The Castle of Water and Woe

by Steffanie Holmes

  That was the closest I’d ever heard Rowan come to complaining about his housemates. He wiped a dreadlock out of his eye and smiled crookedly.

  I went over to the recycling bin and hunted through. Rowan was right – amongst the juice boxes and beer bottles I found a small preserving jar with a screw-lid. It had a label on it.

  “Got one,” I said, rinsing it under the hot tap. I leaned over and pecked him on the cheek. “Thanks.”

  “Can I have a look?”

  I handed him the jar, and Rowan frowned. “Odd.”

  “What’s odd?”

  Rowan turned it over so I could see the label. “This is the bottle from the sleeping draught I made so we could follow you to the fae realm. There was enough left for at least one more dose, even after Blake took that trip into the fae realm where he came back with the hand. So why is it empty and in the bin?”

  A car honked outside, and Flynn yelled at me to “get a wiggle on.”

  “I don’t have time to ponder it,” I said, grabbing the jar out of his hand and shoving it into my purse. “I’ve got a baptism to attend.”

  ***

  “Will you sit still?” Jane grumbled as Flynn jiggled beside her. “Your leg is jiggling so much, Connor thinks he’s in his bouncy seat.”

  “Can’t help it. I’m excited. I never did have a baptism, meself.”

  “Aren’t you Irish? I thought you guys were all Ra-ra-baby-Jesus over there?”

  “Ra-ra-baby-Jesus?” Flynn coked with laughter. “Mary Mother of God, I never heard the like of it. We may be all Ra-ra-baby-Jesus, as you as, but when your mother’s a crackhead, just getting a hot meal is a triumph, let alone any kind of religious pageantry.”

  I snapped my head back to look at Flynn. He’d said that sentence with the same easy tone he said everything else. His eyes held no emotion when he spoke of his mother. I wondered how deep his hurt must go to make him so indifferent.

  Did all my boys have such broken pasts?

  “Were you baptised, Maeve?” Jane asked. “I’m guessing not, being that you’re a dirty heathen witch.”

  “Actually, I am. In our church, you don’t baptise babies – baptism is something you do when you’re old enough to actively choose a life of God. My sister Kelly and I did it together when I was fifteen. I didn't want to do it, but it made my Dad so happy, and I figured since I didn’t believe in any of it, all it boiled down to was taking a swim with my clothes on, so I did gritted my teeth and did it so they’d shut up about it. Dad brought me a book about black holes as a baptism gift, so I think I came out of it pretty good in the end.”

  We arrived at the church to find a group of people clamoring at the gate. I grinned as our driver pulled up across the street. “Look at how many people have shown up for Jane and Connor. Not everyone in this town is prudish witchhunter.”

  “I don’t think they’re here for support Jane,” Flynn said, frowning out the window.

  I pushed open my door in time to see Sheryl Brownley wobbling across the road, holding her skirts up with one hand while she waved with the other. “Jane, Jane, I tried to call you, but the boy at the castle said you’d already left and I can’t call mobile numbers from the church office.’

  Jane pushed open the door and slid her leg out. “We’re here now. What is it?”

  “Get back and that car and leave,” she yelled. “We have to cancel the baptism, I’m afraid! All these people are—”

  “What? No.” Jane’s face paled, and I knew exactly what she was thinking. No baptism and Connor is in danger of becoming the fae’s blood sacrifice.

  No way in hell would I let that happen.

  “There she is!” someone yelled. The crowd turned raced toward us, enveloping Sheryl as they swung signs and yelled obscenities. “We can’t have her type in our church!” a woman screamed.

  “Fornicators and witches are not welcome here!” Another bellowed.

  It was Dora.

  Anger welled up inside me. I’d been raised in this same environment of intolerance, of judgement. But through it all, even though I disagreed with almost everything they stood for, my parents never judged me. They put me before their own faith, and loved me unconditionally. They showed me that religion and tolerance could go hand in hand, and that good people could be found anywhere.

  In that moment, I missed them more than ever.

  My heart tore open, and fresh grief spilled over, splattering onto the street below. I gripped the edge of the car door, holding my shaking body upright.

  “What are you doing?” I yelled. “You dare to call yourselves good Christians? You don’t even know the meaning of the word.”

  “How dare you speak the Lord’s name, Satan’s harlot!” Dora spat. “He sees everything you do up there at the castle of sin. He sees all the perverse, deviant acts—”

  “He’s a bit of a pervert himself then, spying on innocent people behind closed doors,” I shouted back. “If your God wants to watch real people being kind to each other, then he’s more than welcome to watch. It would be more than he ever sees in any of your homes!”

  The anger burned and bubbled in my veins, reaching deep inside me and tugging at something deep within my chest – the raw, fresh pain of losing my parents – two people who didn’t deserve to die, but had been taken while judgemental wankers like Dora had been allowed to live.

  My palm slammed down in front of the car. The cone of power sizzled and bubbled inside of me, and I thought of the nicest, happiest thing I could think of, and I pushed.

  Everyone in the mob gasped as the image entered their hands at the same time. My family and I sitting around at Ruby’s Diner after church, laughing and enjoying each other’s company. A proper family. A family that loved and cared for all its members, now matter their beliefs.

  Dora’s eyes bugged out of her head.

  “Witch!” she yelled, jabbing a shaking finger at me. “She’s a witch, just like her wretched mother!”

  “What is this?” I yelled back. “The seventeenth century? This town is full of witches – your whole main street is full of crystal shops and tarot readers. Don’t try to hide behind righteousness just because you don’t understand your own history. Witches saved your village, they saved the whole world, and—”

  “Time to go,” Flynn’s arms wrapped around me. He tried to drag me back into the car. I struggled against his grip.

  “No. I’ve got to show them—”

  “Don’t let this be another repeat of the window at the pub. Let’s just go.”

  I sagged against Flynn, all the fight gone out of me. He was right. As much as I wanted to burn them all, that wasn’t right. They were just being idiots because they were scared.

  I waved at Jane to get back in the car. She slammed the door just as someone tossed a tomato at the back window.

  “What the bloody hell?” the driver cried. “That’s my car!”

  I slammed my own door as he stepped on the gas and tore down the street. More rotting fruit pelted the back of the windshield. My heart racing, I turned around to look at Jane. Tears streamed down her face.

  “Connor’s not baptised,” she said, wiping furiously at the tears. “How are we going to keep him safe now?”

  THIRTY-SIX: BLAKE

  As soon as Maeve, Flynn, Jane, and the baby were gone, I rang up the local curry house using the weird voice projection device Rowan had shown me (he called it a telephone, I called it magic, which seemed like an oxymoron – because humans didn’t do magic unless they were witches – except that when I spoke into it, a man on the other end answered in a singsong voice and it was freaky as fuck.) and placed a large order for delivery.

  “We don’t usually eat curry for breakfast,” Rowan said, passing through the hallway with an armload of garments.

  “I’ve already eaten breakfast. This is elevenses,” I answered. “I learned that term from the movie last night.”

  Rowan laughed. “I’m just doing the washing. You got anything to add
to my load?”

  After explaining what he was talking about, Rowan showed me how to use the machine that washed garments. More human magic. In the fae realm, we had court servants who washed our clothes for us in the river that ran along the valley. This was way better. Rowan said if the machine didn’t work I could kick it in frustration, which was exactly how we used to treat the court servants.

  The doorbell signalled the arrival of my curries. When I got to the door and took possession of my feast, the delivery man held his hand out and fixed me with this weird knowing stare.

  “That’ll be forty-two pounds, mate.”

  “Am I supposed to lick his palm or something?” I asked Rowan as he walked past on his way back to the kitchen.

  Rowan rushed over and dug some screwed-up bits of parchment from his pocket, shoving them in the man’s hand. “You need to learn about money, Blake. People don’t just make curries for each other out of the kindness of their hearts. You have to pay the man for his work.”

  “But you are an earth witch and he’s a mere mortal. Surely he quakes at your very presence?”

  Rowan sighed. “I’m sure Corbin already explained this. No one knows we’re witches, and we have to keep it that way. Humans tend to get very burny and stakey when they find out witches are real.”

  “Humans are so ungrateful.” I said as I slammed the door in the man’s face and carried my curry down to the kitchen.

  “Tell me about it.” Rowan shoved a single piece of his parchment back into his pocket and followed me.

  The whole thing seemed ridiculous. Fae often spoke of the glittering treasures and metal riches humans hoarded like the dragons of lore. But how could these containers of delicious-smelling food possibly be exchanged for a few bits of printed paper? Had Rowan somehow tricked the guy into thinking he’d been given something of actual value? But no, that kind of compulsion could only be done by the fae.

  I shoved four of the containers into the fridge for later. Rowan hovered in the doorway of the kitchen, so I couldn’t sneak them out to Liah in secret. That was fine. I just had to do what I did best – tell a lie with such confidence no one suspected it wasn’t the truth. I grabbed some utensils from the drawer. “I’m going to go eat in the orchard,” I said, hoisting up the bag. “Civilisation is cool and all, but having these walls everywhere is starting to remind me of the borders of the fae realm.”

  “You want company? I could do with a walk myself.”

  Fuck no. “Not this time. I really need to clear my head, do a little fae meditation, that sort of thing.”

  Rowan looked at me oddly. “Fine. I’ll see you later, then?”

  “I haven’t got anywhere else to be.”

  I raced across the garden, ducking around the topiary maze to avoid being seen by Arthur, who was prancing across the lawn, swinging his sword at invisible foe. His technique was crude compared to the grace and finesse of fae swordcraft, but he was certainly a brutal killing machine. I hoped he was prepared for just how much blood he’d have to spill before this was all over.

  I passed through the orchard and opened a wooden gate into the small wood. Rowan explained that this wood had once been part of the large Crookshollow Forest that bordered the shire on two sides, but the land next door had been cleared during the Victorian era (whatever that was. I tuned out for Corbin’s explanation) for farming, separating the two.

  The wood breathed around me, her song whistling through the trees. Birds soared overhead, and tiny creatures of the wood scurried through the undergrowth. The place teamed with unadulterated life – animals and trees free to roam wherever they wished. So different from the cloying oppression of the fae forests. In Tir Na Nog, the trees bent toward you like bars on a prison, reminding you with every step that the world had an edge.

  I didn’t understand much of the human realm, but this I got. Nature, unbound and unfettered. Freedom. Joyful abandon. No wonder the fae were ready to go to war for the chance to inhabit it once more.

  “Liah!” I called, my whole body sighing in relief as sunlight shone through the trees and warmed my skin. “Breakfast time.”

  Her head popped up from behind a fallen log. She’d made a circle of wildflowers around her golden hair, which did a little to distract from the violent cuts and bruises marring her skin. The stump of her amputated hand rested against an oak, the sight of it making my stomach turn in an unfamiliar way. “About time. I’m going crazy down here. I want to go back.”

  “Back where?”

  “Back to Tir Na Nog. I can’t stay here.”

  “Liah, that stupid. First of all, I don’t know how to send you back. Second, Daigh will kill you.”

  “You do know. I can go through the gateway.”

  “You can’t. It’s still blocked by wards. And I can’t risk opening it to let you through.”

  “So send me back the way you brought me here, in a dream.”

  I shook my head. “Even if I could do that, which I’m not sure I could, there’s still that little matter of Daigh killing you as soon as he sees you.”

  “I never should have left with you,” she said, her violet eyes flashing. “I never should have abandoned my Seelie, not while there’s a chance any of them are still alive.”

  “‘Where’s all this come from? Remorse? That’s a very un-faelike quality. You can probably do more for the Seelie from here, if you help us fight—”

  “I went down to the village during the night,” Liah declared.

  “I told you not to do that.”

  “Of course you did. Because you knew what I would see – the destruction that has been done to this land. How can you stand to remain here?”

  I shrugged. “Remember the iron sherds under your toenails? Being here is better than being tortured by Daigh’s princes at court.”

  “It’s not! I could barely breathe for all the poison in the air. And iron, iron everywhere. Even though the fae haven’t been a threat for centuries the humans go about in iron shells that spew still more poison. Buildings made from death and broken things, piled atop each other like bones in an ossuary, while the true world lies in ashes beneath. People locked inside houses, staring at boxes of moving paintings, instead of partaking in revels with song and dance and actual interaction. And everywhere that horrid, wretched iron.” Liah shuddered, the flowers in her garland drooping.

  “I think some of it is cool. Those moving paintings are more entertaining than dancing. They have a machine at the castle that washes clothes for you.”

  “What’s the point? Why destroy the mountains and burn the earth and smelt the iron and poison the water and air, when the stream and a rock and a servant would do the same job?” Liah gestured to the north. “Over there, I spoke to the ghosts of trees felled long ago to make way for farms where animals are forced into servitude before being slaughtered in their thousands for food. For food, while here in the wood are edible roots and berries in abundance. If this is the side you’re fighting for, then I’m not with you.”

  “So you want to go back and join Daigh, and fight against me?”

  “I didn’t say that. But like hell am I going to help you save the earth so the humans can torture it further. The fae are the last line of defence for the trees and the water and the air and land. Somehow, I will make them see that.”

  My fingers tightened around her arm. “Even if I could, I’m not sending you back to be killed on sight.”

  “Show me the gateway. I want to see for myself.”

  “We were there yesterday.”

  “I want to see it today.”

  “Of course. I thought we could go have a look after you’ve eaten.” I pulled out two packages of curry, some rice, and the tinfoil-wrapped naan bread.

  Liah pursed her lips as she sniffed the butter chicken I offered her. “I’m done.”

  “How can you be done?” I stuffed a mouthful of Lamb Rogan Josh into my mouth. “You haven’t even taken a bite.”

  “I’m Seelie, Blake. We don�
�t eat meat.”

  “Oh, right.” I’d forgotten, truthfully. The Unseelie court relished the tearing and rending of flesh, and the humans I’d encountered so far seemed to be much the same. “Here, have one of these naan breads, then. They’re—”

  “We don’t eat bread, either. The harvesting and grinding of grain is yet another human stain upon the earth.”

  “A delicious human stain.”

  “Blake.” She rolled her eyes. “That bread is wrapped in metal.“

  “You don’t get to have a lot of fun.”

  “I’m not here to have fun.” Liah stood up. “Take me to this gateway.”