by Y. S. Lee
Her heart—already shattered—crumbles even more. Rage collapses into pity. That his music should be reduced to a frivolous glamour in the service of a cold-hearted king and queen seems a travesty, a true horror. Even worse—he does not know it.
One long flourish of his left arm, sending the soundless chord flying up towards the watery ceiling. Robert Mynwar stands, panting, grinning.
“Any requests?” he cries. The Queen of Life purrs a random flourish. Sylvie recognizes the chords, so she can hear the lick in her mind—the opening riff to A Tender Curb.
“The Angel of Avalon,” Sylvie shouts out, before anyone else can do so, and before he can launch further into A Tender Curb.
Robert Mynwar looks surprised. They wrote The Angel of Avalon together, when it was just the two of them, before they formed Love’s Secret Domain. It’s a deep cut; they only played it in concert a few times. Too old-fashioned. Not a heavy enough bass line. But it remains her favorite of all their songs. “That’s an old one,” he says. “Very old. I am surprised you know of it. Are you a fan?”
“Your biggest fan,” she says. “I went to every one of your shows. Never missed a one.”
“I’m honored,” he laughs. “You brought me my girl; I shall give you the song! But I shall have to sing both parts. And it shall be a bit thin without Sylvie’s harmony. Toss me a pick, honey.” Robert Mynwar is a finger-picker; sometimes he’d come off a show with fingertips cut to meat; his guitar solos were flecked with flying drops of blood. But she played lead guitar on The Angel of Avalon (another reason they rarely played it live) and she never saw any reason to be so dramatic with her playing. She uses a pick.
She’s carried the pick all the way from the Waking World nestled in the vee of her breasts; it’s warm from her flesh, and it glints like a tiny black star when she flicks it through the air towards him.
The second the iron pick touches his hand, the enchantment fails. Sylvie knows it fails because she can hear the melody of The Angel of Avalon begin to dance out of the Queen of Life. The familiar notes make her grin with joy; despite herself, she finds her hips, her shoulders, begin to move in time to the song’s pull. It’s a happy song, a song made for dancing, and for love, despite the yearning lyrics. His eyes are closed; he’s so intent on playing he doesn’t see she’s climbed on the stage, doesn’t see her coming towards him.
She sings out:
“Still statue standing
My life is a protection
I’m waiting for a crown, a king—
His voice joins hers now: “That may never come—”
He looks up, and sees her, his face crumbling into bewilderment. His left hand freezes on the fretboard, his right hand lets fall the pick. But the song does not stop, the song has taken on a life of its own, it dances on, chords tumbling over each other, furiously racing out into the faery throng, filling the ballroom with a glorious galloping melody that makes her bones quiver, her organs vibrate, her teeth clatter in her mouth. The lake, above, has churned into a squall.
“Sylvie?” Robert cries. She can’t hear his voice over the frantic music, but she can read her name on his lips. But as she steps towards him, she realizes that he isn’t speaking to her, but to the woman who has appeared before him, released from the prison of the Queen of Life by Robert’s playing. A familiar woman, the girl she used to be so long ago: lion-like mane of black hair, the swirl of lace skirts, the draped black velvet cape, thigh-high platform boots. This girl is young and beautiful, her skin as smooth as wax, her face vapid and doll-like, and it is for her that Robert is reaching. The tempo of the song has turned frantic, like an overwound musicbox, the joyful notes stretching into a high pitched howling. Robert falls into Death’s arms, which curve to catch him, as he sinks to his knees. She bends to kiss him; the Queen of Life trapped between them. Their lips meet. And the music snuffs out so suddenly that Sylvie staggers, almost falls.
The Queen of Life lies abandoned on the floor.
Robert Mynwar and Death are gone.
A blazing black shadow envelops Sylvie, drags her to her feet like a ragdoll, hangs her by her shoulders.
“You have brought Death into Faery!” Oberon roars. With a movement too quick for the human eye to track, he has gone from the dais to the stage, and his eyes are blazes of starfire; horns flare from his forehead.
“So I have,” Sylvie shouts. “You stole my love, and now I have stolen him back!”
“I did not steal him! He came of his own desire. They all do! This talk of abduction is rubbish—they call us, we come, and we offer them everything they desire. No human has ever stayed in Faery save by their own choice!” The tips of his antlers brush her forehead. If he dips his head any lower, she’ll be impaled. She kicks out and catches him in the knee with the tip of her boot.
Wincing, he lets her slide from his grip. She cries: “It’s a false choice, buoyed by false promises!”
“A choice made freely!” Oberon hisses. “You humans long for our glamour and then you balk at the price you must pay! You heard him; he said he wanted nothing to do with your ugly world! You are a fool!ˮ
Oberon is right. She is a fool. Suddenly she wants nothing more than to be a million miles away from Faery. Tucked up in her own bed, with a hot water bottle, a box of chocolates, and the snoring corgi. Oberon is still shouting when Titania, now standing at his side, the corgi held to her shoulder like a baby, says: “You fuss over nothing, my lord. Robert was growing tiresome anyhow, and now he is gone. She should be gone, as well! Toss her out!”
“But she brought Death into Faery!” Oberon says again, and now he sounds peevish, like a whiny child. “That insult cannot go unchallenged.”
Titania answers: “And Death, having gotten what it wanted, is gone. Mab shall see to our security better in the future and make sure that it does not return. But first, Mab, harness the hummingbirds. We shall hunt butterflies on Hawthorne Hill.”
The seneschal bows her stardust head and fades from view. The ballroom has emptied; the other faeries have fled. The lake water remains dark, but it no longer churns. “I want my dinner,” the corgi complains, and Titania hushes it. Oberon’s horns dwindle; green seeps back into his eyes. He says to Sylvie, his voice oozing charm: “You are Sylvanna de Godervya. I saw your solo show at Hammersmith. I loved your last album.” He stretches a long arm towards her, index finger extended. Titania knocks the finger away.
“No more musicians,” Titania says. “They are far too much trouble. Come, my lord, let us sup before we hunt, and lie together perhaps. You, human, do not come to Faery again. Here—” Titania tosses the corgi at Sylvie; the loaf tumbles towards her, fatty paws scrabbling. Somehow Sylvie manages to catch it. The force of the catch flings her backwards; a rush of wind fills her ears, squints her eyes. Through the sting she catches glimpses of a dizzying whirl of geography, all the landscapes she and the corgi had trudged through to get to Faery, now flashing by like a kaleidoscope. She clutches the quivering corgi to her chest, closes her eyes to the stomach-churning blur, and then it’s over. Stillness surrounds her, and a wet tongue snorgling her ringing ear.
Sylvie opens her eyes. She’s back at the crossroads, and there, engine still purring, waits her limo. The corgi flops out of her arms, and looks upward, barking. Something is spinning down out of dark sky; Sylvie holds out her arms just in time to catch the Queen of Life before it smashes on the ground. A second item pings Sylvie on the head; bounces off the corgi, who yips in pain—the iron pick.
“Well, that was fun. At least we didn’t have to walk all the way back,” Sylvie says to the corgi, and it mlems at her. She takes off her sunshades and chucks them. She is very tired, and her joints burn like fire. A spatter of gentle rain hits her shoulders; then another spatter, much harder. But despite these aches she feels light as a feather. For years she had lived with despair and loss tucked under her heart. Then her heart was full of roaring rage. Now the despair, the loss, the rage: all gone. For the first time in forever, inst
ead of feeling full of him, she feels full of herself. She laughs as she realizes she didn’t free him. She freed herself.
The corgi runs to the limo door and stands there; it doesn’t like its floof to get wet. Syvlie says, “I agree. Let’s go home.”
“Can I catch a ride with you, pretty lady?”
A tall figure steps into the center of the crossroads, turquoise ring flashing on the extended thumb. Jeans as slick as paint and tiny flowered shirt, opened all the way to the ornate silver belt-buckle, slung low on swaying hips. A toss of hip-length golden floss hair, the solar flare smile. The corgi shows its teeth, shark-like, twisting around her feet, and she soothes it with a gentle push of her foot.
“It’s a foul trick,” she says. “To come in that guise. Turn back into the groupie, or I shall imprison you again. And this time I shall not let you out.”
Robert Mynwar laughs: “Don’t be a git, Sylvie. Come on, get in the limo. You’ll catch your death in this rain.”
“I already caught my Death, Bobby,” she says. She opens the door of the limo and the corgi bunny-hops inside.
“Oh, I know. He was quite annoyed, but he says he won’t hold it against you. In fact, he let me come in his place to fetch you. Wasn’t that kind?”
After tucking the Queen of Life into the seat-well next to the corgi, Sylvie turns back to face Robert Mynwar. He’s still grinning, as though the entire last seventy-two years were nothing but a joke. Even in the drizzling rain, he’s glorious. He’ll always be glorious. He may be dead, but he really is going to live forever, the bastard. Well, so will she, on her own terms, and without him. She’ll match his legend, and then some. The woman who stole Robert Mynwar back from the faeries and then gave him away.
“Sorry, Bobby, I can’t give you a lift. I’m late for an engagement.” Sylvie quickly jumps into the limo and slams the door shut. Robert peers through the window; tapping on the glass, and she laughs, thinking of all the times they snuggled together in the back of this limo, staring out at the fans so desperate to get to them. Now he’s the one on the outside, desperate to get to her. The corgi jumps the seat, snuggles into a circle against her, its warmth a welcome ease to the ache in her hip. She tabs the window down a crack: “I’ll see you later, Bobby. Much later.”
“But you have to come with me…” he says, bewildered.
“No, I don’t. Tell Death that he owes me for the favor I did to him in helping him balance his books. I’ll come to him when I’m good and ready but not tonight.”
“Why are you being so mean, Sylvie? I thought you’d be glad to see me.”
“I thought so too, but I was wrong.”
She rolls the window back up before he can respond.
Sylvanna de Godervya raps on the glass divider and the limo shifts into gear. She glances out the back window as the limo rolls away, but the darkness has already swallowed Robert Mynwar.
“Well met by moonlight, proud corgi,” Sylvie says, scritching the corgi’s ears, and it yawns in agreement.
FINIS
For the real Sylvanna de Godervya
A Note From Ysabeau S. Wilce
Since it’s quite obvious to me that if Oberon had seen Led Zeppelin play in 1974 he would have undoubtedly stolen Robert Plant away to Faery, I can’t believe no one has done the rockstar abducted by faeries story before. But it appears that I might be the first. Clever readers will quickly realize that Love’s Secret Domain is a pastiche of two incendiary 1970s bands, and their song titles are mostly stolen from that rockstar of poets: William Blake, whose famous painting of Oberon and Titania dancing could only have been improved with a Les Paul in the background. The geography of the journey to Faery is indebted to the British writer Robert MacFarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) whose Twitter feed is a fascinating exploration of forgotten British language and landscape, and ever an inspiration to me. I like this conceit enough that I feel the urge to expand it to a novel; so perhaps I shall just do that. Rock stars and faeries seem a match made in…Faeryland.
Many many thanks to Stephanie Burgis and Tiffany Trent for letting me play in their submerged ballroom.
(And if you should ever see a fat corgi waddling urgently down the road, heading west, I urge you not to follow.)
Twelve Sisters
Y.S. Lee
Twelve Sisters
Content warning: implied domestic violence
Don’t you wonder what happened afterwards?
Yes, yes: a king was plagued with twelve daughters who, despite being locked into their bedroom every night, wore holes through all their dancing slippers by morning. His solution? Invite any passing adventurer to discover our secret and inherit the crown. After many failures and messy beheadings, a grizzled soldier with a cape of invisibility followed us to our underground revels, brought back proof of our adventures, and claimed the eldest princess in marriage. Everybody knows that much, thanks to the Brothers Grimm.
And now you shall know what happened next.
“It was my fault,” said Anya. “I shouldn’t have—”
“Married him? You had no say in the matter.”
“Argued with him. I should know by now…” She dabbed her eyes with a lace-trimmed handkerchief.
I couldn’t see an injury at first—not until I realized that the shadows sheltered by her high collar were actually fingermarks. I unclenched my teeth and turned to the maid in the corner. “Grace, fetch a hot posset for Princess Anya. Plenty of Madeira.” A trip to the kitchens and back. Time to heat the cream, grate the sugar, steep the mace. Twenty minutes’ privacy, perhaps.
“Sister, I don’t need…” Anya shivered, and her beautiful posture began to crumple.
“Go,” I said, and Grace fled. When the door closed behind the maid, I wrapped a soft shawl about Anya’s shoulders. My touch was gentle. She flinched nevertheless. “Come,” I said. “Sit by the fire.”
She lowered herself cautiously into an armchair, as though it might take sudden exception to her presence. And here, by warm firelight, there was something else about her that looked…different. A familiar kind of different. “Oh, sister…” I couldn’t quite bleach the chagrin from my voice. “Are you with child again?”
She stared at me, aghast. “Sweet heaven, do you think? So soon?”
I was no physician, yet it seemed so obvious. The subtle swelling of her face, the new languor of her movements: her body engaged, once again, in that most magical and ruthless of feats.
“Are you sure you’re not a witch, Ling?” Her smile was small, stiff. “You have never been wrong before.”
Twelve years ago, a few moons after her marriage to the soldier, I had noticed the changes but not understood their import. Since then, I’d observed them at the start of each pregnancy. “Don’t you feel it yourself?” How could she not sense such a transformation in her body’s workings?
Anya’s tears flowed faster. “I don’t know what normal feels like anymore. I scarcely recognize this carcass as mine.”
I could well believe that. Anya had birthed eleven daughters, running down in age like steps on a staircase. The youngest was still an infant. People thought princesses soft and idle, but Anya’s body was as worn as that of any farmwife. Even her speech was different: losing half her teeth robbed her of the crisp hauteur that had been one of her defining traits.
“Maybe this one will kill me,” she said. Her voice was wistful.
It was the bleak heart of winter, the snows were deep, and our father, the King, was dying. Within a few days or weeks, Anya’s husband would become king—all according to the proclamation made in order to solve the mystery of our worn-out dancing shoes.
Shoes!
For such were the lives of princesses: every pirouette need be accounted for.
Anya’s soldier had not seemed monstrous, a dozen years ago. Surly, yes. Arrogant, certainly. We had not liked him, but neither had we feared him. Three nights in a row, Anya gave him the sleeping draught in the antechamber of our bedroom and we watched as he “dran
k” it, rivulets of mulled wine trickling down his chin. We hid our smiles, thought him merely greedy and clumsy. We hadn’t seen the sponge concealed within his untrimmed beard, didn’t realize he was only feigning sleep.
When he put on the cloak of invisibility and followed us down the enchanted stairway, I felt his tread catch the hem of my gown, the heat of his breath on the back of my neck. I was alarmed. But I was the youngest, a child of twelve, with a habit of obedience. Anya insisted that all would be well. I set aside my instincts. Later, in the ballroom, I saw invisible hands lift my wine goblet, watched unseen lips drain it, repeatedly. I didn’t realize he enjoyed my terror.
After Anya was wed, there remained eleven of us. In order of birth, each a year younger than the previous: Bunmi, Chanda, Damla, Esther, Fatima, Genevieve, Hasnaa, Isolde, Johanna, Keiko – and I, Ling. The glories of our dancing nights became common gossip. Courtiers and diplomats never asked outright, but all wanted to know what else we’d done in the nether world besides dance. Were we certain we’d only allowed the princes to row us in those enchanted boats? Had we only dined in the castle – and all together, always? And what of the cut of our ballgowns? Did we truly expect them to believe…? The King cursed, he threatened, he trebled our dowries. After that, my sisters found spouses.
Now, the King’s bedchamber would be crowded. Anya and I lived here, at the castle, but our ten sisters and their families were expected on the morrow. Tomorrow was not only the beginning of our deathbed vigil; it was the first time the twelve of us would be reunited since the scandal.
Next morn, I set out early for a walk. Fresh snow squeaked under my fur-lined boots, the sky pressed low under its burden of clouds. There was nobody about for miles. Until, suddenly, there was.
