Bones of Faerie tboft-1

by Janni Lee Simner

  Fire. Fire rained from airplanes and fell toward swaying branches. Heat burned my face, like the air from Jayce's forge. Leaves gave way to flame as if they were no more than butterfly wings. Branches blazed like torches and went out. Acorns fell like rain. Berry juice stained the dirt and evaporated in the hot, dry wind. Trees moaned as they died, like wind before a storm—

  Fire mushroomed up from the earth, swallowing men and women with clear hair and silver eyes, so fast they made no sound. Ash fell to the ground for miles around, silent as snow. No bone or branch remained—

  Farther from the fire, a few black trunks survived, jutting like splinters from the earth. Caleb—why always Caleb?—walked through the dead land, his face grim. He approached a burning lake, stepped into the water, and disappeared—

  My mother walked through the dead land, her cheeks streaked with ash, her head bowed like a tree in the wind. Even as I reached for her she fell to her knees. Her face shone orange, lit by flames. I shut my eyes, retreating into darkness. Wind burned the back of my neck—

  “Liza,” Matthew said, still holding my hand. His voice sounded dry and hoarse. Heat burned my face. The air smelled of ash and dead trees.

  “You did it,” Allie said, but not as if she were glad.

  I opened my eyes. Above I saw a molten blue sky, ahead of me an endless black plain. A few charred trunks jutted out of the dead land. Nothing else: just Matthew and me, Allie and Tallow beside her, Rebecca in her sling with her eyes scrunched closed and her head buried against my shoulder.

  I staggered. The sky seemed so heavy, pressing like lead toward the earth. Matthew stood with me, not releasing his hold. Ash crunched beneath our feet. Water beaded on my jacket and Rebecca's sling and the backs of Matthew's and my hands, evaporating into the dry air. My hair was damp, too, as was Matthew's. Water droplets fell toward the earth but dried before they reached it.

  Above, the sun shone like hammered copper. Tallow nudged Allie's hand, but she didn't move to scratch the cat's ears. She reached down and sifted a handful of ash through her wet fingers. The wind picked up, blowing the ash away and leaving black streaks on her hands and face. No bird flew. No animal called. No tree whispered to the wind. Faerie—yet I knew now Faerie hadn't always been like this.

  “It's worse than Caleb told me,” Allie whispered. “I had no idea.” She looked down at her ash-stained hands. “The fey don't live forever, you know, no matter what people think. Harder to kill, harder to heal. That's what Caleb says.”

  The fey folk lost as much as we did during the War.

  My people had done this. Ash blew into my eyes and clogged my throat. Whatever power had done this, it was better gone, along with the ways of making nylon and plastic and knives that kept their edge.

  Behind me someone began to sing in a voice dry as old corn husks:

  “Soft the drowsy hours are creeping

  Hill and vale in slumber sleeping

  All through the night…”

  I stiffened. Wind burned the dampness from my face. Slowly I turned, scarcely daring to breathe, knowing hope had no place in this dead land.

  Behind me lay a small lake, a stone's throw across. Orange flames danced beneath its surface, as if the lake bottom was on fire. The lake was perfectly round and perfectly still. Less than a hundred paces away a figure huddled on the far bank, rocking back and forth as she sang. My throat felt dry, but that might have been from the heat.

  I walked around to her, ignoring heat, ignoring wind, ignoring sky. Matthew and Allie and Tallow followed, but their steps seemed far away. Only the woman by the lake mattered. I knelt beside her and reached out slowly, afraid this was some vision that would dissolve at my touch.

  “Mom,” I said, and laid a hand on her shoulder.

  Mom stared into the water and sang on, as if I hadn't spoken, as if I weren't there at all.

  Chapter 14

  Flames rose from beneath the water and subsided again. Mom stretched her hands into the lake as if reaching for something. Her arms were red, burned—she didn't seem to notice. Her lips were cracked and bleeding. Red marks and ash streaked her face and neck. A pack lay open beside her, half-filled with black dust. I saw a canvas bag and a couple empty water bottles within.

  Weight settled like lead in my stomach. Rebecca reached toward Mom, made an uncertain sound, and drew back.

  I shook Mom's shoulder, first gently, then harder. She leaned away from me, her hair trailing into the lake. I bent around to meet her gaze. Her eyes were dull as ash.

  “Mom!” I put force into that call, as much force as I could. Mom sang on, unhearing. I thought I might throw up. Sweat trickled down my neck, evaporating before it could get beneath my sweater. I felt something cool against my skin and reached beneath the sweater to clutch Caleb's token. I took the chain from around my neck and offered it to Mom, praying there was some power in the disk.

  For just a moment her eyes focused and her song fell silent. She grabbed the disk, jerking the chain from my hand. Then her gaze changed to something young and far away.

  “Tara,” Matthew whispered. His bare feet were black with ash. He rubbed at his scar as if it itched something fierce.

  Allie reached tentatively out and touched Mom's cheek. “Something's wrong,” the girl said. “I don't understand. She's lost, but not only lost. Something's wrong.”

  Mom's lips moved, forming words I couldn't hear. Around her neck her own disk hung, the veined metal bright in the sun.

  “Mom.” She had to answer. I'd make her answer.

  She stared into the glowing water, as if she saw something I couldn't. Visions, I thought, but I didn't know whether the visions came from the lake or from somewhere inside her. I gripped her shoulder tighter. I remembered Caleb grabbing my arm, forcing my gaze to a mirror. He'd followed me.

  I drew my hand abruptly away. I couldn't enter my mother's thoughts like Caleb had entered mine. I had no right.

  But I also couldn't lose her. I couldn't let the darkness swallow her, not after I'd come so far. I turned to Matthew. “Be my watcher,” I said.

  Allie drew a sharp breath. “Mind injuries aren't like other hurts, Liza. You can't go in and heal this as if it were a break or a fever.”

  I forced my voice steady. “I'm not trying to heal it. I'm just trying to find her.” I'd worry about healing later. I untied Rebecca's sling and set her down beside me. “Matthew?”

  He looked first at Mom, then at me. “I'll watch you. I won't let you get lost.”

  No one could promise I wouldn't get lost, not when magic was involved.

  “Trust me,” Matthew said, and he gave a lopsided smile. I did trust him, whether it made sense to or not.

  Tallow stalked to Rebecca's side as if keeping a watch of her own. Allie threw a handful of ash across the plain. “Be careful, Liza. I didn't heal you so you could get yourself killed some other way, you know.”

  “I know,” I told her.

  Mom still clutched Caleb's disk. I gently placed my hand over hers. Her skin was hot. I followed her gaze to the water. Flames roared up, and for a moment I felt I was falling through the fire. It burned all around me, and in the flames I saw—

  Sun through leaves, a soft breeze swaying high branches. I walked without fear through a blue-green forest. No vines lashed out, no thorns tore at my boots. The mossy earth felt soft beneath my feet. A small bird flew past with a twig in its mouth, building a nest amid the leaves. Those leaves were perfectly round, bright with afternoon light. Or maybe the light came from within the leaves. I couldn't tell—

  A young man and a young woman walked through the forest, their fingers interlaced, a hawk riding on the man's shoulder. Caleb again, and with him—

  I'd seen her before, but I hadn't known her until now. How could she and Caleb— He should have been younger then, but who knew how long the faerie folk lived? I reached for the woman's hand. “Mom.”

  She drew back, turning to Caleb. “I don't understand,” she said. To Caleb, not
to me.

  “It is time for you to return to your own people, Tara. Past time.”

  Mom shook her head. “No. There is nothing for me there. And if I return, my father will never let me out of his sight again.”

  “This isn't even real,” Caleb said soberly. “This is past, this is memory. It cannot be undone.” He drew his fingers from hers. “You must go. Our commanders have met, Karinna among them. War draws near, to your land and to mine.”

  Mom laughed, a joyless sound. “Most of my people don't even believe in your land. It's a ballad, a song, a story for children.”

  “But some of those who do believe hold power in your world, including your father. Just as some of those who disdain to talk to your people hold power in mine. Anger catches on all sides, like fire to fallen wood. The time when words could quench it is past.”

  Mom looked up as if to protest, but then Caleb bent and brushed his lips against hers. I wanted to cry out, to tell him to leave her alone—but there was longing in her eyes as he drew away. Caleb took something from beneath his shirt: a silver disk on a chain, the disk Mom had worn all my life. If it weren't so clearly metal, it could have been a leaf fallen from one of the trees. Mom reached for it, then drew back her hand.

  “Take it,” Caleb said. “It's a gift to follow you from my world into yours.” He draped the chain around her neck. “The quia leaf beneath the plating is real enough.”

  “I have little to offer in turn. I've always had less to offer.” Mom fumbled in her pockets, pulled out a disk of her own. “Here.”

  Caleb turned it in his hands. An arch was inscribed on its surface, and a river, and words from Before. “I shall treasure it.”

  Mom laughed, a brittle sound like the crackle of old plastic. “It's just a quarter. Worth next to nothing in my world.”

  “I shall treasure it just the same.”

  “It's not so simple, you know. My world, your world. You're the one who told me that our worlds are linked by more than the Arch. There's less place for me there than here.”

  “There is no place for you here. I am sorry. If you still care for my world when the War is through, return then. The quia leaf will open the way to the land of its growth, even if none of my people are here to greet you. And should you choose not to return, still the leaf will protect you when you walk in dark forests.”

  “This parting is your choice, Kaylen, not mine.” Mom's shoulders stiffened as she turned from him. “If you wish to see me again when this is through, come into my world and find me.”

  Caleb shut his eyes as if in pain. “All may yet be well. Goodbye, Tara.”

  Mom walked away, not crying, not looking back. I fell into step beside her and reached for her hand again. This time she let me take it. “Come on, Mom. We're going home.” Mom shuddered at the word, but she followed me through the cool forest. The sun above us grew brighter. I shut my eyes against it, and when I opened them again—

  I knelt with Mom beside the lake. Flames danced beneath its surface. Sun burned against my face. Mom's hand fell limp, and the quarter rolled to the ground. I stared at her, remembering a young woman, a stranger.

  She turned to me, her eyes dull as old coals. “You should have left me there,” she said.

  I jerked as if slapped, even as Mom turned to the water once more.

  I grabbed her arm, trying to pull her away. She fought me, and as she fought she started coughing, dry coughs that rasped through her chest like wind through old paper. I didn't care. I shook her harder. She'd run away; she'd left me; I wouldn't let her leave me. How could Mom abandon me for Faerie, for Caleb, for a stranger who wasn't even human? I felt hands trying to pull me away, but no one could make me let go. I began crying or screaming, I couldn't tell which. My chest and throat burned beneath the cursed Faerie sun.

  As if in answer Rebecca cried out from where I'd set her down. Mom went limp in my arms. I went still, too. Only the wind blew on. “Rebecca?” Pain flashed through Mom's eyes like lightning. “No, you're Liza. Oh, God, Lizzy, I'm sorry, so sorry. I only sought a safe place for us all. I failed you….” She stumbled to her feet, and I helped her up, but then her legs gave way. I caught her and helped her back to the ground.

  Matthew held a water bottle to her lips. I should have thought of that. I trembled like a leaf fighting wind. Per haps Mom only needed water or food.

  Mom took a swallow, coughed up water and phlegm and little spatters of blood. She closed her eyes, whimpering like a child. Matthew glanced at me, looking as lost as I felt. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words came out. He held the water out again. Mom shoved it away. The bottle flew from Matthew's hands and spilled to the ground. Ash swallowed water, leaving dry earth behind.

  Allie moved to Mom's side, hesitant as a cat near fire. She moved slow healer's hands over Mom's body, then jerked back as if burned. I knew by the look on her face that this was more than dehydration or hunger.

  “Allie?” I said.

  Her hands shook, and she wouldn't meet my eyes. She looked at Matthew instead.

  “It's like something's coming unraveled inside her. I don't understand. I need more time, but if I touch her too long—if I try to heal her—I'll start unraveling, too.”

  “Don't,” Matthew said at once. Beneath the sun his face was ashy pale.

  “We can't lose her,” I said.

  Allie's hands clenched and unclenched. “Don't ask me again, Liza. If you ask again, I won't be able to say no.”

  I bit my lip, swallowing my words. Wind blew through my silence.

  Allie stood and backed away. “There's more. What ever made her sick, I think it's still in the air here. I think if we stay too long, we'll get sick, too.”

  I brushed the hair back from my mother's forehead. Her skin burned beneath my touch. “Mom,” I whispered. I wanted her to tell me everything would be all right, but she closed her eyes and said nothing.

  In a small voice Allie asked, “How do we leave this place, Liza?”

  There was no Arch here, no way out. There was only dust and heat and ashes.

  Matthew looked down at Mom, then up at me, and I saw despair in his eyes. But he only said, “Through the lake again, right?”

  I nearly asked what he meant, but then I remembered my vision of Caleb stepping into burning water. I thought about how the water hadn't burned or drowned him. He hadn't died, not unless it was the future I'd seen.

  I ran a hand through my hair. It was stiff—wind and heat had dried the water in it. I remembered the water on my jacket and on Tallow's fur. Of course we'd come through the lake. We had to step into this world from somewhere. Lost in the visions that had brought us here, I hadn't seen—but the way through had two sides. The Arch in my world. The lake in this one.

  Fire flared through the lake's surface, bright against the blue sky. Tallow batted a pebble. Her paws were covered with soot. So were my hands and the legs of my pants. The fire receded, and the lake was still. Still as the drawn water in which my magic had first found me. Running water held little magic, but still water was like metal, like glass, like a mirror.

  Yet if we stepped through the lake, emerging safely through the Arch on the other side—what then? It would be four or five days to Washville. Along the way we'd have to resist the River and hold back the shadows all over again, all while dragging or carrying Mom with us.

  “How much time do we—does Mom—have?” I asked Allie.

  Allie's face scrunched up, but her voice held steady. “No one can know that for sure, Liza. Caleb always says so.”

  I forced myself not to flinch from the truth I heard there. “But you don't think it's very long.”

  Allie turned and grabbed Tallow in her arms. The cat squirmed, but Allie didn't let go.

  Matthew reached for my hand. Mom began coughing again. I thought of how she'd stepped through the Arch, trusting Caleb's quia leaf to see her through, not knowing that she might die on the other side.

  Or maybe she had known. You shoul
d have left me there. Maybe she'd known all along.

  “The War was stupid,” Allie said. “So stupid.”

  I thought of the Arch, reaching like a mirror toward the sky. I thought of Mom, and the young woman Mom had once been, both stepping through.

  “A mirror.” My hand had passed through Caleb's mirror easily enough, but it had been too small to let anything but my hand through. “Will any mirror big enough do?”

  Still not looking at me, Allie said, “It's your magic. You'd know better than us.”

  I glanced at Matthew. His eyes went wide. “Gram's mirror,” he said.

  I nodded. Kate's mirror was taller than any of us.

  “Gram said the mirror was a family heirloom, that she couldn't bear to destroy it during the War,” Matthew said. “Do you think it would work, Liza? Gram doesn't have any magic, but she does understand about healing. She might know what to do.”

  Allie dropped Tallow and gazed into the water. “It looks deep.” She stepped back, shivering in spite of the heat.

  “I know,” I said, thinking that Allie and I both knew too much about drowning. “If my magic fails—”

  The girl whirled to face me, her expression fierce. “But if we stay here we'll die for sure.”

  “That makes it easy, then.” I tried to laugh, but the sound came out strangled and strange.

  Mom's coughing quieted. She didn't struggle as Matthew and I helped her to her feet, but she didn't look at us, either. Sun glinted off Caleb's quarter. I picked up the necklace and draped it around my own neck again. I left Mom leaning on Matthew and tied Rebecca's sling around my neck. Rebecca whimpered. Mom strained toward the sound. “Rebecca. Lizzy. My babies, my girls …”

  I took Mom's hand. Matthew kept supporting her from the other side. Allie set Tallow on her shoulders, then reached for Matthew in turn. She clutched his hand as tightly as she'd clutched the guide ropes over the river. Matthew turned to me. His face and hair were soot- darkened, his eyes puffy, as if he wanted to cry but didn't dare. Yet somehow he managed to smile—as if saying without words that he trusted me still, as much as I trusted him.