by Anna Sheehan
‘Don’t thank me, just run,’ the kit said, grabbing me by the sleeve. ‘They just set the building on fire.’ I looked up. Sure enough, smoke was wafting from the front facade. I hoped everyone had either escaped or been arrested, because the club was so dilapidated it was sure to collapse in on itself. ‘Good!’ I said. ‘Can you make it bigger?’
She frowned. ‘I can make it look bigger. Why?’
‘Distraction. If they’re all busy fighting the fire they started, they won’t have time to chase us.’
The kit shrugged and threw her hands at the flames. The flickering orange flames and the black smoke was quickly joined by a series of glowing white fires that took up artfully on the houses surrounding the club. She laughed wickedly as the false flames took.
We ran off together away from the burning club.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked when we were sufficiently far away to no longer draw suspicion.
‘You may not have any foresight, but our ma does,’ the kit said.
‘I thought she lost it when Da left.’
‘No. She just didn’t want to admit that he wasn’t ever coming back. She saw you die about an hour ago, told me to go and stop it.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Die? Really die?’
‘She seemed to think so.’
‘It was just a crossbow bolt through the shoulder. Junco patched me up.’
‘Junco Winnowinn?’
‘Yeah. I’ll be half frozen for the next two days, thanks to him.’ And also alive.
‘She didn’t say you were shot,’ the kit said. ‘She said you died.’
I ran my tongue over my teeth, considering this. ‘I’m alive,’ I finally said. There didn’t seem to be anything else to say on the subject, but the prediction made me nervous. ‘What made you think of the goat’s hair?’
‘All I could find between our burrow and the club.’
I let the matted piece of hair fall. Goat hair didn’t bind as well as wool, but it would work once. ‘It did the trick. Thanks. You go tell our ma I’m all right.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘I have a promise to keep, remember?’
‘But you’re bleeding.’
‘Not any more. I’m fine.’ I kissed her forehead and left the road, taking the fastest route to the enchanted forest.
I entered from the south-west, a good two miles from where our burrow was. The snow was thin on the ground beneath the trees, and the stillness was unnerving. Unlike my little corner of the forest, there were no winter birds, and the tree tops were too far above for the wind to sing through them.
I had always felt the trees watching me, listening to me. I could only hope that Junco was right. I walked quickly through the forest. ‘Mistress Cait!’ I called. ‘I’m calling on you!’ I kept calling out for more than an hour. Suddenly I laughed. This was useless. My only consolation was that there wasn’t anyone else around me to see me act the fool. The forest was just as uninviting as ever. I was hung up on briars, caught in snow drifts, confused by eerie sounds and generally led astray by every possible method. ‘Mistress Cait! I’m calling on you on behalf of the princess of Lyndaria!’ Nothing. The winter forest didn’t even seem to be listening, by now.
‘Damn you,’ I muttered. ‘I risk my life for that thrice-blasted princess, and what am I to get in return? Not even her gratitude, I’ll bet. If she hadn’t offered me the books, I’d never have done it. Waltzing up to my burrow, dreadful as it is, presuming I’d risk myself for her. What’s she got to worry about, up in her pristine tower? She’s got food and fires. She knows who she is. Princess Willow Lyndal, second in line to the throne of Lyndaria. Presuming my spell is ever broken and she isn’t the heir presumptive. She certainly has all the qualities of a princess. But here I am, I promised to find you for the princess of Lyndaria, and I have no idea why the hell I’m doing this, because I’m the one who caused the damned sleep in the first place. I’m standing on my own in the middle of an empty forest talking to TREES!’ I slipped and landed face down in the snow. I growled with frustration. ‘Damn you, witch!’ I yelled. ‘Why couldn’t you have a front door to knock on like anyone else!’
You know, said a voice from the trees, just because we let you pass through the forest doesn’t mean you can insult me at will.
I surged to my feet. ‘Mistress Cait?’ It hadn’t quite sounded like a real voice. It was a clicking whisper of the wind through the barren winter forest. ‘Mistress Caital, was that you?’
In a manner of speaking, whispered the trees.
‘You must have known I was in your forest,’ I said. ‘Why haven’t you spoken earlier?’
You haven’t told us what you wanted until now.
‘I’m here on behalf of—’
This is only an echo, said the trees. Your true message must be relayed in person. I cannot truly hear you.
I looked about me. The forest all looked alike. ‘Where are you? Which direction?’
My tower is in the centre of the forest.
‘Where is that?’ I asked. I’d gotten completely turned around as the trees shifted about me.
Follow my wolf. She will lead you.
I looked about me. A slim grey wolf stepped out from the shadow of the tree. She shone in the dark forest as if she stood in bright sunlight, like a faerie. One who wasn’t Nameless, anyway. I liked her. ‘Hello,’ I said. I held my hand out for her to smell. She sniffed it for a moment, and then she bit me. I yelped, snatching my hand back. A few drops of blood spilled onto the snow. ‘Guess I know better than to pet a wolf,’ I said, no longer liking her in the least. ‘Lead the way, she said.’
The wolf looked over her bony shoulder and loped off.
I was hard pressed to keep her in sight as I followed, despite her shining. She ran like the wind itself, dashed and wove between the trees. Half the time she left no footprints at all, and even running as fast as a faerie can run, her four legs were faster than my mere two. I’d wanted to try and mark the trees, or at least the direction of the sun, but we seemed to be going in twists and spirals, as if I was being spun into the centre of the forest.
We came upon the tower so suddenly that I almost ran past it. It stood all by itself, with no garden or ruins to mark it. It looked very much like the immense trees we were running past, but I realized it was made of greyish brown stone instead of greyish brown wood, and it had no branches. It towered above me, and I blinked at it. At first I thought there was no door, but the wolf snapped at my ankle, and I sidled away from her against the wall of the tower. The moment I touched the wall it moved beneath my weight, and warm firelight touched my shadowed hand. I poked my head inside, knowing already that in this bright room my darkness would stick out like ink on blotting paper.
The wolf, however, did not share my worries and harried me inside the chamber. Quite deliberately, she leaned on the door after I entered, closing it behind us. The room was filled with plants and vines, some of them dried for winter, but most of them alive and writhing. Even the furniture seemed to be made of living plants. Stunted trees that were shaped like low benches, climbing vines that held lamps and lanterns, a flowering shrub that held a round tabletop. Apart from the plants, everything was in disarray. Dead bouquets lay dustily in the corner, and half-empty teacups still teetered precariously on the edges of shelves or collected mould beneath the benches.
All of this disarray was punctuated by the figure that must have been Mistress Cait herself. The faerie woman was tall, taller than me, but willowy. Her wings were small in comparison, and a deep moss green. Her hair was green and brown, and at the moment there were dead sticks in it. I frowned at those sticks. No, those weren’t dead. They were dormant. Cait actually had vines as part of her hair, and they were leafless now, for winter. Her skin was brown and soft, like earth, and her eyes were the bright green of new leaves. They didn’t quite focus on me as she said, ‘Ah. I was wondering when you’d make your way here. Taken you at least fifty years longer than I would
have thought. Care for some tea?’
I blinked. ‘Tea?’
‘Yes. Tea. It’s a hot drink. I make it from dried leaves boiled in water.’
‘I know what tea is,’ I said angrily.
‘Oh, you do?’ She looked almost disappointed. ‘Well, I have some ready here. Let me get it for you.’ She went to a hedge on the wall and tapped it a few times. It moved and writhed, and slowly, from somewhere deep in its depths, pulled out two teacups and a steaming teapot. Then, without any further instruction, it began to lay the tea things out on the table. Within a few minutes the shrubbery table was laid with an elegant tea, complete with tablecloth and tea cakes. Mistress Cait gestured for me to sit down, but the hedge wasn’t finished yet. It pulled out crumpets and jam and a set of linen napkins. ‘That’s enough,’ Cait muttered. The hedge dragged a candelabrum from its innards and set it in the middle of the table, and was just reaching for the fire to light it when Cait slapped it. ‘You’ll set the house on fire again!’ she told it, and the tendrils retreated quietly back into the hedge. ‘You’ll have to forgive her. We haven’t had guests in over a decade. She does so love to show off!’
‘Her?’ I asked.
‘My honeysuckle. She makes an excellent serving maid, though she’s not as good at clearing as she is at setting.’ She perched on what I had thought was a dead stump, which promptly grew roots the moment she sat on it and pulled her deftly up to the table.
I sat gingerly on what I hoped was a non-mobile low-trained tree limb, at just the right height for a bench. ‘You were expecting me?’ I asked.
‘Of course. For years, now. I’ve always wondered why you hadn’t come. When you came to live in my forest I thought, surely now he’ll come to see his hostess, but no. Not once.’
‘I’ve been looking for you nonstop for the last two weeks,’ I said.
‘No you haven’t,’ she said. ‘You were wandering through my forest, disturbing my trees, stirring up my leafmould, but you weren’t coming to see me.’
‘Yes, I was,’ I said. ‘I’d been sent to get you by—’
She cut me off. ‘You were sent?’ She glared at the wolf for some reason. ‘You didn’t come on your own?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Was I supposed to have?’
Cait sighed and set down her teacup. ‘Sad, really. Ah well, can’t be helped. So, why did you come again? I forgot.’
‘I haven’t told you yet.’
‘Oh.’ She looked down at the wolf. ‘So I didn’t forget.’
The wolf turned her back on her and slunk up the stairs.
‘Poor Ylva,’ said Cait. ‘She never will forgive me. So, you were saying?’
‘I’ve been hired to find you by Princess Willow Lyndal,’ I said.
‘Hired? She hired you?’ Mistress Cait laughed until she spilled her tea. ‘Oh, this is bound to be interesting! Why did you agree to this?’
‘She offered me something valuable in exchange,’ I said. ‘She needs me to give you a message.’
‘And that is?’
‘They need you at the palace at once,’ I said.
‘No they don’t. I can’t do anything for them.’
I blinked. ‘You already know?’
‘Know what?’
‘You know that you can’t help?’
‘Can’t help with what?’
I sighed. It was like talking to an imbecile. ‘Princess Willow sent me because they need you at the palace to break a Sleep spell which has ensnared the princess.’
‘Will?’
‘No, not her. The other one.’
‘Oh, Lavender.’ Mistress Cait laughed. It sounded like the tinkling of bells. ‘Of course she’s gotten herself into trouble.’ She eyed me curiously. ‘But why did you come to give me this message?’
‘Because the princess thought I could do it.’
‘But why did you not refuse?’
‘I told you, she offered—’
‘Something valuable, so you said,’ Mistress Cait said. ‘But as valuable as what you’ll lose should I do as she asks?’
I was confused. ‘What do I lose?’
She tilted her head at me. ‘What do you have to lose?’
I scoffed. ‘Nothing.’
‘Exactly,’ she said, with a tone of triumph.
Somehow I thought I was missing at least one element of this conversation. I tried again. ‘I was told to give you a message. You’re needed at the palace.’
‘By who?’ she asked.
I felt like I was going to scream. ‘By Princess Willow!’ I barked.
‘Oh, she’d have to ask me that herself,’ said Mistress Cait. She turned back to her tea and pulled a crumb cake off the tray. ‘Ylva! Come back down! He’s your guest as much as mine.’
‘Buff,’ came a canine voice from the stairs.
‘Oh, come now. Don’t you feel just a little ashamed of yourself?’
With an angry snarl the wolf launched herself back down the stairs and began barking at Mistress Cait. Cait raised an eyebrow once or twice, but otherwise ignored the barrage of angry barks.
‘I was trying to help,’ Cait said when the barks finally ceased.
A low growl was the reply.
‘Please yourself,’ Cait said. ‘But I’d want to get to know him.’
The wolf walked up to me and sniffed me. I narrowed my eyes at her. She bared her teeth. I growled. So did she.
‘So much for that,’ Cait said with a somewhat wistful sigh. She stood up. ‘You go and get Will and bring her here,’ she said. She pushed an empty canvas bag at me. ‘Take this to your mother and sister.’
I frowned at her. ‘How do you know …?’
‘I know all about you.’ She smiled. ‘You’re living on my land. But I knew you even before that. I’m sure the kitling is hungry. Take this to her. And don’t go wandering my forest unless you have the princess with you. She’s the only one who can do anything, anyway.’
I clutched the bag. ‘What in Light are you talking about?’
Mistress Cait sighed. ‘This conversation is getting us nowhere,’ she said, which I rather thought was my line. ‘You go and get the princess and bring her here. Everything should come out all right by then.’
‘Why can’t you just come with me to the palace?’
Cait laughed her bell-like laugh. ‘Oh, that wouldn’t do at all! Truly my Nameless little fox faerie, I know it goes against your nature, not to mention your principles, but you really ought to try and do as you’re told, at least once.’ She took me by the shoulders and pushed me out the door. ‘That way,’ she said, pointing to my left. I looked to the left, and then turned, ready to demand that she explain herself. But this was her forest, and her tower was already out of sight. I sighed. If I’d still had my spindle, I could have woven a path for myself back to her, but it would have been a strain.
Fine. I guessed the only way to solve this mystery, and fulfil my promise to the kit, was to go and get Princess Willow. Very well. I set off in a direction, trusting to Caital’s magics to lead me back to my burrow. My instincts served me well. In far less time than it had taken to get to Mistress Cait’s tower, I tripped on a snow-shrouded root and found myself thrown almost violently into the spider glade.
I went back to the burrow, where I found my mother outside in the cold, trying to add to the pitiful stack of deadwood we used for our fire. She looked up at me with profound relief the moment I came into sight. ‘Oh, praise the Light! I thought I’d lost you!’ She ran forward and hugged me.
I grunted. She’d pressed on my icy wound. I’d almost forgotten the thing, but the pressure reminded me with a vengeance. ‘I’m well enough, leave off,’ I muttered, pushing her away. ‘Didn’t the kit tell you I was fine?’ Then I realized I was being rude. ‘Thanks for sending her. She saved my hide.’
‘She told me you were injured.’ She pounced on my bloodstained shoulder.
‘I said leave off. It was just a crossbow bolt. I’ve lived through worse.’
> ‘I’ve barely dragged you through worse,’ my ma reminded me.
‘Well, Junco Winnowinn’s patched it with an icicle, or something of the kind.’
My ma insisted she be told every detail of the raid at the club, and I told her what I wished to. I was a bit ashamed of myself for wasting my chance at escape by saving the whore, so I left that bit out.
‘And Winnowinn helped you? Oh, that’s a good sign.’
I frowned. ‘A good sign of what?’
‘Maybe they’ll accept us back into society, dear. I’d love to see another Light ceremony before I pass on.’
‘Not in a hundred years,’ I muttered.
She looked at me frankly. ‘We both know I might not have that much time,’ she said.
I searched her face. She was looking old. ‘Let me make you a spindle,’ I pleaded, not for the first time. ‘Just a little one.’
‘I can’t take the risk, dear heart. Someone needs to be here for your sister, and with you putting yourself in harm’s way all the time …’
‘I only do it because you won’t!’ I snapped. ‘What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you fight?’
My ma blinked at me. ‘Why do you fight all time?’ she asked. She sighed. There were new lines on her face, come since my Sleep had come over the palace.
‘I’m sorry, my ma,’ I heard myself say, and was surprised that it wasn’t a lie.
‘Brother!’ The kit slid out of the burrow to wrap me in a hug herself. She stepped back almost instantly. ‘What’s that?’
I glanced down at the empty canvas bag. ‘Something Cait pressed on me as I was leaving. Don’t know why. It’s empty.’
‘Mistress Cait? You found her?’
‘Aye.’
The kit had taken the bag from my shoulder and opened it. ‘By the Light!’ she breathed. She pulled out a roast chicken on a wooden plate, surrounded by carrots and buttery turnips, still steaming. ‘She gave you a faerie gift!’
