Chapter 5
Mouse made herself walk and not run screaming the rest of the way to John’s cottage.
In the distance, she could see puffs of smoke drifting out of the chimney, bright and merry against the darkening sky.
John’s cottage always seemed separate from reality—a Neverland or secret garden to Thistlemarsh’s gloom.
She was grateful for that now more than ever.
Briefly, Mouse reentertained the idea that she’d gone mad under the stress of Thistlemarsh’s restoration.
However, the sting of her palms and her dirty trousers from where the vines dragged her were proof that what happened was real: She had seen a Faerie in Thistlemarsh Wood in broad daylight.
The Faerie had been Dante, a statue she’d seen nearly every day growing up.
Not only that, but the Faerie spoke to her and offered her one of his kind’s infamous bargains. It was impossible, but there it was. For the sake of her sanity and Thistlemarsh, she had to believe it and treat the situation accordingly.
She did not know how he knew the details of her predicament with the Hall, but the strange feelings that had lingered with her during the day took on new meaning. She remembered the movement at the window during her meeting with Carlyle. Was the Faerie spying on her?
He could not have done it from inside Thistlemarsh, she reassured herself. All stories indicated that Faeries needed invitations to enter mortal dwellings, and she certainly had not invited him in. And he said something about the difficulty of moving as a statue.
Why the creature suddenly approached her, she could not say. Still, she remembered the strange shock to her finger from her first encounter with the statue, and she shuddered.
Mouse dug through her memory for information on deals with Faeries.
In general, Faerie bargains were spoken of in the same disdainful whispers as market speculation and making one’s fortune through trade.
Even Blakeney’s warned against them, in tales like “The Faerie Bridegroom” or “The Name of the Helper.”
Her mother always scoffed when she heard that kind of talk from the other people in their tenement building, but Mouse would catch her father crossing himself. If her mother had loved Faeries, her father feared them just as much.
“Nothing in this life is so important you need to make a deal with a Faerie for it.”
Mouse had heard him, though, years later, pleading with the Faeries for her mother’s life. No one answered. Still, Mouse had done the same for Bertie and Roger.
Where was this Faerie back then? Where was he when Bertie was dying on the battlefield? Where was he when her brother screamed more often than he spoke?
No, she decided. She would not accept the Faerie’s help. It was just too dangerous, even if he was her only chance to save Thistlemarsh.
During the war, in moments of intense anxiety, she would introduce something new and unexpected to the senses to distract herself.
Then, she was limited to gulping down weak tea or running her hands along starched linen.
But here, on the path to John’s cottage, she had options.
Bursts of wildflowers decorated the ground in yellow and pink.
As far as Mouse could tell, they had sprung up overnight.
They were not forbidden Faerie-protected flowers, like bluebells, so she knelt next to a vibrant bunch and plucked a single flower.
Twisting the stem between her fingers, she lifted it to her nose and breathed in slowly.
The scent shot through her panic like an arrow, clearing a path for her to think of her next decision.
Should she tell John about the Faerie and his offer?
The meeting was just too improbable. That was the problem. To Mouse’s knowledge, the last record of a Faerie interacting with a mortal was in the 1790s. It was a famous tale, as central to understanding history as the Battle of Waterloo or the Hundred Years’ War.
Not long after Madame Guillotine removed King Louis XVI’s and Marie Antoinette’s heads from their bodies, an elegant Faerie man materialized on the execution block, draped in silver and gold finery.
Of course, the revolution was in full swing at that point, and Faerie nobles had expressed their contempt over human violence when events turned gory.
Within years, the revolution was cited as one of the key events that drove the Faeries away from the mortal world.
The Faerie looked at the crowd, the furious mass of unhappiness and bloodlust, and laughed.
His laughter enraged both the revolutionaries and the line of doomed aristocrats waiting to join their monarchs.
The crowd screamed, and the Faerie cackled more.
He snapped his fingers, and the guillotine contorted in on itself.
In its place was a tiger made of wood, steel, and blood.
Despite, or perhaps because of, its egalitarian origins, the creature did not differentiate between citizens and lords, setting first upon the executioner.
In the panic, the Faerie extended his hand to a woman who had been waiting her turn for the kiss of the blade. The ropes binding the woman’s hands disappeared, and she threw herself at the Faerie. He caught her, and before their lips could meet, they vanished, never to be seen again.
Perhaps they had been in love. Or perhaps the Faerie was merely trying to add to the chaos.
The tiger guillotine took days to subdue, terrorizing Paris. Mouse had seen remnants of its wooden leg, still marked with tiger stripes, and its silver blade teeth at the British Museum.
Even if John did believe Mouse about the encounter, what would he say? He would call her a fool for even considering the Faerie’s offer, considering their history.
By the time the cottage came into view, she had decided.
Why worry John with problems that would never come to fruition?
Once she had Thistlemarsh in hand, she would broach the subject of Faeries living in the woods and offering deals to passersby.
Mouse nodded to herself about this very sensible plan, while her heart pounded in her chest.
She could make out a figure working in the garden. Engulfed in his bulky white beekeeping suit, John caught sight of her and waved in broad, friendly arcs. Mouse waved back, hurrying along to the end of the path.
The gate opened at her touch, and she smiled at how it swung silently. Typical John, oiling the hinges on the garden gate. Everything neat, in order, and at its full functionality. The mundanity was comforting.
“Did you lose a fight with a rosebush?” John asked as she came near, a lumpy ghost with his beekeeping suit pulled up around him, the net obscuring his face. “You look terrible.”
“And you look ridiculous. How are the bees?” Mouse asked, changing the subject with what she hoped was subtlety.
“Happier now that winter is over, and my flowers are beginning to bloom.” He raised an eyebrow at her from behind the screen. “You seem cheerful—the Hall is in better shape than you thought?”
Mouse was grateful he mistook her agitation for excitement. “Definitely not. I am just doing my best to keep my spirits up.”
“Good! I am glad that the challenge has not discouraged you.” He pulled the mask off. His hair twisted in sweaty tufts on his head. Mouse sneered, and he threw the mask at her.
“You are lucky I’m a good catch. You might have crushed some of your flowers, and then where would your bees be?”
“I trusted you to catch it, and I see that my faith is rewarded,” he said, smiling broadly. “I am planning on some stew tonight, if you would like to join me. Nothing too elaborate, I’m afraid. Some of us are still merely middle-class wretches.”
Mouse threw the mask back at him, and it narrowly avoided his roses before he caught it.
Darkness settled over the cottage, a reminder that the teasing spring had not settled down over the country yet, despite the day’s warmth.
Mouse’s eyes kept drifting to the windows, marking the forest’s edge and waiting for a flash of gray or the lurch of a moving tree.
“And then Mrs. Woodhouse told me that her son ran away with a dairymaid from Sidmouth.”
Mouse swallowed sharply, coughed once, and looked from the window to John’s face. He lifted his eyebrow.
“Caught red-handed,” Mouse said, sheepish.
“At least I only had to say something slightly ridiculous to reel you back. I will never forget the time I had you nodding along to Mr. Green’s plan to bring elephants to the village.”
“I am sorry.”
“No need to apologize. Everything’s been mad lately.
I’d be surprised if you weren’t feeling the effects.
” He took a hasty bite of stew, and Mouse did the same, proud that she only glanced toward the woods once.
John dabbed his mouth with his napkin before continuing.
“If you want to talk about anything, you know I’m here. ”
She stared down at her bowl, noting how orange the circles of carrots were against the red brown of the broth. She could not help herself. “Did Roger ever talk to you about our mother?”
The question confused him, Mouse could see, but John nodded. “He spoke of her often.”
She took a deep breath. “Did he mention the Faerie stories she told us?”
John put his spoon down. “In passing. They seemed like the ones told in the village—probably the same ones my gran told me.”
“Did your gran believe in Faeries?”
“Of course; everyone believes in them.”
“That’s not what I meant. Did your gran believe they were still in the mortal world?”
John laughed. “I’m sure she did, like anyone her age.”
“My mother thought they never left. That they still watch us,” Mouse said quietly.
John’s smile vanished. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound dismissive. I would never want to seem disrespectful to your mother’s or my grandmother’s beliefs. That would be hypocritical.”
“But you don’t think that Faeries are still here?”