Zydeco Queen and the Creole Fairy Courts

by Cutter, Leah

  Just as Francine was about to leave, she heard someone calling her from the back. Fuming, she went out, intending to rip Brooks to shreds for breaking his promise.

  Jacque stood in the middle of Francine’s garden instead.

  “What do you want?” Francine hissed, keeping her voice down in case someone was listening

  “Cousin, is that any way to be?” Jacque asked unrepentantly, but also keeping his voice low. “I’m here to invite you to a picnic.”

  “Sorry. I have other plans,” Francine said primly.

  “Our party will be much more fun,” Jacque promised. “Moon wine. Magic. Laughter. Not the stuffiness of the court.”

  Francine paused, tempted. However, Pierre had assured her it would ease her life if she went to Lady Melisandra’s party.

  “I kind of promised.”

  “Then let me make a promise,” Jacque said, his eyes twinkling.

  “We’ll do this the right way, and step through the gate sideways. That way, time will slide too. You’ll spend hours there but it will only be minutes here. You’ll be back in time to attend your other party. You’ll just be stylishly late.”

  Both Mama and Uncle Rene had told stories about how time moved differently in the Féerie kingdom. Francine had wondered how much time had passed for Papa out there, though she didn’t really know how many days she’d spent here, either. She nodded, eagerly. It was the perfect compromise.

  “Just step this way,” Jacque said, leaning over and turning his hand, as if opening a door.

  “Now remember, step through sideways!”

  Francine nodded and did as he’d instructed, stepping through with her right side first.

  The air on the other side of the door struck Francine’s skin differently, much more humid and soft. She smelled familiar sweet rushes and mud. Her family hadn’t set up camps on the bayou every year, but she’d visited relatives there often enough over the summer to recognize the general feel of the place. The court was closer to where she’d lived in the human realm, while this world was close to the coast.

  Spanish moss hung from the trees like lace shawls. Raucous birds sang out of tune like rowdy drunks at a show. The brush here was less dense, though the same palm-length thorns grew along the branches.

  Francine hummed at the trees, saying hello. The rush of wind and leaves in response surprised her. While the trees in the court danced to Francine’s faster tunes, their first response was always gentle. The trees here wanted to shout as loudly as drunken tourists at Mardi Gras parades.

  And yet, for all their bluster, something felt off pitch. Francine whistled a quick tune, then listened carefully for the echoing wind. It came back high-pitched and hollow. Though all Francine could see were trees, their song was thin. Francine bet if she walked too far in any direction, she’d run into some kind of border.

  Brooks was wrong. The land here felt real enough. The problem was that it didn’t have deep roots.

  Jacque grinned at Francine as he stepped out of nowhere. “See, you’re getting along just fine,” he said.

  “Just fine,” Francine confirmed, though she was glad that he’d appeared when he did. This place made her uncomfortable. Though the trees were welcoming, they weren’t quite right. Everything felt a bit off kilter.

  The trail through the trees wasn’t as smooth as the trails in the fairy court. Roots and fallen twigs reached out to trip Francine if she wasn’t careful. The path curved unexpectedly, sending anyone not paying attention into the bush and thorns. Francine wondered if it was possible to learn the tricks of this trail, or if it was wild like everything else here and would change when the mood struck it.

  Jacque led them out of the trees and into a fair meadow. The winter grass here was more golden than brown, as if it still held summer sunsets in its veins. White fluffy motes—like cottonwood seeds—drifted lazily through the air.

  “Over here!” Brooks called, sitting up, his head popping up above the grass. He had a beautiful, rich, red-and-blue tapestry rug laid out and a few feet of cleared space around it. A picnic basket sat in the center of it, with a bottle made of iridescent fairy glass filled with moon wine next to it.

  “I’m glad you made it,” Brooks said, handing them both flutes.

  Francine wrinkled her nose as she lifted the glass to her lips. This wine bubbled. It tasted like liquid gold, but with more kick, warming her throat and her belly as it slid down.

  “I can’t stay for long,” Francine warned as she sat down, setting the glass to the side. Much more of that would affect her senses, she could tell. Just the one sip had made the day more honeyed.

  “We’re still glad you came. If only for a little while,” Brooks said. He opened the basket and got out fall-colored leaves that had been frozen with magic, curled into small bowls. Tiny nuts and colorful berries sat piled in the center of each.

  “Try these,” Brooks said, handing Francine one of the bright yellow berries.

  An explosion of spring danced across Francine’s tongue, like the first honeysuckle and daffodils.

  “Wow,” she said, taking another sip of wine to chase it down, to bring her tongue back to herself.

  “Those are amazing.”

  “I know, right?” Brooks said. “The queen forbids them in her lands.”

  “Why?” Francine asked.

  Brooks shrugged. “Says they’re too powerful.”

  Francine nodded. Her fingers were starting to tingle. The berries were potent, like the wine.

  “I probably shouldn’t have any more of these,” she said mournfully, pushing them away.

  Jacque promptly scooped them up, eating three.

  “Probably best left to those with a tolerance,” he said, sounding mockingly wise.

  “Try these,” Brooks suggested, handing Francine a leaf of fuchsia-colored berries, each as big as her thumb.

  Francine tentatively bit into one. It tasted as cool and refreshing as lemonade on a hot day. She grinned at Brooks, who smiled back at her, raising his glass.

  “Welcome to the other side. At least for a picnic,” he added hastily.

  Ducking her head, Francine clinked glasses with him, then with Jacque. These were her cousins, she told herself sternly. He didn’t mean anything by what he said.

  “Let’s play a game,” Jacque suggested. “Here.” He dove into the basket and pulled out another leaf.

  Francine wasn’t sure what it held. They looked like flat coins made out of translucent glass, all pale blues and greens.

  “Let me show you,” Brooks said, sitting up. He took one, held it in his palms while he rubbed them together, then he blew between his thumbs.

  Something forced Brooks’ palms apart, growing slowly with each breath.

  When Brooks took his hands away, a soft bubble sat there instead of the flat coin. He bounced his hands once, twice, then a little harder, casting the bubble into the air. It floated across the meadow, reflecting the colors of the sun.

  “Pretty!” Francine exclaimed. Then she put her hands over her mouth. She’d had too much to drink. Or eat. Or something. It wasn’t the same feeling as when she and her cousin Vida had snuck some of the grownup punch from Aunt Redina’s wedding: She could still feel her cheeks and her toes. But something inside her had loosened and it wasn’t just this place or the company.

  “You try.”

  Francine took the flat coin and looked at it curiously. On the one side she spotted a tiny hole, probably where she would blow into it. She warmed it in her hands, feeling it grow less stiff and solid between her palms.

  On her first try, Francine managed to blow a small bubble, a little bigger than her fist. It wasn’t as big as Brooks’, and it didn’t float away as far, but she considered it a success since it was the first time she’d tried. Especially since Jacque’s barely grew bigger than his thumb.

  The afternoon passed quickly. They raced their bubbles, stalking beside them and creating wind with their hands as they went across the field. Jacque t
ried to juggle them without touching them, just through blowing on them, one after another in the air. Brooks and Francine both rolled on the ground laughing at his antics.

  Only when the first shadow reached the blanket did Francine remember the other party.

  “I have to go!” she said, jumping up.

  Brooks and Jacque looked at each other.

  “You know you’ll be late,” Brooks warned.

  “Not too late. We went through the gate sideways, remember?”

  Brooks glared at Jacque, who looked down at his shoes.

  “Yeah, about that—”

  “You lied,” Francine accused. The golden sheen of the afternoon started fading.

  Brooks smacked Jacque on the back of the head.

  “I told you not to lie.”

  “She wouldn’t have come if I hadn’t.”

  Francine had to nod when Brooks looked at her for confirmation.

  “I was supposed to go to Lady Melisandra’s tea party.”

  “You’ll get to the next one,” Brooks said. “Pierre will make sure of it.”

  Francine didn’t understand what these two had against the master fiddler, but she didn’t care.

  “You’ve made me look bad,” she said quietly. “To the court.”

  “I’m sorry,” Brooks said.

  “It isn’t your sincerity I doubt,” Francine said. “But your intentions.”

  The wine must have still been bubbling in her blood for her to say something like that out loud.

  Brooks looked at Francine, his lips pressed into a thin line.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he assured her.

  “Just use me.”

  Brooks opened his mouth and shut it again before he started denying it.

  “No. I don’t. Not really. It’s just—”

  “Send me home.” Francine said, hurt and suddenly very tired. She needed to get back to her house where the trees were soothing and would sing to her all night. She had to get away from golden afternoons filled with laughing men who had honeyed tongues and sparkling eyes that saw too much into her soul.

  Brooks opened the doorway right there.

  “Be careful,” he said quietly. “I also want you to be happy. And the others—who also want to use you, by the way—don’t.”

  Francine walked through the doorway without another word. She stood again in her backyard, the light already dim. She would have to explain to Pierre tomorrow what had happened.

  The trees overhead started swaying to a wind Francine didn’t feel. She didn’t know if they were scolding her, cautioning her, or just singing welcome.

  * * *

  Francine listened again to the clean creek running at her feet. It sang of a light dance, flowing and constant. Dappled sunlight shifted beside her as the wind caressed the trees, tossing the remnants of their leaves. The afternoon felt open to so many possibilities, like Francine could do anything.

  “Try it again,” Pierre coaxed from his place on the far side of the water.

  Nodding, Francine brought her fiddle back to her chin. She steadily refused to use the white-and-gold fairy instrument, though she knew it would be easier. The few times Pierre had coaxed her into trying it, she felt as though it channeled the magic better.

  However, she stubbornly stuck with her regular, human fiddle. She knew the magic was here, in this land, and if she went back to the human lands, she wouldn’t have any power.

  Still. All that magic flowing through her fiddle might have some effect, right?

  Francine tapped out a beat, timed to the song of the brook, then caught one of the notes and threw it back up into the air, like a fish leaping out of the water. She kept the tune nimble and light, reflecting the shadows in the water as well as the cool depths. She drew on her classical training, keeping the beat precise.

  “Good,” Pierre said. “Now build the bridge.”

  Francine directed her tune to the water, building a solid passage. For a moment she thought she saw what Pierre had shown her—a transparent bridge rising from the center of the creek, as frilly as the arpeggios she ran up and down.

  However, before it fully rose, it splashed back into the depths, casting water all over Francine’s boots.

  “Dang it!” Francine said, wiping drops off her face as well as her violin. “How do you keep it above the water?”

  “Patience,” Pierre said.

  When Francine glared at him, he said, “Seriously, my dear. Patience. You can’t leap into these things like you do everything else. You need to build a phrase at a time. Don’t try to do it all at once. Connect the phrases, one at a time.”

  “I don’t much see the point,” Francine said stubbornly. “I could step over that creek without stretching my legs.”

  “What if you were going from one island to the next, or between groves in the bayou?” Pierre said. “Water bridges are important here.”

  Suddenly, Francine understood what Pierre meant. She could see the type of bridge he talked about, shallow and long, a mere walkway between places. Then she glared at him again.

  “The water there is still. Quiet. Not babbling and running like this. Why are you having me practice here?”

  She didn’t know how she knew, but the structures were different.

  “You need to learn to do both,” Pierre said stubbornly.

  Francine merely continued to glare at him.

  “What if there’s a storm and you need to get away?” he said. “The water even on the coast will be dancing. And you need to be able to tame it.”

  Francine didn’t want to admit that Pierre might be right.

  “What else can you build with music?” she asked instead.

  “Want me to show you?” Pierre asked, grinning at her.

  Francine’s heart did that funny beat again. She shushed herself. No need getting all excited. Pierre wasn’t really her type, she kept telling herself.

  “Sure,” she said. “If you want.”

  Pierre hopped over the creek.

  Francine rolled her eyes at him.

  He walked a bit under the trees, pulled out his fiddle, and started a quiet tune. “A Place to Rest,” he said, naming the song.

  Slowly, thin branches in the underbrush wove themselves together. Moss bloomed along dead limbs, covering the dark brown in green. The smell of fresh-cut grass tumbled over Francine. The earth split and a seat unearthed itself under the back provided by the brush. Greenish bark chased away the earth and newly budded leaves stuck to the legs.

  “Did you find the bench first? Under the earth?” Francine asked, curious, as she walked over to it, running the tips of her fingers across the springy moss covering its arms.

  “Or did you create it?”

  “Both.” Pierre said.

  Francine frowned at him.

  “That’s not helpful.”

  “But it’s true,” Pierre said, gesturing for her to sit.

  “It won’t up and disappear, will it?” Francine asked, pausing, remembering how the bridge wouldn’t stay above the water.

  “It won’t,” Pierre said, sitting first. “Trust me.”

  Francine sat, staying on the edge of the seat, not relaxing.

  “You don’t trust anyone easily, do you?” Pierre asked quietly.

  “So what?” Francine said, her voice hard.

  “You’re not still angry about the first battle, are you?”

  “Angry?” Francine asked, puzzling it out for herself.

  “No.”

  Disappointed, more likely.

  “Good,” Pierre said. “I was thinking about the ball coming up—”

  “What ball?”

  Pierre narrowed his eyes.

  “You did go to Lady Melisandra’s tea party yesterday, didn’t you?”

  “I forgot,” Francine said, looking away to hide the lie.

  “I’ll get you another invitation,” Pierre said smoothly. “But we should do a mock battle at the ball, a skirmish that doesn’t end in wa
r-cries, to show how far you’ve come.”

  Francine bit her lip and nodded. This was when she didn’t have to remind herself that Pierre wasn’t her type. She’d been learning technique under his tutoring, as well as the music that pleased the court. They never gelled, not like they had when they did those gentle tunes.

  It wasn’t the type of music that pleased Francine.

  Zydeco danced in Francine’s blood, and not just the slower waltzes. She wondered if it was because she’d been born in human lands. She loved the fast, driving beat of songs that suited cars barreling down dirt roads and trains howling into the night.

  “We should go practice,” Pierre said.

  “I want to try that bridge again,” Francine said stubbornly.

  “After you, ma chérie.”

  Francine led the way back to the creek, determined to find the path that lived under the water, between the earth and the land, if only because she couldn’t follow Pierre much longer.

  * * *

  Ice-cold sweet tea trickled down Francine’s throat, sweeter than the homemade eggnog Aunt Lavine served at Christmas. It tasted of flowers and tea, as well as honey and summer sunlight.

  “You’re right, that’s good,” Francine told the assembled ladies. They all sat in Lady Melisandra’s front room, lounging on overstuffed pillows and squat chairs. The air was just warming and cicadas sang in the grass. No one wore gowns, just regular clothes—skirts, pants and shirts—mostly gauzy, though, iridescent and shimmering. Francine had tried to match, wearing a bright, white shirt. She still felt out of place with her jeans and her boots.

  “I’m so glad you like it,” Lady Melisandra told Francine. Her complexion was darker than the other fairies’; smoother, too, as if age had burned away all her wrinkles. She wore a shawl that Francine’s mama would have been proud to own, made up of delicate white lacework, over a green gauze top and matching skirt.

  “I do, ma’am,” Francine assured her. It was delicious.

  But it wasn’t like Mama’s. Or Uncle Rene’s. And there were no biscuits. Though the moon wine, the sweet tea, even the water filled Francine up, she still found that her mouth wanted to chew something sometimes.