Longshadow

by Olivia Atwater

  Though… the faeries here shared Mercy’s brand of whimsy. Under normal circumstances, Abigail doubted if they would gracefully submit themselves to an entire bevy of boring questions from a nosy magician. Mercy’s approach, Abigail thought, was probably the right approach.

  Reluctantly, Abigail set her overlarge reticule down against a nearby tree. Mercy offered her arm again in a gentlemanly fashion, and Abigail took it gingerly. The two of them strode for the edge of the Round Pond as though they quite belonged there.

  Abigail flinched a bit as her boot touched the surface of the water—but Mercy simply kept walking, pulling her confidently along. Abigail felt the subtle chill of Mercy’s inside magic against her skin, dark and oddly invigorating. The water held against her boot, though it was nearly as slippery as glass. Tiny ripples expanded out from Abigail’s steps as she went, like raindrops upon the lake. Somehow, Mercy’s steps next to her left no trace at all.

  “I don’t know how to waltz,” Abigail said suddenly. “Do you?”

  Mercy smiled that same sly smile. “Doesn’t matter, does it?” she asked. “We just need to spin quick enough to stay out of everyone else’s way.” She looped her arm around Abigail’s waist, as though to demonstrate—and then, they were moving across the water with the other dancers, weaving amongst the swans and the faeries with dubious precision.

  It was immediately clear that Mercy did not know how to waltz—but the make-believe dance she had pulled out of thin air was strangely graceful, nevertheless. It was far from the first time Abigail had danced with another woman; ladies often danced together before the floor officially opened at balls, and it was often difficult to secure male partners, regardless. But dancing with Mercy was utterly different. Mercy had not merely settled for dancing with Abigail—she wanted to dance with Abigail. Her feet were sure, even if her steps were bizarre, and her grip on Abigail’s waist was reassuring.

  “I’ll wager you were better at imaginin’ things when you were younger,” Mercy said softly. The ghostly blue light of the candles joined the twilight in her dark eyes—and for a moment, she seemed nearly like an apparition herself.

  Abigail sighed. “I don’t know if I ever was,” she admitted. “Maybe I was born with a broken imagination.” Something about dancing out on the lake made her feel more comfortable saying things like that, where no one else could hear her.

  Mercy gave Abigail a considering look. Though Mercy was an inch or so shorter than Abigail, the magnetic darkness that clung to her made it seem as though Abigail was always looking up at her. The light that danced in her eyes now looked sad. “You say that like it’s your fault,” Mercy murmured.

  “Maybe it is,” Abigail replied. “I haven’t practised my imagination like you have.”

  Mercy shook her head. “I didn’t mean to imply you’d done somethin’ wrong,” she said. There was genuine sympathy in her tone now. “I don’t figure anyone chooses to lose their imagination. Maybe you just used it all up on somethin’ important.”

  “Mostly on survivin’, I guess,” Abigail said quietly. “You don’t look like you’ve had an easy time of it either, though, an’ you’ve still got an imagination like no one else I’ve ever met.”

  Mercy pursed her lips. “Oh, don’t compare yourself to me,” she said. “I’ve been lucky in all sorts of ways.” She smiled at Abigail. “But isn’t it lovely, out here on the lake? Why don’t you imagine somethin’ up now? It’s a perfect place to try.”

  Abigail cast her gaze across the Round Pond, taking in the sight. Faeries whirled like flowers on the surface of the water, laughing and dodging away from the sleepy swans that snapped at the hems of their gowns. Most people would have been awed by the sight, Abigail realised, rather than scheming on how to make their way towards the pair of crocuses that danced on the other side of the pond.

  For just a moment, Abigail let go of that driving goal. She focussed instead on the secretive smile upon Mercy’s lips, and the way the candlelight threw long shadows across the water.

  Almost before she could think to ask, Hollowvale’s cool magic trickled up into her heart, shaping itself to the thoughts in her mind. Abigail sighed dreamily; as she did, a soft plume of mist rose from her lips, hovering upon the air.

  Suddenly, the dark blue shadows on the water turned about, leaving their owners behind. Shadow dancers turned counter-clockwise across the pond, whirling in perfect counterpoint to the true dancers upon the water.

  One of the daisy faeries let out a delighted laugh. Abigail felt another magic answer hers, like warm, honeyed sunlight. The shadow dancers then rose from the water, joining their originals upon the pond. A peony faerie gestured broadly with one hand, and soft whispers carried across Abigail’s magic. The shadow dancers bowed politely to one another, then turned to offer their hands to the actual faeries on the lake.

  It all happened so naturally, and in such swift succession—each spell built upon the last with wild, whimsical joy, such that Abigail quite forgot that she had been thinking about anything else at all. A smile broke out across her face, and Mercy grinned back, spinning Abigail away into the arms of another shadow Mercy, who immediately picked up their dance once again.

  The shadow Mercy’s arms were a bit colder, but she directed Abigail with all of the same grace and confidence as the real Mercy. Briefly, Abigail hoped that her own shadow was not trying to lead anyone else through a dance—she was not terribly good at leading. It occurred to Abigail then that this was a delightfully bizarre problem to be considering, and she shook her head at herself with another smile.

  The shadow Mercy neatly spun Abigail away to a fresh partner, then—and Abigail found herself looking up at a tall, elegant lady dressed as a crocus.

  “What a wonderful evening!” the crocus said. “I have not had this much fun on the Round Pond for weeks!”

  “You’re here very often, then!” Abigail said quickly, remembering her original intent.

  “Oh, nearly every night!” the crocus faerie assured Abigail. “The swans pretend that they hate us—but I am good friends with them, and they really do enjoy the company.”

  They passed one of the grumpy swans, who snapped out at the crocus lady’s gown, as though to disprove her comment.

  “Have you perhaps seen the ghost of an English lady pass through Kensington Gardens?” Abigail asked. “She might have been with a sluagh.”

  The crocus looked thoughtful. “Oh yes,” she said. “I do remember that. The poor dear was very distressed—but ghosts always are. There was a sluagh escorting her. I think they went to the Greenhouse, but I haven’t seen either of them since then.”

  Escorting, Abigail thought, was a terribly tame word. But faeries rarely perceived abductions in the same way that mortals did.

  “Pardon the question,” Abigail said slowly, “but do you know if there’s a path to faerie in the Greenhouse?”

  “There is, in fact,” the crocus lady said. “I have used it once before. It leads into the wild places of faerie, in between realms. But it is the only path in London which leads anywhere near to Longshadow, and so I suppose the sluagh must use it if they wish to come and go from there.”

  Abigail meant to ask more questions—but even as she opened her mouth, the crocus lady spun her away again, and she found herself dancing with a daisy’s shadow.

  The dancing went on for quite a while before Abigail managed to find her way back to the real Mercy, who seemed to be having the time of her life. Her messy black hair had fallen entirely loose of her cap now, and she added new steps to her own invented dance as she took over leading Abigail across the pond.

  “Lucy’s ghost went to the Greenhouse with a sluagh!” Abigail said. “We should grab our shadows and go after her!”

  Mercy did not seem the least bit surprised by this revelation—but she pursed her lips and nodded. “I don’t think my shadow really wants to leave,” she said. “I’ll let it stay for a bit—I’m sure it’ll catch up with us, eventually.”

>   The two of them departed the pond, heading back towards the tree where Abigail had left Hugh with her reticule. He gave Abigail an expectant look as the two of them approached.

  “Well?” Hugh asked.

  “The sluagh definitely abducted Lucy’s ghost,” Abigail said.

  “Did the crocus say that?” Mercy asked. “The abduction thing, I mean.”

  Abigail studied Mercy carefully. “Well… the sluagh was almost certainly draggin’ Lucy to Longshadow,” she said. “I somehow doubt they asked her nicely.”

  Mercy frowned, but remained silent.

  Hugh seemed especially worried by this statement. “Oh,” he said. “Er. But we’re not goin’ to Longshadow, right?”

  Abigail knitted her brow at Hugh. There was something extra shifty in his behaviour that she couldn’t quite make out. “Clearly not,” she said. “I would like to see if there’s anything of interest on the path, though.” Abigail eyed Hugh suspiciously. “Is there somethin’ I ought to know about Longshadow, Hugh?”

  Mercy gave Hugh a curious sort of look. Hugh looked meaningfully between her and Abigail, as though to say: Not in front of the suspicious one. “We can talk about it later,” he said.

  They left the dancing flowers behind and headed for the Greenhouse, while Abigail’s shadow scampered to rejoin her.

  Chapter 5

  The Greenhouse was not open to the public, but that didn’t mean it was empty. The tall windows let in just enough moonlight to illuminate the plants inside. Several orange trees spanned the inside of the long, narrow building, casting shade upon the floors with their branches. The three of them walked in silence past shelves and shelves of exotic bushes and flowers, whose scents mingled together to create a sweet, nearly cloying smell.

  Normally, Abigail might have felt some trepidation at trespassing in a royal building which ought to have been off-limits—but the royal family was well aware just how actively faeries wandered the gardens in the evenings, and they had prudently decided that everyone ought to avoid the grounds at night entirely, lest the faeries run away with their staff.

  “There ought to be oleander flowers here somewhere,” Abigail observed quietly. “I’ll wager there’s a way into faerie just near them.” She glanced back at Mercy, and added: “You’d normally have to do somethin’ special to open a way into faerie, but all the paths in Kensington Gardens are thrown open whenever the moon shines upon them. We could wander right into faerie at any moment. I don’t guess that bothers you?”

  Mercy blinked. “Should I be bothered?” she asked. “You don’t seem bothered.”

  Abigail narrowed her eyes. “You could end up abducted,” she said. “Stuck in faerie for a small eternity, pickin’ oakum ‘till your fingers bleed.”

  Mercy arched an eyebrow. “That seems awful specific,” she said.

  Abigail pressed her lips together. “You know what I think?” she said. “I think you have been to faerie before. I think you took a piece of it back here with you, the same way that I brought back a piece of Hollowvale.”

  Abigail had expected Mercy to look away and hide her expression—but instead, the other woman smiled. “Well, obviously I’ve been to faerie,” she said. “I knew about the pathways here in the gardens. You don’t need to sound so suspicious over it—I’m not stickin’ with you forever. We just happen to be headed in the same direction for now.”

  “But you could stick with us,” Hugh said. “You wanted to talk more about me movin’ on, didn’t you?”

  Mercy slowed her pace. She glanced back towards Hugh. “You said you didn’t want to move on,” she observed carefully.

  Abigail tensed at the suggestion—but the dim moonlight revealed Hugh’s sly expression, and she realised that this was how he meant to keep Mercy with them.

  “I don’t want to move on right now,” Hugh said to Mercy. “But you seemed convinced that I would want to move on, if you could only knock some sense into me. I’m all right with talkin’ about it some, anyway.”

  For the first time since they’d met her, Mercy now looked uncertain. She crossed her arms over her chest as they walked. “You are supposed to move on,” Mercy said. “I’m sure you would have done, if you weren’t bein’ held by magic.”

  Hugh nodded agreeably, following along behind them with his hands in his pockets. “So what’s great about movin’ on?” he asked. “What do I get out of it?”

  Sympathy flickered over Mercy’s features as she looked back at Hugh. “Well, you’re stuck in between, aren’t you?” she asked. “It can’t be fun, always watchin’ everyone else do things that you can’t do. There’s peace on the Other Side, an’ you’d fully belong there.”

  Mercy clearly meant every word. There was a gentle sadness in her eyes that matched the sadness in Abigail’s heart. Every time Hugh talked at their mother or sighed over tarts, that sadness had grown and grown, until Abigail started thinking again how she ought to find a spell to let him talk or touch things.

  “An’ how do you know there’s peace on the Other Side?” Hugh asked Mercy. “Have you ever been there?”

  Mercy frowned. “I haven’t,” she admitted. “No one ever comes back from there, once they cross the border. But it looks awful peaceful. You can see it from certain parts of faerie.”

  Hugh nodded sagely. “That is very interestin’,” he said. “An’ I will think about it very hard.” Abigail, who had known him for quite some time, knew that this translated roughly to: I have already forgotten everything you just said. But Mercy smiled wistfully at Hugh, and Abigail thought that the other woman must have believed him at least a little bit.

  Abigail was so distracted by this conversation that she nearly passed right by the white oleanders—but Mercy stopped only a few steps after them, turning to look towards one of the tall windows that stretched from floor to ceiling.

  Tonight, in fact, said window was not entirely a window. The glass there shimmered strangely, and when one looked at it cross-wise, the world beyond the window changed its appearance.

  There was a path past the window, overlooked by large, silver trees. At first, Abigail thought that the moonlight must have made the trees seem silver—but as she looked more closely, she saw that they glimmered like metal, beneath their tarnished bark. Each tree was laden with a different, delicious-looking fruit: there were silver oranges, silver plums, and even silver cherries hanging from the branches.

  Mercy did not hesitate at all in front of the window. She hiked up her skirts and stepped onto the path beyond, with the certainty of someone who had walked it several times before.

  Abigail sighed. She found herself keenly aware that she was following a strange, untrustworthy woman into faerie while wearing a thin muslin gown and carrying a bulky reticule. If she’d been able to do so, she probably would have stopped at home and packed herself some trousers to change into once she’d entered faerie. Sensible people did not normally go gallivanting around faerie in a gown, unless said people wanted thorns in unmentionable places.

  Sensible people did not follow strange women into faerie, either.

  But it was far too late to be sneaking back into the House for trousers, and into faerie was where Abigail’s investigation had led her—and so, she hiked up her skirts once more and followed after Mercy.

  The window rippled around Abigail like water, chilling the surface of her skin. Metallic leaves crunched oddly beneath her feet as she came out onto the path. There was moonlight here too, but it didn’t seem to come from anywhere in particular; though the way ahead was washed in silver, the dark sky held no moon and no stars.

  Hugh walked behind Abigail, investigating the scenery with fascination. Though they were now in faerie, the leaves did not crunch beneath his feet; only their Other Mum’s power was enough to grant Hugh something closer to a real body, and the shard of Hollowvale inside of Abigail told her that the realm was a good distance away from them.

  Mercy had not walked very far ahead of them, though her stride had seem
ed very confident before. In fact, she stood oddly rooted upon the path, glancing at the fruit trees around them with her brow deeply knitted.

  “Well, that’s a bother,” Mercy said calmly.

  Abigail frowned and followed her gaze.

  Someone had nailed an iron horseshoe to the tree on their right.

  Abigail blinked. “I’m sure that’s not supposed to be there,” she said.

  “There’s another one over here,” said Hugh. Abigail turned and saw him looking up at a tarnished pear tree, where a second horseshoe had been nailed to the bark, pointing back towards them like a letter c.

  “There’s a whole circle of ‘em,” Mercy said. “Anywhere the ends of the horseshoes point towards us, we won’t be able to walk past.”

  Abigail scoffed at this statement. “We’re not faeries,” she said. “I don’t enjoy touchin’ iron, of course, but that’s no reason it should trap me—”

  But even as Abigail started moving forward again, she found that her feet resisted her. Each step dragged, as though through molasses. Eventually, the resistance was so strong that she couldn’t move forward at all.

  “You said you had a piece of Hollowvale inside of you,” Mercy observed. “It’s that piece that can’t pass the iron.” There was an odd expression on her face as she continued looking around at the horseshoes that had trapped them. For though Mercy clearly understood the problem in theory, she was very puzzled by the reality of being trapped. She kept backtracking as she spoke, trying different angles to slip past the horseshoes and failing each time.

  “Did you know this was here?” Abigail demanded hotly.

  Mercy knitted her brow, still glancing around. “Of course I didn’t know about it,” she said. “Why would I walk in here otherwise? There aren’t supposed to be horseshoes here.”