by Beth Bracken
“She isn’t a witch,” I say, as bravely as I can. “She’s a nurse.”
Queen Calandra laughs. “Right,” she says. “A nurse.”
“She is!” I say. “She helps deliver babies and she takes care of sick kids.”
The queen’s face grows dark. Her eyes narrow. “I bet she takes care of kids,” she says. “After all, she stole mine.”
I can’t help it. I glance up at the oil painting above the sofa.
The baby nestled in the queen’s arms, like a blossom in its bud.
“Is—is that your baby?” I ask.
“Yes,” the queen says. Then she laughs, an angry little laugh. “Or she was, anyway. Until your mother took her.”
Then she tells me the story.
Soli
Night is falling again.
Kheelan and I follow Motherbird through the forest toward Black Lake.
I know this isn’t my forest, really, but I can’t shake the feeling that I know it.
Like a place I visited in a dream.
“This way,” Motherbird says, lifting a branch so that we can pass underneath it.
It’s the first time she’s spoken to me since we were in her tent. When she told me the Dark Crown belonged to me.
I tried to get her to explain, but she wouldn’t.
I can’t decide if she’s crazy.
Maybe everyone here is.
Maybe I am.
Only I know I’m not.
As we walk, I finally have time to ask Kheelan some of the things I’ve been wondering about.
Like: why didn’t the queen just get the Dark Crown for herself?
Why do I have to go and get it?
“She can’t,” he says. “They put a spell on it and buried it deep.” He glances at me and adds, “And it’s not hers, anyway.”
I shudder. I haven’t told him what Motherbird said, that the crown is mine.
He’ll think I’m crazy, or that she is.
“Whose is it?” I ask, trying to act casual.
“You don’t know any of our history?” he asks.
Around us, the woods grow more open. I hear water, the rushing of a nearby river.
We must be getting close.
“No,” I say. “How would I? I mean, until yesterday—” I pause, trying to count the days since I wished Lucy away—“or the day before, I guess, I didn’t even believe in faeries.”
“Really?” Kheelan says, smiling. “Do you now?”
I laugh. “I think so,” I say.
Then I surprise myself.
I reach out and touch his hand.
His skin is warm, and it sends a delicious shiver through me.
He meets my eyes. “Real?” he asks in a low voice.
“Yes,” I say.
Then we are quiet for a while.
Lucy
Here is the story the willow queen tells me.
Once there was a kingdom. It was healthy and happy. The people who lived there were joyful. Things went wrong sometimes, but they solved their problems.
The queen of the kingdom had a baby, and the kingdom was full of joy.
It was a beautiful baby girl. They named her Hope.
Then the king died. It was terribly sad. Unexpected. He had been a good king. He made the kingdom a good place to live. Everyone mourned him.
The queen didn’t have time to cry. The kingdom needed a leader. She was the only one who could do it.
But some people in the kingdom—traitors—hated her. They wanted her power, or were jealous of it. They, with the help of the Ladybirds—outcasts who had left the kingdom generations ago—built up an army. And one night they came to the queen and they came into her rooms and they took the thing she loved the most. Her child. Her Hope. They stole the most valuable things the queen owned. The Dark Crown, and the royal seal.
They took the Dark Crown and buried it at the bottom of Black Lake. They tricked a human into diving down to hide it, because faeries can’t swim. They knew the queen would never be able to retrieve the crown in its deep hiding spot.
And they took the baby and gave her to a witch, and they gave the witch a necklace. The royal seal was chained to it with faeriegold, which can’t melt or burn or be broken by anyone but its owner. But the queen needed the royal seal and the Dark Crown. She needed them to restore the kingdom to power.
The queen, separated from her darling child, became so sad in her soul that she could barely move. The kingdom crumbled around her. The rest of the people, saddened by the sight of the queen’s unhappiness, became unhappy themselves. Everyone knew that all the queen needed was the Dark Crown and the royal seal. And her daughter. Then the kingdom would bloom again, would become the place it was meant to be, the place it had been before the king left it.
That is the story she tells me. And I know without being told that some of it must be a lie.
Lucy
I’m starting to think we’ll never reach the Black Lake.
Then, finally, we climb a small, grassy hill and pick our way through a stand of trees.
Beyond it is water.
“The Black Lake,” Motherbird says. “And your crown is beneath the water.”
Kheelan looks at me.
“Your crown?” he says, confusion darkening his face.
“That’s right,” Motherbird tells him. Then she looks at me and adds, “And you must be the one to retrieve it.”
I look at the lake. It is black and churning.
I look back at Motherbird, but she is gone.
Kheelan shrugs. “The birds,” he says. “They disappear.”
I look at Black Lake again. “Am I supposed to just wear my clothes?” I ask.
“Do you have any choice?” Kheelan asks.
I open my backpack. Maybe there’s a t-shirt in there, or a scarf, anything.
But no, there isn’t.
Just a jar of fireflies.
I clasp the jar to my chest, wishing.
My wish is simple: Help me.
I open the jar and the lightning bugs swarm out.
I expect them to lead me somewhere, but instead they move together.
“They’re weaving something,” Kheelan says. He doesn’t seem surprised.
After a moment, the fireflies disappear.
The jar is empty again.
And at my feet lies a thick, warm towel.
Without thinking, I dive deep into the water.
Lucy
Back in my cell.
I’ve lost track of what time it is. I keep thinking about the queen’s story. The dead king. The witch who is my mother. The stolen baby. Who is Soli, or is me. I need to know the real story.
And then, as if an answer, the door to my cell opens and a faerie girl is shoved inside.
“I’ll never tell!” she screams at the slamming door.
A key turns in a lock and we are alone.
The girl turns to me.
“Who are you?” she asks. She doesn’t seem angry anymore, but her face is flushed.
“Um. I’m Lucy,” I say.
She looks me up and down. “You’re not from here,” she says. “You’re not one of us.” Then she laughs.
“Why is that funny?” I ask.
The girl shrugs. “Because what does that mean, really,” she says. “One of us. Who are we? You know?”
“The faeries?” I suggest.
“I suppose,” she says. “But beyond that.”
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Caro,” she says. “Caro, the Betrayer.”
“Who did you betray?” I ask.
“The kingdom, I suppose,” she says. “The queen. You, if you’re on her side.”
“I don’t even know what the sides are,” I admit
. “I don’t trust the queen, but I don’t know any other side of the story.”
“You really aren’t from around here, are you,” Caro says, shaking her head. Her hair floats around her shoulders. It’s light, like mine.
“No,” I say, studying her. She’s reminding me of my mother. How strange.
“You’re human, right?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“How did you get here?” she asks.
I tell her the story—or most of it, anyway. I don’t know her, and I don’t know who to trust. Even a girl who reminds me of my mother, of myself.
When I’m done telling the story of traveling into faerieground, Caro bends closer to me, looking at my eyes. “How do you feel?” she asks.
“Fine,” I say. “Besides the fact that I’m trapped in some creepy castle and sleeping on the floor of a stone dungeon and my best friend is out there looking for a crown in a lake.”
She laughs. “Fair enough,” she says. “How long have you been here?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. I try to count hours. “Two days? Three?”
“Do you think Calandra will let you go soon?”
I shrug. “I hope so,” I say. I rub my eyes, which feel tired and sandy. “It’s not exactly, like, a Holiday Inn.” I laugh, but Caro’s face stays blank, so I explain, “I don’t want to stay here any longer than I have to.”
“I can understand that,” she says.
“Will you tell me the other side of the queen’s story?” I ask. I bite my lip. She’s my only chance to find out the truth.
Caro leans against the stone wall. Then she tells me.
Soli
The water is cold. The water is hot.
The water is hard.
The water is soft.
I can’t breathe. My arms and legs ache.
It’s hard to get down to the bottom. It’s hard to push through the water.
Beneath the water, far, far down, there is a metal box.
And inside the metal box there is a wooden box.
And inside the wooden box there is a velvet bag.
And inside the velvet bag there is a crown.
Lucy
Here is the story Caro tells me.
Once there was a kingdom built in a forest of willow trees. It was healthy and happy, though not perfect. Sometimes things went wrong. But problems were solved.
The king of the kingdom was lonely. Until he met a woman. Her name was Calandra. She was passing through the kingdom. No one knew where she was from or where she was going.
The willow king fell in love with her. They married. And right away, the kingdom changed.
Things began to go wrong. Problems couldn’t be solved. The king seemed to disappear. The queen was cruel.
When the queen had a baby, there was hope in the kingdom. Perhaps the queen would learn to be kind. Perhaps the baby would bring life back to the kingdom.
Then the king died. He had never been sick, as far as anyone knew. There was no accident.
But that is a different story.
Once the king was gone, the queen was the only one in charge of the kingdom. Things went terribly wrong. She waged war on friends nearby. She took too much from everyone. People went hungry. People died. The people who tried to help her to see how things were falling apart—those people disappeared. Or they left. They joined a group of the oldest faeries, the Ladybirds, and they built an army.
And one night, the army put their plan into action. They would save the kingdom, finally, by removing the princess.
So they came into Queen Calandra’s rooms and took the baby and brought her out of the faerieground where she would be safe. They gave her to a woman who could protect her. And that woman found a family where the baby could hide. Then the only thing keeping the queen in power were the royal emblems. The Dark Crown, and the royal seal. They took the crown and sank it at the bottom of Black Lake. And they gave the seal to the woman protecting the baby. It would keep the baby safer. It was her birthright. It did not belong to the queen.
After that, the queen stayed in power. The Ladybirds and their army had done all they could. The faeries left in the kingdom needed to overthrow the queen, and to do that, they needed the princess. And the princess was just a baby. They needed to wait.
But the queen wanted the baby back. She knew that in order to stay in power, she needed to get her daughter on her side. Or the queen needed to kill her.
The kingdom crumbled around the willow queen, but she was still in control.
And once the princess returned, the queen would have all the power there was. She would retrieve the crown and the seal.
Everything would be in place.
So Queen Calandra waited. She waited for the daughter to get old enough to be angry.
This is the story Caro tells me. This time I believe each word.
Soli
I am soaking wet when I climb out of the water.
Kheelan wraps my firefly towel around me.
He holds me close.
The towel dries me quickly and then dissolves.
“We should hurry,” Kheelan says, looking up at the sky.
The light is fading. We only have until tomorrow morning at sunrise.
“Thank you,” I say.
He smiles. “For what?” he asks.
“For helping me. For coming along.”
He reaches out and smoothes my hair. “Of course, princess,” he says.
Then he kisses me.
Then we run.
Lucy
“The queen’s story was different,” I tell Caro.
“Of course it was,” Caro says. She’s dug a bit of chocolate out of her pocket, and we’re sharing it. “That’s how she works.”
“I have a question,” I admit, breaking off a tiny square of the sweet, dark bar. “Why’d they put the crown under the lake? She said it was because faeries couldn’t swim. Is that true?”
Caro laughs, a short, angry laugh. “No,” she says. “It isn’t true. You have to have a little faerie blood to enter the Black Lake.”
I stop eating. I look at her. “What?” I ask.
“You have to have faerie blood. Otherwise the lake drowns you.”
“I don’t understand,” I say.
“The queen,” she explains. “She’s not faerie. She’s human. That’s why she can’t leave. Because she’d never be able to return. That’s why they hid the crown. Because it was the only thing giving her power.”
“Then why isn’t she just overthrown?” I ask, confused.
Caro shrugs, swallows the last bite of chocolate. “She’s tricked everyone,” she says. “They’re under her spell. She’s a witch.”
“She said my mother was a witch,” I mutter.
Caro’s head snaps up. “Your mother knows her?” she asks.
“I guess so,” I say. “That’s what my mom told me, anyway.”
“What’s her name?”
“Andria,” I say.
Caro shakes her head. “I don’t know the name,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not true, what your mother said. How does she know Queen Calandra?”
I trace my finger through the dust on the stone floor. “My mother doesn’t really talk about it. She told me once, a long time ago, that she angered the queen. And the queen said that they gave the baby to my mother. So I guess that’s how she made the queen mad.”
“What did your mother do with the baby?” Caro asks.
I shrug. “I don’t know,” I say. “I assumed that part of the story wasn’t true.”
Caro stands, her face a picture of shock. “No. I think it is true,” she says. “You’re the baby. You’re Hope. You’re the princess.”
Soli
Kheelan and I run.
The whole time
we run, a red-hot rose blooms in my chest.
Its roots spread into my arms and legs.
The feeling of Kheelan’s lips on mine.
Soon, the palace rises up in front of us. It is almost dawn.
Guards find us as soon as we enter the palace grounds. They snap us into chains and lead us to the throne room.
The queen sweeps in, eyes red.
She looks tired.
She looks angry.
She stares at me. “Where is it?” she asks.
Not asks.
Demands.
The chains binding my arms disappear.
The queen crosses her arms.
“Give me the crown,” she says. “Now. Then you can see your friend.”
I open my backpack. The velvet bag is inside.
“Wait,” Kheelan whispers. “Make sure you get what you want first.”
I zip up my bag again. “Where is Lucy?” I ask.
“Give me the crown,” the queen says.
I am afraid, but I try not to show it.
The warmth of Kheelan’s body next to mine gives me strength.
Or maybe it’s my own strength.
“No,” I say. The chains snap back onto my wrists.
“No?” the queen roars. “No?”
“No,” I say again, my voice shaking. “Bring me my friend. Bring Lucy here.”
Queen Calandra rolls her eyes. “Fine,” she says. She points at one of the guards and says, “Bring me the girl.”
The guard looks at me quickly, and I swear he winks. Then he’s gone.
Queen Calandra taps her foot while we wait. “I suppose you saw the crazy loons,” she says to Kheelan. “I’m sure they filled your heads with more nonsense.”
Kheelan stands straight. “Not nonsense,” he says. “But they filled our heads, yes. They led us to the lake. They told Soli what she was looking for and they told her who it belongs to.”
Then the queen’s eyes narrow.
She looks afraid. But she shakes it off.
