The Unfairfolk (Valenbound Book 1)

by Sara Wolf

  “They’re very private people. Close-knit. It’s hard to explain.”

  “It’s okay, my French is terrible. Couldn’t explain if I wanted to.”

  “What time do you want a pick-up?” He asks, and I look back at Ana.

  “It’s fine,” She chimes into the window. “I’ll have my driver take us back.”

  “As you wish,” He smiles, finally, at the both of us, and slides the car up the road again. When he’s gone, I sigh.

  “He’s nice,” Ana says.

  “Yeah. And then sometimes he’s…” I trail off.

  “He’s what?”

  Ominous.

  “Nothing.” I shake my head and grin at her. “Let’s go.”

  “There’s the inn,” Ana points to the very-Europe looking building with the criss-cross dark wood on white paint and shutters over window boxes. “The drivers stay there, usually. There’s the bakery - super cute. There aren’t many pastries, but the actual bread is to die for. Oh, and over there -” She points at the barns, and a distant building on the edge of town. “- That’s where they dry herbs for the absinthe.”

  “Absinthe?” I wrinkle a brow.

  “You know, the green liquor. It’s their biggest export. Only export, really. Besides wool. All the villages around here say they were the ones who invented it. It’s a weird point of pride.” She laughs and motions up the hill. “The art shop’s up there, and the cafe’s got amazing mochas. It’s where most of the students hang out. Let’s get some bread and head over. Come on!”

  With an excited little shriek she bounces up the hill, trailing behind her friends who are already way ahead of us. The tiny bakery is full to the seams with chattering Silvere students, the smell of butter and yeast heavy and golden in the air. A ruddy-faced, flour-dusted woman shouts over the chaos and passes out orders over the crowd’s head.

  “They must make a killing on Saturdays,” I yell to Ana, who nods and leans in.

  “Silvere’s a big source of money. But you wouldn’t know it, with the way they act.”

  “I mean, newsflash; people act however they wanna. Money or no money.”

  “This is different, is all.”

  “Different, uh, how?” But my question’s lost in the kerfluffle of fluffy bread.

  After ten minutes of being sweatily crushed to death, we finally get our baguette and abscond from the bakery, trudging up the hill together. I’m kind of flattered by the way Ana waves off her pack of friends when they ask her to join them. My French isn’t any better after a week, but I catch a few words in Ana’s sentence; ‘walk with…friend’. She tears apart the steaming baguette and hands a piece to me.

  “You can go with ‘em,” I say. “Seriously. I’ll be okay on my own.”

  “No no.” She waves me off. “It’s your first time in the village. I’m your guide.”

  I mash the warm bread in my mouth, gratitude and deliciousness flooding me. “Holy shit. This is the best bread I’ve ever had.”

  “I know, right?” Ana beams.

  “It makes…wow. Every other bread I’ve had since birth has been wet cement, actually.” I take another piece she offers.

  “Just wait till you have it with a fresh cup of chocolat. It’s divine.”

  The cafe’s a decent walk away from the bakery, up the winding hill. The sidewalk’s tiny and run-down. My lungs burn with the clear air, like it’s sanitizing my smoggy LA pipes from the inside out. I’m panting by step two, but Ana’s still going strong. I wore my warming brace under my jeans, so my knee takes a little longer than usual to start being a whiny shithead. I’m determined to stay level with Ana, so when she stops, I stop too, gulping air and secretly grateful.

  “What’s up?” I pant. I look where she’s looking - gaze locked across the street. A handful of villagers congregate around a doorstep, four of them in plaid and wool and farming wrinkles, staring at the passing Silvere students like nesting hawks. Watching us. Whispering. I only catch singular words of French, and even then they’re so fast I don’t understand them. But there’s one word they keep muttering, and it sounds almost-English.

  Ana finally sniffs, and starts walking up the hill again. I stagger after her.

  “Were they…” I pause. “Was I hearing things, or were they saying ‘Satan’?”

  “Satané,” She corrects.

  “What, like the devil? Or does it mean something else?”

  Ana’s black doe eyes flicker, eyelashes quivering. But she doesn’t say a word. It’s weird, to see her so stony. That’s Alistair territory, Maria territory, Bianca territory. Not her. And she’s booking it up the hill now. I’d pry, but it takes all my energy just to keep up with her, all my energy not to outwardly wince at the stabbing pain in my knee. She finally slows at the mouth of the cafe, where a cheery orange-leafed tree and a crystal chime over the door beckon us into the seething throng of tabled students.

  “Cursed,” She says. “Satané means cursed.”

  “Who?” I manage between vicious pants. “Me? Cursed with good looks, obviously.”

  “No,” She shoves her hands in her pockets. “Us. All of us. The Silvere students.”

  “Ah,” I clap mine. “Cursed with the uniformity of uniforms. I get it.”

  “You don’t,” Ana insists softly. “But that’s okay. You shouldn’t have to.”

  It’s only when we’re inside the cafe, squeezed into a corner table overlooking the window and cupping two mugs of chocolat, do I notice it. The way the barista stares at us - all of us - over the coffee machine. The way he rubs a rosary necklace over his sweater almost habitually, like a twitch, a compulsion, the iron cross worn thin. The way a woman across the street sweeping shouts at her child when they wave at a passing group of students, the way she ushers the kid inside the house as fast as she can with the slam of a door. The way the tourist-shop owner won’t take the franc from my hand - motioning for me to put the bill on the counter instead. Small things. Things that mean nothing on their own, but together, form a palette and start to paint a bizarre picture.

  Something’s off.

  It’s off the same way Knight Durand is off. A chateau being refurbished, but no machines, no tracks in the path. A perfect door, but broken everything else. A village suddenly full of life and extra spending money, and yet the villagers happy about none of it.

  What is it with Silvere and this weird feeling? And why does it feel like it seeps out from Durand most of all, like it’s the source?

  But I can’t worry about everything all the time. I don’t even really have to worry. I’m just here for seven months.

  I have fun. Of course I do - Ana shows me everything. Every quaint little flowerbox, every wind-up antique, every funny-looking sheep standing at the barbed wire fence waiting for a treat. We take pictures, we laugh. I send some to Ruby, some to Mom. And then it starts to get dark, the smells of roasting dinner wafting out of the tightly-shuttered houses. I look up at the blackening sky for the auroras, but there are none. The elevation of the village must be too low to see them.

  Ana and her friends and I all wait for her driver on the corner, across the road from the stone-cut medieval church. Ana looks way happier than before, chatting away merrily. We’re just a pack of teenage girls, talking. Minding our own business.

  So why, then, does the priest watch us from the church’s only window with steel anger in his eyes?

  “I’ll be right back,” I say. Ana sees where I’m looking, at the church, and pulls at my jacket sleeve.

  “Lilith, don’t.”

  “It’s fine.” I smile at her. “I’ll be out in a second.”

  I can feel her and her friends watching me as I cross the cobblestone street and push into the heavy door of the church. I might be ten-thousand miles from home, but churches are the same everywhere. The same unmoving air around them, the same sense of foreboding. I don’t get instantly smote by a bolt of lightning when I walk in, which is a plus. The smell of mothballs and incense is a fragrant punch t
o the face, and the only light inside are candles. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands, wax dripping over the wood of windowsills and shelves and bannisters, dripping from ancient silver candelabras and singular brass candlesticks. The stone walls feels so heavy - pressing on me with unrelenting granite blankness.

  And there’s no one inside. No one in the pews, no one at the golden-lit altar at the very front. No one but a marble statue of the Virgin Mary cradling Jesus, her eyes heavy-lidded and looking down on me with infinite patience. Bundles of dried flowers lay at her feet, punctuated by old gleaming coins and a string of brittle pearls.

  The priest moves like a cat - almost soundless. Almost. But he has cloth shoes, and I hear the whisper across the floor because you can hear everything in here - your own heartbeat most of all.

  “She’s beautiful,” I say without turning around. The shoes stop.

  “Oui.”

  I know I won’t get very far conversation-wise, probably. If my French was better, I could ask him all sorts of things; how old this place is, what its made of, why the villagers are afraid of the students. Why he hates them. Us. I get it, to an extent. Rich kids treating their home like a playground. Choking their fields with fancy cars. Entitled and ultra-modern, when the villagers are just trying to scrape by in these valleys with absinthe and wool and religion.

  I wish I could say all that. To let him know I understand, a little.

  But I only know a few words.

  I turn and face him - a man exactly my height with bloodshot hazel eyes and a clean face. His black priest robes are immaculate, the starched white collar like snow, and his face is carved in opposition of the Virgin Mary - no patience, just anger. He tries to hide it, though. Wouldn’t do to be open about his personal feelings, not when I’ve entered his church seeking God.

  I spot a corkboard by the front doors - the only modern thing on the walls. Posters of all sorts, tacked up. Makes sense. Churches are usually the heart of neighborhoods. Post about your missing cat here, and someone’s bound to call you. Except it’s not missing cats. It’s religious flyers and event flyers, by the looks of it. Can’t read French. But I don’t need to know how to read French to understand the smiling black and white photos of kids with bright red letters above them.

  Missing posters.

  This priest guy hates me, probably. Hates everyone from decadent, hedonistic Silvere. But I have to try.

  “Julien?” I ask softly, pointing to the corkboard with the missing posters. “Julien Strickland?”

  The candles shudder. It’s all I have. It’s all I can do to try to relate. I expect him to run me out, hissing satané. I expect him to scoff, to go tight-lipped like Von Arx. But instead he motions for me to sit in a pew. It’s creaky and worn with age. He leaves me there, walking up to the altar and tending to the candles for a moment before walking back. His bloodshot eyes never meet mine, staring instead at his hands. His English comes out near-perfect.

  “Are you related to him? You seem like him.”

  “N-No,” I start. “I just heard about it.”

  The priest doesn’t betray any emotion. The church gloams quietly around us.

  “She comes to pray, still,” He says.

  “Who?” I ask.

  “Cecilia Von Arx. Your headmistress. His mother.”

  “Did you…” I pause. “But did you know him?”

  The priest looks out at the altar over his shoulder. Slowly. “We were friends. He, at the school. And myself, in the village.”

  I swallow incense and dust. “I’m sorry.”

  “The school is not,” The priest cuts in. “Still they remain open, when they know that land is not of God’s domain. Still they bring their children, and still they vanish. Year after year. So it has been, and so it will be.”

  “Vanish? Into, like, thin air?”

  “Dozens, over the years. All from that cursed place.”

  “But - the school didn’t make him go missing,” I insist. “Kidnappers do. Ransomers and stuff. Right? Or maybe they wandered into the mountains and got lost -”

  The priest scoffs, and pivots like he’s gonna leave. I bolt up.

  “Wait, do you - what happened? To Julien? Do you know -”

  A whirl of black, of gray and bloodshot hazel and then the priest is in front of me again, snarling out a whisper from the back of his throat.

  “I know he was here one day, and gone the next. I know the man he saw before he vanished. The man with eyes of Satan.”

  A prickle runs down my spine. “Eyes of -”

  “Diable,” He repeats, hard and defiant. “Julien said there was a man following him, with eyes like hellfire. And I know now that was the devil - the great devil Silvere has inflicted on itself.”

  With eyes like hellfire.

  Red.

  The priest crosses himself, but I can’t move at all. “The devil took him. As he will take another. I tell you this as God’s shepherd; you must leave Silvere while you can. It is a condemned place, not fit for humankind. They have made deals with the devil there, and the curse will follow their blood forevermore.”

  The priest turns, hands clutching his rosary as he walks up to the altar again, this time with less energy. Less strength. He kneels, praying, and I collapse into the pew, fear like poison burning me from the inside.

  It can’t be.

  I sit there for minutes, but it feels like slow, agonizing, gear-grinding years. Finally, I lace my shaking hands together and bow my head. Praying.

  Hey. Me again. I know we don’t talk much anymore. Been, uh, busy. Not as busy as you, but. You know.

  The dead-air tranquility of the church is almost enough to quell the terror screaming through me.

  Please let Mom be okay. You can kill me early, if you want. Kidnap me, like you did Julien. You can give my soul to the devil - if that’s what you really want, fine. Just, please. Let Mom be safe. Keep her safe.

  I hear wood creak ahead of me - someone else sitting down - and open my eyes. A man. Broad shoulders, a gray jacket. He sits in the pew in front of me, near me. Close, but enough to the left that I don’t have to adjust. He doesn’t pray, just sits there. Staring ahead.

  It can’t be.

  I crane my neck slightly to see his face just as he turns to look at me. High cheekbones. A perilously sharp nose. Dark hair, dark eyes.

  The man from the restaurant.

  Inhaling to sing.

  No bible can help me. No bible can stop his dark eyes from flashing pure red.

  Legs, arms, move, move, MOVE. Bruises from my limbs scrambling over the pews, into the aisle, pounding through the door and exploding into cold air. Clutch Ana’s hand the whole way home in the car, curled up in the backseat and watching the trees pass with every second - searing, dripping, reeking of dread.

  28

  The Deer (Or, How many times you can tolerate being called prey)

  I was seeing things. I know I was seeing things because all I could apparently mutter after my flight from the church was ‘a man’, and one of Ana’s friends poked her head inside the stone building. She came back frowning - there was no one in there. No one but the priest. It could be a brain tumor, my fatalistic mind offers. Ana assures me stress does wild things to the human body - including hallucinations.

  “You moved seven thousands miles to a brand new school,” she says. “Of course you’re stressed.”

  When I calm down enough to think straight, I realize every one of Ana’s friends in the car is looking at me with thinly-veiled disgust. How dare I lose it? And in front of them, on their nice day out?

  My whole life I’ve played it cool. I’ve stuffed my fears so deep down below my stupid jokes and puns they’ve never gotten the chance to show through. People think I’m stupid. People think I’m funny. But they never think I’m afraid. Weak.

  Except Alistair-fuckin’-Prickland.

  I’ve kept this shit on lock for Mom’s sake. For mine. So I could try to live a semi-normal life. Dreams were the onl
y place my fears surfaced, the only place I let them surface. Nothing in reality was strong enough to make me lose my grip - seeing blood only softened it, and I could fight tooth and nail to get away from someone coming too physically close.

  But this man.

  The man with red eyes is strong enough.

  And I hate him for it.

  When we get back, Ana tries to walk me up to my dorm room, but I rip away and tell her it’s fine with a smile. Go back downstairs. To your friends. The ones who don’t hallucinate things.

  I don't say the last part, but it hangs there anyway.

  “You can tell me if something’s wrong, Lilith,” Ana says, flashing her own grim grin.

  Can I?

  Can I tell you everything, Ana? Everything? Or would you just not understand? Like you can’t understand college worries? Money worries?

  Could you understand the color red like I do?

  Seven months. That’s all.

  It’s easy to pretend something didn’t happen if you have enough distractions. Example A; food. Example B; school. Example C; trying not to fail out of a school that’s way too smart for you.

  “I am, mayhap, a big-assed fool,” I mutter during Economics. My quiz has been returned to me with an encouraging 22/100 on the top. In American terms, that’s an F. A high F, but an F nonetheless.

  “You forgot the Mongol horde pressure,” Bianca points to my very shoddy notes in my notebook. “It’ll definitely be on the mid-term.”

  “Huge of ass,” I whisper, scribbling MONGOL HORDE!!! :0 in the margins. “Small of brain.”

  “What are you muttering about?” She wrinkles her nose. I lean in a little, like I’m sharing a secret.

  “Massive of stomach.” I point my glitter-pen at my blazer’d chest. “That’s me. All three parts of me.”

  “Scientifically, there are more parts to you than just three,” Bianca says. This is, I’m starting to learn, her way of being nice.