The Wicked & The Dead (Faery Bargains Book 1)

by Melissa Marr

  The few people who lived here now held as much land as they wanted, but it wasn’t part of a town or city. No utility services. No sheriff. No law. To live in the Outs meant you handled your own law. If not for my allure to the dead, I’d prefer being outside society. Solar or wind power, well water, your own self-defense. In this, I was my mother’s daughter. I saw the appeal in that sort of life.

  Mama Lauren was handy with a gun, and now she had roll-downs for every window, door, chicken coop, and greenhouse on her farm. Some of those were added after she had me. The first time she found a cluster of draugr napping in the barn and one under her chicken coop, she added more roll-downs.

  The roads became dirt and gravel about ten miles outside New Orleans, and the street lights were replaced by trees. Now that we’d passed the ghost zone, nature was all there was. The murmurs of the others on the bus grew louder. Families brought their children out here, and seniors went to sit on benches at the lake or walk along the short trails there. During the day, it was perfect. Draugr weren’t all trapped by sunlight, but the newly-infected ravenous ones were.

  The bus pulled in with a rattle and whoosh.

  The driver repeated the same announcement that all the bus drivers made each day: “First bus back will be here at 4PM. Last bus thirty minutes before dusk.”

  The busses were consistent in their schedule. They made sure to count each passenger to be sure no one was left behind in the dark. For the most part, that was for the best. I waited until everyone else was gone before I stood and walked to the front of the bus.

  “I won’t be on any of the return busses tonight.”

  “Miss, you can’t stay out here. I see you’re armed but—” He stared at me in the way of those who think they’re dealing with the very stupid or very depressed. He wasn’t sure which. “There are things out there."

  “Draugr. I know, but—”

  “Let me take you back. It’s suicide to go out there in the dark.”

  “I know what I’m doing,” I explained.

  And he very obviously took my words wrong. His face slid toward a kindness that made me hope he was quick enough to keep himself safe. Good people made me hope that for them.

  “There are other choices,” he said as he reached out a wrinkled hand. “Whatever happened. Whatever brought you to this. Remember: Bleak days pass.”

  I had a momentary urge to hug him, but instead I accepted his outstretched hand. “I’m not suicidal. I’m a witch, and my mother lives out there. I’ll be back tomorrow. Tonight, I’ll be tucked in with gross tea and steel roll-downs.”

  When I lifted my chin in the direction of home, the man stared at me with a new understanding. “You’re Lauren’s baby girl?”

  I nodded.

  He laughed. “That explains everything. That woman’s as stubborn as a herd of mules.”

  “And I am my mother’s daughter,” I said lightly.

  “Get there before dusk at least.” He waited until I nodded again and then sighed in a way that said that he had met my mother more than once. “Tell her Bud sends regards.”

  Then he waved me off.

  I couldn’t flow with Bud watching me, so I walked at a brisk pace until I was hidden by the copse of trees that grew thick and strong without humans interfering. People enjoyed short trips to nature, but by and large, they weren’t comfortable too long outside the walls of cities. Nature was rebounding without the litter and greed of humanity. If I slowed, I knew there were wolves, foxes, birds, and any number of prey animals in the thick undergrowth of the forest. As a child, I’d taken glee in playing near them, comforted by the knowledge that my speed and magic would prevent the larger ones from eating me.

  It was not nature that scared me. The unnatural draugr and the fearful man, those frightened me. Nature made sense.

  As I started to flow toward my mother’s house, I knew that her magic was why I felt such trust in nature. She’d given me a gift, a regard for life and all the slithering, crawling, running, flying, or swimming things in it.

  I recognized that gift, but my relationship with my mother was still strained. Not on her side, mind you. My mother, bless her sweet heart, was fairly sure I was goddess-sent or G-d-sent, depending on which faith she was leaning into that week. Mama Lauren was raised Jewish, discovered paganism, and honestly, argued convincingly that the two faiths worked remarkably well together on a lot of practical matters. Vegan witch wasn’t much different than kosher Jew. Some of the ethos fused well, too: make the world a better place and “harm none.” In some ways, it made for an idyllic childhood.

  My mother stood in a garden in front of the tidy little A-frame house where I grew up. When I came home, I could forget that I’d ever left. Home was a constant, my mother surrounded by plants or herbs or brewing something while she danced through the house. As usual her hair, barely gray still, was tied up in the sort of untidy knot that looked somehow elegant. I could’ve been any age from two until now, and my mother still wore the same basic thing: tall boots, dress, and a pair of pistols holstered at her hips. She was all about life and love, but she was aware of the world, too. Her hand went to the butt of one of those guns at the same time as she lifted her head. If I was a human meaning her harm, I’d be dead before I reached her.

  When she saw it was me, her hand dropped away from her gun. “Genny! What a lovely surprise!”

  It wasn’t just her voice that filled with joy. My mother lit up at the sight of me, arms open for an embrace, and I couldn’t refuse. Honestly, I don’t go broadcasting it because I fear someone using her to hurt me, but I always felt like pleasing my mother was my life’s mission. Sometimes, I thought that was part of the strain between us: Mama Lauren never quite saw me as I was.

  To her, I was a miracle, a gift, a mission, and I just wanted to be a girl.

  “The cards said you’d visit, but I wasn’t expecting you so soon,” Mama Lauren said in a tone that felt like reproach. “You could have let me know.”

  I stepped away, but let her take my hand in hers. “You don’t have a phone. How was I to let you know?”

  My mother let out a pulse of magic that I felt like a sizzle on my skin. She said nothing, though. She’d answered my question. I could have sent a message. We were both witches.

  “I don’t exactly like broadcasting where I am or where you are.”

  She gave me a look that used to send me cringing in fear.

  “Fine. I suppose I could’ve sent a message when I was on the bus,” I murmured.

  She made a hmm noise and smiled. It wasn’t simply that she used her non-answers like weapons. My mother was an artist at emoting. She embraced a school of thought that basically said that illness comes from repressed emotion. And yes, it was just about as anxiety-inducing in childhood as it sounded. Every feeling, every possible emotion, was to be shared.

  “I worry,” she said, as if that was news.

  “I know.” I let her tug me to her patio where there was a table with a pot of tea, a bottle of homemade moonshine, and two sturdy teacups.

  She released my hand and looked me over, cataloguing things I didn’t need to know. I squirmed as she brushed my hair back and stared at my face. I stayed still, though, when she put her fingers under my eyes and tugged so she could examine my eyes more closely.

  When she smoothed her hands over my temples and jaw, I asked, “Any wrinkles yet?”

  She frowned and swatted my arm. “Don’t be cheeky. Your iron is low.”

  I winced. My mother had any number of herbal drinks that she’d concocted over the years to try to offset my peculiar diet. Sometimes I’d rather be low on multiple things than be forced to drink a cup of whatever gritty sludge fixed my daily deficiencies.

  “I’ll eat later, and grab a few vitamins, too.”

  She made the same hmm noise and gestured for me to sit. Dutifully, I did, and my mother went over to a raised garden bed and pulled out a tuber that looked like the beet’s uglier cousin. A sharp knife from her pock
et, and she sliced the root into slivers that she dropped into a tea cup.

  Then she topped it off with a spoonful of what looked like sugar and a splash of moonshine. “Drink.”

  I sighed and accepted the cup of dirty root and homemade booze. There was no sense arguing with her. I could be a hundred, and she’d still be mixing up things that most mothers wouldn’t give a child but know damn well that it was precisely what my weird body required. She could read me with the same ease she had with the soil in her various gardens. Sometimes, I suspect the truth was that she parented the plants or maybe gardened me. To her, it was one and the same. Who’s to say she was wrong?

  It was salt, not sugar, in my cup. Salt, dirt, root, and booze. It was weird, but her concoctions always were. The damned gritty root cocktail was making me feel better already. I lifted the cup and said, “It’s helping.”

  “Well, of course it is.” She patted my arm. “Don’t forget salt, child. You’re low.”

  We sat and enjoyed the afternoon sun, chatting and drinking moonshine, and I felt a lot of my stress slip away. There was a lot of my life I questioned, but no matter what went wrong or right or somewhere in between, I always knew I was loved and accepted unconditionally. Some days, that was everything.

  Other days, it was a pressure, a weight I didn’t want. I had fear that my very soul was tied to her, and if I were injured it would break her—but we had agreed not to discuss that. She’d made sacrifices to have me, and I couldn’t get an answer as to how deep the costs were.

  “Jesse okay?” she asked after we’d relaxed long enough for her patience to wear thin.

  “He is.”

  “The girls?”

  “Good, too.”

  “Work?” Her tone was identical to the first questions, but I saw her hands tighten around her cup.

  “It’s good, Mama.” I reached out and took her hand. “I’m safe. Careful. I have Eli helping, too.”

  I didn’t feel compelled to mention that I’d rejected Eli’s help for months, or that it was just recently that I gave in. There were things best not said, and any version of what she’d hear as “I’ve been being reckless” was always on that list. In this, Sera and my mother saw eye-to-eye.

  “Eli? The bartender?”

  “Bar owner,” I corrected. “He’s strong.”

  My mother nodded, and I would typically leave it at that, but I couldn’t ask more if I didn’t come clean. She was the only person other than Eli who knew of otherworldly things. Witches weren’t exactly common, and everyone said that the true fae were all tucked away in Elphame.

  “He’s half-fae,” I whispered.

  Mama Lauren made that humming noise in her throat. “He is?”

  I nodded. “I’ve needed him to help because . . . my magic is off.”

  My mother leaned back in her seat and smiled at me with the same look that she gave her prize vegetable or moonshine. “Well, then. It’s about time! Eli explains why your magic is off, doesn’t it?”

  “Eli’s ancestry?”

  “No, dear. The feelings you have for him.” She walked over to a short citrus tree, plucked a hybrid fruit of some sort. She stood staring at the fields and holding this bright pink thing that was lime-sized. Her back was to me, and I felt that she’d just used some sort of magic.

  “Mama?”

  She tossed the remains of her tea into the garden and refilled both of our glasses with moonshine. She looked at me. “I’m guessing you’re feeling erratic? Magic surges? Waking up corpses by accident?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mmm.” Mama Lauren tore the rind off the fruit and squeezed the pulp into my glass of liquor. “This calls for being a little tipsy.” Then she lifted hers and said, “To secrets unveiled. Goddess have mercy.”

  I drained my glass, and she did the same.

  “Baby girl, you’re going to be upset with me, but” —she looked away for a moment, cleared her throat, and met my gaze again as she announced—“hear me out. I made a bargain. It was the only way to keep you safe when you were younger.”

  I refilled my glass and dropped the rest of the weird pink fruit into it. “What sort of bargain?”

  “I tamped your magic down until you found a real partner,” she said shakily, not looking at me as she spoke. “I meant to tell you, and eventually, I would have. You know that . . . but you said you weren’t dating. I ask Jesse’s parents every time I see them. I used to think it would be him, you know? Close as you two were? I was afraid I’d done all that only to have you find your intended as a teenager. Most people never find their perfect mate, Gen.”

  “My perfect . . . Eli?” I was careful as I explained, “We’re friends.”

  She smiled.

  And I laughed. Despite the sheer exhaustion of my mother’s overprotectiveness, I could still laugh at the idea of Eli and I as perfect mates. We were something, but perfect? I could never give him what he’d need. I wasn’t that person. I never would be.

  The thought, though, of having Eli in a permanent way did weird things to my heart.

  I looked at my mother and explained, “We might be compatible in bed—although I don’t know because I haven’t gone there—but he’s half-fae, Mama. He’ll want children. He has to have at least one child of his blood.”

  “You might be able—”

  “Not happening,” I said coldly. “Whatever perversion of nature I am, I’m not passing it on to a baby, and he isn’t going to violate his people’s law for me. That’s not fair.”

  “Geneviève!” My mother had tears in her eyes now.

  But I was not going to console her. Not now. I stood and stepped away to prevent myself from hugging her. “What were the exact terms of the bargain, Mama?”

  “‘Your beacon to the grave would be tamped down. Your draugr traits tamped down. Until you met a true partner, loyal and able to stand at your side. So mote it be.’” She spoke the words like a recitation.

  “That’s not romantic in wording!” I turned and hugged her. “Eli is my business partner. Your wording left room for interpretation. He’s safe.”

  “Geneviève . . .”

  “This is fine.” I kissed her head. “So, it’s just a learning curve, right? Like puberty.” I thought about all the corpses I summoned my first few periods and winced. “Hopefully, not quite like that! But I get more juice since I have a business partner.”

  Now that I knew the words she’d used, I felt relieved. I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell Eli, but I suppose I probably needed to. He was the one who’d had to deal with my come-here-dead-things pulse the other night—and my temper being touchier. He deserved to know about this. Well, parts of it. He didn’t need to know that for just a moment the thought that the decision was out of my hands made me practically quake with a twisted mess of fear and desire and hope. If we were bound, I’d have to face whatever this was. We weren’t, though. Partners.

  “Geneviève, honey.” Mama Lauren pulled me close and put her hands on my face. “That bargain was intended to be about being loved, about you not being alone once I die. I asked for your bashert, your soulmate.”

  “Those weren’t the exact words of the bargain, though, and faery bargains are notoriously unreliable. You were had. You might have been seeking my destiny, but Eli is my business partner. I used that word, and this is the result,” I insisted, shoving the thought of being loved by Eli far away. I gave Mama Lauren a tight smile and said, “I’m going to enjoy the farm before sunset.”

  “Geneviève?”

  I paused and looked at her, half-daring her to argue, but she just sighed and said, “I’ll freshen your room. Stay away from the bayou.”

  And I went to ramble the fields where I’d grown up. I could roam, and with my speed, I’d be at the water. Sometimes, when I was a little girl, my mother allowed it. It made her nervous, despite my best intentions. If I would flow, she couldn’t keep up.

  It hit me that this was what I was with bindings. I wasn’t going to think about wha
t it would mean to be unbound. I wasn’t going to think about bad faery bargains. I’d called Eli my partner more than once. The bargain was worded as “partner,” and that was that.

  The alternative, the thought that she could trap him with her bargain and I could cost him his heritage, filled me with sorrow. And in my deepest of hearts, I could admit that there was a fear that if I had the chance to be fully loved by Eli I’d be destroyed by losing it—and I would have to lose it. People near me were at risk. Even my friends were kept at a distance. What if I lost control? What if my ancestry changed me little-by-little? What if I couldn’t stop from summoning the dead? I was too dangerous to love, and caring about Eli—which I could admit to—meant making sure he didn’t get too close to me. My mother had the right of it living alone. I followed her example these days. No roommates. No permanent relationships. Limit time with loved ones, including my own mother. There was no way to know what I would evolve into, but I had a pretty good idea that it wasn’t going to be cute and cuddly.

  I kicked off my shoes and stepped into the grassy soil that nourished me. Coming home wasn’t easy, but it had perks. Rich soil and open space, fresh moonshine and Mama Lauren, I wished briefly that I could stay. I supposed it was hiding, but I preferred to think of it as a retreat. Strategic withdrawal. Returning home.

  I was stronger, and maybe there was a way to stay here now.

  Tonight, I was going to enjoy a little country peace. If I was wrong about the bargain, I’d burn that bridge when I got there. And if all else failed, I knew a faery. Maybe I could make a new bargain to bind my cursed traits.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next morning, I felt refreshed and optimistic. My mother’s tinctures and teas—and the secret she spilled—made me feel better than I had in months. My magic being erratic was temporary. Hell, maybe once the dust settled, I’d be stronger and surer.

  By early afternoon, I felt positively energized.