Zydeco Queen and the Creole Fairy Courts

by Cutter, Leah

  “Slave music,” she said flatly.

  “Didn’t you hear? They’re now just calling us servants,” Julius said blandly.

  “I heard,” Francine assured him. There’d been an uproar during a school trip they’d taken—a tour of an old plantation—and the guide had never once used the term ’slave’.

  “Why?”

  “I want to see if I can shape it,” Julius said.

  Francine didn’t understand, but she was curious what Julius wanted. She pulled out her fiddle, starting with “The Meal Time Call.”

  “Slower,” Julius directed.

  “The Long Man in the Field,” seemed to be the right tempo, just slow enough, but still rhythmic.

  Smoke wriggled in front of Francine, dancing like an old fat woman, all hips and shoulders.

  Julius shaped it, pushing it together, then drawing it out, like how Aunt Lavine made taffy.

  “More slow.”

  Francine changed the tempo, and the smoke grew thicker.

  Abruptly, Julius changed his movements, splitting the smoke into parts, then braiding together the strands.

  “Stop.”

  Francine quit, mid-note.

  A black rope, heavy and out of place, fell to the ground.

  Without touching it, Francine knew it had some of the same qualities as the fetters she’d used to bind Queen Yvette.

  “How did you get iron into it?” Francine asked.

  “How do you think?” Julius asked, glaring at her with disapproval.

  Magic. And slave songs. Of course.

  Julius grasped the rope, then let it go. He frowned at it, then motioned for Francine to come over.

  With a sigh, Francine strapped her fiddle onto her back and picked up the rope. It slid, alive in her hands.

  It was going to hurt any Seelie it bound.

  “Does it have to be like this?” Francine asked quietly.

  “Of course,” Julius said dismissively.

  With a sigh, Francine coiled the rope and gathered it up on her shoulder. It lay there, a heavy weight, harder than stone, and cold.

  Julius reached out and ran his hoof along one end, then left it there, as if to prove it wasn’t that bad.

  The set of Julius’ jaw, and the red of his eyes, told a different story.

  Chapter Twelve

  Four warriors waited for Francine and Julius when they stepped through the portal from the borderlands into the Great Hall. They wore regular clothes but had red paint on their faces. Francine shuddered, then glanced around. No one else stood there. She’d never seen the hall so empty. The tree limbs that flowed out toward the center looked like barriers; even if she tried, she couldn’t get away.

  Francine started when a cold, wet finger touched her cheek.

  “What are you doing?” she sputtered, though she knew. Her stomach sank and fear pressed through her as Julius put more red paint on her other cheek.

  “Preparing you for the raid,” Julius said.

  “I’m not a warrior,” Francine hissed.

  “Don’t matter. Everyone battles and raids.”

  “I don’t want to,” Francine pointed out through clenched teeth.

  “Is your revenge such a puny thing?” Julius mocked.

  “Of course not,” Francine automatically replied.

  However, her desire for revenge was tempered with a desire for fair. What had happened—was still happening—to Queen Yvette and to all the dead Seelie…it seemed out of proportion.

  Francine knew she couldn’t explain that to Julius.

  Fair was a human concept.

  “Two groups,” Julius told them after he made the arch. “Ignatius with Francine and me.”

  Ignatius gave a wide grin at that.

  Francine thought she recognized him—a happy bear of a man. While she watched, his teeth grew longer.

  Francine looked away.

  “Good hunting!” the other group called as they stepped through the gate.

  Francine still carried the rope. It pricked her shoulder through her shirt and made her uncomfortable. The welcome weight of her fiddle at her back couldn’t counterbalance it.

  The sun still sat high above the Seelie woods, making everything warm and bright. Francine felt herself relax, though she guarded against showing it. She loved the Unseelie woods, loved their passion and fire, how they’d tease her and force her to respect them.

  She loved the Seelie woods, too, loved their gentle ways and talkative leaves. The paths were easy here.

  Maybe it was okay for her to take an easy path for once. Not fight. Was that something Mrs. Delacroix had once said?

  “Perfect,” Julius said. “They’re all still asleep.”

  “Did we just move back in time?” Francine wondered. It had been mid-afternoon in the Unseelie woods.

  “What, you crazy?” Julius asked. “Where would you get that kind of notion?”

  Francine pressed her lips together, not wanting to answer.

  Julius snorted.

  “No. Worlds just move through time different sometimes.”

  The leader of the second party of warriors caught Julius’ attention with a tentative wave, then they went to the right, deeper into the woods.

  “This way,” Ignatius said, the innocence of his grin marred by his very sharp teeth.

  Francine followed. What else could she do? Dread knotted her stomach. Who would she bind—and hurt—with the rope she carried?

  Fear made Francine shiver and dried out her throat when she recognized where they were.

  Lady Melisandra’s house.

  “Go knock on her door,” Julius instructed.

  “Don’t be an idiot,” Francine snapped, despair sharpening her tone.

  “She knows I’m with you. She’ll know something’s wrong.”

  “Maybe y’all decided to switch sides and came back again,” Julius proposed, stroking his chin.

  Francine snorted.

  “She’s not an idiot.”

  Julius looked curiously at Francine, then back at Lady Melisandra’s door.

  “Fine,” he said after a moment.

  “Then we break in. And hope we can grab her before she retaliates.”

  A shiver of fear ran down Francine’s spine. She knew how powerful Lady Melisandra was.

  “You ready?” Julius asked Ignatius.

  The warrior shivered, then shook his head, like a dog shaking water from his fur. His face grew more hairy and his snout pushed out more, making him look more like a bear. He also puffed up, not growing taller so much as wider.

  The hairs on Francine’s arms stood up.

  Ignatius crackled with power, like an electric ball. He nodded.

  Julius ran for the stairs, Ignatius hot on his heels.

  Francine had to follow.

  Julius didn’t pause when he reached the top. He bowled down the door as it were made of leaves, not wood.

  Francine made herself cross the threshold. The front room had shrunk, and now looked tiny and cramped. The rich reds and browns had faded into muted colors. Very few knickknacks lined the shelves, and the leaves and stones on the far wall were dried and broken. The empty fireplace exhaled a cold waft of air, like from a tomb.

  Julius and Ignatius searched the other rooms.

  “Not here,” Julius growled.

  “Maybe she’s out back,” Francine said without thinking.

  “Show us,” Julius demanded.

  With even greater dread, Francine led them through the kitchen. Gauze streamers still covered the walls, hiding sharp lines. They’d gone gray, as if faded with age.

  At the back stood a solid curtain.

  “Here,” Francine said, drawing it to one side.

  “No—don’t!”

  Julius’ words seemed very far away.

  Just beyond the curtain stood the garden Francine had expected. Brilliant spires of snapdragons, shaggy trees and trailing vines of roses, and colorful flowers—dahlias, shastas, impatiens, mums, and bego
nias—spread like a living carpet from corner to corner. The trees appeared as saplings, thin and flexible, but even from a distance Francine could tell they had great age. She longed to sing to them and listen to their stories.

  Lady Melisandra stood at the center, emitting a soft, comforting light.

  “I’m sorry,” Francine said.

  When she tried to walk forward, she found herself unable to move.

  “Now, what should I do with such a pretty spy?” Lady Melisandra asked.

  “Not a spy,” Francine whispered.

  It was the loudest she could speak. The invisible bonds tightened. She could only take shallow breaths. She trembled and fought down her fear.

  “This is how you reward my help,” Lady Melisandra scolded. Her skin had begun to age and the light grew more yellow.

  “No,” Francine squeaked. She was starting to get lightheaded.

  “It was the others. I—”

  “Hush,” Lady Melisandra said. She looked beyond Francine, her mouth set in a line of disapproval.

  “Julius knows better than to come after me,” Lady Melisandra said after a moment.

  “They wanted you to get me to the door.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Francine said. She tried to nod, but wasn’t able to move that much.

  “You refused?”

  “I told them you weren’t an idiot.”

  Suddenly, Francine found she could take a deeper breath. Her relief was short-lived.

  “The Fée don’t have much hope. Not really.”

  Lady Melisandra looked past Francine, out into a distance Francine couldn’t see.

  “But I have faith in you.”

  Lady Melisandra returned her sharp gaze to Francine.

  “End this,” she commanded.

  “What? How?” How in the world, this world, any world, could Francine end a blood feud that had lasted for centuries?

  “You can,” Lady Melisandra said softly.

  “You can find the bridge between the courts. Now, go.”

  Francine found herself hurled backwards through the kitchen, landing hard on her butt next to the door of the front room. She threw herself forward, not wanting to risk landing on her fiddle.

  “Run,” Julius instructed.

  Francine had no problem keeping up this time. They raced for the arch, tumbling through, one after another.

  The Unseelie woods greeted them with warm summer sunshine and thick air. Francine sighed as she pushed herself up. Rocks and thorns bit into her palms. The trees laughed at her.

  It was hard here, harder than she’d realized.

  “Thought we’d lost you,” Julius said, patting Francine’s shoulder and leaving his hoof there. It felt overly warm, almost hot enough to burn her skin.

  “Good thing you still had the rope,” Ignatius added, his grin unabated.

  “What?” Francine asked, hoping to distract them. She couldn’t tell them that Lady Melisandra had let her go.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right. That’s how I got away!”

  She made herself smile at the warrior.

  “She had me caught like a fly in a web. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.”

  “Next time,” Julius reassured her, squeezing Francine’s shoulder again.

  “Just don’t be going out back a fairy house,” Ignatius warned Francine.

  “Place of power,” Julius added.

  “I didn’t think you knew about them. Thought you was going somewhere else.”

  Francine nodded. She hoped she’d never have to go on another raid. But it made sense. It was why the Seelie didn’t sleep in the safety of trees. They had a place that was safe that they could get to.

  Uncle Rene had had a sacred backyard as well, back in the human world. Francine was certain of it now.

  The arch flared once, as if someone had shone a light across it.

  Julius pulled Francine behind him, as if to protect her from whatever was coming through the gateway.

  “Let’s hope the other group was more successful,” he grumbled.

  Francine nodded, torn between hoping the other group hadn’t been, as well as touched at Julius’ protectiveness. She concentrated on the gate, trying not to think about what had just happened.

  Why did Lady Melisandra think Francine could help? The queen was buried beneath a tree, held by magic. And even if Francine ended the queen’s pain and brought her back above the earth, would she come with Francine? She’d given her word she’d stay.

  Maybe Francine could do something for the other prisoners, though.

  The first warrior came through and walked straight to Francine, grabbing the magicked rope with a howl.

  The other warriors quickly followed. In between them stood two additional men.

  Papa and Uncle Rene.

  * * *

  Francine stood stock still under the trees, watching the warriors bind Papa and Uncle Rene’s hands with the dark rope she’d conjured out of slave songs. The trees above her stayed strangely silent. The grunts of the warriors and the quiet hiss of pain from Papa were the only things to break the quiet.

  Julius didn’t bother to hide his examination of the prisoners.

  Was he curious because they were the first men to shape Francine’s life? Who taught her to fiddle, then lost her to the lands of Féerie?

  It wasn’t difficult for Francine to keep all expression off her face—namely because her emotions felt so contradictory, they cancelled each other out.

  Francine hated seeing Papa wince in pain. Uncle Rene, too.

  Yet, she felt satisfied that finally he was under her power, that she was in control.

  He couldn’t hurt her anymore.

  Sadness came next. It broke her heart to see her proud papa bound and shivering in pain.

  And anger, of course, at him, at the Unseelie, at everything that had brought them to this point.

  “You know, darling,” Julius drawled, “he isn’t as tall as you imagined in your target practice.”

  “I’m sure he’s imagined I’m much smaller, too,” Francine said, trying to deflect everything: her embarrassment, her anger, her fear.

  “I’m sure,” Julius purred.

  He smiled at Francine, open and possessive.

  Was he glad to see that her revenge wasn’t as puny as he’d feared?

  Francine made herself glare at the prisoners. No honor bound them not to struggle as the warriors led them to a tree-grown cage.

  The prison ceiling had been made purposefully low. Neither Papa or Uncle Rene could stand up fully. Francine wondered if they’d been put on the opposite side of the Grand Hall where the queen was on purpose.

  Distance didn’t matter, though. Both Papa and Uncle Rene winced when they touched the wood. They obviously heard Queen Yvette’s screams. Bracketed on all sides by wood, it would be impossible to escape.

  The warriors tested the cage again, though they didn’t need to. The bitter old tree itself wouldn’t let them go. Francine knew that type of tree: It would tease them, maybe even pretend to grow an opening, only to close it before they could escape.

  Julius put a possessive hoof on Francine’s shoulder, leading her away.

  Francine couldn’t help but start at the contact, and couldn’t relax her tense shoulder muscles.

  “Francine,” Papa croaked out, the first word she’d heard from him in ages. “I do love you.”

  Francine hunched her shoulders and kept walking.

  She’d been wrong.

  Papa could still hurt her.

  * * *

  Francine stood on the bank of the water-filled bayou, carefully examining the green-and-brown island beyond. She hadn’t realized how far the Unseelie woods had stretched, how long it would take her to find water. The sky above her was a surprising blue, the sun still shining after all her walking. Cold wind blew off the gray water, carrying the sour smells of mulch and marsh grass.

  Finally, Francine was satisfied. No trees, not even a sapling, grew on the marsh b
efore her.

  Now, she just had to get herself over there.

  Francine had never been able to raise a bridge by herself. Hell, she’d collapsed the ones that Pierre had half-raised for her to finish bringing out of the water. But she couldn’t think on that now, couldn’t afford to remember the half-longing, shy looks, and quiet flirtation. She concentrated instead on her music. She played a classical piece, light and airy, that skipped across the surface of the water and made the trees behind her grumble.

  Not a ripple in reply.

  Francine paused, considering.

  Was it just the song? Did an Unseelie bridge need something different? She remembered the catch and carry song that she’d played with Pierre. Could she adapt that to a single player? Would that work?

  With a nod, Francine tried a new tune—less classical, more jazzy. The only time she’d seen the Unseelie court in formal gowns was before battle. Jazz was more for everyday, here.

  At least this time the water between Francine and the land lost its smooth glass surface. Something stirred below the surface, but nothing rose.

  Frustrated, Francine tried some zydeco. She knew if she played with enough force even the dead would rise to dance.

  However, that drew even less movement from the water. Now it was merely a slight current between the island and the land.

  Francine cursed. She held her fiddle at her side, her bow in her other hand and stared. She needed to get away from the trees. The constant thread of pain they relayed…it was just too much.

  And the Unseelie—now they had Papa.

  Francine settled the smooth chin-piece against her jaw and raised her bow.

  Light flicked just beyond it, a sparkle in the current, like a firefly skipping down her raised bow, making her pause.

  Uncle Rene had given her that bow. It was made from white horsetail hairs plucked in the cold and the dark, without a light shining, just like every bow he’d given her.

  Only now she believed his tales of how he’d made it, and why: how the dark and light needed to be balanced, like the bow, to be perfect.

  And yet, he was locked in a cage with Papa. Everything was out of balance.

  Francine cursed again. She was going to get away from all this, damn it. She angrily sawed at her fiddle, tossing out one tune after another, some whirling, some jazzy.

  The water lay still, not talking.