Longshadow

by Olivia Atwater

  She turned then, and stepped forward, levelling her voice at Miss Fernside.

  “Mercy isn’t lyin’,” Abigail said. “You’ve read enough faerie tales yourself, Miss Fernside.”

  Lord Longshadow glanced sharply towards Abigail. A series of terrible emotions flickered through those familiar eyes: shame, Abigail thought, and a deep sense of awful worry.

  Miss Fernside turned to consider Abigail, wiping at her eyes. “I thought you would be dead by now,” she observed warily.

  Abigail suppressed her relief, trying to keep it from her face. Miss Fernside can see me, she thought, but she doesn’t realise yet that I’m a ghost.

  “Did you really think you’d trick me so easily?” Abigail asked, with more bravado than she felt. “I had a faerie charm, an’ it warned me off your poison.” It was a plausible lie: Abigail had possessed exactly such a faerie charm, after all. Had she not lost it at precisely the wrong moment, in fact, she was certain that it would have warned her about the poison in her flask.

  Miss Fernside hardened her jaw, and Abigail added: “I wasn’t dancin’ with Mr Ruell because I wanted to marry him, you know. I just thought that he might be the one poisonin’ people. I’m afraid your stunt did confuse me, though. I told my father Mr Ruell was responsible. He’ll be tried as a black magician, soon enough.”

  Miss Fernside widened her eyes. “What?” she asked. “No! But Mr Ruell didn’t kill anyone!”

  Hugh fixed Miss Fernside with a perfectly naïve expression. “I heard Abby say it,” he agreed. “It all made sense at the time.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Abigail saw Black Catastrophe’s shadow flickering along the ground.

  “Mr Ruell danced with every lady who died,” Abigail continued blandly. “I realise now that those ladies died because you wanted to marry him—”

  “I did not! I mean—I do not!” Miss Fernside was now flushed with distress. “Mr Ruell is my friend! I only hated the way that all those women talk about him. Mr Red, they call him! Even you called him that—as though he isn’t a real person at all, but a very handsome cravat!”

  Abigail shook her head. “So those women deserved to die?” she asked. “That seems extreme, doesn’t it?”

  Miss Fernside pressed her lips together. “No one deserves to die,” she said. “But I had to choose people to die, all the same. So I chose awful people.”

  “And me,” Abigail added sceptically.

  “And you,” Miss Fernside agreed worriedly. “I thought that you were investigating me—and I was correct. But you are not dead, and so it’s immaterial.” She glanced quickly between Abigail and Lord Longshadow. “When my business here is done, I will turn myself in and save poor Mr Ruell. I don’t care, so long as I have my mother back.”

  Abigail looked away. It was hard, seeing the look on Miss Fernside’s face—not because she felt bad for Miss Fernside, but because she seemed so self-righteously certain of her cause.

  “You would do anything you had to, as well,” Miss Fernside said. “You would. If it was your mother.”

  Abigail remembered very clearly the feel of her mother’s hand in hers.

  I did learn something from Longshadow, after all, she thought.

  “I would not,” Abigail said. “I know that for a fact.” She raised her eyes back to Miss Fernside. “Lots of people die, Miss Fernside. An’ I’d bring ‘em all back, if I could—if they wanted to come back. But I wouldn’t kill another person in order to do it.”

  There was a harsh croak, and a sudden flutter of wings. Black Catastrophe—now a vicious-looking indigo raven—dived from the sky, reaching out its talons for Miss Fernside’s face.

  Lord Longshadow whirled, fixing his twilight eyes upon the other sluagh.

  Shadows moved like water, flinging themselves against Black Catastrophe. The indigo raven tumbled to the base of the silver tree, still thrashing against its bonds.

  Miss Fernside clutched at her chest, breathing hard. She let out a soft, nervous laugh. “Oh, how clever,” she said. “You nearly had me, Miss Wilder. But Lord Longshadow is bound to protect me. And now—I think that I will have him kill you, after all.” She turned towards Lord Longshadow. “Mercy Midnight, I command you: kill Miss Abigail Wilder.”

  Lord Longshadow blinked, very slowly. A slow, sly smile crossed his lips.

  “I cannot,” he said.

  Miss Fernside raised her eyebrows. “What?” she demanded. “You are the Keeper of Life and Death—”

  “I am bound by several bans,” Lord Longshadow informed Miss Fernside. “I cannot harm anyone with magic.”

  Abigail glanced at Black Catastrophe, still seething in her shadow trap. Lord Longshadow had not harmed the other sluagh at all, she saw now… but he had stopped her from harming Miss Fernside. Soon enough, Abigail knew, Miss Fernside would realise that Lord Longshadow could trap Abigail too, if she asked in the right way.

  Abigail closed her eyes. The piece of Hollowvale which she normally carried with her was gone… but the entirety of Longshadow stretched out beneath her feet, quiet and wary. It was a land that could touch ghosts… and so, Abigail thought, it was a land whose magic she could use.

  “Give me what I need, Longshadow,” Abigail whispered to it. “I know that you can.”

  A tiny tendril of cold, black power wound about her feet. Abigail took hold of it with her mind, willing her imagination to turn it into something real.

  Abigail’s imagination was as lacking as ever. Certainly, she would never be able to imagine up anything as fantastic as Lord Longshadow could, in his very own realm. But she did not really need to imagine anything fantastic; she only needed something small.

  Abigail imagined her body becoming solid, just as Hollowvale often made Hugh solid when he visited it. The image was not a difficult stretch: for Abigail had seen it happen before.

  Slowly, Abigail’s form strengthened into solidity… and she opened her eyes once more.

  “I need you to run for Black over there,” Abigail whispered to Hugh. “Make it seem as though you’re tryin’ to let her free.”

  Hugh frowned. “I don’t have any magic,” he said dubiously. “I couldn’t do that even if I was still alive.”

  “Miss Fernside doesn’t know that,” Abigail hissed. “Will you do it, Hugh?”

  Hugh grinned obligingly. “Should be easy,” he said. “I’m not even wearin’ a blindfold.” He met Abigail’s eyes. “On three?”

  “On two,” Abigail said. “One. Two!”

  Hugh took off sprinting for the base of the silver tree, where Black Catastrophe still struggled.

  “Mercy Midnight—stop him too!” Miss Fernside commanded swiftly. A look of confused fear had entered into her eyes, and Abigail knew that Miss Fernside was far less certain of her plans than she had let on so far.

  Abigail broke into a run too, in the split second that Miss Fernside had focussed on Hugh. Miss Fernside glanced towards her with alarm and opened her mouth—but Abigail spoke first.

  “Mercy Midnight!” Abigail commanded. “Take your true form!”

  Lord Longshadow stumbled, caught halfway between reaching out for Hugh and listening to Abigail’s command.

  But Abigail knew Mercy’s real name, just as much as Miss Fernside did. And more—Abigail was certain that she had just commanded Mercy to do something that she truly desired to do.

  Abigail collided with Miss Fernside. The two of them hit the ground with a hard thud. Soon, they were rolling end-over-end, down the other side of the tall hill—towards the starry curtain that led to the Other Side.

  Miss Fernside struggled violently against Abigail as they tumbled away… but Abigail had endured far worse than a noble lady’s thrashings in her time. She held stubbornly to Miss Fernside, ignoring the scratches that raked along her arms and face.

  “Stop!” Miss Fernside cried dizzily. “We’ll both be lost forever!”

  “You will,” Abigail told her fiercely, squeezing her eyes closed. “But I won’t.”


  Stars spun at the corners of her eyes, swiftly growing ever closer. Soon, the Other Side was right there, shining through her eyelids with the brilliance of a thousand stars—

  But Abigail’s descent halted abruptly, and she carefully opened her eyes… just as the last of Miss Fernside’s yellow gown disappeared, swallowed up by the curtain of starlight at the very base of the hill.

  There was a land beyond that curtain—dark and shadowy and strange. As Abigail narrowed her eyes against the bright starlight, she could barely make out the world beyond it. But while she could see the distant outline of dark hills and beautiful lilies, she could not see any sign of Miss Fernside.

  The lady and her yellow gown were simply gone.

  “You’re not allowed to go there yet,” Mercy told Abigail. “You said you wouldn’t go, remember?”

  Mercy Midnight—pale-skinned, black-haired Mercy Midnight, with her twilight eyes and her laundress cap—held Abigail tightly in her arms. Shadows still clung to Abigail’s skin, straining to keep her from falling forward. The Other Side shimmered peacefully, a mere inch away from Abigail’s nose.

  “I knew you wouldn’t let it happen,” Abigail lied, with more confidence than she really felt. In truth, she hadn’t known anything of the sort. She’d simply hoped.

  Mercy helped Abigail carefully back to her feet. The worry and shame had yet to leave her eyes. “I suppose you know now,” she said softly.

  Abigail tilted her head. “What do I know?” she asked curiously. She reached out to take Mercy’s hand in hers, threading their fingers together.

  Mercy looked down at their hands in surprise. “Well, that… that I’m not a woman. Or even a man, really. I guess I’m actually nothin’ at all.”

  Abigail smiled slowly. “I beg to differ, Mercy Midnight,” she said. “I commanded you to take your true form. And this is what you picked.”

  Mercy glanced at Abigail from beneath her hair as they turned to climb the hill once again. A vaguely hopeful expression had dawned upon her features. “I… I guess you’re right,” she said. “You know—I never really had a true form before. I didn’t know there was such a thing. I just kept turnin’ into whatever I thought people expected me to be.”

  Abigail smiled warmly. “But you have one now,” she said. “An’ I’m very fond of it, you know.”

  “I know,” Mercy said softly. “I was so worried that you wouldn’t like me anymore if I was someone else. But I’m not someone else. That’s so wonderful to know.”

  “I would have grown fond of anything you chose, eventually,” Abigail told her shyly. “But I do think you make an awfully pretty laundress.”

  The silver lilies glinted on the hillside, in the starlight of the Other Side. Abigail looked around, and decided that this was even better than her imagination had suggested it would be.

  She wrapped her arms around Mercy’s neck and leaned down to kiss her.

  Mercy blinked her twilight eyes—but she leaned up at the last moment, to press her lips to Abigail’s.

  Mercy’s lips were soft and warm. All of her was soft and warm, Abigail thought. She was somehow even smaller than Abigail was; and though Abigail knew that it was probably the other way around entirely, she enjoyed the idea that she could protect the woman in her arms.

  Slowly, Abigail wound her fingers in Mercy’s long black hair, tugging more of it free from her cap. Mercy smiled blissfully against her, and Abigail’s heart swelled with affection and relief.

  Finally, Abigail pulled away—though she leaned in again to touch her nose against Mercy’s.

  “I have decided to fall in love with you, Mercy Midnight,” Abigail announced seriously.

  Mercy reached up to press her palm fondly against Abigail’s cheek.

  “I have decided that sounds lovely, Abigail Wilder,” Mercy replied. “Why don’t I return the favour?”

  Chapter 22

  Abigail did her best to explain the events that had led her to Longshadow as she and Mercy walked back up the hill. They walked for far longer than they should have needed to do, before they managed to reach the top once again. Abigail held Mercy’s hand the entire way, watching the silver lilies sway in an unseen wind as they passed.

  Hugh and Black Catastrophe were sitting at the foot of the silver tree, staring down the hill at them. Black Catastrophe was an indigo faerie once again—though a few of her feathers still littered the ground around them.

  “I’m surprised to see Black here,” Mercy said to Abigail. “An’ grateful, too. I wouldn’t have thought she’d come an’ help me.”

  Black Catastrophe rolled her eyes. “What sort of gratitude is that?” she asked. “You won’t even thank me directly?”

  Abigail smiled sheepishly. “Mercy’s been under a ban,” she explained to Black Catastrophe. “She can’t speak with any other sluagh directly. But hopefully we’ll fix that soon.”

  Black Catastrophe made a soft sound of consideration, at this. She tilted her head at Mercy. “…you are a fool,” she said. “But we are still siblings, of a sort. I will always help you, if you are truly in need.”

  Hugh smiled over at Black Catastrophe. “That’s what I told the dark night,” he said. “I had to yell it over an’ over an’ over, but it finally let me through.”

  “You told the dark night that I was a fool?” Abigail asked, bemused.

  Hugh snorted. “I said somethin’ like that,” he told her. “You are sometimes, you know. It’s why I have to stick around an’ help you out so much.”

  Mercy looked out over the Other Side of the hill, watching the stars wistfully. “It is a lovely view, isn’t it?” she asked Abigail. “Even if you don’t intend to go there.”

  “It is,” Abigail agreed softly. “I don’t mind just lookin’ at it.”

  Mercy took a long breath. “Well,” she said, “it looks like I’ve got company. If I’ve learned anything at all from pretendin’ to be English, it’s that I ought to put a kettle on.”

  “And what are you going to put the kettle on?” Black Catastrophe asked with confusion.

  Mercy shook her head and offered out her other hand to help Black Catastrophe to her feet. Though she wasn’t able to respond directly, her amusement was clear upon her face.

  Mercy led them down the faerie side of the hill, back into the pink and blue twilight of Longshadow. This time, there was a little stone cottage that had not been there the first time they had passed. The cottage was mostly overgrown with ivy and wisteria, but a few shuttered windows peeked out from the greenery. It was, on the whole, a very cosy, welcoming sort of home.

  “I expect we’ll have further company soon enough,” Mercy told them, as she opened the door and let them inside. “We may as well wait until they arrive.” She threw open each shuttered window in turn, letting in the half-light from outside. The inside of the cottage had only a small kitchen, a table and chairs, and a single bed with a comfortable-looking quilt. There was indeed a stove in the kitchen, so close to Abigail’s imaginings that she had to stop and marvel for a moment.

  Two faeries and two ghosts settled in for tea, as though nothing strange had just occurred at all. True to Mercy’s predictions, however, there was soon a knock at the cottage door, and she rose to greet their guests.

  The man at the door was tall and thin, with a tatty-looking coat and an overly dignified bearing. His skin was as black as Mercy’s midnight—but endless stars glittered in the depths of his dark eyes.

  Mercy threw her arms around the man with a happy cry—though whatever she might have said to him seemed to lodge in her throat.

  “Oh!” Abigail said. “Is that Lightless, all safe an’ sound?”

  Lightless embraced Mercy in return. He looked past her shoulder at Abigail. “And none the worse for the wear,” he replied, in the same voice which Abigail had heard from the raven in the cage. “Though I must confess a terrible thing, Lord Longshadow. For I have divulged the latter half of your name—”

  “She can
’t talk to you yet,” Abigail said, with an apologetic smile. “But I did tell her everything already, an’ I think she’s just happy to see you.”

  Mercy squeezed Lightless emphatically, as though to signal her agreement. She stepped back and glanced past him, at several other people behind him. “I thought I’d have guests!” she said. “Well, you’re all welcome in for tea—though it’ll be a cosy fit, I’m sure.”

  A veritable parade of people soon entered Mercy’s cottage. First, of course, there was Lightless Moon. Lightless was followed by two other sluagh—one was a ghostly-looking figure, pale and genderless, while the other was a spidery woman with far too many fingers on her hands. Lucy—still wearing her nightgown—insisted on entering directly behind them. Dora followed Lucy, carrying Abigail’s reticule beneath her arm—and Abigail immediately realised that her mother must have marched into faerie directly from the ball, for she was wearing only her shift and her pelisse.

  Last of all, Elias Wilder entered the cottage, gently carrying Abigail’s sleeping form in his arms. The other Abigail was still wearing Dora’s green silk gown—though a journey through the thorny areas of faerie had clearly nipped it at the edges.

  “This is the dread Lord Longshadow’s lair, then,” Elias observed dryly. “I must admit, my imagination failed to prepare me for it.” He was smiling with obvious relief, though, as he took in the sight of Abigail, sitting at the table, and the expression took the sting from his words.

  Lucy looked around the cottage with a blatantly bewildered expression. “What on earth is this dingy place?” she asked. “Do you mean to tell me that this is what passes for an earl’s home in faerie?”

  Mercy sighed heavily. “Maybe I shouldn’t have invited everyone inside,” she muttered. “Me an’ my big mouth.” She glanced at Elias. “You can set the other Abigail down on the bed if you like.”

  Elias deposited Abigail very gently upon the quilted bed. “I notice that Miss Fernside is not among our company,” he observed. “I take it I will not be bringing her back to England to face the king’s justice?”