Everafter Song

by Emily R. King

  “They’re supposed to be good wrapped in bread and dipped in

  butter.”

  Emily R. King

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “Read it in one of Great-Grandmother’s cookbooks.”

  I try very hard not to tremble.

  Corentine’s voice comes closer. “Do you hear that?” Her sour, hot

  breaths stream over me. “It sounds like she’s ticking. Let’s wake her up.”

  A loud blare goes off close to my ear. I shoot up so fast I fall off the sofa and hit the floor. I moan, the pain in my side sharper.

  “Poor thing,” says Mistral. “She isn’t well.”

  “She doesn’t look very bright. Humans are fribbles, the whole lot of them. She probably doesn’t even understand what we’re saying. Imagine being afraid of an ophicleide.” Corentine sets her brass instrument on its stand. Behind the ophicleide, the wall is lined with carnyxes. The last time I saw the long, narrow battle horns was aboard Captain Redmond’s ship.

  Mistral waves a little. “Hello, human woman. We’re the Esen sis-

  ters. I’m Mistral, and that’s my older sister, Corentine.”

  The Esen sisters are tall, nearly twice my height, and sturdy limbed.

  Broad shoulders and hips balance out their girth. Gray streaks lighten their otherwise muddy-brown hair, and wrinkles surround their small

  eyes and lips. They have the same droopy noses and ears as Neely but longer eyelashes. They wear serviceable wool frocks and aprons that

  are extremely well constructed, the lines of stitching perfectly straight.

  Corentine pushes her sister out of the way to loom over me. “Who

  are you? How did you get into our world? Why are you here?”

  “You’re scaring her, Corentine.” Mistral grabs the back of my shirt

  and picks me up, setting me on my feet. “Can you understand us, wee

  one?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “See?” says Mistral. “She’s not a fribble.”

  Corentine harrumphs.

  “Where’s my sword?” I stammer.

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  “Hidden.” Corentine crosses her arms over her chest, her expression

  locked in a perpetual sneer. “What’s your name?”

  “Everley Donovan. I’m a friend of Neely’s.” The giantesses go still

  except for their widening eyes. “We met in the Land Under the Wave.

  He told me where to find you.”

  “Is our brother here with you?” Mistral breathes.

  “He was. I don’t know where he is now. The elven guard captured

  him.”

  Corentine mashes her lips into a line. “There are elves in our world?

  Why would they take our brother?”

  “They came for their wayward prince. He planted a skyseed in my

  world, the Land of the Living, and climbed the skystalk here. The elven queen sent the guard to bring him home. I’m looking for the prince too.

  Neely was helping me find him.”

  The soup pot boils over onto the fire. Hissing noises commence,

  and smoke streams from the hearth. Mistral bustles over to lift the pot off the heat and sets it on the table. I’m held in place by Corentine’s scowl. The giantesses’ home is clean and organized, the draperies and rugs faded and worn. The layout is the same as our cottages back home, with the shared living space in the middle. A candle clock hangs on

  the wall. I’ve only ever read about them. A candle burns down, sup-

  posedly at a steady rate that denotes a reliable passage of time but is, in fact, wildly inaccurate, like water clocks. The candle clock’s presence is oddly ancient considering the large, complex pistol on the table and the intriguing contraption on a table in the corner. A bobbin of thread sits on top of the metal machine. A wheel is attached on the closed side, and the top extends over the bottom with a needle set at the lowest point.

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  “A sewing machine,” Corentine replies abruptly, as though I’m daft

  for not knowing. “Why is the elven prince in our world?”

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  “His name is Killian Markham. A glamour charm makes him

  appear human. He’s been in your world for about three days. Has a

  man been sighted?”

  “No,” replies Mistral, sprinkling chopped parsley over the soup.

  “We’re at the textile factory in the city all day. We would’ve heard if a human had been seen. After nearly nine hundred years, that would be

  tremendous news.”

  “The prince is looking for a luthier called the Bard,” I say. Both

  sisters look at me blankly. “Maybe your father has heard of him?”

  Mistral wipes her hands off on her apron. “Our father passed away

  fifteen years ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” I reply quietly.

  “After he died,” Mistral says, “we sold all his mechanic tools and

  took in grain to grind in our mill. Barely made enough coin to survive.

  A couple years ago, the railroad was built out here, so we closed the mill and took jobs at the city factory.”

  “Railroad?” I ask.

  “You have trains in your world, don’t you?” Corentine asks.

  “I can’t say we do.” The Realm of Wyeth is the most advanced of

  the four realms in my world, and I’ve never heard of them. I gesture at the odd pistol. “I have a friend who’s fond of firearms. She’d be curious about that one.”

  “This is a six-shot revolver.” Corentine picks up the pistol, spins

  the barrel, and locks it into place. “They’re the newest firearms on the market. I bought it from the gunsmith factory. They gave me a discount because the stock is dented, but that doesn’t affect its firing.”

  “Railroad.” “Train.” “Revolver.” “Factory.” I know none of this

  strangeness.

  Mistral leaves the soup to cool and picks up knitting needles. She

  sits at the table with her yarn. “What are the worlds saying about us giants, dearie? Is there any plan for reopening our portals?”

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  I sense this isn’t an offhand question, so I answer carefully. “Humans don’t remember the triad war.”

  Corentine sets down her pistol. “What do they say about giants?”

  “Very little. As you seem to know, it’s been nine hundred years since the war ended. What little we recall has been put into storybooks.”

  “You hear that, Sister?” Corentine asks snidely. “We’ve been reduced to children’s tales.”

  Mistral’s knitting needles pause and then click faster.

  Corentine saunters over to me, her slow steps pronounced. “We,

  too, were taught about your kind from childhood. Our elders tell of

  greedy, compassionless giant slayers who stole the land of our inheritance.” The giantess hunches over me. “I hear ticking again. Are you carrying a timepiece on you?”

  “No.”

  “I hear it too,” Mistral says, setting her knitting in her lap.

  Corentine grabs my arm so fast I’ve no hope of escape. She holds

  me while Mistral pats me down. The giantess feels the hard glass over my ticker and tears open the top of my shirt.

  “What is that?” Corentine gasps.

  “My heart.”

  “That isn’t a heart, that’s a clock.” She leans away in repulsion.

  “Clocks aren’t permitted in the Silver-Clouded Plain. They’re talismans of he who betrayed us to the Creator.”

  Jamison’s contract with the sea hag falls out of my breast pocket.

  Corentine holds me at gunpoint while Mistral scoops up the paper. I

  hope she cannot read, but to no avail.

  “Who’s Jamison Callahan, and what’
s a sea hag?” Mistral asks.

  I refuse to respond.

  Mistral passes the paper to Corentine. She tucks the contract in her pocket and nods at her sister. Mistral picks me up by the back of my shirt and places me on a chair.

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  “Friend of our brother’s or not,” says Corentine, “we cannot let a

  human wander around our world. It would be bedlam.”

  My feet hang over the floor as they tie me to the chair. I saw this

  once in a storybook. The giants mean to prop the chair over the fire and roast me. “Please don’t do this. You don’t want to eat me. You’re right.

  I’m bony and tasteless.”

  “Eat you?” Corentine makes a face. “I’d rather eat a basket of

  artichokes.”

  Mistral appears wounded. “I like artichokes.”

  “Listen to me,” I say. “I have to find the Bard before the prince

  does. You cannot hold me captive. The elven guard might come here

  looking for me.”

  “Really?” asks Mistral. “We could ask them to return our brother.”

  “Or we could trade the human for him,” Corentine says. The sisters

  wear the same shrewd grin. “Let’s put her in there. I cannot stand that obnoxious ticking.”

  Corentine gags me, and then Mistral sets me in the closet. I struggle against my bindings and mumble against my gag. Mistral pauses in the open doorway, her eyes marked with sympathy. Corentine wrenches the

  door from her sister’s grasp and slams it shut.

  The closet door swings open, and morning sunlight strikes me. I drop my face to the side to shield my eyes.

  “Good morning,” says Mistral, carrying a knitting basket full of

  green wool. “I hope you slept well.”

  My arms and fingers are numb. The throbbing in my side has

  become so insistent I’ve begun to think it will never heal. My fever simmers away. I need to relieve myself. And I’m so hungry I could eat the cloth gag in my mouth.

  So no, I didn’t sleep well at all.

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  “Corentine and I are off to work,” Mistral goes on, unfailingly

  chipper. “If you behave while we’re gone, I’ll convince her to let you out for supper.”

  A whistle sounds in the distance.

  “That’s the train,” Corentine says, handing her sister a cloak.

  “Be good today,” Mistral whispers.

  She shuts the door again, and I hear them leave the cottage. A

  line of daylight pushes its way through the crack under the door,

  taunting me.

  The next hour hurts. The Esen sisters must know even humans

  require a chamber pot from time to time. I count the minutes to dis-

  tract me, but after another hour, I hurt so badly I can hardly think of anything except getting out of here.

  My spirit rises from my body, jumping out in desperation. I look

  down at myself and wince. My hair is in tatters, leaves and sticks stuck in my braid, and my color pale. The bloodstains on my shirt have dried to brown splotches. I drift toward the door, and my side pangs. My cuts are visible on my spirit as shadowy slashes. I don’t know what to do for them. Unlike other injuries, time hasn’t helped them heal.

  I pass through the closet door and float through the roof. Hovering

  over the cottage, I take in the sisters’ vegetable garden. I stop myself from going higher and drop back down into the main room.

  Now, to find my sword.

  I poke through the cupboards, under furniture, and behind the row

  of carnyxes. The thing Corentine called a sewing machine is a marvel.

  I concentrate with some difficulty and crank the wheel. The needle

  runs a line of thread across the hem of some trousers. I finish the seam, astonished by its straightness, and move down the hall.

  Two bedchamber doors are across from each other. I go through

  the one on the right. Knitted items are strewn across the dresser and wooden chest—hats, scarves, a man’s green vest. This must be Mistral’s 121

  Emily R. King

  room. I look about, but she has nothing of interest under the bed or in her wardrobe closet.

  Across the hall, I enter the second bedchamber. Corentine’s ophi-

  cleide sits on its stand in the corner. I skim the sheet music beside it—a battle song. A tapestry of a warrior giant holding a human head in one hand and a mace in the other hangs over her bed. The giant’s ferocious yell is silent, though I can easily imagine his gut-shaking bellow.

  Straight out of my childhood nightmares.

  No sign of my sword. I drift back into the main area of the cottage, then up into the rafters and chimney. Again, nothing.

  My clock heart spins more slowly. I’ve checked everywhere. Maybe

  the sisters took my sword with them. Maybe they recognized the hal-

  lowed blade and realized what they held.

  A vibrating sound comes from the kitchen.

  I float over to the washbasin. The noise rises from under the rug.

  Concentrating, I solidify my spirit form, pull the rug aside, and lift the loose floorboard. In a shallow compartment lies the sword of Avelyn. I reach for it, and my fingers pass through the hilt. I’m soul weary, and my clock heart is spinning downward, the revolutions even slower. My spirit needs to return to my body.

  Mustering my full strength of mind, I reach again and grasp the

  hilt. I waste no time returning to the closet. Opening the door takes two tries, but I get in and begin to saw myself free.

  The sword wasn’t made for sawing, and my tired strokes are inef-

  ficient. The blade slips off the rope and strikes the air beside it. The emptiness there breaks, like a cut in a sheet. Curious, I inspect the slit closer. The little indentation in the air shimmers, iridescent. I poke the end of my sword at it, and the front of my blade goes inside the slit. I yank the blade out again, the weapon still intact. The opening is bigger from shoving the blade inside.

  I step closer to it, and my clock heart spins faster, as it does when I’m near a portal. I slip my hand inside the opening, and it disappears.

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  The shimmering hole pulls, trying to drag me inside. I jerk back and gape at the fading rainbow.

  “Holy Mother of Madrona. Osric was right.”

  The sword pulses, and something brightens on its hilt, an inscrip-

  tion I’ve never noticed before. The symbol is from the tree alphabet—a centurion, the second largest tree in the worlds, following the elderwoods. Supposedly their seeds were pieces of broken stars that fell from the heavens and took root in the land. The centurions grow tall in an attempt to return to the firmament where they belong.

  “Centurion? Was that your name when you were a star?” The sword

  warms and vibrates, which I take to mean yes. “Nice to officially meet you.”

  Someone pounds at the front door.

  “Mistral? Corentine?” a deep voice booms.

  I shut myself in the closet again. More pounding comes from the

  front door.

  “It’s Sheriff Ramiel. Open up or I’m coming in!”

  I saw at my restraints, breaking one side of the cords. The front

  door bangs open. I poke my spirit head out of the closet through the wooden door.

  A giant enters the house. He’s enormous, bigger than the Esen

  sisters, and Neely, and Redmond. He ducks inside and straightens. His feet are clad in boots that would dwarf me, should I try to stand in them. His ear-length hair lies limp against his head, and he’s wearing a uniform—charcoal trousers, a white shirt, and a black cloak. A silver star is pinned to his cloak, engraved with the word “SHERIFF.”

  He stomps around the main room, then helps himself to the fru
it

  on the table and pockets a vine of tomatoes. He doesn’t call for the sisters again, as though he knew he wouldn’t find them here. Before he takes a bite of a plum, he lifts his chin and sniffs the air. His nostrils flare.

  My clock heart slows, a heavy ka-chunk, ka-chunk.

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  The sheriff sets down the piece of fruit and sniffs the air again. He follows the scent he’s caught around the room and pauses by the sofa where I lay last night. He bends to sniff the cushions, then straightens suddenly, and his gaze flies to me. I freeze halfway outside of the closet.

  His focus is on the door, but can he smell me?

  The giant inhales a lungful of air and starts for the closet.

  He can smell me.

  I slide my head back inside and saw faster at the last binding. My

  body sags more and more, wilting in the chair, and my grip on my

  sword weakens. The ticktocking of my heart in my body drags, the

  mechanism on the verge of stalling.

  Footsteps stomp closer.

  I break the last binding. My body slumps sideways, nearly sliding

  off the chair. I set the sword at my side and fall back inside myself.

  Sitting up, my ticker picks up in speed. The sheriff’s footsteps stop outside the door. I grasp my sword with both hands as the doorknob

  begins to turn in a steady revolution. I lift my weapon, my nerves on fire, my vision drifting in and out, my side in excruciating pain. The doorknob hits the end of the revolution. A crack opens in the door,

  wider, wider—

  “Sheriff Ramiel, what are you doing here?”

  Corentine.

  The doorknob quits moving. I listen as the Esen sisters stomp into

  their cottage. All three giants stand on the other side of the door, their voices clear as spring water.

  “Have you been in our cupboards?” asks Mistral.

  “Put down the revolver, Corentine,” the sheriff replies gruffly.

  “Be grateful I saw it was you before I unloaded my chambers.”

  “Why aren’t you two working at the factory?” he returns.

  “Mistral is a tad under the weather. Why are you here, Ramiel?”

  “Elves have been spotted nearby. I know, I know, it’s an unusual

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  Everafter Song

  the rounds. With you two living on your own out here, this would be