Zydeco Queen and the Creole Fairy Courts

by Cutter, Leah

  “Don’t you worry, darling, I’m sure Erastus will come up with something.”

  “Let me know if I can help,” Francine said seriously.

  “They can’t get away with it.”

  “Thank you,” Julius said sincerely. “If it comes to that, I’m sure we’ll find a use for your talents.”

  Francine continued to think about their conversation that afternoon. She made a doorway and went back to her meadow, then spent the evening coaxing all her trees awake again, one by one, getting them to dance for her in the pale moonlight.

  Once they seemed back to normal, Francine spent the rest of the night practicing throwing shards of magic, thorns, and smoke from her fiddle. With a complicated, woven melody, she found she could make ropes as well.

  Among the Féerie, fiddlers were also warriors.

  Francine was going to be prepared.

  * * *

  “Come on, Julius. Please,” Francine pleaded, not caring if she sounded like she was whining. They sat on the empty stage in the great hall. Braids of rope lay scattered next to them; Francine had shown Julius her latest trick. The trees moaned to themselves, like they carried bad news. Storm clouds covered the sky, the filtered light turning the kudzu into a pale shroud.

  “No, I will not take you to the borderlands,” Julius said firmly.

  “It’s too dangerous. Erastus will answer Yvette’s challenge.”

  “But I could help! Wake the trees, make sure they’re ready,” Francine said stubbornly.

  Julius shook his head.

  “No. The trees can take care of themselves. You shouldn’t go waking them unnecessarily. They’ll just get into mischief.”

  One of the oaks next to the stage reached down and caught Julius’ hat, carrying it far above.

  “Hey!” he complained, surging up.

  Francine couldn’t help but laugh.

  “See? They agree with me.”

  Julius walked over to the tree.

  “Give that back.” He glared up at his hat still perched on a branch far above his head, then back at the trunk.

  “Now.”

  The tree didn’t move.

  Julius knocked on the trunk, first with one hoof, then the other, a complicated rhythm. The tree shimmied, then his hat fell onto the stage.

  “What was that?”

  “Tickling,” Julius assured her.

  Francine suspected Julius lied to her. Though the knocks hadn’t been delivered with physical force, they’d resonated with power through the trunk of the tree.

  She wasn’t going to ask him to show her that.

  Julius looked over at Francine. With a sigh, he finally said, “Let me go talk with Erastus. See if he’ll take you to the borders.”

  “Thank you,” Francine said.

  After Julius left, Francine stayed in the great hall, playing first one quiet melody, then another.

  She didn’t want to wait. She didn’t see why she had to. She knew she could do this. Oaks made the perfect guards. She knew that from the wilds. The pines were too mean, and the cypress trees were too hard to keep awake.

  The problem was that Francine didn’t know how to get to the borderlands. She’d never been there. She remembered what the other fairy court had been like: gentle hills, wide easy trails, and oaks that murmured and sang. She knew what this fairy court felt like, with its wild brush that always snagged her clothing, trees that grew bitter and teased too much, trails that hid and changed.

  Francine imagined a place where the two types of tree met, maybe intermingled. She thought about an open meadow with sharp-edged winter grass blending into the shorter, more easily trampled grass of the other court, where cooler, crisper air met the soft, felted breezes.

  The doorway formed strongly under Francine’s hand, more easily than any other she’d tried. The space enclosed by the silver rope wavered and darkened, as if storm clouds lay ahead.

  Magic pulsed on the other side.

  Francine shivered, all the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. After just a moment’s hesitation, Francine picked up her fiddle and walked forward.

  Chaos reigned on the other side.

  Crazy clouds darted across the sky, torn apart by scornful winds. Thunder shook the meadow, out of place and time. The trees stood shoulder to shoulder in the distance, menacing and dangerous. Smells of smoke and decay overwhelmed everything else. Insects howled.

  A creature of living dust crashed across the meadow, heading straight for Francine. It was three feet high, its shape always shifting and changing. It reminded Francine of a collection of cells, dividing and dying off at the same time. Tentacles formed from the body, each moving like a snake’s tongue, touching and tasting everything in its path.

  Francine couldn’t jump back quick enough. The thing touched her as it made its way past. Cold and wet, the dust marked Francine’s cheek. Grit stayed on her face, drying and making her skin itch.

  The creature turned in place, then started coming back toward Francine. In its center gaped a huge black maw. It didn’t need teeth—the darkness inside it sucked in in all light.

  Frantic, Francine turned around.

  Her gate no longer stood behind her.

  How could that be? She swung around, searching, trying to find her gate. Across the meadow, she saw a glimmer of light. She covered her ears and ran, the roaring of the dust creature behind her.

  Then the glimmer moved, shifting to the right. Her gate had jumped from one place to another.

  Without pausing, Francine put her fiddle under her chin and started a song of homecoming, hoping to get the doorway to stop moving. She glanced over her shoulder. The dust creature stood, unmoving, directly behind her. Then it took off to the right.

  When Francine turned back, she saw her doorway had also moved much farther to the right.

  The dust creature ran directly toward it.

  Frantic, Francine changed her tune to an old song her mother had sung to her, “Come Home to Me, Irene.” She teased out the melody, trying to draw the doorway to her as she continued running straight.

  At the very last moment, the doorway shifted again, away from the dust creature and toward Francine.

  Francine ran faster than she ever had before. She held her fiddle in one hand, the bow in the other, and she pumped her legs to make it to the gate first.

  Glancing to her left, Francine saw that the dust creature had gained speed. It growled and made a deep grinding sound, as if chewing gravel. The smell of rotten eggs and burnt sand rolled before it.

  Francine flung herself through the doorway head first. She slid across the kudzu of the grand hallway, scraping her chin and her belly. She would have scraped her hands but she held them up, out of the way, trying to protect her fiddle.

  “You went anyway.”

  Panting, Francine turned over. Every muscle ached. Her cheeks felt as if stinging sand had abraded them. She had to blink her eyes more than once to clear the grit from them.

  Julius stood above Francine, glaring down at her.

  “I tried,” Francine said. She coughed, surprised at how rough her voice sounded. Her throat ached. Had she been screaming and not even realized it?

  Julius squatted down next to Francine.

  “You can’t go someplace you’ve never been,” he said gently. “Or your mind makes up somewhere to go.”

  “That wasn’t a real place?” Francine shivered. Was something that awful all in her own head?

  “I can’t say.” Julius gave his typical shrug.

  “It might have been someplace you imagined. Or it might have been some other border. Like between night and day. Or madness and sanity.”

  Francine nodded.

  “Won’t try that again.”

  Now she understood why Lady Melisandra hadn’t just formed a doorway for her. She’d actually created a world for her, her own place out in the wilds, then sent her there.

  “Good.” Julius extended one cloven hand to Francine, helping her sit u
p. That prompted another coughing fit. When she finished, Francine drew her knees up to her chest and leaned her forehead against them.

  “I think the air was bad there. There was this creature there…”

  Julius grew very still. Then he said, “Come on. We need to go.”

  “What?”

  “Let’s get you to the creek.” Julius tugged on Francine insistently. “You need to get cleaned up. And healed.”

  Slowly, Francine stood. She felt ancient.

  Julius guided Francine through the woods to where, in the human world, Francine had always caught crawfish with her cousins. Here, the creek ran like a small river, wild and fast. Julius directed her to a small bay where the waters ran still.

  Francine lifted her fiddle to warm the water, as she’d done in her own woods. She was so exhausted, though. It felt like too much effort.

  “Don’t bother,” Julius said, taking her fiddle from her weak arms.

  “Just walk in.”

  After taking off only her boots, Francine slipped into the water. The cold shocked her into wakefulness. She ducked her head under the water, rinsing her hair. The waters turned silky in her hands, cleaning better than shampoo.

  Francine washed her cheek where the creature had touched her several times. The first few times her skin stung, then it began to heal. By the time she got out, Francine felt considerably better. Not completely recovered—exhaustion still darkened her vision and her lungs ached—but she’d stopped coughing. Her clothes were soaked and dripping. Julius hummed under his breath, drying them with a whoosh of sweet air.

  “Swear you won’t try something stupid like that again,” Julius told Francine sternly.

  “I swear,” Francine said solemnly.

  “You said there was some kind of creature. Was it—bloody or something?”

  “Nope. Just the opposite. Dusty and dry. Multiplying and dying.”

  “Darling, what did you say your mama died of?” Julius asked suddenly.

  “Lung cancer.”

  Francine stilled, suddenly making the connection.

  The creature had looked like a collection of cancer cells, grown three foot high and wild.

  “Don’t ever go back,” Julius said.

  “Never.”

  At least now Francine knew why the other fairies had never taught her how to make a doorway. It was too easy to get lost in a nightmare.

  “Why didn’t Eula tell me the dangers?”

  She had said it was important to know where you were going, but not why.

  Julius nodded, thinking.

  “Could be she thought you already knew. Plus, most fairies land in the swamp or get soaked in brackish water. We don’t have as much imagination as your kind, you know. Or maybe she meant it as a prank, thinking you’d sometime fall into the bayou, not realizing where you’d get to.”

  Francine swallowed around the lump in her throat. Of course the Unseelie would play tricks, like the Seelie. Eula probably hadn’t meant anything by it.

  She hadn’t meant for Francine to almost be killed by her own nightmares.

  Or at least Francine told herself that.

  * * *

  Francine woke slowly, shivering in the cool spring air. She was going to have to find more moss for her nest, or weave the branches tighter, or something to keep the winds away at night. Maybe after breakfast she could take a snooze in the sunlight, let it soak all the way through her skin and into her bones.

  Both Erastus and Julius waited under the tree when Francine finally made her way to the forest floor. Erastus was bare-chested, his skin naturally tanned, his curly hair gleaming as brightly as his polished black hooves and white horns. Julius wore a more casual suit today, pale blue, with a rich golden tie, looking chic as always.

  “Morning—afternoon?” Francine asked, uncertain if she should bow or not. Was this a formal visit? Though she often saw Erastus with the rest of the court, at night when they’d all dance together, he’d never sought her out again, not since she’d come to the court.

  “You hungry?” Erastus asked with an easy grin.

  It was as good a greeting as any.

  “Sure,” Francine said, falling easily into step behind the two men as they led the way down a path Francine hadn’t seen before. It made her smile more, thinking how the forest responded to all of them, putting up barriers when it was teasing or wanted to play, or making things easier as well.

  This path led straight to the marshes, turning into a high trail of packed dirt as they got closer to the water. Good thing Erastus was with them: Francine knew the land might disappear and leave her in stinking swamp water the first time she came here on her own.

  They reached a wide grassy harbor, where sweet moss had overgrown the roots of a gnarled tree. Twisted, dark green bushes with bright pink berries grew on all sides, their thin leaves twitching in the slight breeze.

  Erastus handed Francine a handful of the berries.

  She hesitated before she took any, not knowing how strong they’d be. But she still took a few. He was the king, and she’d been raised right by Mama.

  The slightly smoky taste surprised Francine; she’d expected something sweeter from the bright color. They tasted like lettuce roasted on the grill with butter. She ate only one more before her fingers started tingling.

  “I know you’re wondering why I asked you to come with me today,” Erastus said.

  Francine nodded, putting the rest of the berries to the side, not willing to float away.

  “I’m going to ask you to play tonight,” Erastus said seriously.

  Francine sat up taller. She’d never seen the king look so stern.

  “I want you to give it everything you’ve got. And I mean everything, Francine. I want you to play, and play hard. Then I trust you to pull it back when give the signal.”

  “Yes, sir,” Francine said, pleased that the king had such faith in her.

  “Tonight, well, tonight’s gonna be a special night. And I won’t lie to you—you’re a big part of why it’s gonna be so.”

  Francine didn’t understand what Erastus meant, but that was okay. She would find out. She trusted him as well.

  * * *

  Francine twirled like a madwoman, sending sparks flying from her fiddle. She didn’t care who they struck. The court danced like never before, puppets on her strings. Francine made them leap and grovel, howl and sing.

  Power filled Francine, causing her to strut as she played. Even the king followed her tune. She could crush them all with a simple melody, or raise them higher. Anger mingled with her giddiness—she’d never been allowed to use her full strength before.

  She understood why the Seelie had been frightened of it.

  Her music could cause madness.

  Yet, she still resented their fear, their ties.

  If only Francine could bring this ability with her to the human world. She’d have her revenge on Billy and the others from high school.

  The courtiers had lost their human appearance. Creatures from daydreams and nightmares filled the space: men and women with the heads and claws of wolves, bears, snakes, foxes, pigs, panthers, and goats. A few had lost mobility, turning into oaks, willows, cypress, and reeds. Shambling mounds of rocks and moss circled the floor.

  Finally, Erastus gave Francine the signal. She took the song to the end, played a rousing, flourished finish, then held the band back from leaping directly into another tune.

  A deafening roar rose from the court.

  Francine’s skin tingled from the magic racing through the air. She beamed at them.

  She’d done this. Affected everyone so they could only hear her music, their hearts still pounding with her beat.

  Erastus leapt onto the stage. He shouted over the continued howls.

  “They’ve taken our woods! Stolen our trees! Diverted our streams, diluted our magic! Are we going to let them get away with that?”

  The force of the shouted “NO!” forced Francine to take a step back. It
felt like a solid wall of sound crashing into her. She hadn’t been aware of all the other court had done. It made her more angry. She added a trill of her fiddle, high-pitched and frenetic.

  “What are we going to do?” Erastus asked.

  “Fight! War! Kill them all!” came the shouted replies.

  “Now, hush,” Erastus demanded. He glanced at Francine, who played a quick, calming melody. The court grew quieter, though they were far from motionless, shifting in place as if they couldn’t contain themselves.

  “I am asking the court to declare war on the Seelie,” Erastus said, suddenly formal.

  A sigh sounded through the hall, like the spring wind that came from the gulf, open and free at last.

  “What say you?”

  “Aye,” Julius said, stepping forward.

  “I say we war.”

  His mottled skin shone with power, and his eyes had turned black. His beautiful suit jacket hung in tatters, torn to pieces with his frenzied dance and magic.

  “Yes,” hissed Eula, also stepping forward.

  “Yes, yes, yes, yes,” said one after another of the court.

  “War?” Erastus asked one last time.

  “War!” they shouted back as one.

  At Erastus’ nod, Francine started a battle march.

  “War!” the court chanted in time. This time they stomped their feet and snapped their claws and teeth in time, precise and angry.

  Joy filled Francine, though still tinged with bitterness.

  She couldn’t confront those who’d caused her pain most of her life.

  However, she’d still get her revenge on the others.

  Chapter Nine

  After they finished breakfast the next morning, Julius asked Francine, “So, darling, you want to learn to fight?”

  Though Francine still felt tired from all the playing the night before, she still nodded eagerly.

  “Yes.”

  “Then let’s go to the borderlands. Not to wake the trees—that’s Erastus’ job. But the air is more full of something there. Just stay near me,” Julius directed her.

  “And if I tell you to run, run.”

  “But—”

  Francine could defend herself with her fiddle. She already knew how to do some things with it.