The Unfairfolk (Valenbound Book 1)

by Sara Wolf

  “Oh,” Lionel murmurs, now in a pair of casual slacks and a boho linen shirt instead of his driver uniform. His unruly copper hair is still in its low ponytail. “Do you take medicine for that?”

  “Uh yeah.” I make a motion at my half-mangled burrito. “A medicine called cheese. Oh - Oh god.” I smack my mouth. “Is this what they think salsa is here?”

  Where there’d usually be a cursory laugh, there’s just Lionel staring at me for way too long.

  “What’s up?” I ask. “Something on my face? A bean?”

  “Lilith,” He says thoughtfully. “You’re being careful, aren’t you? About following the rules?”

  “I mean, I’m trying to. For once. Doesn’t mean I’m all that successful at it.”

  “You know, William told me to protect you while you’re here.”

  “Protect me?” I tilt my head. “Or spy on me?”

  Lionel’s pale blue eyes flash. The easy friendliness that’s existed pretty much from the beginning between us suddenly hardens. I can feel it icing over like a lake. Lionel breathes in, deep.

  “William wants you to have a good experience, here. I wouldn’t spy on you and ruin that, Lilith.”

  “But you’d protect me. From what? Nepotism? Rampant classism? Getting hit with a Burberry bag? Because lemme tell you, it’s too late for all those things.”

  “I’m just making sure - you’re following the rules. Staying safe.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I wave him off. “Wearing my uniform, trying not to be late, turning in homework -“

  “You wouldn’t make a promise with someone you didn’t know well, would you?”

  “What?” I wrinkle my nose. It’s totally out of left field. “Haven’t read anything about that in the rule book.”

  “Lilith, please.” He sighs. He sounds worried. Like Mom. And it only makes me miss her more. “This is serious.”

  “Since when are promises serious?”

  Lionel looks at me patiently, and with an eighteen-wheeler’s worth of weight. He’s incredibly good at being serious. So good it makes me itchy. Never would’ve guessed, with how casually pleasant he is all the time.

  “I’m saying this because there are people here who’d take advantage -”

  I interrupt him, balling up the burrito tinfoil. “Even if someone offers me a trillion dollars, or like, a goth-as-hell Scottish castle, I won’t make promises with strangers. Or I’ll at least think twice. Is that good enough?”

  Lionel’s face washes over with relief. Too much relief for such a small thing. “Yes. Thank you.”

  I lob the tinfoil orb into a distant trash can, nailing it first shot. My eyes comb the distance. I didn’t realize it through the siren song of the burrito, but we’re standing in the same spot with the same view as the little girl’s drawing. No auroras, but the same windows spilling light, the same blanket of rolling grass, and the same line of ominous black pine trees that rise up to meet it. Except now, a tiny crescent moon slivers the sky.

  And then the impossible.

  A shadow deep within the trees moves.

  “Is something wrong, Lilith?” Lionel’s voice sounds like it’s underwater. The instinct part of my brain works even if my whole body is frozen - rapid-fire thoughts and fears needling through the paralytic haze. It should stop moving. But it doesn’t. And it’s moving like it has two legs, too tall to be an animal, too tall to be an animal, please don’t let there be red, please, God, don’t let there be red -

  Two points of red flicker in the shadow. Fire, laser pointers, tail lights of a car. Anything. Could be anything. My glasses - greasy. I take them off and rub frantically, rub my eyes, put them back on.

  Please.

  Gone. The tall, moving shadow is nothing more than a distant tree trunk slotted with moonlight. The moonlight is making me see things, or am I so paranoid of that picture I’ve started hallucinating it? But I swear…I swear on my fourth-grade goldfish’s grave something was there just now, and it had red eyes like that guy in the restaurant, like the picture -

  “- ilith.” Lionel’s warm hand on my should brings me out of it. “Are you all right? You’re pale as a sheet.”

  I slide my eyes up at him. I don’t know if I can trust him, but I might not have a choice. If Will told him to protect me…I have to take the gamble. I'm seven thousand miles away from everyone else.

  “T-There’s something you have to see. The whole reason I called you up here.”

  “Ah, so the chalupa was a misdirection, then?” Lionel tries a smile, but it falters when I rummage in my bag and pull out the notebook. I open it to the page - not looking at it - and hand it to him.

  “It’s the same.” I motion around. “The windows. The trees. The size of the buildings and where they are. It’s the exact same perspective as where we’re standing. Those squiggles in the sky - that’s the aurora that was here yesterday night. Same colors and everything - purple and green.”

  Lionel doesn’t once look up from the drawing. He’s stares right at the middle of it, at the shadowy figure there.

  “Where - ” He swallows. “Where did you get this?”

  “Some girl on the airplane,” I say. “I gave her my colored pencils and she doodled that.”

  “This is hardly a doodle,” Lionel whispers.

  “Then what is it? Because from where I’m standing, it looks like she saw the future. My future. But people can’t do that. They don’t do that.”

  Lionel traces his finger over the shadowy figure. “What did the girl look like? Can you remember?”

  “Dark hair.” I shrug. “Big green eyes. She had two braids.”

  “With little pink bows on the ends?”

  I search my memory, and with cold dread I realize he’s right. “Yeah. But how did you - what does that mean? Who is she?”

  There’s not a trace of a smile in his eyes. “I’ll be right back. Stay here.”

  “Uh, being alone is kinda how horror movies start.”

  “Then stay in the lobby. But wait for me.”

  Lionel strides off into the dark, straight towards the Knight Belmont building. I shuffle into the warm lobby buzzing with conversation and the faint sound of videogames being played on the huge TV. What the buttery fuck is going on? People don’t see the future. They can’t. Ruby grounded me so deep in the earth I can smell the diamonds and dinosaurs, and she’s right. There’s a reason for everything. Even if that reason is pure chaotic coincidence.

  Except if Lionel knows the girl, that makes it one helluva coincidence, doesn’t it?

  I’m staring out the window at the line of trees, at the creepy shell of Knight Durand poking out of them, when my phone buzzes and ejects my skeleton from my skin.

  “Mom,” I wheeze. “Hi.”

  “Hi sweetie! We’re on the same time zone now, so I figured I’d give you a call! How’re you doing? How’s school?”

  I close my eyes and savor her voice. It’s like a balm on my frayed nerves. Normal. Everything’s normal. Everything’s fine.

  “It’s great,” I make my voice cheery. “I mean, I can’t express my impeccable fashion sense of threadbare t-shirts and holey jeans here, which, honestly? Their loss.”

  She chuckles. “I bet you look so mature in the uniform.”

  “I look like I work at a bank,” I lament. “And they gave me a skirt but I’m definitely gonna plead for pants. I’ve seen like twenty other girls wearing them. The food is amazing, though; there’s this Italian chef guy who makes it all and I thought ‘damn, Mom’s getting the same stuff, isn’t she? Maybe even better’.”

  “Probably better,” She admits shyly. “Will’s taken us to all the best restaurants in Venice.” She sighs. “I feel so spoiled, Lili. As if I’m living someone else’s dream.”

  “No! No way. This is yours, Mom. You’ve worked your ass off for the hospital lately. Enjoy it, or I swear I’ll jailbreak from this place faster than you can say ‘lock-tampering’ and fly over there and enjoy it for you.”
/>   “Threats from my own daughter, is it?” Mom laughs, and the tight knot in my chest loosens a bit. “Alright. I’ll be sure to la vie en rose it as hard as I can.”

  “Oh, you know French too, mademoiselle? I’ve learned five whole words. I can say ‘thank you’ now. And ‘pass the butter’. And ‘toilet’.”

  “Amazing - my girl the linguist.”

  “I know you’re biased because I was in your stomach leeching nutrients for nine months but objective newsflash; I’m nothing compared to the kids here. Most of ‘em have had private tutors their whole lives. Their whole lives, Mom! From like, toddler on! They know everything. Trilingual is the freakin’ norm. They’re all like mini-Einsteins. Oh! Also! Ana learned English just from watching TV shows and stuff. Isn’t that sick?”

  “Seasonal flu-levels of sick,” Mom agrees. “But you’re smart, too, honey.”

  “Smart-ass,” I agree. “And sometimes, sometimes, if I close my eyes and pound hard enough on the calculator and threaten to sacrifice my first born, I can guess the answer to a single math problem. Please, no applause.”

  Mom claps anyway, laughing. It’s like we’re back in our tiny, run-down kitchen. I can see the little curtains over the sink window swaying, the linoleum cheap and scratched but clean. I can almost smell the spam and eggs I’d be cooking for her right now, Mom slumped at the kitchen table in her fatigues after a long night saving people’s lives.

  “I…miss you.” I fight the tears in my eyes, my face reflected against the night-glass of the window hopelessly scrunched.

  “I miss you too, sweetheart.” Mom says softly. “I’ve been collecting souvenirs for you. I put them all in a box. Chocolates - dark, the kind I know you like - hard cheeses, these incredible sun-dried tomatoes and a bit of cured meat. I’ll ship it you tomorrow. Will says it should arrive at Knight Augustin in about a week, customs regulations be damned.”

  “Okay, thanks.” My laugh is watery. Always that sixth-mom-sense, knowing when I feel like shit and ready with a treat.

  “Thank you, Lili.” Mom’s voice glows with warmth. “For agreeing to go there. For letting me do this silly traveling thing.”

  “It’s not silly,” I set my lip. “It’s not silly to have fun. You deserve it, after…everything.”

  She’s quiet, and I know we’re both thinking about Dad. About what we endured to get here over the years - (all the rainy hospital visits, the police visits asking where he was, missing school, my cast, the pain, both of us waking up in the middle of the night crying) - what we had to suffer through just to stand on this precipice of relative peace and quiet happiness.

  “Is Will…being nice to you?” I ask.

  “Yes,” Her voice is soft. “I don’t want you to worry about that, okay?”

  “I know. It’s just -”

  “I know you know. And I know it’s hard to know.”

  I bite back tears.

  “Sleep well, okay?” Mom finishes.

  “You too. Love you.”

  “I love you over the moon and back sweetheart, and I always will, no matter where you are.”

  20

  The Interrogation (Or, How being young feels like being a ghost)

  At seven years old, Lilith Pierce knows what it means when her mother squeezes her hand under the table.

  It means ‘don’t worry’. It means ‘I’m here’. So when she feels it beneath the cold steel of the police interrogation room table, she relaxes. Not much. But enough that her tiny stomach doesn’t feel like throwing up anymore. Her leg with the cast on it hangs heavy under the table, doodled with technicolor flowers and fairy stickers.

  “Please, Mrs. Pierce.” The lady-officer across from them folds her hands on the table, a terse unsmile on her face. “It’s a very simple question. Were you, or were you not, the last person he spoke to?”

  Lilith’s mouth parts. No - she was the one. Her and Daddy had been on the bed, watching cartoons. She asked him if she could get a chocolate milk. He said yes. So she got up to go down into the kitchen. He looked right at her and said it; ‘You know Daddy would never hurt you, right?’. His last words to her. If she closes her eyes, she can still see his mouth moving around them.

  And then the push. The stairs. The fall. The red.

  She picks at one of the fairy stickers on her cast - deftly peeling off its wings. Her mother is utterly silent. The lady-cop sighs, and leans in to whisper so Lilith can’t hear. But she can.

  “The blood, Mrs. Pierce. It wasn’t all your daughter’s.”

  A beat. A pause. Mom squeezes her hand again, hard, and finally lifts her head.

  “We’d like to speak to our lawyer, now.”

  21

  The Blood Promise (Or, How everything means nothing to some people)

  By the time Lionel finally returns with someone else in tow, I’ve decided something drastically life-changing; it doesn’t matter. Nothing. Matters. Not in the nihilistic ‘I don’t give a shit about anything’ sense, but in the ‘I give a shit about precisely three things (Mom, me, food) and everything else can fuck off into the desert’ sense.

  Lionel and Von Arx talking like aliens doesn’t matter. Lionel spying or not doesn’t matter. The freaky drawing doesn’t matter. The red eyes don’t matter. The drawing’s coincidence doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters - that’s ever mattered - is that I stay here at Silvere, pretending my hardest to be a well-mannered, socially delicate not-gremlin for seven months so Mom can have fun and not worry for once in her life.

  “Hi, Lionel!” I chime as I skip down the steps. “Me again.” Lionel turns, and I see who’s with him properly - Alistair. “Prickland! Nice of you to join us. Did you run out of people to growl at? Or are you here to give me detention for disturbing the peace with my immaculate good looks?”

  Alistair just exhales and holds his hand out. “Let me see the notebook.”

  “Oh, I will. Just as soon as you promise you’re not here to throw me in the rose maze and make me clean up the sex socks.”

  “Sex…socks?” Lionel blinks.

  “Condoms,” Prickland rolls his eyes. “The American likes to make up words.”

  “Is it still that bad in the rose maze?” Lionel frowns. Alistair sighs.

  “Even worse than your time, probably.”

  “Sorry, do you two, like, know each other?” I ask. Lionel shoots a smile to Alistair.

  “Should I tell her about all the time you spent in my school years running around this campus in a soggy diaper?”

  “Preferably not,” Alistair says, clipped.

  “A diaper?” I clap my hands. “Oh, that’s perfect, actually. ‘Wallowing in my own feces’ is the ideal look for you.”

  But Alistair has no patience for me. “New girl - notebook, now.”

  “You should give it to him, Lilith,” Lionel encourages. “It’s important.”

  “You know how it is in these streets; tit for tat, info for info. If I’m gonna give you this, what’s the whole deal with you not eating?”

  Lionel’s gaze widens, and Alistair’s darkens.

  “Since when did you become my nutritionist?”

  “Since now. You’re Ciel’s friend, and I’m Ciel’s…friend,” I stress. “And so we’re officially hemi-friends by proxy. And hemi-friends get to hemi-worry about each other.”

  “I am not Ciel’s friend. You are not Ciel’s friend.”

  “Did you peep the way he walked up to me after your duel? I’m at least one teaspoon vanilla his friend.”

  “Remind me to add ‘delusional’ to your dossier, right next to ‘can’t mind her own business’ and ‘god-awful metaphors’.”

  I bristle with a comeback, but Lionel clears his throat; “The drawing, Ali.”

  Ciel called him that, too. And Rafe. He has more people calling him nicknames than Ana led me to believe. At the reminder Alistair’s expression does that sharpening into all-business thing, molten glass turning hard and clear.

  “Give me the notebook,�
� He demands. “Now.”

  “Haven’t you heard of equal exchange? Free market? I have something you want, so you give me something I want.” I flush. “You won’t leak your info, so…you get to help me. With Ciel.”

  “‘Help’ you?”

  “Help me. Um. Date him. But like, platonic dating, obviously, nothing serious -”

  “Here,” Lionel’s voice rings out as he gives Alistair the notebook that was in my hands seconds ago. “It’s in the first few pages.”

  “HEY!” I shriek, aghast. I didn’t even hear him behind me! “That’s private property, mister!”

  “And now it’s my property,” Alistair says as he flips through it. “Considering my sister’s drawn in it.”

  “S-Sister? What are you -”

  “Her name was Rose, right?” Alistair interrupts. “The girl who drew this on the plane?”

  I think back to the flight attendant addressing her. “Yeah.”

  “She should be in school. Why is she flying to Geneva?” Alistair mutters, brows knitting. “Unless that woman is…she can’t be in Chamonix. It’s too early for the season.”

  “Yanagiko had a press release last week,” Lionel says beside him. “It said something about a shareholder’s meeting in Chamonix.”

  “Good,” Alistair lets out a relieved breath. “As long as it’s Father with her.”

  They’re basically speaking gibberish. I only catch the feeling of it. Alistair says ‘that woman’ with a hefty dose of not-so-hidden venom. Disgust. It’s the same sort of disgust that laced his whole interaction with Gabe yesterday, but dialed up to thirteen.

  “Hey, uh, ring ring,” I mime holding a phone up to my ear. “Can this be a group chat?”

  Alistair’s about to open his mouth when he flips the page and freezes on the drawing. His whole posture changes; his spine going ramrod straight. I watch his throat bob as he swallows hard.

  “It’s hers,” He murmurs. “It’s definitely Rose’s work.”

  “The real freaky part is the perspective.” I point into the distance. “It’s the exact same. Look.”