The Fairy's Tale

by F. D. Lee

  Bea sighed. “For goodness sake, do you think I was born yesterday? I’m a garden fairy, not a bloody imp – garden, you know? Fruits and vegetables? I know a poisoned apple when I see one.”

  The Forest wailed, leaves and twigs falling on Bea as the trees shook violently. She flung herself to the ground, covering her head with her hands. Something heavy hit her shoulder, causing her to flinch. She rolled, catching her dress on the rocks and stones that had suddenly risen up through the undergrowth. She came to a stop on her back, opening her eyes just in time to see the branch rushing towards her, sprigs outstretched to scratch her eyes out.

  Bea shifted quickly to her left, rolling on her damaged shoulder and rising to her feet. A white-hot jolt of pain shot across her back and down her arm, but she didn’t have time to acknowledge it. The branch came back the other way, hitting her head and throwing her off balance. She skidded forward, landing on her chin.

  No time to check the damage. Bea pushed herself up into a starting position and launched herself forward just as the branch slammed down on the spot where she’d been.

  Tears blurring her vision, Bea ran on. Her chest burned, her muscles screamed. Still the Sheltering Forest attacked her. The ground underneath her shifted and moved, roots dancing below the leaf cover, causing her to stumble and fall. Every time she hit the ground the trees would slam their branches into her, until she could barely stand. Faltering, her pace slowing with each step, Bea stumbled on.

  “Why are you doing this?” she cried, her voice raw as she gulped air into her exhausted lungs. “I’m one of yours! This is my home!”

  The Forest stilled. Bea looked around her. Perhaps it hadn’t recognised her? There had to be a reason why it had turned on her. The Sheltering Forest had always protected the fae. During the Rhyme War it had been their greatest ally – so what was happening? What had changed?

  Bea wiped the sweat from her forehead. When she pulled her hand down it was sticky with black blood. Gingerly she brought her fingertips up to her head, feeling around her hairline. She winced as she found the wound.

  “Why are you-” Bea began, but she was cut off by a low, creaking sound. The kind of sound that makes you think there’s someone on the stairs. The kind of sound made by wood trying to be quiet. The kind of sound Bea really, really did not want to be hearing while an entire Forest went to war against her.

  She jumped just in time.

  The tree smashed into the ground, missing her by centimetres. What caught Bea was not the tree, but the hail of splinters that exploded outwards from the impact of the dry, old trunk hitting the ground.

  There was a ringing in her ears.

  Night was closing in…

  She was cold.

  Bea fell.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  “Sleeping Beauty awakes. Can I get you anything?”

  Bea ran her tongue over her lips. It felt like she was licking sand.

  “W’t’rr?”

  “Hang on.”

  Some of the fae were able to read emotions – it wasn’t exactly the same as being psychic, but the few who were truly adept, like the genies, weren’t far off. Bea was not one of those fae. But right at this moment in time, she was one hundred per cent certain that the moment she opened her eyes, she was going to be shouted at. She kept her eyes closed.

  She heard Melly’s footsteps as they receded into another room.

  Right.

  The Sheltering Forest had taken it upon itself to try and kill her. And now she was with Melly. That was a definite improvement, even if the witch’s tone had been decidedly unimpressed.

  Bea ran through what she could remember, which was basically being annoyed, frightened and, finally, in a lot of pain.

  That was interesting. She didn’t hurt now. Tentatively she tilted her head, wincing in anticipation of the agony from the cut on her brow and the damage to her shoulder. She felt queasy for a moment, and her shoulder was tight, but other than that she was fine. In fact, she felt no worse than after a night of drinking – better even, given some of the morning afters she’d experienced.

  “Come on, then. Up and at ’em,” Melly said, walking back into the room.

  Bea cracked open her eyes. The witch was carrying a large glass of red wine in each hand. She supposed she hadn’t really expected water. She pulled herself upright, ignoring the momentary dizziness the action caused. She was in a cosy living room, warm and full of the evidence of a long life. There were large wooden dressers with glass doors, and when she peered at one she was surprised to find a series of china figurines of shepherdesses and dancers; another one was full of glass animals. Still feeling dizzy, Bea couldn’t put her finger on what it was, but there was something odd about the space.

  “Why did the Forest attack me?” Bea asked, taking the offered glass. Melly sat on an old chair, shifting a pile of knitting carefully onto the already over-crowded coffee table. It seemed to Bea she was taking as long as possible before having to answer her.

  “It doesn’t like outsiders,” Melly eventually admitted.

  “But I’m not an outsider! I was born here – and anyway, Ænathlin isn’t outside. If anything, it’s inside the Forest.”

  Melly frowned, and took a long sip of wine. Bea was just about to repeat herself when the elf said, “The Forest is angry with Ænathlin. For hundreds of years it’s protected us from Yarnis’ soldiers, mostly at its own expense, so that we could look after the Mirrors. And now we’ve welched on our side of the deal. You can’t blame it for being peeved.”

  “Oh,” Bea said, feeling somewhat chastised. “I hadn’t thought about it like that. I guess the Forest must be frightened it’ll become like the wastelands.”

  “Something like that.”

  “But that still doesn’t explain why it attacked me. I’m one of the Belgae, we look after the Forest.”

  Melly looked uncomfortable. “I suppose you’ve been gone too long. Or you’ve changed too much. It didn’t recognise you.”

  Bea flinched. That’s what you get for trying to be someone different – you become someone different. “Oh. Right. How did you find me?”

  “The Forest told me there was an intruder, but it didn’t sound like an orc or a gnarl so I came to investigate. When I saw it was you, I called it off and brought you here.”

  Bea tried to ignore the flash of anger she felt as Melly spoke. Melly had been living in the Forest for hundreds of years, if not thousands – Bea had no idea how old Melly really was. She, on the other hand, was barely eighty, and had spent the last twenty years of her life trying to pretend the first sixty hadn’t happened. She shouldn’t be jealous that the Forest trusted Melly and not her. She was jealous. But she knew she shouldn’t be.

  Taking a large gulp of wine, Bea took another look around the room. She almost forgot to swallow.

  Criss-crossing the walls of Melly’s cottage were strange black snakes made of metal. Bea could taste the iron, even over the red wine. They clung onto the wall in haphazard lines and angles, like something from the crazed dreams of an overworked geometry teacher. Suddenly, one of the snakes let out a high-pitched hissing whistle, causing Bea to nearly choke to death.

  “They do that sometimes. It’s perfectly safe,” Melly said, sipping her drink.

  “What are they?”

  “I don’t like fire,” Melly said, her tone so casual it was anything but. “The pipes keep the house warm, so I don’t need a fireplace. I got the idea from the steam engines the characters use. Though I’m not sure I got it quite right,” she added as another hiss cut through the room.

  Bea stood up and walked over to one of the so-called ‘pipes’. Gingerly she reached out and touched it. It was warm. More confidently, Bea pressed her palm up to the metal. The iron, hidden behind black paint, made her hand tingle, but the warmth was so comforting it was worth it. The warmth and the wine began to work their own kind of magic, and Bea started to feel herself relax.

  “Bea, exactly what are you doing h
ere?”

  Well, she thought, it was nice while it lasted.

  “I need your help.”

  “What’s happened?”

  Bea whistled through her teeth, dreading Melly’s reaction. “I’ve lost my heroine.”

  “What? I thought you said you were going to hand the Plot back?”

  Bea squirmed. “Yes. Sorry. I didn’t mean to lie to you, but I can’t hand the Plot in, because I… I made changes to it.”

  Melly put her wine glass down.

  “I think you better start at the beginning.”

  Bea told Melly about Sindy and Will, and changing the Plots, and showing the girl the Mirrors. and how she’d promised she would find her again, and the fact she didn’t have an ending to her Plot.

  “Right.” Melly said when Bea had finished.

  “So you see, I need you to help me find Sindy. I can’t do it myself, and I don’t think Joan would be able to. But you’re a witch, and I thought, well, witches are always finding heroines when they’re hiding. Do you think you can?”

  “I can, but I don’t think I should. This is exactly the sort of thing the GenAm expressly forbids. You changed the Plot, Bea!”

  “I didn’t mean to. I just – I saw ways to make them run better. And why not? I didn’t do any harm.”

  “What about the Mirrors? Are you seriously saying you think you did the right thing?”

  “Melly, please. Anyway, whatever I did or didn’t do doesn’t matter now. You must see I can’t return the Plot, not with it all messed up? I’ll be Redacted for sure. This whole thing is such a mess,” Bea said, flopping back down on her seat. “You know, the reason I wanted to be an FME was to make more of myself than everyone thought I was, but I think all I did was lose me. I didn’t know Joan’s mum died. I didn’t know, and she just assumed I was too busy, to tell me.” Bea felt her voice crack. “I’ve lost my past and I don’t have a present to replace it with.” But if she was hoping for sympathy, she wasn’t going to get it.

  “What about the Anti?” Melly asked. “Where does he fit into all this?”

  “Um. Well. There’s been a few developments there as well…”

  Melly listened while Bea told her about Seven, that she thought he was love in with a human and that was why he was in her story, and that he’d told her changing the stories doesn’t cause the Mirrors to break. Finally, she told Melly what he’d said about the King and Queen, and how they weren’t responsible for everything that had happened to the Mirrors.

  “He said that, did he?” Melly asked.

  “Yes. I mean, I know its heresy, but I think he’s right. At least, about the Mirrors. If you think about it, it doesn’t make sense. Stories changed all the time, once. And Mistasinon knew I’d made changes when he took me on, and it didn’t bother him.”

  Melly leaned back in her chair, crossing her legs. “What is breaking the Mirrors then?”

  “I don’t know. But the most important thing right now is finding Sindy, making sure she’s safe, and working out some sort of Happy Ending. The Mirrors can wait.” Bea rested her chin in her hand, her lips pursed. “I’ve got to finish the Plot. Not just because of Sindy, but because sooner or later Mistasinon will want to see my Book.”

  “Have you completely lost your mind?” Melly cried, her green eyes searching Bea’s face for any sign her friend had momentarily misplaced her senses and any second now she might find them behind the proverbial sofa of self-preservation.

  “If I don’t, the Redactionists will want to know why not, won’t they?” Bea said, shaking her head. “And on top of that my heroine is still lost, miles away from her home. I’ve made up my mind, Melly. But I need your help.”

  “Bea, you need to drop all of this, now. Forget Mistasinon and the Anti – they’d forget you fast enough, trust me. I know the type.”

  “Mistasinon’s done nothing but help me, and Seven…” here Bea floundered somewhat, but managed at least to say, “…is very passionate about his beliefs. And I agree with him. If this Plot has taught me anything it’s that we – the GenAm, FMEs, all of us – do cause harm to the humans. Sindy could be lying dead in some slave pit now, all because of me.”

  Melly stared at Bea in much the same way a palaeontologist might stare at someone who’d suggested that all those old bony type bone things buried in the hills were only some kind of cosmic practical joke.

  “How can you think like this? None of these people… Look, Mistasinon works for the GenAm. He’s a company man, he doesn’t care about you. And the Anti doesn’t care about anyone but himself. He’s got you convinced he’s sympathetic to these characters, but believe me, he’s not. The Anties are the ones causing all the trouble!”

  “Maybe they are. But it doesn’t mean that what he said was wrong. Come on, Mel, you must have thought it sometimes. Look at you – you’re the least wicked person I know, and it doesn’t matter how many cigarettes you smoke or how much black you wear. You’re not a nasty person. I know you feel it too.”

  “Oh really? Well, don’t you just know everything about everything suddenly?” Melly said sourly. “Bea, this is suicide, this is worse than suicide – you might as well be Redacting yourself. Listen to me. I’m your friend, I’ve got your best interests at heart.”

  “If you’re my friend, help me. Tell me where Sindy is.”

  “Bea, you need to think about this – you should’ve been thinking about all this from the beginning. This is that bloody Anti, polluting your mind,” Melly said, her tone becoming hard where moments ago it had been conciliatory.

  Bea slammed her hands into the sofa cushions. “Mortal gods! I’m sick of everyone telling me what to think, what to do, who to be!”

  “And what has this Anti told you exactly?” Melly countered, brushing her auburn hair over her shoulder. “That someday, if you work hard enough and believe in yourself, all your dreams will come true? That you can run around doing things just as you like and not get caught? That you can still have your story?”

  “Yes, alright, what you’re saying… it isn’t wrong. But I do agree with him, and even if I didn’t I still need to finish my Book and get Sindy back. I’m not going to just leave her out there.”

  “Just listen, Bea. Whatever he’s told you, whatever you believe… you need to stop all this. Your charming Anti is a genie.”

  Melly looked at Bea triumphantly.

  Bea wrung her hands.

  “Er. Yes. I know.”

  “What?”

  “I know he’s a genie. And I know they had a Chapter. How did you know?”

  Melly reached into her sleeve and pulled out her black cigarette case, angrily lighting a cigarette. She glared at Bea. “I can’t stop now, alright? It’s the leaf, it gets into your blood.” She took a pull on her cigarette, blowing smoke through her teeth. “I know about the genies because I’m older than you. I remember them, before the Redaction. They didn’t bother with us much, to be honest. I didn’t know they’d had a Chapter though. Who told you that?”

  “A friend of Joan’s. A Raconteur.”

  Melly’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?”

  Bea allowed herself a smile. “That’s what I thought. In fact, I think they might have been an item, once.”

  “You don’t say? Joan and a Raconteur? Good for her. I’ve never liked the way you fairies are treated.” Melly sighed, releasing the tension in her shoulders. “Look Bea, the thing about the genies is that they were expert at the time. They perfected it, really.” She said this with something that sounded to Bea a little like admiration.

  “Perfected what?” Bea asked, leaning forward and taking a sip of her wine.

  “Greed. Desire. Fear. All the things that make a good story. Reward, sometimes, too. They tell you what they know you want to hear, and then they make you think you can have it.”

  “They granted wishes,” Bea said. “Doesn’t that mean the whole point was to give people what they want?”

  Melly flicked the ash off her cigarette as sh
e thought of the best way to explain. “Does anyone really know what they want? Maybe they think they do, but the reality is often very different. The genies thrived on it – on the tricks and the cruelty and the misdirection. It was a game to them.”

  “Seven says that we all play games with the characters. He says we ruin lives.”

  “Seven, is it now? Well, he’d know. How much damage can be done with some pretty eyes and flowery words?”

  “You’re right about that. He definitely has an effect on the humans.”

  “Only on them?” Melly asked.

  “I certainly don’t care about his looks,” Bea said, betrayed somewhat by the memory of a naked, muscular, blue body that sprung up in her mind. “I just happen to agree with him. That’s me, my opinion. I know it is.”

  “Look, just think about him for a minute: Isn’t it strange that you meet the only Anti in the whole of Thaiana that has some kind of credible reason for doing what he’s doing?”

  Bea couldn’t deny it.

  “And then, that he can help you do what you think is right, while at the same time allowing you to get what you want? Isn’t that a bit much?”

  “Coincidences happen all the time,” she said.

  “In the stories. Coincidences we ensure happen.”

  Bea thumbed the rim of her glass. Melly had her there, and they both knew it.

  “Genies,” Melly said, “are designed to give people what they think they want. Just think, haven’t you seen it?”

  “He’s very charismatic.”

  “But is he? Really? You said yourself that when you actually listen to him, he isn’t very nice at all.”

  “He hasn’t granted any wishes,” Bea said.

  “I don’t know about that, but I do know he’ll say exactly what you want to hear. He’s manipulated you. That’s what they do.”

  “He said he’d suffered because of the story,” Bea said.

  “Bea, of course he did,” Melly said, more gently. “You’re… you’re soft. You might have been trying to be hard. I think what you said earlier, about Joan’s mum and everything… Yes. You’ve not been a very good person recently. But we all make mistakes, we all behave badly at some point. But you’re not a bad person. And the genie, he’d know that. He’d know that you’d be sympathetic to a broken heart.”