VELVETEEN vs. The Melancholy of Autumn #4
She stepped out of the trees and into a broad clearing.
Hailey and Scaredy were standing on the other side of it, flanking a throne that appeared to have grown straight out of the ground, all twisted roots and tangled branches.
There were bats roosting there. There were bones held captive in the knotty snarl of twig and thorn and rotting trunk. And on the throne, there was a woman.
She was beautiful: there was no denying that.
Her skin was deep brown, never quite shading into full blackness, although her African-American roots were apparent in everything from her bearing to the cornrow perfection of her hair.
She wore a dress that would have been perfectly at home at a 1970s prom, layer upon layer of pink taffeta.
Somehow, it wasn’t anything the Princess would have worn; it wasn’t a fairy tale dress.
It was a horror movie dress, stolen from the seconds before the blood started flying.
No: not quite. There were little red dots on the hem of her dress, some dried to a deep brown, others arterial-fresh and almost unnatural-looking.
The sash across her chest read PROM QUEEN.
She was terrible: there was no denying that.
She smiled like the moon coming out from behind the clouds on Halloween night, and in her eyes lingered an eternity of screaming.
Her nails were bloody red and filed to stiletto points, and the bouquet she nestled in the crook of one arm was corn stalks and dead roses, ringed with tiny waxy orange berries, like dollhouse pumpkins.
“Hello, Velveteen,” she said, and her voice was a mug of hot apple cider at the end of a long night’s trick-or-treating; it was a poisoned caramel apple on an oleander stick.
There was no contradiction in those things.
They were simply and entirely what she was, no omissions, no lies.
“I was pleased when you chose to come to us last of all. It means we still might have a chance to make you stay.”
“Scream Queen, I presume,” said Velveteen. Aurora had been cold, which suited the heart of Winter; Persephone had been welcoming and warm. Scream Queen was somewhere in the middle, a bonfire of a woman, blazing bright and burning.
“In the flesh, such as it is,” said Scream Queen. She smiled, and her teeth were white and even and very, very sharp. “I’ve been waiting for such a long time to meet you.”
“You could have come to say ‘hello’ the first time your minions decided to kidnap me.”
“I couldn’t and you know it. Please, don’t be foolish, Velveteen.
I have been looking forward to meeting you, and I would very much like it if you chose to stay here with us, in Halloween forever.
That doesn’t mean I’ll tolerate disrespect.
I’m still the Queen here. The one and only Scream Queen.
Although I suppose you might be able to depose me, if you chose to stay.
It would take a hundred years or more. It would be a glorious battle.
The Calendar Country would ring like a bell from the force of our fight.
You’re welcome to stay if that’s your intent.
But until you’re strong enough to take me on, don’t disrespect me. ”
“Sorry,” said Velveteen. It was clear from her tone and her posture that she didn’t mean it, but that had never been the important part: it was the apology that mattered, not the reason it was given. “May I ask a question?”
“I don’t think I could stop you, could I?” Scream Queen smiled again, settling back in her throne.
“Are you an animus?”
“No,” said Scream Queen. “I never was, not even when there were so many of you that people knew how to talk about them. I’m an empath.
What I feel, you feel. What you feel, I feel.
What I want you to feel, you feel. People used to call it a plaything power, something for nursemaids and women of the evening and other folks as didn’t matter.
There’s nothing toy-like about the way I use my skills. ”
“I guess there wouldn’t be. Especially not here.” In the Seasonal Lands, the emotional landscape mattered as much if not more than the physical one. Scream Queen would be able to rule forever, if she felt it strongly enough. “What do you want from me?”
“Oh, my darling girl.” Scream Queen looked at Velveteen, and the sadness of the season swept over her, dead and dying leaves, rain and cold and the rot at the heart of the late apples on the trees. Velveteen swayed. Velveteen staggered. Velveteen dropped to her knees.
Scream Queen rose. She walked to where the young animus lay, and knelt, running a hand over the rough yarn of her hair.
“I only want what the others got,” she said softly.
“I want everything you have to give, and when you run out, I want just a little bit more. I’ll keep you if you let me, but if I can’t, well.
I’ve lost out on better. I’ll lose out on worse.
Right now, I just need you to serve me. Understand?
” Velveteen moaned. Scream Queen straightened, turning to look back at Hailey and Scaredy.
“Well?” she said. “Get her up and get her home. When she wakes up, we’ll get started.
” Her smile was a dead moon at midnight, unforgiving and eternal, as her subjects hurried to do her bidding.
“There’s so much for her to do,” she said, and no one in the season argued, and the night that never ends went on.