t cast the glamours that protect the Oak nearly as well as she used to. We’ll never be safe, or free, until all of us have our magic back.”

  “So why don’t you find this Jasmine and get her to undo the spell, then?” said Timothy around another mouthful of chips. Linden had tried one but didn’t like it, so he was finishing off the box by himself-though how he could eat so much and still be so thin, she couldn’t imagine.

  “Because we can’t,” Linden replied. “It’s been nearly two hundred years since Queen Amaryllis turned Jasmine into a human and exiled her from the Oak, so she’s long dead by now. And anyway, she’d never have done it. If she was crazed enough to think it worth using up all our magic just to keep us away from humans, do you really think she’d be likely to change her mind?”

  “Fair enough,” said Timothy. “So you think the faeries here will help you?”

  “I don’t know,” Linden said. “I’d hoped so, but after the way Veronica behaved to you, tricking you into seeing her as someone you trusted, and then trying to take your music…” The memory of the other faery bending over Timothy, that hungry light in her eyes, still made Linden shudder.

  “I still don’t get that part.” Timothy swirled his drink around with the straw. “How could she steal music from me? Why would she want to?”

  Linden sighed. “You have to understand. We faeries aren’t creative, like you humans are. On our own, we can’t make art or music, or come up with new ideas-we have to learn all those things from you. But at the same time, having faeries close by makes humans more creative, so it works both ways. Or at least it’s supposed to.”

  “But…?” prompted Timothy.

  “Well, it’s also supposed to happen gradually. But last night, when Veronica dragged you off to play for her…it didn’t. Even shut up in that locker, I could hear. I could tell.”

  Timothy looked down at his reddened fingers. “So she did that,” he said. “She made me-”

  “She pushed you,” said Linden. “Forced all your musical ability to the surface, so she could take it for herself. I didn’t even know that was possible.”

  “I’ve never played like that in my whole life.”

  She touched his arm, trying to reassure him. “I won’t let her do it again.”

  Timothy did not reply. He sat back against the bench, his eyes unreadable. “So now what?” he said.

  “I have to try and find some good faeries,” Linden said. “Ones who will listen to what I have to say, and care enough to want to help-or at least be willing to bargain.”

  Timothy studied her a moment. Then he said, “Well, good luck with that, I guess,” and began to slide out from behind the table.

  “Wait!” she said. “Where are you going?”

  “To find another hostel. I’m tired.”

  “But what if Veronica finds you again? And I need your help!”

  “I don’t know what for,” he said
. “I gave you a ride here, and you got me away from Veronica, so it looks like we’re even. If you need to get back to the Oak, just buy a train ticket to Aynsbridge.”

  “But I haven’t any money-”

  “Why would you need it? You’ve got this ‘glamour’ thing: You can probably conjure up a few pounds.”

  “I can’t do that,” protested Linden. “It would be stealing.” Use your gifts wisely and in good conscience, Amaryllis had told her, not for selfish gain. “And anyway, I don’t want to go back, not until I’ve found the help I need.” She clutched at Timothy’s sleeve. “Please don’t go. There’s so much I still don’t know about your world. And I can help you, too, if you give me the chance.”

  For a moment Timothy still hesitated. Then he heaved a sigh and slumped back down onto the bench. “Oh, all right,” he said. “Sure you don’t want some chips?”

  “Closing up,” announced the boy with the mop, and quickly Timothy drained the rest of his Coke, willing the sugar and caffeine to spark through his exhaustion, keep him going just a little while longer.

  “Come on,” he said to Linden. “We’d better find somewhere to sleep.”

  “Let me go first,” she said, springing up from the booth. She peered out the window into the street, then said, “I think it’s clear.”

  “Of course it is,” said Timothy, shoving the door open and dragging his guitar case through. “She must have given up ages ago. I’m not that special.” But then a new thought occurred to him, and he turned back to Linden with a frown. “But if she was looking for a musician…why didn’t she take Rob instead?”

  “Rob?” said Linden, and Timothy remembered: She’d never met Rob, she’d only heard him play at a distance.

  “There was another guitar player at the hostel,” he said. “Older than me, but still pretty young-and he was good. Excellent, even. Why me, and not him?”

  “I don’t know,” said Linden. “I don’t even know why she felt she had to-ow!” She hopped to one side and turned her foot over to look at it, wincing. Timothy was about to ask what was wrong when he saw that the slippers she’d been wearing in the restaurant had vanished, and that a chip of glass was sticking out of her heel.

  “What happened to your shoes?” he asked.

  Linden picked the shard out gingerly and rubbed her thumb across the wound. “They were just glamour,” she said as a dark bead of blood welled out. “I don’t have the right kind of magic to make real shoes, and keeping up the illusion was giving me a headache. Besides, I usually go barefoot at home-and how was I to know I’d be walking all over London tonight?”

  Timothy swung his backpack down onto the pavement and rummaged through it until he’d found the old T-shirt he usually slept in. “Here,” he said, tearing a strip off the bottom and wrapping it around her foot. “This should help-but watch where you’re walking from now on.”

  “That’s kind of you,” said Linden, limping a few steps experimentally, “but I have a better idea.” She gave herself a little shake and suddenly she was tiny again, wings unfolding from the deep V at the back of her jacket. “Ah yes,” she sighed as she hummed into the air, “that’s much better.”

  Timothy watched, amazed, as she hovered around him. So small, and she darted so quickly-no wonder he’d mistaken her for a little brown bird….

  The night breeze nipped at him, forcing him back to attention. He pulled an extra sweatshirt out of his backpack and tugged it on. It wasn’t as warm as the jacket he’d left behind at Sanctuary, but the extra layer definitely helped. “Right,” he said, picking up his guitar again. “Let’s go.”

  Linden flitted to land on his shoulder and sat down, her faery form fitting easily into the space between his collarbone and his jaw. She was so small he hardly noticed the weight, but he could feel her solid warmth against his skin, undeniably real. Timothy let out a short laugh.

  “What is it?” Her voice was a breath in his ear.

  “It’s just…my cousin’s wife is a faery. I’m talking to a faery right now. And here I thought I was having a hard time just believing in God.”

  “God?” Linden sounded curious. “You mean the Great Gardener?”

  The Lord God planted a garden eastward, in Eden…. “Yeah.”

  “But you believe in me, don’t you?”

  Timothy snorted out another laugh, this one more genuine. “It’s not like I have a choice! How can I not believe when I can see you right there?”

  “Oh,” said Linden, and was silent. Then she said, “So you have to be able to see something to know it exists?”

  Her puzzlement seemed genuine, but Timothy didn’t feel like getting into a lecture on the scientific method just now. “No,” he said, “of course there’s more to it than that. It’s just that I thought I knew what was real and what wasn’t, and now I don’t know what to think any-”

  Linden gasped, but the warning came too late. All at once the air thickened around Timothy and he stopped in mid-stride, unable to move. He could only watch helplessly as a familiar figure spun itself out of the shadows and walked down the street toward him, smiling.

  “Hello, my sweet,” said Veronica.

  Six

  In the glare of the streetlamp Veronica’s hair was pale as tallow, her skin the color of ashes. “You kept me searching a long time for you, human boy,” she remarked. “And yet, somehow…the look on your face makes it all worthwhile.”

  Linden slid down behind Timothy’s shoulder and crouched on the top of his pack, willing herself not to panic. Veronica’s spell had bound Timothy but left her free to move: Perhaps that meant the other faery hadn’t seen her. So, if she stayed very still, maybe she’d have time to think of a plan….

  “That drab little creature has left you unattended, has she?” said Veronica, trailing a finger down Timothy’s cheek. Linden expected him to flinch, but he only stared past her unblinking: Veronica’s spell had bound him so fast that he could not even speak. “I would call that a foolish mistake…though she was a fool to begin with, thinking she could steal you away from me.”

  She brought her other hand to Timothy’s cheek, leaned forward-and her gaze fell on Linden. With a hiss she jerked back. “You! So tiny, and with wings, no less-what in the Empress’s name-?”

  Stiffly Linden pulled herself upright, trying not to put too much weight on her injured foot. “Timothy is under my protection,” she said with all the dignity she could muster. “You cannot have him.”

  Veronica breathed a laugh. “Little one, you amaze me. When I believed you had stolen the boy so you could take his music for yourself, I admired your impudence even as I swore to make you pay for it. But now you ask me to believe you were trying to protect him? A mere human, with nothing in his head but music and ignorance?” Her lips compressed. “Come now, tell me the truth and I may yet spare your life.”

  The menace in the other faery’s voice made Linden tremble, but her outrage was stronger than her fear. “I mean what I say,” she retorted, and then, summoning up all her courage and her faith in Knife’s example, she added, “I will fight you if I have to.”

  Veronica’s skeptical look shaded into contempt. “Then you must have lost what little wits you ever possessed. To blatantly display your faery nature by taking this ridiculous little form, and to ally yourself with a human in defiance of the Empress’s decree-”

  “Empress?” Linden interrupted. “Who is this Empress you keep talking about?”

  “Not know the Empress?” Veronica’s eyes narrowed. “Do you mock me? Or are you testing my loyalty? If you think I could ever be tempted to show mercy to rebels and humans, then be assured that I will prove you wrong-right now.”

  With a flick of her fingers she knocked Linden from Timothy’s shoulder, sending her tumbling backward into the air. Then she seized Timothy’s face between her hands-

  Linden cried out and flung herself forward, but there was no need. Something like a small bird flashed out from the darkness and struck Veronica across th
e back of the head; her eyes glazed over, and she slid to the pavement.

  “Veronica?” whispered Linden, hovering above the fallen faery. The bird thing had vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and Timothy still hadn’t moved; she had no idea how to free him from the spell. But then a hooded figure stepped out from between the buildings, and she caught the unmistakable scent of another faery. With surprisingly powerful-looking hands the stranger tore Veronica’s spell to glittering tatters until Timothy gasped and stumbled forward, free.

  Linden’s heart leaped. “Don’t go!” she called out as the stranger backed away. “Please, I need to talk to you!”

  The other faery hesitated, then made a beckoning gesture and vanished back into the darkness. Linden was about to follow-then noticed that Timothy was still standing there, apparently too dazed to walk. She gritted her teeth and willed herself large again, then grabbed Timothy’s wrist and pulled him along with her.

  The strange faery led them through the alley, past a row of metal bins overflowing with rubbish and walls scrawled with painted symbols Linden didn’t recognize. All she could do was limp along with Timothy in tow, wincing as cold grime crunched beneath her feet, and praying she didn’t step on anything else sharp.

  The passageway led them onto another street, where they walked a few more paces before stopping in front of a wall covered with colorful scraps of paper and yet more scribbles of paint. Linden was just about to ask what they were looking at when the other faery raised a hand, and a hidden door opened in the wall.

  Stepping inside, they climbed a narrow, creaking staircase to its very top, emerging at last into a single tiny room. The air inside smelled musty, and the ceiling bowed over their heads, cracked and stained from years of slow leaking. The wallpaper had peeled away in strips, the carpet was black with mildew, and when their guide pressed the light switch the naked bulb sizzled fitfully in its socket.