19th January, Again
19th January, again
I’m unsure how much time has elapsed. I came back to myself just now, the pen still in my hand—I had descended into a blank haze, during which I simply stared out the window. Someone is knocking softly on my door—Callum, most likely, or Niamh. Why don’t they leave me be? I don’t wish to see anyone.
Why have no ideas come to me? I refuse to believe that all my studies, my vast knowledge of folklore, could fail me at this moment.
But I must pick up where I left off.
Wendell allowed the wind to carry us across the lake, and then he tacked south, taking us down an arm of Silverlily, which blocked the castle from view. Tree-shadow fell over us and I breathed in the smell of sedge, and then we sailed out into the open again. Dragonflies darted past and crickets murmured from sunny patches of grass, for the shadows were lengthening as the world moved towards evening. Something gurgled intermittently below the water, releasing clouds of bubbles, and occasionally it seemed that a dark shape, too large to be a fish, darted beneath the boat. Apparently the nobility were not the only ones who sailed upon Silverlily; to our left was a tiny canoe being rowed at a furious pace by a brownie in a grey cloak, and here and there along the bank I saw other miniature watercraft pulled up onshore or moored to overhanging tree limbs.
“Why have you not taken me boating before?” I said, only half in jest. The sun had come out, and with it my mood grew more optimistic. The view of the tree-lined banks was lovely, the forest darker and even more full of mysteries from this distance, and the wind was pleasantly cool against my skin. I felt as if I had come to the centre of something.
Wendell smiled. “I understood you’d taken a dislike to lakes after that field study in Sweden a few years ago.”
“That was more a dislike of water elves, as well as unscrupulous fishermen, such as those who rented me that leaky rowboat,” I said, scanning the water. “Where shall we look first? I have one or two theories.”
He gave me an anxious look. “You are not still angry with me?”
“Naturally I am,” I said, glaring. “But it is an illogical anger, for you are only trying to save your realm, and anyway I was the one who found you that bloody Macan story, thus I have as much cause to be angry at myself for thrusting you into this danger. So I have chosen to focus on the challenge at hand rather than indulge such a counterproductive sentiment.”
Wendell began to laugh. He leaned on one hand, his shoulders shaking, as the boat rocked slightly from side to side.
“Anyway,” I said, trying and failing to avoid blushing. Such a look he was giving me! “Perhaps we could start at the tip of that little peninsula and work our way out—”
“Emily,” Wendell said, perching on the seat across from me and taking my hand, “we have other business to attend to first. More important than finding my stepmother.”
I could only blink at him. “What on earth is more important than that?”
He took my hand. His eyes were greener in the dappled sunlight and emerald murk of the lake. “Will you marry me?”
I can’t think of a time when I have been more confused. I believe I stared at him for a full minute, waiting for him to explain himself. “That question has already been answered,” I said at last.
Then I realized what he meant and my pulse spiked with another surge of terror.
“Oh God,” I said. “Now? Here? With—” I waved at nothing in particular. “All this ?”
“It is far from ideal,” Wendell said with a sigh. “I had been hoping for something lavish. I have always thought that if I was to marry, it would be in the castle gardens, or perhaps upon the shores of the Hanging Pools. But I have found myself wondering: is that what you would prefer? You are not much for public displays, unless they involve notes and lecture halls.”
I drew a deep breath, trying to calm my racing heart, but it would not be calmed. “I do not like your timing. You are thinking of the story. Of Macan the Second’s end.”
“Yes,” Wendell said, gazing at me steadily. “I must think of such things for your sake, for you are first in my thoughts. I have no intention of dying today—please understand that. But if things go awry—as you must allow they may—I will not leave you defenceless. My people recognize you as a queen of Faerie because I have told them that is what you are, but the realm does not recognize it. Not yet.”
“Old-fashioned, is it?” I was trying to joke, but it only came out sounding strangled. And yet, against all odds, I felt my pulse slowing. Perhaps it was due to the lulling environment of the lake, or Wendell’s obvious nervousness, something I have observed in him only rarely, but that makes him seem very nearly human.
Wendell answered me seriously. “I suppose so. But then, Faerie does not really recognize marriage . That translation from the Faie is only a clumsy approximation.” He seemed to think. “Mortals, I’ve observed, sometimes marry for very silly reasons. The Folk do not, because one cannot marry someone who does not match them. The word has a connotation of accepting one’s fate.”
“You are trying to calm me with a linguistics lesson,” I said.
He smiled. “Is it working?”
I let out a breath of laughter. “Then—you propose we marry by the old traditions? A simple declaration?”
“Why not?” he said.
It was a strange thing. I had been viewing the marriage question with such trepidation—the ceremony, the spectacle, all that came after it, in the form of this strange and beautiful kingdom that would thence be half mine. And yet, as I sat there upon the lake amidst the tree-shadow and reflected light and the dragonflies tussling with the wind, I no longer knew why I had been so afraid. Likely it was also the threat of Queen Arna hanging over us like a guillotine—well, the prospect of imminent death tends to put things into perspective. It was not that my worries vanished —no magic could manage that. I only realized how much smaller they were than the world that lay before me. A world that I wanted, even after all I had seen, and amidst such a thicket of danger. I wanted it very much. And I especially wanted to share it with Wendell.
“All right,” I said. “How does this work? Must I stand? I warn you, my balance is unsteady in all forms of watercraft.”
Wendell blinked for a moment. And then his expression flooded with such delight and relief that I was taken aback.
“You thought I would say no!” I exclaimed, batting away his hand in indignation. “Good grief. And you are always boasting about how well you know me.”
He laughed again, a sound that echoed across the lake, and it seemed the trees were stirred by it, raining their leaves down upon the lakeshore. He rubbed a hand over his face. “I didn’t think that,” he said. “I didn’t know what you would say. It appears you still have the ability to surprise me, Em.”
I rolled my eyes. There was an echo of nervousness in his gaze, and I decided I’d had enough of that. Additionally, he was looking very handsome just then, with the sunlight picking out at least a dozen shades of gold in his hair, so I took hold of his cloak, thumb looping through one of the buttonholes, and drew him towards me.
“Well, come on, what must we do?” I said when at last we broke apart, breathless. I hoped this tradition would not involve lengthy speeches. I have not improved much when it comes to putting feelings into words.
“Nothing,” he said. “It’s done. Look.”
I followed his gaze to the lakeshore. A hundred tiny lights dotted the forest—more than a hundred. A thousand? They kept appearing among the shadows, different in size and luminance depending on the lantern. I hadn’t realized the forest was so full of Folk. And among the trees, the silver faerie stones began to glow.
“All this for a mortal queen?” I muttered, flushed and overwhelmed.
“Too much?” Wendell made a gesture, and the faerie stones dimmed, retaining only a faint luminescence. “That’s as much as I can do. The small Folk will keep to their traditions—they would be greatly offended if I ask them to put their lights out before morning.”
“Very well,” I said. It was easier to bear without the faerie stones, which I’ve always found eerie, the way they hang untethered among the treetops like a strangely shaped mist. I know the curator of Cambridge’s Museum of Dryadology and Ethnofolklore would give her eye teeth for just one of the things—none have ever been smuggled into the mortal world, and their form and size makes them unique among faerie stones. We drifted for a time, watching more lights flicker to life.
“What is that?” I said.
We had floated towards the southern bank of the lake. Now we were not far from where Ariadne and I had sighted the castle for the first time, mirrored in the glasslike water. The lake was shallower here; I could see the algal hue of the rocks at the bottom. And something else.
I reached into the water and seized the edge of the weed. It was long and ropelike, with clusters of leaves branching off the main stem that looked like curls of red-brown hair. I gave it a tug, expecting it to come loose, but it was firmly rooted to the lake bottom. Pain spiked through my hand. I examined my palm—it was coated in tiny grains of green pollen, and two black thorns were embedded in the skin.
I showed Wendell, and he removed his sword and sliced off a chunk of the weed. He swore as he, too, cut his hand on the thorns.
“Two barbs,” I said.
“Yes.” He dropped the weed back into the lake. “They could easily tangle in one’s hair, if one went for a swim.”
My heart thudded in my ears. “We’re not far from shore. You could swim the distance easily. You might not take a boat if you didn’t want anyone to know you were out here.”
We shared a look. Then Wendell adjusted the sail, and we drifted towards the darkest patch of weeds. I saw nothing unusual in the immediate vicinity. Some of the faeries visible on the shore had settled down on the bank—to see what we were up to, I suppose.
Wendell allowed us to drift for a moment through the wide patch of lakeweed, then sent us along the perimeter before plowing into the wet leaves again at a different angle. The weeds made a shhh, shhh sound against the hull, along with the faintest scratching. I began to worry that the thorns would tear a hole in the skin.
Then the boat came to a stop with a gentle thunk.
“I would ask if that was a rock,” I said. My heart was thundering so excitedly now that I felt breathless. “But something tells me I don’t need to.”
Wendell scanned the water, but there was nothing to see—only weeds and darkness. He grimaced. “I don’t much fancy a swim in this muck, but I must risk it, I suppose. What do you think?”
This last was directed to Orga. She gave an unimpressed grunt and hopped up onto his shoulder.
Then he stepped off the prow of the boat.
There was no splash, for he did not fall. He merely vanished, in a similar manner to how he is always vanishing in and out of trees. Quite horribly, in other words.
He reappeared a second later, landing in the boat with a thump that made it rock a little from side to side, evidently having taken a leap out of the nothingness he had vanished into. Having not yet gotten over the first shock, I gave a heartfelt “Goddamn it, Wendell!”
“I’m sorry,” he said, looking a little stunned himself. He grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet. “Em, you must see this. I was expecting—and still I cannot quite believe—”
And the bloody man yanked me over the side of the boat.
I stumbled onto solid ground, and Wendell caught me before I could fall. He was blathering on at me before I’d found my bearings.
“Queen Anne’s Isle!” he kept saying. “This must be it—we tell stories of it, but I never thought—then there truly is a lost castle! And there are no Folk here, that I can see—how then am I here? How in God’s name did she find it? But look at that oak!” This was followed by a series of colourful exclamations in Irish.
I gazed about. We indeed stood upon an island, very small indeed, something upon which, in the mortal realm, one might expect to find a lighthouse, or perhaps a single lonely dwelling. Only instead there was a stretch of shore and a small, roofless castle that looked more like a Norman keep than anything else, which is not the same as saying that it looked like a Norman keep. It had large windows and tall stone walls that had been mostly overtaken by ivy. Within the castle grew a grove of trees, including at least one attentive oak, which towered above the rest.
I looked back at Wendell, who was still exclaiming over the story. I felt a glimmer of amusement, to see a faerie so delighted by a tale come to life, but it passed quickly, and fear descended again.
“All right,” I said. “What is this about Queen Anne’s Isle?”
He gave me an apologetic look. His hair was in great disarray from how he had been rubbing at it in his excitement. “Queen Anne’s Isle is said to have been created by the realm itself to protect a runaway mortal queen—the only other fully mortal ruler before you, Em, that this land has known—from her wicked husband, who wished to slay her so that he could marry another. It is said she lived out her days here in peace—not that many were left to her, for she was elderly when she fled. They say Folk cannot find it. I suppose my stepmother found a loophole, as a halfblood.”
“And you only found it because I was with you,” I said, feeling a sense of satisfaction amidst the terror; I will never stop enjoying the solving of some faerie mystery. I wondered briefly how I might compose a paper on the subject—disappearing islands are a motif in the folklore of many countries. It was a comforting line of thought.
“Well, it’s good to know I shall have a bolt-hole when you eventually tire of me,” I said. “And the teacups I leave scattered about. Weren’t you complaining of that the last time you were in my office?”
This was comforting, too. Perhaps if I kept making light of things, I could simply skip over the fact that we had come, at last, to Queen Arna’s refuge. Was she watching us now from one of the windows? I carefully avoided looking.
Wendell did not reply, merely continued to stroke Orga, still draped about his shoulders and looking wary. With his other hand, he laced his fingers through mine and led me up the bank. Because the island was so small, it did not take long to realize that there was a problem.
“Hm!” Wendell said after several minutes had passed, during which time the castle grew no closer. I looked back, and there was the boat rocking gently against the shore only a yard or two away.
“Interesting,” I murmured.
“The island dislikes my being here,” he said, glaring at the castle. “I am like a splinter it wishes to expel from itself. What to do? I have a feeling that simply waving my hand and tearing the castle to pieces will not go over well.”
“It is obvious what we must do,” I said, already examining the ferns and grasses. “Think of the story.”
“Which?”
“Macan, of course. Of our three clues, there is one we have not yet found a use for.”
“Ah,” he said, and we began to scour the greenery, pushing ivy aside and looking beneath ferns, as if we were foraging for mushrooms. The enchantment that prevented us from reaching the castle was an intriguing one: it seemed bound to the trees scattered a few yards above the waterline. They formed an uneven sort of perimeter we could not pass.
“There,” Wendell said at last.
The snail was half hidden by a fallen branch and glowed lightly in the shadows descending over the isle. At the sight of us, it seemed to start, and withdrew into its shell, then poked its head back out cautiously.
“Now what?” I said. “Might the shell possess some magic, that we might break this enchantment and find our way to the castle?”
“Perhaps,” Wendell said musingly. He reached into his pocket and withdrew the shell the butter faerie had given us, one of those snails the old queen had cooked for her supper. He knelt beside the snail, which may or may not have been watching us—I am no expert in snail anatomy, but its antennae had swivelled in our direction.
“I suspect you have little affection for the one who shelters in the castle,” Wendell said. “Many of your brethren have vanished into her pockets, haven’t they? And thence to her supper plate. Show me the way, for I am her enemy, and I shall deliver to her the fate she deserves.”
The snail’s antennae began to twitch. It glided off, and Wendell and I—well, I would say we fell into step behind it, but as you might imagine, it was a moment or two before we were even certain the creature was moving towards the castle.
More snails glided out of the shadows to join the first. And more. And more. Until there were hundreds surrounding us on all sides. Together we left the shoreline and passed under the boughs of the first trees, moving steadily over the castle lawn, which was overgrown with ferns and ivy.
“They are making a path for us,” I murmured. “That must be it. They can pass through the enchantment, and as long as we are within their company, it cannot hinder us. And yet how did they organize themselves so quickly?”
“Oh, I imagine they have been waiting to betray my stepmother,” Wendell said. “And long would they have waited, for they are patient creatures above all else. I would not be surprised if they have kept a watch on her since she came to this place, and upon the shore, hoping that her enemies might find a way here. That creature did not need much convincing, did it?”
I said nothing. I told myself it was ludicrous to be intimidated by snails, but I could not quite believe it. Yes, I could have outrun them if need be—outwalked them, really—or even crushed them beneath my boots, but there was something about the air of intractable menace that surrounded them, and the sense that should one or more fall, others would only rise from hidden folds in the lawn to take their place, which left me frightened of each step I took, lest I tread upon a single antenna.
It took us perhaps half an hour to reach the castle, moving in a series of slow half steps that at first felt ridiculous, then irksome, then sinister, surrounded by our tiny, faintly luminescent bodyguards. During that time, Wendell was uncharacteristically quiet, only murmuring occasional reassurances to Orga, and I found myself catching his mood. I glanced about at the deepening darkness, the glittering lake beyond. We stood in the shadow of the castle, and the air was cold. The distant shore of the lake seemed to lie behind a thin mist. I could see the lanterns still, but there was something melancholy about them now, the promise of company one could never reach. I thought of an old woman living out her last days here, the memories of what had once been all around her.
“It’s a lonely place,” I said as I lifted a boot to take another slow step. “When was Anne’s reign?”
“Long ago,” Wendell replied. “Even before my father’s line—one of his ancestors, an age or more ago, stole the throne from a cousin, who was descended from Anne’s unworthy husband another age before. I expect her bones still lie here, somewhere. I hope there was someone to bury her.”
We reached the castle and a pair of tall oak doors. Their hinges were ornate but rusty, and one of the doors had a sag. Yes, surely many generations had passed in the amaranthine eyes of the Folk if even the enchantments that had created this place were worn with age.
We took our leave of the snails then, bowing low to show our thanks. Wendell knelt to talk quietly to the one he had spoken to before—how he could tell the difference between them, I don’t know. Afterwards he hesitated upon the threshold, one hand on the stone wall. Orga hopped to the ground and looked up at him.
“My stepmother has only a little magic,” he said to me. “Her power has always lain in her ability to charm and deceive. I don’t know if she may, somehow, have charmed the magics of this island into protecting her. Let me enter first, and then I will call you.”
He seemed to think I would argue with him, but I had no interest in being blasted in the face by some foul enchantment. “You may enter first,” I said, “but do not think you may enter alone . If you venture beyond my sight I will be very cross, and chase after you.”
“A fire-breathing dragon at my back! No, I would prefer to avoid that. Don’t worry, Em, I have as little desire as you to face this alone.”
Satisfied, I went back to what I had just been doing— scanning every inch of flora in the vicinity for bees. The insect life seemed to comprise mostly beetles and ants. Wendell pushed the doors open and stepped through.
He had been honest in one respect; he went only a half dozen paces before he halted. But he did not call me.
“Wendell?” It came out more annoyed than I truly felt, for I was trying to focus on anything but the fear roiling my stomach. I passed through the doors and stood beside him.
He did not move, and I thought he was merely overwhelmed by the tarnished grandeur around us. The castle was one open space, though divisions were implied by lines and clusters of trees here and there. It was roofless, like the banquet hall of our castle—or, more accurately I suppose, it was roofed in dense layers of leaf and branch and enchantment, which kept the elements away. It consisted of the great hall in which we stood and a wide staircase at the back, which led into the tower that backed onto the hall—I could just see the outline of it through the foliage. Was Queen Arna up there, I wondered?
At the centre of the hall was the largest attentive oak I had ever seen. Its trunk was too wide for ten men to link arms around, and its roots bullied their way up through the floor. Its upper canopy was obscured by the other trees, but several lower boughs were visible. Many of the eyes that stared at me with anger or fear, envy or disdain, were rheumy, with wrinkled lids, and I think some were nearsighted. They squinted and seemed to have trouble fixing upon us.
Wendell still had not moved. He was staring at something on the other side of the hall, but I could not work out what it was; there were too many trees in the way, offering only a partial picture. There was a splash of coppery red, an edge of something plaid—fabric? And, just visible past the trunk of a birch, a single pale foot.
I walked forward slowly. The sound of the wind moving through the trees faded, and all I heard was my thundering heart. Wendell followed, then took my hand and pulled me slightly behind him.
At the far end of the hall was an ornately carved four-poster piled high with blankets, including the plaid one I had glimpsed, which spilled onto the floor. Queen Arna lay upon the blankets, still clad in queenly finery, though it was now tattered and stained. She was dead.
There was no room for debate on this point. She had taken a dagger and stabbed herself through the chest. It had happened recently—within the last few seconds, I thought, for her body still twitched. She had heard our voices outside the door. Her eyes did not gaze in our direction, but stared sightlessly at the canopy.
“She knew I was come to kill her,” Wendell said. His tone was oddly conversational, but his face was flushed, his eyes wet. “So this is what you’ve chosen. Vengeance is so important to you, that even in death—” He gave a soft laugh and rubbed his face.
I pressed his hand. I still remember the feeling of his cold fingers against mine. At the time I was thinking, surely he could not be sad. Not about her.
“I know,” he said, giving me a rueful smile. “I had wanted to say goodbye.”
I surveyed the room. It was a romantic place to die at least. I could summon no more compassion for the queen than that—well and good that she had died by her own hand, I thought; spare Wendell the grief of killing the woman who had raised him.
I touched the queen’s arm, then drew back immediately, for it was still warm. My hand, where it had brushed the bed, came away bloody, and I hurriedly wiped it on my dress. Her blood dripped to the ground in a steady patter like little footsteps. Orga licked at the puddle, and I picked her up.
Something odd was happening to the queen’s body. Her bare feet were darkening to the greyish-white of the birch trees and growing knots, while moss crept up the side of her neck. Something moved in her hair—a host of aphids and small white moths seemed to be making themselves at home. Was this how all monarchs died? I thought of taking my notebook out to make a sketch, but shuddered away from the prospect. Perhaps Danielle de Grey was correct—there are things in Faerie that are not meant to be known.
“Then the curse is lifted,” I said. “Is it? What do you feel? Must we do anything else? We could collect the queen’s blood, I suppose.” I looked at her strange outline—it was not an appealing prospect. And was it still blood, or had it become sap?
Wendell was gazing at me. One of his faerie looks again, and yet, to my astonishment, he was not entirely opaque to me this time, and what I saw in his eyes made me still. What had he said? The queen had killed herself for vengeance ?
The queen’s body ceased twitching. And the world was suddenly changed, and a great many things happened within the space of a heartbeat. I will record each of my impressions now, hindsight allowing me to piece them out:
A swirling miasma of grey descended upon the castle, like a cloud slowly lowering itself out of the sky. A tendril touched my shoe tip, and I leapt backwards with a shout, for the sensation was like the brush of a hot brand.
Orga began to yowl in a voice I’d never heard from her before—it was closer to the cry of a mortal cat than I had thought her capable of.
Wendell lifted the steel dagger his stepmother had used and drove it through his chest in one swift, impossibly quiet movement, and the motion was familiar to me, somehow, the angle—it was how he had stabbed the woman with the raven-feather hair. There was only the faintest rustle as the fabric of his cloak parted, then he wrenched the dagger free in a shower of blood bright as rubies.
As the curse descended upon us, something wrapped round my stomach and flung me backwards—I caught a glimpse of glaring eyes, felt the brush of something soft and wet against my arm. I hit the trunk of the attentive oak, and the castle vanished.