Except the Queen

by Jane Yolen

  I moved closer to it till the smoke made my eyes water. But all I made out was a single crow feather in the left corner and a bit of gingerroot in the right. And what those two things augured—well, it was anyone’s guess. I gave it a good try, though.

  Crow feather. I knew the old adage, “One crow for sadness, two for mirth . . .” Could that be what was meant? Or perhaps it was a hunter’s sign disguised? I had once seen a hoodie crow bait-fishing, and everyone knows how they use bent twigs and stalks of grass to pull out insects from hills and burrows. And a split-tongue crow can talk in any language. My dam heard one curse an UnSeelie prince in the old tongue, and did she not laugh!

  As to the ginger? It could leach poisons. Make a cold man hot. Fix a bilious stomach. Help a woman newly with child. But what it meant here, I might never know. Farseeing is like that. Sometimes meaning emerges long after.

  I took up the letter to Meteora and added what I had just seen, saying,

  So now I fear for the gift I sent to you. If they see one, this boy, this girl, they will be swept into each other’s arms. But whether that is for sadness or mirth, whether it is only for heat, I do not know. However, I do know this: whatever you give Robin to plant, do not let it be Arum. Never Arum.

  This time I am afraid I have been the meddler and you must use all that is left of your magic to mend if you must, or bend if you will, else we might both be broken on this wheel forever.

  I was about to crumple the letter, thought better of it, and put it back on the mantel. I would write something fresher in the morning. Then I ran out of the house, needing air and trees and food to sustain me.

  * * *

  I MADE MY WAY DOWN the street to the Man of Flowers store. He saw me and smiled, waved, came over.

  “Dona,” he said. “The sun has not shined here since you were gone. Is your grandson well?”

  For a moment I had to think whom he meant, then remembered I had told him the scare-bird was my kin. And in a way, I suppose he is. “I have sent him off to my sister’s.”

  “You have a sister?” he countered. “Here? That is good. Then you are not, as I feared, all alone in this world.” His head nodded. “A grandson, a sister.” He paused. I remembered such pauses from the life before, when men found me beautiful and asked me such questions.

  “But no husband,” I said. I said it softly, so it could be read as he wanted. I do not know why I said such a thing. Habit? Desire? Loneliness?

  “Ah.” He blushed. I liked that. It made him look younger. “May I make you a present of . . .”

  I raised a hand between us, surprised at how old my hand was. Always surprised. “No more presents, kind sir, for your generosity shames me. I must repay you.”

  “Dona, no payment is necessary.”

  “It is the custom of my people,” I said. “I must repay you, or . . .”

  He nodded. “Then make me a dinner tonight and let me supply the food and wine. It has been too long since I have had a beautiful woman cook for me.”

  “Beautiful?” He had never seen me beautiful. Only fat and aching and old.

  He took my hand. “There is a life lived in your face, Dona, and a wisdom and laughter in your eyes. There is kindness there, too.”

  I who had never melted when a lover said such things in my nest, nor lost my heart for more than a night’s dalliance, almost wept. “I have never been kind,” I whispered to him.

  “I cannot believe that.”

  I let him give me root vegetables, cream, long noodles, three kinds of cheeses, some berries, a sweet basil plant, a bit of thyme, three rosemary stalks, and a round orange fruit as big as his fist.

  “I close the store at six.”

  I told him the number of my house.

  “I know.”

  “Second floor.”

  “I have seen the plants on the sill.”

  So I smiled. “I will expect you then, sometime after the store is closed.” And I left, my heart thudding so hard, I feared it would burst through the bag of food I had from him as a gift. No—not a gift, but a promise, though I wondered with a shiver if this old body could keep the promise made by my suddenly much younger heart.

  51

  Sparrow Steals a Letter

  All Sparrow had wanted to be was invisible on the street. She’d followed Robin’s suggestions as to how to lay her spells on Hawk’s shop, because he’d understood her need to exact revenge on the man. She showed him the tattoo on her neck, pulled up her sleeve to reveal the snake’s head coiled around her wrist, but stopped short of showing him the half-formed adders on her shoulders. He had said nothing at first, only stared. And then offered advice.

  “Go slowly,” he’d said, “don’t let him feel the noose until it is too late. Circle him. Foul the air but first accustom him to the fragrance.”

  “Are you sure about that . . . ?”

  He’d nodded, his dark curls bouncing. “Very. That one is too powerful to challenge directly. You must use stealth.”

  Sparrow believed him. He spoke with such certainty. It was as if he knew, knew that her life was nothing short of a fairy tale gone awry.

  He’d asked to go with her on her next foray, but Sparrow had refused. The truth was, she didn’t entirely trust him. He was handsome—too handsome—and she’d felt the color rise in her cheeks when he gave her that slow, appraising stare. Looking down at his elegant hands had only made it worse. She thought about those hands caressing the neck of the fiddle, or closed around the bow, lifting it over the strings. He had played for her, she knew that. But where the music was taking her, she didn’t know. What if he’s more dangerous than Hawk? She remembered how easily he’d deceived the tattooer, and shivered at the thought. She needed to know about him in the same way that he seemed to know her. That was only fair.

  * * *

  ON THE FOLLOWING DAY, SPARROW waited until Sophia had left the house and Robin was working with Jack in the garden. Then she sprinted upstairs. The door was unlocked so she slipped inside and looked around. The sitting room was a cluttered mess: books, scraps of paper with scribbled music, dirty plates stacked high on the table. In one corner was a pile of men’s laundry. Sparrow picked up a sweat-stained shirt, and sniffed its pungent aroma. Just then she heard men’s voices in the garden break into loud laughter.

  “Don’t be stupid,” she told herself, and tossed the shirt away.

  She peered into the kitchen, searching for the pile of colored envelopes she remembered seeing on the table. A letter had rested beneath the dove and Sparrow had seen the name “Robin,” written in a curling script before she knew what it meant. But the kitchen was clean, and there was no sign of the letters on the shelves or in the drawers.

  Of course! Sophia had probably hidden them from Robin. She went to the bedroom, and glanced quickly at the neatly made bed and the clothing hanging on wooden pegs. Alongside the bed was a pair of fur-trimmed slippers. The pillows were huge and plump and quite inviting. Intuitively, she slid her hand under the nearest pillow and chuckled. The sheets whispered as she pulled forth the tied stack of letters. There wasn’t much time, for she could hear Jack stomping his shoes free of mud on the back steps. They would be putting away the tools and Robin would soon return. She opened the first letter and read a page. She refolded it and read two more. It was all she needed. She had learned enough.

  Enough to know that Sophia and her sister talked about her. “A misery-girl” Sophia had called her. And he a “scare-bird.” Sparrow was angry and hurt. Sophia had not extended a hand to her because she was simply a young woman in need of friendship, but rather an oddity in a gossipy game between a pair of weird sisters who thought a good deal of themselves. And she gathered from the veiled, puzzling comments that neither were what they appeared to be either.

  No, no, she thought, trust no one. Except perhaps Robin, for he’s one of their “projects.” Just like me. Maybe it’s time to leave here before it gets more complicated. She knew she could always run.

 
But first she had a score to settle.

  With Hawk.

  * * *

  FOR TWO DAYS SHE HAD turned her clothes inside out to hide herself from Hawk’s notice, strolling past his shop and dropping a small handful of crushed herbs on the doorjambs, front and back.

  But this time, when Sparrow turned the corner, she saw a girl dressed in a plaid skirt and white blouse standing in front of Hawk’s shop. Every time the girl stepped forward, her foot touched some unseen line and she stepped back. Sparrow bent down to pet Lily, watching the girl struggle between two inducements: one to enter, the other to flee. At last, the girl turned on her heel and left.

  “Good!” Sparrow said, rubbing Lily’s ears, but staring at the retreating figure of the girl. Clearly the herbs were working, though not exactly the way she had meant them to.

  When she arrived home, she paused, seeing the orange envelope in Sophia’s box. Deftly, she plucked the envelope out between two fingers, glanced at the writing, and then carried it upstairs hidden in her jacket. Those two biddies had too many secrets and she didn’t like being one of them.

  Taking off Lily’s collar, she went into the kitchen, the dog padding eagerly behind her. After feeding the dog and filling her water bowl, Sparrow turned up the heat under the kettle. She held the letter over the steaming spout and waited for the glue to give. It was easy enough to remove the letter from the envelope, trickier to remove the warning at the end of the page. She folded a tight crease and slid a knife along it, knowing the rough edges would probably give it away. But not until it was too late.

  Sparrow folded the scrap in her pocket. Tomorrow was Saturday, and the Farmer’s Market would be in full swing. She wouldn’t be purchasing that horrible root she had bought last time. This time she would get her hands on the right plant and then let what was to happen, happen. That should teach those meddling sisters, she thought.

  Refolding the letter, Sparrow placed it in the envelope and held the seal closed until it mostly stuck along the edge. She went downstairs, replaced the envelope in the mailbox, and returned to her own apartment. Tonight she would stay awake as long as she could. She would listen, really listen to the tunes Robin played and make up her mind about him one way or the other before she left for work in the morning.

  52

  Meteora and the Arum

  When I returned from the Co-op, I found Serana’s letter waiting for me in the mailbox. The envelope was wrinkled as though it had become damp and then dried. The ink was washed pale and I wondered that it had found its way to me at all. When I turned it over, the back flap sighed open without help from my anxious fingers. And when I pulled out the letter, it was obvious something was amiss.

  One page was too short. There was no farewell to me. No matter how angry or hurt Serana might have been at my previous letter, she would never have ended with such an enigmatic phrase: “I do know this.” I tucked the letter in the bosom of my shirt and mounted the stairs, lost in troubled thoughts.

  The house was deadly quiet. The couple on the first floor worked long days. Of Sparrow I had seen little of late. Sometimes, while in the garden, I would hear her shuffling on the back porch, but when I turned, she would duck inside to avoid me. I had hoped she would come to see me, to make amends of some kind. But once Serana’s scare-bird showed up, she had become reluctant to even talk to me in passing.

  I entered the apartment and realized that Robin, too, was gone. My eyelids quivered, always a trouble sign. Though I had not seen Robin and Sparrow together, I knew for certain that they had already met. I heard it in the tunes he played each night. The tunes were not meant for these old feet, but for someone much nimbler than I. I only hoped that she was careful, for there were still too many unanswered questions about the boy.

  Tapping the envelope against my wrist, I tried to feel the intention of whoever had tampered with the letter. Could Robin have done this? Maybe. Yet I had seen the changes in him. Each day spent in the garden with Jack had tempered his callowness, made him more agreeable company.

  But someone had meddled with the letter. I immediately dismissed the girl Marti and her boyfriend whose name I had never learned. They would have had no interest in my mail, and besides, they were away on holiday. The Hands never went out of my rooms, or so I believed. As for Jack—foolish I may have been for taking up with him, but I trusted him now. Or at least I thought I did.

  Then who stood to gain from the letter’s knowledge? Missing knowledge, I corrected myself. For there was someone who had the better part of Serana’s wisdom and that someone was not me. I needed to watch and learn who had stolen my sister’s words. I needed to warn Serana that we had been followed from the Greenwood. To whom did we matter so much? Certainly, not the Queen who had sent us away.

  * * *

  I SHOULD HAVE UNDERSTOOD THE moment Robin sauntered into the garden the following morning with the pot of arum in his hands. At first I laughed to see it, thinking it a ribald joke. But by the end of day, I knew it had been a mistake to allow such a potent plant into the Great Witch’s garden. Oh, it was trouble all right, the very trouble my sister and I had hoped to avoid.

  Two nights later, I walked to the edge of the park, where the trees gave way to the shore of an enormous lake. The full moon cast a glistening path across the restless water. I turned from its light and looked up, searching for a nest I had seen not too long ago, high in the canopy of an ash tree. I tucked my tongue behind my teeth and gave a sharp, short whistle. “I have need.”

  Silently, a goshawk lifted from the dark trees and circled overhead. I held up my arm, wrapped with one of Baba Yaga’s shawls and offered her a perch. She alighted amid a flurry of wings and I was shocked by the pain of her talons digging into my arm. I had ridden such hawks as a sprout and never felt fear. But now, I trembled before her golden eyes and sharp beak so close to my face.

  I know the rules of calling a hawk to service. Bringing out the remains of a mouse, killed the day before in a trap in the basement of the house, I gave it to her. She swallowed it whole, the whipping tail disappearing last. I tied a rolled letter to her leg and whispered my sister’s name and destination. She lunged into the air, her talons raking long scratches in my skin through the cloth. But I did not cry out, only watched as her powerful wings lifted her high above the trees and out across the water’s silvery path.

  Sometimes a goshawk is more reliable than an eagle. And I only hoped that my letter would reach Serana in time to do some good.

  Dearest Sister

  I am troubled. Someone tore away the last lines of your letter before it reached my hands. All that was left was your proclamation “I know this.” If I could spell as I once did, I might know the truth of these wayward words. But now I can only stare at the ruffled edge of the paper and wonder who has the advantage of your knowledge. Please write back soon—the hawk will wait for your reply, though not for long.

  I am edgy. And your Robin even more so since he planted the arum in the middle of the garden. I thought he did it as a joke, an affront to my old age. I went to pull it out stalk and root, but no sooner did I touch it than the Jack’s own laughter stopped me and I blushed furious, my hands wrapped around it as though to throttle youth and sex. I have left it, but, oh, what misgivings.

  I saw Sparrow today, leaning out on her porch, hands clenched on the railing like a fledgling balanced for a first flight. Robin turned his face up to stare hungrily at her. And that damn plant bloomed, spreading pollen everywhere in the sudden gusting of the wind.

  Worried as a tree knot,

  Meteora

  53

  The Queen Searches

  You travel the edges of the Greenwood, looking for the road that leads to the world. How many roads have disappeared? you wonder. No one sweeps them clean anymore and few carry their old names. Gone are the fairy knolls, the bridge of trees, the fairy’s walk that once might have pointed the way to mortals seeking the path between briar and lily. Now it has become difficult for you to even
find the roads out of the Greenwood. They are covered with iron and rust, with concrete and steel. The grass no longer sings to announce the way, the brush no longer parts to let you through. The old ways are going, soon to be gone for good.

  It is love that drives you out of your woods. Love for the clans who mistrust you now, who know too much about you and are consumed with envy. It was the love of your realm that sent you in search of the one thing that might restore vitality, life, and the power of a world both bright and dark. It was love that changed your body from a pure vessel, untouched by age to one ripened by love, torn open by love, altered forever in the act of creation. It was love that kept you in the world too long.

  You should have left the child on a stranger’s doorstep, even on the steps of a church, though the spires could spear your heart and the crosses burn your flesh. But once you looked into that perfect rosebud face you could not part with her—flesh of your flesh, blood of your blood. You could not stop the tears that flowed any more than you could dam the milk from your breasts. And you knew that only this love could heal your world. So you stayed, wanting more time.

  And then it all went so very wrong.

  You hid your sorrow; you hid the love that had changed your body. You designed a desperate plan with no certainty of succeeding, hoping for delay. And when the truth was known you did what was necessary, committing murder, holding some hostage to your bidding and forcing others out into an exile you refused to imagine to buy but a little time and confuse them all.

  And you knew that He would not rest idle but seek to find. You brought her in the world to strengthen the world through love, but He will use her death to strengthen His world through hate. And if He succeeds, then the balance of your world will tip like a fallen candle whose wick is drowned in the flow of scalding wax.