As for Cove, she was a left-handed pickpocket, though she doesn’t practice that skill anymore because she’s no longer hungry.
Me? I was a chimney sweep with a cloud of white tresses buried under a layer of soot.
I don’t like talking about my past any more than my sisters do theirs.
I hop from the last step and land with a thud. At the sound, Juniper glances from the stove and glowers at me, her shoulders ramrod stiff. She’s got her spectacles on even though they’re for reading, not cooking. Behind the lenses, her eyes are squinty.
Cove perches in her chair, hands folded neatly in her lap, rare lilac crescents leaking from beneath her eyes. I snore, and Juniper mumbles in her sleep, but Cove’s the one who slumbers so peacefully it’s hard to tell whether she’s dreaming or not. From the looks of her, last night was an exception.
To get through this, we need to eat. To have a remote chance of digesting a thing, we need a distraction.
Juniper cuts into a lattice mince pie, the candied aroma of cinnamon and nutmeg shimmying through the house. The slices have perfect, nitpicky angles, because Fables forbid they ruin the crisscross pattern.
I gauge which helping is hers. That’s the one I snatch.
Juniper bolts from the stove—“Hey!”—and hurls herself at me, giving chase around the table. By the third rotation, she’s got the crumbly wedge between her teeth and my elbows in her grip, and I’m squirming. We’re sort of laughing, sort of bickering. I bite into the other half of the pie. Righteously, she mashes gooey filling in my face, making me shriek.
When not rolling on the ground with us, Cove buffers our squabbles. Today, she merely watches, flabbergasted because how can we get rowdy at a time like this?
Papa Thorne strides into the room and crosses his burly arms. “Naturally,” he sighs in a civilized baritone.
“She started it,” Juniper declares while Papa mouths the words alongside her.
“If I had a copper for every time you girls have said that,” he quips.
Age crinkles the rims of his eyes and threads his hair with silver tinsel. He’s got a cultured profile, with its square jaw and dark complexion.
Papa Thorne’s been running this sanctuary forever and first crossed paths with my sisters and me at different times. We were grimy and malnourished, sprouting hair colors rarer than red. He gave us riffraff a home, introduced us to his wild preserve, and we became a tribe.
Papa’s not thrilled to find us quarreling before coffee’s been served. He grabs a pair of forks, then steps in between me and Juniper, brandishing the cutlery. “Horseplay or hunger,” he tells us. “Take your pick and stick with it.”
Dutifully, we break apart and settle at the table. Rain patters outside while the living room fireplace toasts the walls. After wiping the pulp from my face, I scoop a heaping portion of mince pie and plow it straight into my mouth, spices and the tang of dried cranberries bursting across my palate. My manners are usually better, but I’m famished after an entire night in which fear gnawed at my gut.
As much as I’d like to say our agitation doesn’t go unnoticed, I’d be lying. Papa waits for one of us to rib the other or pick another fight that doesn’t last.
Cove’s a problem. She wants to speak up because she’s the best of our trio, the most honest, and the most obedient, which makes her a shitty liar. Her eyes travel to mine, two ponds reflecting hope.
Fables, I hate it when she gives me that baby bird look. Nevertheless, bringing our father into this could get him hurt.
We trespassed on forbidden ground. We insulted the Fae.
It’s my fault, my fault, my fault. And I’m not about to drag more people I love down with me, so right here, right now? Keeping our mouths shut? I’ve got a big opinion about that.
I covertly shake my head and witness those plaintive teal irises flash with anger.
Papa’s gaze swerves from one daughter to the next. It doesn’t help that my phony grin slips, held together by strings. It doesn’t help that Cove crushes her napkin until her knuckles blanch. It doesn’t help that Juniper’s not eating her pie in the usual order, filling first, crust last.
On impulse, I pass Papa the leftovers of my slice. “Help a girl out. I’m stuffed.”
He ignores the pastry. “When are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”
My sisters halt their chewing. I lower the plate.
Papa hitches his shoulder. “I’ve been taming you girls for nine years. What did you expect?”
“For it to take you ten years?” I guess.
“Try again.” But when I shuffle in my chair, a distraction about to spring off my tongue, he holds up his palm. “Enough. Out with it.”
“We’re cursed!” Cove cries out, her confession bouncing off the walls.
My eyes clench shut. Son of a bitch.
Papa’s eye bulge at the outburst, then narrow. Cove has a tendency to overreact, so he’s second-guessing whether we’re in trouble or if she’s being dramatic.
Before our sensitive sister can elaborate, Juniper takes the initiative. She raises her hand, and even though this moment doesn’t require a hand raise, it gets our father’s attention.
Amused, he quirks a brow. “Yes, my tree of knowledge?”
“It’s the willow,” Juniper lies, referring to the tree outside our wagon. “Cove accidentally snapped a branch while trying to scrape the bark. She wanted chips to make tea.”
Faeries treasure willow trees. If a human damages one, it’ll tick off the Folk. Although breaking off a twig is a minimal offense, it doesn’t matter in Cove’s case.
Juniper and I give our sister private, insistent looks until she sniffles and nods, confirming the fib. Papa scans her miserable face, then expels a breath and pats her hand. “Oh, my girl. It takes more than that to curse yourself.”
“I told her so,” Juniper states, as though she truly had.
I make a suggestion, one that we could use. “Tell us a Fable?” I ask Papa.
Juniper straightens, the prompt reinforcing her posture. Cove’s joints unwind, and her teal eyes sparkle. When we were little, one of us would always use this line after a meal, and Papa would recline beside the fire to narrate whichever dark tale we requested.
Nobody lives on this continent without owning a copy of the Book of Fables. Our grand anthology of otherworldly creatures offers cautionary guidance about magical beings and how to keep our wits amongst them.
After a moment, Papa’s face lifts. We gather in the living room, where he settles onto a plush chair adjacent to the sofa, the fireplace crackling and bathing his smile in ochre. My sisters and I hunker onto the floor at his feet like we used to. As we scoot about, I know this was the right move. Levity fills the room, sweeping aside the bad shit.
We take refuge in Papa’s voice as he spins a tale from the north. “Once, a snowy Hare confronted an Elf…”
***
By nightfall, the rain stops. Juniper and Cove retreat to the sanctuary to spend time with their favorite animals. I’m keen to visit my aviary, but I pad into the attic instead. Curling up on a patched chair beside the triangular window, I chew on a strip of my hair while contemplating the misty range. I’d planned to have a solution by now, to share it with my sisters and then hear what they’d cobbled together. Yet my mind’s a barren field. As far as options go, all I’ve got is run and hide.
The roof steeples above my head, swatches of moonlight leaking across the ceiling. The walls creak for no reason, since Papa Thorne has gone to bed.
The blue feather rests on my nightstand, the sight of it tugging on a distant memory. It dredges up an old vision of young, unearthly eyes staring from behind a bird’s mask, the pupils impish and furious.
Last night hadn’t been my first encounter with a Fae. Though back then, I was too young and smitten to be guarded.
My sisters don’t know about this secret. Every time I’ve tried to tell them, I bowed out.
If I could revisit the past, would I cha
nge it? My mind says yes.
My heart says something else.
From the market square, the bell tolls. Hooves punch the dirt, followed by a splash of water. A breeze sulks through the open window, nudging down the strap of my nightgown. I should close the shutters, block out that gust. Instead, I peer into the night, daring the wind to bother me.
It dares right back, in the form a winged creature headed this way. Framed by the summit, a span of bronze plumes cruises the air. It dives, the notch of its beak aiming toward the ground.
I lurch from the chair as the creature swoops level with the grass. The bird skims the green blades, then shoots for the attic. I brace myself, lacking the time to do anything else. Legs and talons thrust forward, gracefully avoiding the iron sill and clamping onto the chairback.
My eyebrows slam together as the owl and I take each other’s measure. The bird launches off the rim, flaps around me once, and drops an envelope onto the seat cushion before darting back through the window. Swiftly, the avian vaults into the cathedral of trees, slices through the branches, and vanishes.
The envelope is made of woven paper, a cloud of white wax sealing the closure. Embedded within, a pair of wings expand over a mountain. An icy draft courses through my veins. With a tied ribbon buried under the waxen coin, the missive resembles some fancy ball invitation, with inky script flying across the sheet.
Mutinous Lark
So Cerulean fancies himself a quipster? Well, he can take this wily salutation and shove it up his glamoured asshole. I tear into the missive, cracking the emblem in half.
Inside the envelope…is another one.
Ah, ah, ah. Not so fast.
Hot damn. He’s one sick fucker.
The message bears no other instruction, so I pry the slit and flip open the parchment. The same handwriting leers at me. Scanning the contents, my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.
Follow the wind.
6
When I open the front door, Juniper’s standing there, piebald in the porch sconces. Rather than surprise, her eyes draw a conclusion. And that’s before she notices the pack strapped across my back, the spool of my whip fastened to a buckle at my hip, and the envelope clinched in my fist.
It’s same type of love letter she’s pinching between her own fingers. The only difference is the evergreen seal, a crown of antlers digging into its center.
A slow drip of foreboding trickles through me. Right before the owl delivered this envelope, I’d heard hooves clomping through the underbrush toward our home. I’d also heard that watery splash.
Juniper squints at my envelope, dread climbing up her features before her eyes level with mine. We stare at each other in silence. Gentle shuffling in the grass forces us around to where Cove stands at the bottom of the porch steps. Sure enough, she’s cradling an envelope of her own, the paper quivering as badly as her digits.
She joins us at the landing, her complexion blanching into a sheet of stark, terrorized white. Without a word, she holds the woven paper to the light, a watery blue seal splattering across the closure. In the waxy puddle, a sea serpent’s tail interlocks with another.
The same confused expressions burden my sisters. But we don’t speak, can’t speak. The wind might hear us, the roots might hear us, or the nearest stream might hear us.
We shuffle inside and hike to the attic. Juniper scrutinizes my ensemble, a long, navy dress with a slit in the skirt that exposes my thigh cuff. The material moves with the wind and tapers into a camisole bodice. I feel powerful wearing it, like I’m a renegade queen who’s ready to ride a typhoon.
But when my sister’s nose crinkles, I throw up my hands. “What?”
“It’s impractical.”
“But breathable.”
Juniper sighs, then surveys her wardrobe cupboard with a critical eye. She grabs what she wore in Faerie, packs her reading spectacles and extra weather-conscious garments, then dons her clothes inside out, lest the Folk are plotting to glamour us.
Cove opts for a shell-white dress—also inside-out—that flows off her like liquid, with billowy sleeves that catch at the wrists.
I groan and mimic my sisters, flipping my dress and wearing it like they are. I’m already packed with a waterskin, dried hawthorn berries, and a pouch of salt. And the blue feather is stored in the pack’s lower pocket, hidden within the fabric. Even if it doesn’t come in handy later, I’m not leaving without it.
My studious sister gathers similar essentials, agonizes over which book to take in case she needs backup, and adds a bunch of stuff to our packs that I’m too antsy to pay attention to, mainly cheap baubles and objects to entice the Folk.
Like me, Juniper and Cove stuff their feet into mud-brown ankle boots and strap on matching cloaks with tassel closures at the throats. We hitch our packs and weapons, take a long gander at the attic bedroom, and tiptoe away.
The worst part is Papa. He’s sleeping by now, his dreams so rich and deep we’d need a hammer to wake him up. We creak the door open and watch him slumber, his thatch of tinseled hair rising from under the coverlet. Juniper’s eyes glisten. Cove clamps a hand over her mouth, stifling a cry that gets me going, too. I don’t know how long we stand there before sliding the door shut.
Downstairs, Juniper takes charge. She plucks a leaflet from the living room desk, dips a quill into the inkwell, and writes a letter while we stare over her shoulder. When she’s done, Cove and I take our turns saying good-bye.
We’re sorry. We’ll miss you. We love you.
Leaving is a blur. We spread out and head to our favorite spots, Cove kneeling by the pond, Juniper picking her way through the trees, and me climbing into the branches. I stroke feathers and pat beaks and whistle with my little friends, a lump swelling in my throat.
After that, we ride out. I mount Whinny Badass. Juniper and Cove take the albino, both animals clomping down the lane, trekking from the winding road and into the open fields. My sisters haven’t said what their notes instructed, but mine ordered me to follow the wind.
Presently, a swatch of air blows in a single direction. But I don’t need the fucking hint. I know where to go.
Juniper’s got the posture of a pencil, her fingers taut as she grips the reins. She’s all mettle and pluck, her upright spine a timber trunk, able to withstand the elements.
Cove glances over her shoulder at the cottage, where I imagine it shrinking. I picture skirts and tunics flapping from the clothesline. Our family’s mailbox, its wooden lip flipped down, its mouth empty and gaping. And the iron knob affixed to the front door.
I focus on my sisters. If I set my gaze anywhere else, I’ll lose my nerve.
The sky is a blackened carpet of soot. Dew drops bead on the elderberries. The world smells of damp earth and mule dung, probably from the star peddler’s coach—a monthly visitor who passes through selling wonders from every corner of The Dark Fables.
My hips rotate above the horse, my whip a noose swinging with our movements. I count each mile closer to that mythical place, with its livid netting of trees. Too quickly, the Triad looms. Hawthorn, oak, and ash trunks stand sentinel at the border. Beyond that, the mountain rises, with the forest at its base and the muffled babble of water echoing from inside the border.
The ground seems to tilt, and the saddle goes rigid under me. Halting at the Triad, we dismount. After kissing our horses’ snouts and whispering to the animals, we send them back home to safety. Their tails swat the air, their manes fly into the night, and their whinnies caress my ears before that’s gone, too.
Juniper’s eyes dilate, her voice cracking more sharply than my whip as she breaks the silence. “We can flee,” she snaps. “We’ve…we’ve lived on the streets before. We can…we can turn back and leave Reverie Hollow, find a new place to live, hide away. We can…”
She turns toward us and blinks. Any other time, I’d admire her renegade train of thought. But Cove and I continue to watch Juniper, waiting for her sense to catch up with her tongue.
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If we flee, they’ll find us. Or they’ll target Papa.
Juniper nods weakly, more to herself than anybody, then extends her hands. We thread our fingers and squeeze, then we let go and brandish our weapons.
As we step past the Triad, I listen for instruments and ominous caws. Our boots crush dead leaves. Nearby, the stream bubbles—the bright one that almost blinded me yesterday.
Inside, everything’s the same. The gnarled boughs. The reek of poisoned plums. The syrup browns, yew greens, and peacock blues. The Colony of Fireflies, where the molten orbs float, hankering to give us love bites.
My palms sweat into the whip, Juniper aims the crossbow, and Cove grips her spear. We trek to the cul-de-sac, where I’d stashed myself before. The instant we reach the rocky alcove and hesitate—What now?—the landscape oscillates. The recess sheds itself like a second skin, a gap appearing in the facade, opening its maw to us.
Of course. The Triad and just beyond are accessible, but the rest of this land will appear only if it wants to be seen or intruders penetrate the cul-de-sac with iron fire. During The Trapping, the villagers had melted iron and dribbled the fluid onto their torches, which had breached the enchanted barrier.
It’s a border within a border, unfurling into an extension of this realm, the hub of Faerie materializing. The colors are more vivid here, denser than globs of paint yet sparkling like dyed glass bottles set in the sun. The browns are chimerical, the greens as saturated as parrot wings, and the blues swirling about in a cast of tints and shades that rival mermaid scales—or so I’d imagine.
My heart damn near stutters at what I see. Three paths lead to three landscapes.
One, a mountainous incline of stone steps framed by scalding torch poles.
Two, a woodland arcade of oak trees, where a ribcage of branches balances flickering candles, showcasing a path strewn with toadstools.
Three, a stream flanked by glowing lanterns, with flat rocks trotting down the watery center. The serpentine current rushes into a tunnel and slides down an unseen slope.
Kiss the Fae (Dark Fables: Vicious Faeries Book 1) Page 5
