by Nancy Werlin
“These are tasks of destruction! By definition, they do terrible, irrecoverable harm. Even when people mend, they’ve changed. They’re damaged.”
“Doesn’t the regular process of life, and all its normal tragedies, change people anyway? Didn’t you say so at the beginning of all this?”
“This is different,” said Fenella.
“How?”
“Because I’m the one doing the damage.”
“That matters to you now?”
Fenella glanced down at Ryland, who was sitting sphinxlike on the ground, small head alert. The queen did not look at her brother at all.
Fenella’s voice was sharper. “I’ve become an arsonist and a murderer. Do you think I like that?”
The queen snapped back, “So it’s all about you, not your family? You don’t like giving up your vision of yourself as a poor little tortured martyr? You’d rather return to having no agency at all?”
Fenella gasped.
“It is not bad,” said the queen, more calmly, “that you decided to be active. That you wanted to take control of your life, to pursue what you desired.”
“But I chose destruction.”
“You also chose change.”
Fenella was silent for a moment. “I don’t understand. Is change always destructive?”
“How else is room made in the world for the new?”
“But . . . but . . . do you approve of what I’m doing? Is that what you’re saying? I killed a man! A good man! All because I would not stay quiet and accept my lot.”
“I did not say I approved. Or that I disapproved. Neither of which matters, by the way. This is your own path.”
“I’m confused,” said Fenella tightly.
“And angry,” said the queen.
Fenella tilted her chin. “And angry.”
The queen looked beyond Fenella, finally, at Ryland. He got up and stretched. He trotted over to the edge of the clearing, turned a disdainful back to them, and sat down— still well within earshot. The queen laughed then, low.
Fenella said, “At the beginning, you told me Ryland was good only at destruction.”
“I did,” said the queen neutrally.
“And now you say destruction has its place.”
“I do.”
“You also told me you wouldn’t speak in riddles!” said Fenella with frustration. “But you do. First destruction is bad. Then destruction is change, and it’s maybe good, or at least inevitable. And the tasks themselves—they have turned out to be riddles too.”
There was a silence.
“I am new at my job,” said the queen. “Choices in life are indeed riddles. And creation is all mixed up with destruction. You cannot have one without the other. I don’t think I fully understood that before either.” She paused. “What I also now see is that riddles are sometimes the only way to express truth.”
Nonsense, Ryland said. He had moved when she was not looking and was now at Fenella’s feet. Ask her about the third task already.
Fenella nodded grimly. She would do the third task. She would do it as quickly and as mercifully as she could, but she would do it. She would see Lucy and her daughter safe from Padraig before she died. She had to.
She turned to the queen again.
The queen said, “The last task is the destruction of hope.”
Chapter 36
Queen Kethalia slipped away. Fenella was left alone with Ryland.
“Hope?” Fenella said uncertainly. “The answer to this one has to be metaphysical, then? It doesn’t seem as if it could be violent.”
At least, she hoped so.
That depends on your definition of violence.
“Violence is what I just did,” Fenella snapped. Bile rose
in her throat again, and she swallowed it. “I won’t go there again.”
The cat flicked his tail. You can’t afford to wallow in misery over what you’ve done. Or be too picky over what you do next. My advice is to get it over with.
He leaped to the top of the stone wall, turned around three times, and then sat. This will be the hardest of all. There’s no more getting close to your family and surprising them.
Fenella wrapped her arms around herself. “My family will also be speculating about a faerie reason for what I did. They’ll be angry, as well as deep in grief. Miranda knows a lot about Faerie. She and Lucy and Zach were already suspicious after the fire. Lucy will be relentless. Miranda will share her suspicions. Also, Zach will tell them . . .”
That you tried to seduce him?
“Nothing happened.” Perhaps it was wrong to feel grateful for that, given that she had then done something even more terrible. But it was all Fenella had. She said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if they were hunting for me this minute.”
They might guess you’re in Faerie, said Ryland. But it’s the police who will be searching for you in the human realm.
“What? Who?” For a moment Fenella was confused. Then she remembered Lucy mentioning the police, after the fire.
Ryland said patiently, The police are the authorities charged with keeping the peace and controlling criminals. If we hadn’t slipped away when we did, they would surely have taken you away with them to be questioned. They arrived as we left. Remember hearing the sirens? Ryland paused thoughtfully. Maybe they took your veterinarian friend away already.
“Walker? But I was the one who hit Leo, not Walker.”
It was his vehicle. It might be his responsibility too. I’m not sure how their laws work in a situation like this. There could be a criminal charge against him.
“Oh,” said Fenella blankly. “Why didn’t you warn me how complicated all of this would be, with police and everything?”
Ryland was snide. I thought you were going to kill the dog, remember? Or seduce Zach.
Fenella scowled. She said nothing.
Anyway, here we are now. We’ll have to keep you away from the police, or you’ll be locked up. And soon they’d find out that you don’t exist legally, and we’d be in the soup even more. You would never get a chance to perform the third task.
Fenella discovered she was sitting on the ground again. She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. She was a murderer. She accepted that. But had she inadvertently destroyed Walker too? It seemed there was no way to control the ripples of destruction.
Compulsively, she imagined Walker telling her family how Fenella had begged to learn to drive his truck. How she had kissed him, then spurned him, and then turned to him again. Zach had his story to tell too. Maybe they would all decide together that her behavior with Walker had been part of her plan.
She was truly guilty of so much, and yet the thought of this one injustice stabbed so deep, it felt almost like physical pain. Her time with Walker had been the one small pleasure she had. Now she had ruined that too.
On top of being an arsonist and a murderer.
She said to Ryland, “If I went to my family and told them it was all Padraig’s fault, would they believe me? Would that buy me time for the third task?”
What do you think?
Fenella didn’t believe they would listen to her for a millisecond. But she tried to convince herself. “If I told them that hitting Leo was an accident—which it was—maybe they’d take me in again for a short time. Long enough for me to destroy hope.”
Do you have a plan for that? Ryland tilted his head curiously.
“No.” The truth was that Fenella couldn’t imagine ever having another plan. Her head felt like it was full of sand.
But to encourage herself, she said, “After the third task, when I’m mortal again and they are safe, I’ll kill myself in the human realm. I’ll make sure they find my dead body. It’ll be like a gift to them.”
On top of the wall, Ryland said nothing.
Fenella went on wildly. “But it would be best if I could figure out the third task without needing to see them.” She bit her fingers hard. “Ryland?” She hated the plea in
her voice. “Could I stay here in Faerie to figure out the third task? Then I’d pop out and—and destroy hope. Quickly. Somehow.”
“But you hate it in Faerie,” said a new voice.
The voice was behind Fenella.
It was a voice that made her skin shrivel and her throat clench and her blood turn icy. Even though she had succeeded in two out of three tasks; even though she could hear that the voice was only a thread of sound.
The Mud Creature! said Ryland, annoyed. What is my sister thinking, to release him here now? She knows we have work to do. Tell him to go away, Fenella.
Fenella could guess what the queen had been thinking. That this would stiffen Fenella’s resolve to go forward. That seeing Padraig would push her into action.
That she needed the reminder.
Padraig went on. “You hated Faerie from the first moment I brought you here. You were my guest at the ball. Remember, my sweet? It wasn’t the night either of us had planned. Nothing has gone as planned, since that night. But now you want to linger here. I hope the irony doesn’t escape you. Dare I hope that you’re changing your mind about living here in the future? With me? Dare I hope that you will restore everything back to the way it was?”
Fenella did not look. She breathed.
She remembered.
Why aren’t you talking? Are you still afraid of that weak nitwit? Ryland’s voice was incredulous. Look at him! Just look!
Padraig said, “My Fenella. Still so pretty. Yes, keep your eyes downcast. That’s how it should be.”
Fenella? Ryland said again.
Fenella scrambled to her feet. She turned. Ryland was also on his feet atop the wall. He was beside her as she faced Padraig.
See? See the Mud Creature now?
Fenella’s eyes widened. This was not the same Padraig that she had seen at the start of her tasks.
He was able, as ever, to read her expression. “It’s because you have accomplished two tasks,” Padraig said to her.
His gaze was as of old: a storm of malicious, beautiful blue. Nothing else was the same, though. His face was shrunken and his skin was gray. His beautiful thick hair had gone completely lank. And his frame was skeletal, his tattered, once-elegant clothes falling in deep folds over sharp bones. He had not even the strength to keep himself upright. He leaned heavily upon a cane.
“But it only looks like you’re winning,” Padraig rasped. “You’ll fail at last. I know why, and so do you.”
Ryland yowled aloud, furiously.
Padraig directed a bow in Ryland’s direction. His tone grew a shade more courteous. “I don’t mean that as a slur on you, Lord Ryland. Even with your help, however, Fenella will fail.” He smirked, his teeth yellow. “Don’t you see what has happened? There she was, trying to destroy love for them. But in the process, she fell in love with them. I knew she would.”
Fenella said nothing.
“Her love will paralyze her. She won’t be able to destroy anything else. Not to save herself, not to save them. Even while they hate her!”
He laughed.
Ryland yowled again. This ignoramus doesn’t speak cat, he said to Fenella contemptuously. He can’t understand me. So tell him from me that it’s not so. You will stand firm.
Fenella said nothing.
Fenella?
“You know the truth when you hear it, Fenella.” Though only a whisper, Padraig’s voice held the sureness of an experienced vulture winging at prey.
Fenella, Ryland said irritably. Tell him no.
But Fenella could not say a word. Padraig was not done talking. She must not say anything before he was done, because he hated being interrupted, and if she and Lucy and Dawn were indeed all to be returned into his power—
“When we are together this time,” Padraig said, “it will be good. You know why, don’t you? This time, you will have reinstated the curse yourself. All the girls will hate you. Which means there will be nobody else for you to love but me.”
Leaning heavily on his stick, with Fenella still silent, Padraig limped away.
Chapter 37
What was that? The cat spat onto the wall. Why were you standing there like a lump?
Fenella continued to stand like a lump.
Fenella? Ryland stepped delicately closer. He put out a paw toward Fenella. She didn’t react. He crouched, leaped, and landed on her chest, hanging precariously by his claws from the fabric of her T-shirt until, reflexively, she raised a single arm to hold him.
Her other hand scrabbled in her pocket for the leaf that wasn’t there.
The cat’s cold nose touched hers. Fenella.
Her eyes were open but saw nothing. He said her name again. He said something else too, but Fenella couldn’t understand what it was, even though she recognized all the individual words.
The cat butted her nose with his head, hard. The momentary pain brought Fenella back into her body.
“What?” she said.
I said, what was that? Ryland was again nose to nose with her. The Mud Creature is a liar, he announced. He is nobody in Faerie.
She looked at him straight on. “So am I nobody.”
The cat blinked. “Yes, but you have your tasks. And they’re my tasks too. I’ll be humiliated if you don’t finish them.”
That was all that was on the line for Ryland, Fenella thought. Humiliation. And whatever was going on between him and his sister.
Was the Mud Creature correct? the cat said impatiently. Do you love your family?
Love is nothing but a trap, Fenella thought. Again and again in her life, she had loved, and yet the only relationship that had lasted was the one formed by hate. The irony was that Padraig wanted her to love him. Maybe she should have. Maybe that would have destroyed him centuries ago. She laughed, a bitter little bark that was nothing like the laughter she once had reveled in. “No wonder I was given these tasks,” she said. “My existence has destroyed everyone I ever loved.”
Do you love your family now? The cat stared at her from two inches away.
“How can I love anybody? I’m dead. I’ve been dead since—since Robert was murdered.”
But you loved that girl you keep talking about. The smart one. Minnie. That wasn’t so long ago. So you’re still capable—
“I’m trying to stop,” Fenella burst out. “Don’t you see? When I’m dead, that will stop it. I won’t love anybody, and there won’t be any more pain.”
The cat was silent. Fenella put him back down on the wall. She wrapped her arms around herself and thought about what Padraig had said. Love had paralyzed her before. It was true. She had been trying to protect Robert, and so she had not warned him.
For a flash of a second, she thought of her own baby, Bronagh. Seeing Bronagh destroyed—no, she would not remember it. No!
I remember when the Mud Creature brought you to the ball, the cat announced. It was after he killed your lover, Robert. Right?
Fenella nodded.
That was the same night he cursed your family.
“Yes.”
What happened? Tell me, in your own words.
“What does it matter?” Fenella was impatient. “It’s the past. I have to figure out how to destroy hope. How hard can it be? Hope makes no sense in this world anyway.” She gave the bitter bark of a laugh again. “Probably Soledad is feeling exactly that way too. Maybe that’s my answer, right there. So, let’s go. I’ll figure something out. Save everybody and then die myself.”
Not so fast. First, tell me about the ball.
Fenella tried to stare Ryland down, but the cat didn’t blink. She felt the warm sun on her hair. Birds chirped in the distance. Near the horizon, the leaves on the trees moved in the light breeze. “Fine,” she said at last.
She sank onto the ground again, with her back to the stone wall so that she could lean against it. The cat leaped down from the wall and settled beside her, tucking his forepaws under himself. He did not close his eyes, but she closed hers.
“He had to drag me aw
ay from Robert,” she said tonelessly. “I screamed my throat raw. People were nearby. They should have heard me, they should have come. But nobody heard and nobody came. Then Padraig yanked at me from behind—”
The next thing Fenella knew, she was standing at the edge of a forest clearing, barefoot, in the beautiful dress. The elfin lord held her tightly to his side. Unearthly music filled her ears: the high trill of a flute, the low beat of drums, the intertwining of voices singing in a language she knew not, in a key that should not have existed. Light poured down from the full moon, which glowed larger and brighter than any she had ever known.
Before her, in the clearing itself, hundreds of strange creatures danced.
“See?” The elfin lord’s breath was warm in her ear. “See how few of them are like me? But you, you are like me. We belong together. With you as my mate, I will make a place for myself here.”
“No.” Fenella’s lips moved, but if the word was audible, she couldn’t hear it.
She was in a nightmare of warring senses and memories. She could still feel the weight of Robert’s head in her lap from when she had pulled him desperately into her arms. His body had been warm, but his head flopped unnaturally to one side, and his beloved face held nothing of his personality.
But no, now she was standing in this strange place. Beneath her feet the ground was cold and damp. The handsome elfin lord held her tightly. Her ears rang with the strange, haunting music. Creatures that she did not have the imagination to make up twirled and frolicked and reveled before her.
The dancers were a mixture of animal and plant and human and reptile and bird and even stone. While many were humanoid in the general shapes of their bodies, many others were not. She saw hoofed feet, and leafy backs, and wing-like arms.
“Come,” said the elfin lord, and pulled her into the dance.
The steps were nothing like the figures Fenella knew, and of course she had no wish to dance at all. But the music seemed to talk directly to her limbs and her feet and there was no question of refusing its command. She stomped and jumped and revolved, with the bell of her skirt whipping out gracefully. She curtsied and went down the line accompanied by a man with antlers. She swayed left and right and left again in order to weave the dance through a flutter of enormous red-winged bird creatures with ferocious, intelligent eyes. A willow branch caught her waist and twirled her briskly around seven times. A giant snake-like creature writhed forward and back, and she stepped nimbly into the curving pattern of its movements.
