The Dark Queen

by Susan Carroll

  Ariane hunkered down by her sister, gently rubbing her thin shoulder. “Miri. Miri, sweetheart. Wake up.”

  Miri trembled beneath her touch, but did not otherwise stir.

  “Miribelle. You are having one of your nightmares.”

  Miri blinked rapidly, the glazed look fading from her eyes as she focused on Ariane crouching over her. She startled Ariane by suddenly sitting bolt upright, moonlight framing her pale face.

  “Maman?” The girl called eagerly. “Is it really you?”

  “No, dearest,” Ariane said. “It is me, Ariane.”

  Ariane knew the moment her sister came fully awake. Miri’s hopeful face crumpled under the crushing weight of her disappointment, a disappointment that echoed in Ariane’s own heart.

  Miri gave a muffled sob, then flung her arms around Ariane’s neck, hugging her so tightly, Ariane could scarcely breathe. But Ariane cradled her little sister close, rubbing her back.

  “It’s all right, babe. Everything is all right,” she crooned in Miri’s ear.

  “B-but Ariane. I—I had ’nother one of—of my bad d-dreams.”

  “I know, dearest. I know.”

  Miri began to sob in earnest and Ariane noticed Gabrielle stir, sound sleeper that she was. Ariane lifted Miri from the bed and carried her over to the window seat.

  Despite her twelve years, Miri still weighed little more than a child. Ariane settled onto the seat with Miri on her lap. The girl buried her head against Ariane’s shoulder, weeping. Ariane cradled her close, rocking her back and forth, saying nothing for a very long time until at length Miri’s sobs grew quieter.

  Then using the sleeve of her own shift, Ariane dried her little sister’s eyes. “Now tell me, dearest. What was the dream about?”

  “Oh, Airy! It—it was awful.” Miri paused to collect herself with a deep gulp. “There was this town, but—but not our town. It was bigger, with all these towers. And there were bells in these towers. They kept ringing and ringing. They wouldn’t stop.”

  Miri shuddered. “And a terrible mist seeped through the town, driving everyone mad. The men rushed into the streets. They wanted to paint the palace red, but a beautiful princess didn’t want them to. She begged them to stop but no one would listen.

  “Then the mist grew darker and suddenly everyone started to choke, to die, and—and that was when I realized it wasn’t red paint splashed everywhere at all. It was b-blood.”

  Miri tunneled her face back against Ariane’s shoulder as though by doing so she could blot out the memory of her nightmare. Her braid had come completely undone and Ariane stroked her fingers gently through the tangled strands of moon-gold hair.

  “Hush, angel. It was only a bad dream.”

  Miri wrenched her head back to stare reproachfully at Ariane through her tears. “How can you say that, Ariane?” she cried. “When you know what has happened other times?”

  Ariane did know. Miri’s nightmares often had a frightening way of coming true. She had dreamed over and over again of their mother vanishing into the forest, a week before Evangeline Cheney had died. Then there had been her peculiar nightmare about battling pieces on a chessboard, the black knight cracking open the white king’s head. Shortly thereafter King Henry of France had been killed, pierced through the eye with a splinter from a lance during a mock tournament with one of his own knights.

  But Ariane kept her alarm to herself. “Perhaps this time it will turn out to be nothing more than a strange dream.”

  Miri shook her head. “No, it won’t. I can always tell when the nightmare is this bad, I am going to have it again and again until something dreadful happens.”

  She clutched desperately at the front of Ariane’s night shift. “You have to help me, Airy. Tell me what my dream means and maybe this time we can stop it.”

  Ariane regarded her sister helplessly. “I don’t know how, dearest. I have never had the ability to interpret dreams.”

  “Then stop me from having it again. Maman could do that, at least for the rest of the night. She’d brush her fingers over my forehead and take the bad dream out of my mind.”

  Miri caught Ariane’s hand and pressed it to her temple, staring at Ariane with wide, beseeching eyes. “Make it go away, Ariane. P-please.”

  Ariane caressed Miri’s brow, her heart aching. “I am so sorry, Miri,” she said, her voice thickening. “I don’t know how to do that either.”

  Miri’s lip quivered, then she flung herself back onto Ariane’s shoulder, commencing to weep all over again.

  “Oh, A-ariane. I want Maman!”

  Ariane hugged her little sister close, her own eyes burning with tears. “I know, dearest,” she whispered. “I want her, too.”

  Ariane stretched on tiptoe to light the wall torches in the hidden workshop, the red flame flaring over her face, hard and grim with determination. It had taken her a good hour to soothe Miri back to sleep. All during the time she had comforted and rocked her sister, a dread resolution had formed in her heart.

  Perhaps thought of this deed had always lurked somewhere in her mind, ever since the day her mother had died. But she had lacked the courage or perhaps the desperation to act on it before.

  Now she moved quickly, as though she feared that if she hesitated for an instant, she would change her mind. Shifting the ladder, she climbed up to the topmost shelf and brushed aside cobwebs, dragging down the black candles, the copper basin, and the book whose contents were so dire, it did not even bear a title.

  Evangeline Cheney had almost burned the heavy leather-bound volume a score of times, but could never quite bring herself to do so, perhaps out of respect for the memory of her predecessors. But Evangeline had always insisted the book be considered as no more than an heirloom, part of their family history. The dark contents of those pages were never to be consulted or employed.

  “Forgive me, Maman.” Ariane wiped the dust from the book’s cracked leather cover. “But I don’t know what else to do.”

  Her trembling fingers rifled through the yellowed parchment pages until she found the exact one she needed. She scurried to make the preparations, filling the copper basin with water, lighting the black candles. As she fetched the small iron burner and set incense to burning, her heart hammered in her chest.

  She did not know if this was going to work, but she kept going, refusing to allow herself time to think. The workshop was soon thick with the sweet, heady smoke of the incense. Using the mortar and pestle, Ariane worked to grind up the right proportion of dried herbs and wine before adding the last ingredient, pieces of the strange wild mushroom that grew at the heart of Faire Isle.

  The potion mixed, she hesitated a moment before downing a large swallow of it. The mixture was so vile, so bitter, she choked, fearing she was going to be ill, but somehow she managed to get it down.

  Then she waited, drawing in quick, nervous breaths. The effect was almost immediate, a fire that seemed to spread up from the pit of her stomach, like a dark smoke slowly curling its way to her brain.

  Her head swam and for a moment the workroom seemed to shift and tilt around her. Her eyes blurred and she had to grab the edge of the worktable for support. Just when she feared she was about to faint, her vision cleared and everything came into focus with a vivid clarity that was almost painful.

  Her hands stopped trembling and she felt suddenly calm, filled with a sense of power that was nigh intoxicating. She moved the black candles until their glowing wicks reflected over the darkened surface of the water in the basin.

  Ariane closed her eyes and wrapped her arms tightly about herself. The superstitious imagined that witches cast spells by chanting strange incantations, but Ariane had always known that true magic came from the power of the mind, the strength of the will.

  She delved through the corridors of her own mind, striving to bring an image of her mother into focus. It was more difficult than she had imagined. Ariane was distraught to realize that her mother’s face had already started to blur in her memor
y and for one panicked moment, she feared she would be unable to do it.

  She forced herself to breathe more deeply of the incense, allowing the potion to do its work. Slowly, one by one, Evangeline Cheney’s features came sharply into focus, the strong but gentle face, the clear gray eyes, the soft brown hair.

  Oh, Maman. Come to me. I need you.

  Ariane launched her thoughts into the night, shining them like a beacon across space and time, through the mysterious barrier that was death itself. A gravelike hush seemed to settle over the hidden workshop, over the entire house.

  Then Ariane felt a chill. A brisk draft tore through the workshop, flickering the candles and rippling the water’s surface.

  Ariane’s heart pounded uncontrollably as she watched an image form in the basin. Shadowy at first, then ever clearer until Ariane found herself gazing at her mother’s face. Not the way Evangeline Cheney had looked during those last terrible days of her illness but when Maman had still been well and strong, her glossy brown hair pulled back from her vibrant features, her calm gray eyes feathered with those tiny lines Ariane remembered so well.

  The wrinkles so dreaded by other women, Evangeline had taken great pride in. Her creases of wisdom, she had called them, a woman’s greatest beauty.

  As her mother’s beloved face shimmered before her once more, Ariane’s breath caught in her throat.

  “Oh! M-maman.”

  A tender smile hovered on her mother’s lips, but her eyes were so sad.

  “Ariane, my dear. What have you done?” Maman’s voice seemed to resonate from a great distance away.

  “I—I am sorry, Maman,” Ariane said. “I know you would not have wanted me to—that I should never have—but—”

  The water rippled almost as though Evangeline issued a faint sigh. Then her voice came again, clear and strong.

  “What is it, my child? Tell Maman what troubles you.”

  The words were so comforting and familiar to Ariane, spoken by her mother so many times before, even up to the moment of Evangeline’s death. Ariane felt a tear cascade her cheek and she stretched out her hand, longing to touch her mother. She was only stayed by the knowledge that even one brush of her hand against the water would be enough to end the magic.

  “Everything is going wrong, Maman,” she cried. “I—I don’t seem able to manage anything properly. The estates, the debts, and Papa still has not returned. Is he—is he—”

  Ariane dreaded to ask the question, but her mother understood her well enough.

  “No, your father has not crossed over. I cannot tell you where he is or even when he will return. But you must keep faith that he will do so and take care of yourself and your sisters until then.”

  “I c-can’t,” Ariane said. “I am even making a disaster of that. Miri is having nightmares again and—and Gabrielle—. There was this dreadful man who came to our island, Maman, and I—I didn’t protect her.”

  “My dear child. Do you remember the time when you were little and you stumbled by the fire and burned your hand on the cauldron?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “I was right beside you and still I could not move quickly enough to catch you. We cannot always protect those we love.”

  “But since I became the Lady of Faire Isle, everyone looks to me to do so, expecting me to be like you and I am not. And now I may even be called up to fight the Dark Queen.”

  “What?” Evangeline’s voice rang out sharper.

  In halting breaths, Ariane poured out the story of Captain Remy and the gloves, the likelihood that the Dark Queen had murdered Jeanne of Navarre. At the end of Ariane’s tale, Evangeline looked even sadder.

  “My poor Catherine.”

  Ariane was aghast. “Maman, you cannot possibly have any sympathy for that horrible woman, especially not after what she did to you, to our entire family.”

  “Ariane, any wise woman who gives over her soul to the darkness is much to be pitied.”

  “But it is what she may be up to right now that concerns me. She needs to be stopped, brought to justice.”

  “Just make sure that it is justice you seek, my daughter, and not revenge. Whatever course you pursue against Catherine, do it carefully. Avoid her darkness.”

  “But that is just the problem, Maman. I am not sure how to proceed. I don’t have your wisdom. Or—or even your courage and strength.”

  Her mother smiled sorrowfully. “Ah, my dear child. That is because you have always confused being strong and independent with being alone.”

  “But I am alone, Maman,” Ariane quavered. “I miss you so terribly sometimes I can scarcely bear it and there is still more I must tell you. I am being pursued by this—this man. Justice Deauville, the old Comte de Renard’s grandson. He is determined to claim me for his wife.

  “But there is something so strange about him. I—I have almost come to fear he might be some manner of sorcerer.”

  “You must take care whom you marry, child. You are the Lady of Faire Isle, heiress to a legacy of powerful secrets. An unscrupulous man might make ill use of them.”

  “I know that, Maman. I have no intention of wedding Renard, but he—”

  Ariane hesitated, far too embarrassed to confess to her mother about Renard’s kiss, the desire that he had aroused in her. “He is so persistent and—and only look at this strange ring he has given me.”

  Ariane wrenched hold of the chain and bent forward. But in her eagerness to display the ring, she bumped against the side of the basin, disturbing the water. To her horror, her mother’s image rippled.

  “Oh, no,” she cried, placing her hands on either side of the basin, attempting to steady the bowl. She fought hard to concentrate, keep her mother’s face etched clear in her mind, but it was too late. Evangeline’s image faded before her eyes.

  “Maman! P—please, no. Stay with me. Don’t leave.”

  Evangeline’s voice came to her in broken snatches, fainter, like someone trying to call out over crashing waves.

  “Must go . . . You should not have . . . great risk, this dark magic even for good. Promise me . . . won’t do it again.”

  “I won’t, Maman,” Ariane said desperately. “Please just stay long enough. I feel so frightened, so alone, so powerless against everything. Tell me what to do.”

  “You must rely . . . rely upon—”

  But her mother’s voice faded along with her image in the water. Ariane dashed her hand into the basin as though somehow she could grasp hold of her mother, but the moment Ariane’s fingers touched the water, a terrible weakness washed over her.

  Her head reeled, the room started to spin. Her knees buckled and she grabbed wildly for the table’s edge, just managing to break her fall before she sank to the ground, losing consciousness.

  When next she stirred, her eyes fluttered open in confusion. She blinked, trying to get her bearings, recall where she was. Shifting a little, she winced at the feel of hard flooring beneath her. She was flat on her back, looking up at gray light pouring through a hole in the ceiling.

  No, it was not a hole, but the trapdoor leading down to the hidden workroom.

  “Gabrielle,” Ariane muttered thickly. “How many times do I have to tell you . . .”

  A foggy recollection sifted through her mind. It had not been Gabrielle, but Ariane who had forgotten to close the secret door when she had come down here last night.

  Her tongue seemed as thick as a wad of cotton and she had the vilest aftertaste in her mouth. The air in the workroom that was usually musty smelled even worse, stale with the tang of smoke, of—of—

  Incense.

  Recollection of last night’s events slammed back into Ariane’s consciousness. She tried to sit up, only to fall back with a low groan, her head aching as though it had been split open with an ax. Her stomach lurched and she was certain she was going to retch.

  By taking deep breaths and concentrating hard, she managed to stave off the wave of nausea. She struggled to a sitting position by dint of proc
eeding very slowly. Clutching the table, she dragged herself to her feet.

  Her legs trembled beneath her as she stared uncertainly at the littered worktable, the evidence of her proceedings last night. The open book, the melted pools of black wax, the basin of water.

  Had she succeeded in doing what she’d set out to do? Had she truly summoned forth her mother’s spirit, spoken with her? Ariane rubbed her throbbing head, no longer so sure in the cool light of morning.

  Perhaps the entire conversation had been nothing more than her wistful imaginings, a mad dream born out of meddling with wild mushrooms and breathing too much incense.

  Ariane’s eyes filled with tears. All she knew for certain was that her brief foray into the occult had neither provided a solution to her problems nor assuaged her grief.

  Whether she had contacted Maman or simply imagined it, losing hold of that dream was somehow as bad as losing her mother all over again. And Ariane wept silent tears, feeling more bereft than ever.

  Chapter Nine

  Port Corsair basked beneath the afternoon sun, the houses and shops presenting a cheery face, many of the timber facades ornamented with bright-colored molding, red, blue, and green. The morning shopping done, most of the island wives turned their attention to other tasks, washing linens, beating rugs, and weeding gardens.

  The entire island bore such a peaceful look, making Ariane’s fears of last night seem foolish. As she alighted from the farm cart that had fetched her to town, she felt ashamed of what she had done, meddling with the dark magic in an effort to disturb her mother’s peace.

  Whether she had actually succeeded in raising Evangeline’s spirit or merely imagined it, Ariane had puzzled out the meaning of her mother’s last, fading words . . . “You must rely upon . . .”

  It was something Maman had often said to her: “You have good sense, Ariane. You must always remember to rely upon it.” From here on, Ariane would be the strong and wise woman she was expected to be as the Lady of Faire Isle.