by Skye Allen
“We started it. The rift. The war,” I said.
Blossom gave me a sympathetic frown. “It is not even all the Winter Folk, I suspect. The Lady of Ice wants the Woodcutter’s work to be complete. That is all I know about the answer to your question: why it is you three sisters.”
“Two. And it’s probably the ones who used to be in your court, the Winter guys who want to get us now,” I said, thinking out loud. Summer Folk who crossed over to the Winter side. I still wondered exactly what was in it for them. “Okay. So then—who is the Woodcutter? He could even be a good guy. A Summer fey. Right?”
“She’s quick. Can we keep her?” Blossom said, and the thaw in me loosened further.
I felt a tug on my ankle then and kicked out toward the fire without thinking. Blossom whipped around my legs, and with a quick thrust of her lace-sleeved arm, she seized something wriggly. She stood and held the animal up to eye level. It was a long skinny raccoon with a pointed hat.
I looked closer. It was not a raccoon. It was some kind of fey creature. Its skin was grooved in deep concertina folds that spread out to floppy dog ears. What I’d thought was raccoon skin was a long coat made of skunk fur. It swirled the tail around its neck with tiny black-clawed hands and mewled, “No fair!” I stood up to see it better and get away from the sharp claws on its padded feet.
“Run back to your master, willya?” Blossom’s voice was a candy-coated weapon. She did something with her fingers that made the creature buckle its stick knees up to its waist, and a flash of metal caught the light before it thudded softly to the ground just my side of the fire. “What did she send you for? To poison us with that little toy?”
“Not sent, my lady. Darts is for hunting. Was hungry. Did not know my ladies were companions of the Sun Lady’s favorite.” Its pupils were elongated diamonds. The whites around them expanded as it stared pleadingly at Blossom and then swiveled its triangular head all the way around to look at me.
“Well, we didn’t fill you in on that, so who did? Goat.” Nicky spat the word out like an insult. She only took one step, but it was with her whole body, torso twisting as one arm reached out its full length and one boot landed an inch from Blossom’s ballet slipper. She moved like a panther. It had never occurred to me to wonder if she could turn into an animal too. She was wearing a black T-shirt under a loose cargo jacket that hung off her shoulders enough for the taper of her ribs to be visible.
“Can not speak for hunger. My lady.” And the thing clamped its black lips between its buck teeth. Nicky patted her pockets and then nudged Blossom, who shook her head.
I grasped the situation. “I have an apple.” It was at the bottom of my bag. I rubbed it on my sleeve, but that only added soot. Nicky held out her hand, palm up, and I dropped the apple into it with no skin contact. Holding hands to run out of a burning building didn’t count. I wasn’t going to volunteer to touch her, not after last night at Flea.
Blossom set the fey animal down on its hind legs. It nibbled the apple in pockmark rows all the way around until the skin was gone. “Talk,” she said when the machine-gun bites slowed down.
“Am loyal to the Sun Lady.” Its twisting hands made it seem like a fey Charles Dickens urchin.
“Dung. You’re a spy. Tell us what you know.”
“Mortals are in danger. More danger than the mortals can fathom. Tiny mortal minds.” Diamond pupils flicked over me. The little animal seemed ancient and arrogant now.
Blossom reared her blonde head back and snatched the apple, and for a flicker of a second I saw a cobra, not a woman. I felt a prickle of fear mixed with giddy relief: this badass was on my side.
“Mortal Pretty Peg was Sun Lady’s favorite. Pretty Peg, she loved our own Jerome. Now brothers straddle both sides, sun and night, summer and ice,” the creature squeaked.
In my ear Nicky whispered, “He means Jerome and Timothy.” Her look was piercing, like she wanted me to respond. I nodded, tried to let my breath out, kicked at the ground. I wasn’t sure how I felt about her.
My right sneaker nudged the dart that had fallen when Blossom shook the animal. It was pencil-length with a skinny point and a glass shaft that widened to a flattened end. I rolled it with my toe, and the opaque liquid in the shaft sloshed.
It was some kind of syringe. And it was loaded with something that was intended to be shot into me. I picked it up, holding the cold glass gingerly between finger and thumb. The liquid inside was whitish and gleamed in rainbow colors like rave makeup. I slid the little weapon into my hoodie pocket, point down.
The skunk’s eyes were on me as it went on, “Now the sister of Mortal Peg is the Sun Lady’s favorite. And she slipped the grasp of the Snow Lady. Angered her.” His tone dropped from high storytelling to flat viciousness: “The mortal has another sister. At home. All on her owny-own.”
My head lifted, and instead of the dimly lit fey folk in front of me, my mind saw Laura’s back, slender shoulders hiding most of her sleek brown head as she bent into the piano keyboard. I squeezed my eyes shut on the image. She was supposed to be with her teacher, but what if she wasn’t? She might be home alone. She could have gone home in the time I’d been sitting here. Did the creature know something I didn’t? Did he have some way to see her? “Oh. Oh God. I have to go home.”
“Honey, she’s with—” Blossom stopped herself and glanced at the fey skunk. “She’s fine. He’s just fishing, aren’t you, goat?”
“I have to make sure,” I said. I didn’t know where I was, but if I started walking in any direction, surely I’d find a familiar street. I looked around to get my bearings. A gap between two redwoods on the far side of the fire looked like it could lead to a path.
“Not a good idea on your own. The Ice Lady’s little freaks could be all over the place,” Nicky answered, even though I hadn’t spoken to her, and she took a step as if to stop me from moving. “I’ll take you,” she finished.
I did not want that. I didn’t know exactly how I felt about Nicky right now, but I knew I didn’t want to be alone with her.
Coin, the Queen of the Winter Court had called me. That’s all I am to any of these people. An assignment. Something they can use. Just go home and forget about the fey.
Aloud I said, “I’ll take my chances.”
“Don’t. Do you think we can risk you?” Blossom said, shaking her head. Breathy, baby-skin Blossom. I was pretty sure she could kill me with one hand. “And I have to report.” She and Nicky exchanged a look that said We will so talk later.
Nicky faced me, and a look darted across her features that looked like regret, or like she was steeling herself for something that would be hard to endure. She untangled the thin scarf from her neck and dropped it over my shoulders, winding it once. When I tried to stop her, she said, “It’s to keep the spies from spotting you. Any more spies back here. Won’t work for long, so come on.”
And her hand was on the small of my back, and I was stumbling forward into the dark as she pushed me, and then we were on the sidewalk on 43rd Street under an orange streetlight that was brighter than the sun after all that darkness. Where had we been, in those woods? A park I’d never been to? I looked at the familiar landmarks: the Japanese stationery store that sometimes sold Mom’s pottery, Resurrection Bike, the coffee kiosk where the tattoo truck pulled up during school hours. All shuttered now.
“Josy, can I—” Nicky started to say just as I said, “What was up with that skunk thing?”
She smiled a downturning smile that made her look much older. “That was a corn goat. They’re turncoats—they’re not allied with one Court any more than the other. You did right, feeding him. He’ll be more likely to side with us now.”
“Turncoats. I thought he was a raccoon. Or a skunk. But it turned out he was just wearing a skunk coat. Because he’s a corn goat.” Suddenly, everything was hilarious. Being held hostage by killer fairies, half-animal assassins who talked like film noir villains, everything. It must be relief that I was still alive, pure an
d simple. None of this was actually funny.
Nicky smiled the smile again. I met her serious brown eyes and told myself to breathe. “So can I talk to you?” she said. She pointed an army-green shoulder in the direction of Broadway, which was also the direction my house was in. I hoped that was a coincidence. I hadn’t told her where I lived.
I nodded and fell into step beside her. Quick steps. She knew I was in a hurry. I didn’t know what kind of panic would come out of my mouth if I tried to talk, so I stayed quiet.
“First, are you really okay?” Full eyebrows made question marks in her soot-smeared forehead. It was satiny under the dirt. I wondered for the hundredth time how old she really was.
“Nothing wrong with me a hundred dollars won’t fix.” Tough girl. Don’t need you.
“Oh my God, I love Tom Waits.”
I laughed. My guard was slipping. “Okay, that actually makes me like you. And I already—never mind.” Shut up, Josy.
“I like you.” She swung around a light post and stopped in front of me so I had to look at her when she said it. How she looked was vulnerable, like a child, all the quick impishness erased. “Kind of more than I can handle right now. That’s why I want to talk to you. I thought you probably didn’t want to see me tonight, but I had to come.”
She likes me? Oh God. “Yes. I am okay. Despite”—I ticked on my fingers—“almost burning to death. Being kidnapped and almost held prisoner, no, actually held prisoner, by the people who killed my sister. Having my sister get killed in the first place. Being chased by dead—things with creepy candle things. They want to kill me! I am not exactly used to that! Plus making my best friend lie and steal his mom’s car. And Laura being next on the list of people who are going to get killed. All so some fairies can get their stupid battle on. Yeah. We’re fine. How about you don’t help us anymore?”
She’d winced when I started my list. She stuck her hands in her pants pockets now and looked up with a hangdog expression. “Is that all? Because you are safe with us. As safe as we can make you.”
“Yeah, exactly how safe is that after what happened tonight? And no!” My voice rose and echoed in the hard canyon made by the brick library building and the glass-and-steel office tower across the street. I felt droplets of fog cool my open mouth. I was bruised and exhausted, and I wanted to be done with all this drama. Just say it. What do you have to lose? “That’s not it! I’m tired of being jerked around by girls who make me like them. By you. I’m tired of being jerked around by you.” My anger dropped off like a coat, leaving all the hurt bare.
“I’m sorry.” I couldn’t believe how vulnerable she sounded. She didn’t look up from the ground for a long moment, and when she did, her face was serious. “I want to explain.”
“Explain how you used me?” I tried to hold on to my can of whup-ass, but it wasn’t working anymore. I reached out a hand in her direction but then caught myself and stuck it in the pocket of my hoodie on the side that was empty of the syringe. Lint pills comforted my fingertips.
“I was wrong. The Lady did ask me to bring you to her. That much is true. But I—if you could just get how much I—okay, I’m going to stop.” She took in a long drink of air that looked like the way Neil inhaled smoke when he was trying not to cry. “I didn’t know what you would be like. You were Pretty Peg’s sister, that’s all I knew. But then I met you. And I kind of—okay, you were honest, I’ll be honest too. You kind of slayed me.”
“But you don’t even know me.”
Her voice went higher, and stiff, like she was nervous. “I know that you have fierce loyalty to a sister who barely notices you except when her dinner is not on the table. That your mother would leave you alone after your whole family had suffered an inconceivable grief. That your father left you alone years ago. I know that your world-wise friend Neil would take any injury for you. I know, because I listen to the gossip, that your classmates wish they had your gift for language and numbers and the other trivia of high school. And I know that when I’m with you—but I’m no good at that.” She finished her speech like a little boy, hands in her jacket pockets, looking at her boots.
“At what?” We were at the corner of 43rd and Key Street now. My street. I watched my yellow high-tops turn the corner. I didn’t stop them. She’s going to know where I live now. All I’m doing is bringing this fey problem home. Like it’s not already there.
When I looked up, she was in front of me again. I stumbled and rocked on my heels to catch myself. She put her hands out, as if to steady me, and they rested on my upper arms. I glanced down at the long fingers of her hand on my left bicep, the way the blood vessel snaked around the middle knuckle. “At saying what you do to me.”
Oh. I breathed in fog and the cinnamon smell of her hair and wondered why I couldn’t feel my feet. “But you used me.” It came out in a whisper.
“I said I was sorry,” she said. She was searching my face from maybe two inches away. I could feel her breath on my mouth.
“Timothy said you had a girlfriend.”
“Timothy is a lying sack of shit. May the Lady forgive me.”
“What about ‘never give your heart to the fey’?”
“Just an old saying.” Her hands slid up my arms. We were between streetlights, arm’s length from the dense jasmine hedge that hid most of the black Victorian house on the corner from view. The creamy smell of the little white flowers filled my throat. She ran a finger and thumb along my right ear, and I took a shuddering breath to steady myself. She doesn’t have a girlfriend. She likes me. This is where she wants to be.
“How did you know I was at the Winter Queen’s theater place tonight?” I asked.
“Neil tried to follow you. Blossom found him at Tilden Park and sent him home.”
“I hope you people didn’t get him in even more trouble. He was already grounded.”
She shook her head, tugged lightly on a piece of my hair, brushed my collarbone with her fingertips. I felt an electric charge through the thick fabric.
“I have to go home.” I felt confused. I needed to go sort out my feelings before this went any further. I pictured the blinking fluorescent tube over the kitchen sink and the cold metal of the door handle when I would go into the bathroom to run the bathtub taps and drown out the sound of scales. The pile of textbooks next to my laptop and the dirty-dish architecture that must be in the sink. I was going to make banana waffles and write my Spanish essay and IM with Neil. I needed to do something normal. No matter how much my body was telling me to pull Nicky in until there was cinnamon on my tongue.
“Uh-huh. I’m coming with you. Just to the door,” she said. Her hand hooked into my elbow. Oh. Well, maybe I didn’t need to be alone to sort out my feelings. But what if Laura came home after all? I’d have to introduce them. Piano savant sister, meet nonhuman non… what? Girlfriend? She was definitely not my girlfriend. Date? Was there anyone else who dated elves? Besides my sister Margaret, of course. Me and her, we had our own little fetish group of two. I felt a twist of emotion that was missing her and fear about what would happen to me if I got more involved with the fey. Too late. So too late.
“So you know your sister’s okay, right?” Nicky asked. She managed to walk so that her shoulder touched mine, and the zipper on her jacket pinged against my thigh.
“I’ll call her again, but yeah.” I didn’t look at Nicky’s face when I said it. I was afraid of what she’d see on my face: the thought that we were heading to my house together, and there was no one there.
I didn’t slow down when we got to the driveway, just ducked under the wet camellia bush that covered half the front door. Through the big picture window I could see the lamp on in the living room, behind the ancient couch. I was glad Laura had left it on. I was still creeped out. I dug my keys out of my bag and leaned against the sticking dead bolt until it ground open.
“You mind if I look around?” Nicky said, and she was past me into the living room, head raised and sweeping the corners of the room w
ith her eyes.
“Are you, like, my bodyguard now? I thought I had all this magic protection and stuff now.”
“Josy, tell me honestly that you believe your own home is unknown to my winter kin. You have to understand who you are to the Folk. A spy of the Winter Court found you just tonight. He had orders to—”
“I know. I saw.” I put my palms up. I give.
She grinned. One front tooth crossed the other one at the bottom corner. “I should have asked. Your person and your clan are safer than they were from any kind of fey mischief, yes, but it would put my mind at rest to see for myself that your sister remembered to lock the back door.”
“You did ask.” I shrugged my hoodie off and threw it over the back of the couch. I wondered how she knew Laura was so absentminded.
Nicky strode into the kitchen, kneeling at the back door with her hands on both sides of the knob. She bent her head and seemed to be concentrating hard on something I couldn’t see. I watched her straight back disappear into Laura’s bedroom and the bathroom, lights switching briefly on and then off again, and I froze with dread as she headed for my room. But all she did was duck her dark head in, then pull the door closed and turn toward the staircase. “More up there?” she asked.
“No doors up there, but yeah.” Had I made the bed? I did a frantic mental inventory of what was displayed on the shower rod. I remembered at least one hideous off-white bra with the lace all pilly and gray. As soon as Nicky had taken most of the stairs—two at a time—I dove for the bathroom.
There was a Post-it shaped like a pot of gold stuck to the middle of the mirror. A rainbow framed the top, and the blue sky was filled with thick pencil handwriting: I’m at rehearsal. L. Was it possible that I had left the house earlier tonight without going into the bathroom? I felt like an idiot. I texted Laura: yr still there right?
I pushed open the door to my room and stuffed the laundry that was on the dresser under the bed. A drift of crumpled mail and hair ties crested up against the puppet theater. I swept it all into the top drawer and skidded my palm across the remaining dust, but that only accentuated the sticky coffee ring.
