Spell Hunter fr-1

by R. J. Anderson

“Oh, the ones on the left aren’t bad,” said Knife, wiping away a tear of mirth, “but what on earth are those things lined up on the right?”

  “Well, it’s a dance,” said Paul slowly, “so those must be the male faeries, right?”

  “Male faeries,” echoed Knife, and broke into chortles again.

  “You mean…you’ve never seen a male faery? Ever?”

  Paul sounded so puzzled, and so serious about it, that Knife’s amusement faded. “Well, of course not,” she said. “There aren’t any.”

  “But there must be.”

  “We aren’t animals,” Knife explained patiently. “We don’t need to rush about finding mates and having young. We live for three hundred years or more, barring accidents, and when we die, we just replace ourselves.”

  “Replace yourselves? With what?”

  “Another faery, of course.” He must be tired, she thought, to be this stupid.

  “You mean-like a clone?”

  Knife had no idea what that word meant, but she could tell that he had misunderstood her. “A new faery,” she said. “Different from the one who died.”

  “Full grown?”

  “No, of course not. The eggs are too small for that.”

  Paul’s face took on an expression of disbelief. “You lay eggs?”

  “No! Can you imagine-I mean, how ridiculous!” Knife nearly choked on her toast. “The egg just appears, when the old faery disappears. It’s magic.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You told me you didn’t have magic.”

  “We are magic, we just don’t have very much power these days, and what’s left we can’t control. We don’t will the eggs to appear, they just…do.”

  “All right, but one thing still doesn’t make sense to me,” said Paul. “I mean, I’m no scientist, and I’m no expert on magic either. But if there aren’t any male faeries and never have been, why do you look so…well, female?”

  Knife opened her mouth to argue-then shut it again with a snap as she realized he was right. Why should faeries who would never give birth to children or nurse them be shaped almost exactly like human women who did?

  “Thank God,” said Paul as he caught sight of Knife’s stunned expression. “I thought I was going to have to get out the anatomy textbook. So do you understand now? I didn’t mean to offend you by talking about male faeries-it was an honest mistake.”

  Knife folded back into her seat beside the plate, her mind churning. Could it be that long ago, the Oakenfolk had mated and born children as other creatures did? Perhaps something had happened to the male faeries, so the abandoned females had been forced to create their own eggs with magic-and after a while they forgot that there had ever been another way?

  Heather’s diary might be able to tell her. But it was back in her room at the Oak. Why did the answers Knife needed always seem to be just out of reach?

  “I’m going to take a bath,” said Paul, breaking the uneasy silence. “If I leave you here, will you still be here when I get back?”

  It was a gesture of trust, Knife realized: He was asking her to stay, no longer behaving as though she had no choice. And though she did want to get back to Heather’s diary and the mystery of the Oakenfolk’s past, she also wanted to learn more about art-and this might well be her only chance.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ll be here.”

  Nine

  “I ‘ve found you a better box,” said Paul when he returned from his bath, damp-haired and freshly clothed. “And my mother’s gone out to the garden, so we don’t need to worry about her hearing us talk.” He dropped the box onto the desk and pulled open the drawer. “Now where did I put my knife?”

  Knife swallowed her last mouthful of toast. “Your…what?”

  “Agh,” said Paul in disgust. “My father must have poached it again.” He shoved the drawer shut. “I bought him a proper letter opener two Christmases ago, but somehow my craft knife keeps on ending up in his study.” He opened his hand to reveal a small, transparent canister balanced on his palm. “All I have are the blades, and they’re not much good without-”

  “Oh,” said Knife, eyes fixed on the sealed tube in his hand. There had to be at least five shards of metal in there, identical to the one she had stolen. Surely he could spare her one, if only she could think of something to offer him in return?

  “What?”

  “It’s just…you have so many of them.”

  He looked at the canister dubiously. “Well, I suppose there are quite a few in there, but it’s not like they’re worth much.”

  Not valuable? Knife could hardly believe it. But if the blades were truly unimportant to him, then perhaps it wouldn’t be so hard to strike a bargain for one-if only he didn’t ask too many questions about why she wanted it…

  The longing must have been clear on her face, for Paul gave her a swift glance and then thumbed the tube open, scattering blades onto the desk. “Help yourself,” he said.

  Eagerly Knife stooped to snatch one up-yet even as her fingers closed around it, she realized what a fool she was being. “I can’t,” she said, feeling as though she had a nut wedged at the back of her throat. “I haven’t got anything to offer you in return.”

  “So?” said Paul. “It’s nothing to me. Like you said, I’ve got plenty.”

  All at once his kindness, and her guilt, were more than Knife could bear. “But I stole from you,” she stammered. “My first knife, the one I lost-I took it from your father’s study. And I can’t even pay for it.” She looked down at the blade shining in her hand. “Or for this one either.”

  “You’re really stuck on this idea of payment, aren’t you?” said Paul. He sounded perplexed but, to Knife’s relief, not angry. “Don’t faeries ever just give things to one another?”

  “The Queen gives out a few presents every year, at the Midwinter Feast,” said Knife. “But that’s only for faeries who have earned it.”

  “I’m not talking about rewards,” said Paul, leaning forward. “I’m talking about gifts. This”-he touched the tip of the blade lightly with one finger-“is a gift, from me to you. You don’t owe me anything for it, now or ever. All you have to do is take it. All right?”

  “I-yes,” said Knife.

  “Good.” He sat back in the chair. “Then it’s settled.”

  “But I still stole the first-”

  “So you said,” said Paul. “But if you want me to get worked up about it, next time try stealing something that’s actually valuable.”

  He was teasing her, Knife realized, but somehow she didn’t mind. “I’ll remember that,” she said, and slid her new weapon-her gift -into its sheath.

  Sometime later Knife sat cross-legged on the desk, studying the book laid open in front of her. Paul was right about Alfred Wrenfield’s paintings: The faeries in them looked quite a bit like the Oakenfolk, or at least the female ones did. But as she went further in the book the paintings became strange and confused, the faeries growing wilder and more cruel-looking as they increased in number, until Knife could hardly stand to look at them.

  “What happened to him?” she said.

  “Well, he did all right at first,” Paul replied from his seat behind her, “because there was a bit of a craze for faery paintings at the time. But after a while his work became so weird that nobody wanted to buy it, and he went downhill pretty quickly after that. In the end even his family disowned him, and he died from an overdose of-”

  “Paul, dear,” came Beatrice’s muffled voice from the other side of the door, “could you turn down the radio a moment? I need to talk to you.”

  Knife ducked behind a pile of books as Paul rolled out from behind the desk and went to answer. By the time he opened the door to his mother his face was a mask of indifference, and not for the first time, Knife felt sorry for the woman.

  “I’ve just had a call from your father,” said Beatrice, wiping her hands on her apron. “There’s been a problem with his train-an accident on the line, they’re not sure how long it wi
ll take to clear-and he asked if I might drive into the city and pick him up. I’ve made you up a cold dinner, and put the number for the home care service by the phone, just in case you need help-”

  Paul said nothing. His mother cleared her throat nervously and went on:

  “We’ll be back as soon as we can. You’ll…be all right?”

  Paul gave a slight shrug, which seemed to be all the answer Beatrice needed. Stooping, she brushed her lips against his cheek, then hurried away down the corridor; in a moment Knife heard the front door open and shut, and the House settled back into silence.

  “Looks like we have the place to ourselves tonight,” Paul said as he wheeled the chair around to face Knife again. “What would you say to a cup of tea?”

  The cup was a china thimble, and the tea was dark and bitter, but it made Knife feel like an honored guest to sit beside Paul in the House’s opulent front parlor, sipping it. As she drank she studied the portraits hanging on the opposite wall: George and Beatrice on their wedding day, looking shy and very young; Paul as a boy, with shaggy hair and a gap-toothed smile; and a more recent one of the family together, Beatrice seated with her husband behind her and Paul leaning casually back against her knees. His face glowed with confidence, and as Knife noticed the lighted tree in the background she realized that the picture must have been done at Midwinter, only a few months ago.

  “Who painted those?” she asked Paul. “They look so real.”

  “The photographs, you mean? They aren’t paintings, they’re…well, they’re a sort of image made with light. You look through a box with a lens in it, and you press a button, and it makes a picture of what you’re seeing. More or less.”

  It sounded like magic to Knife. “Do you have any more?” she asked.

  “I suppose, but they’re pretty dull if you’re not in the family.” He wheeled his chair over to the cabinet, returning a moment later with a thick, ring-bound volume. As he opened it, Knife jumped onto the arm of the chair and climbed up to his shoulder, leaning forward for a better view of the pages spread out below.

  “Stupid baby pictures,” said Paul, flipping briskly past the first section. “This is me on the first day of school. And here I am painting a mustache on Geoffrey Fisher-he was my best friend at the time.”

  “What’s a best friend?” asked Knife.

  Paul turned sharply to look at her. “You don’t know?”

  “Well,” said Knife, defensive, “my people don’t really do that kind of thing.”

  “What do you do, then?”

  “We work together when we have to, and we give each other instructions and such. But when the work’s done, and there’s nothing more to be said…” She gave an indifferent shrug. “What would be the point?”

  “The point is,” said Paul quietly, “that a best friend is someone you like to be with. Someone you can talk to about anything, and count on to help you whenever you need it. You really don’t have anyone like that?”

  “No,” said Knife. And neither did he, she suspected-or at least, not anymore. If he had friends, best or otherwise, he wouldn’t be holed up alone in his room, hiding from his parents and the world.

  “None of your people do?”

  “No.” Though perhaps it hadn’t always been that way-but she would need to read more of Heather’s diary to be sure.

  Paul shook his head, and turned another page.

  “What’s that?” said Knife, pointing to a photograph of a much younger Paul standing beside a picture of a winter landscape.

  “Oh, that,” said Paul. “That’s the painting I entered in a competition, when I was nine. It won first prize.”

  “Have you always been good at art?” asked Knife.

  “Not at first. I mean, I always liked to draw, but they were just kid’s scribbles mostly. But when I was about eight years old, I suddenly started sketching everything in sight. My parents didn’t know what to make of it, but my teachers got all excited. I think they were hoping I’d be the next Alfred Wrenfield-only without the going mad part. And I wanted to be a great painter back then, as much as I’d ever wanted anything.”

  He spoke distantly, as if it were some childish dream he’d since given up, and Knife frowned. He was still drawing, wasn’t he?

  “Anyway,” said Paul, “back to the pictures-”

  He stopped, and Knife felt his muscles tense. “What is it?” she asked.

  He did not reply. At the bottom of the page a pale-haired boy sat in a narrow rowboat, teeth bared and arms flung skyward in exultation. But she had barely glimpsed the image before Paul’s hand slapped down upon it and ripped it away.

  Instinctively Knife flinched back, overbalanced, and toppled off Paul’s shoulder. With a strangled cry she fell through the air, bounced off the corner of the sofa, and crashed to the carpet below.

  For one dizzy moment she lay there, too stunned to move. Far above, Paul’s fist closed around the photograph as he stared into the distance. He did not seem to notice that she had fallen, and she gulped a breath like a sob before calling out to him, “Paul!”

  His face crumpled into rage. With a swift blow he knocked the book of pictures from his lap, and Knife threw her arms over her head as it crashed onto the floor beside her, scattering pages and photographs everywhere.

  By the time she dared to look up, Paul was gone, but she could still feel the weight of the book’s cover against her throbbing ankle. It hit me, she thought numbly, and then with dawning outrage, He hit me.

  With or without magic to enforce it, the rules of a faery bargain were clear: If either party struck the other, even by accident, all obligations between them were canceled. Until now Knife had been in Paul’s debt, no matter what he might say about gifts; but now, she owed him nothing.

  Anger flooded through her, renewing her strength. Knife crawled out from the wreckage of the photo album and began limping across the carpet toward the hallway.

  “There are no scissors!” shouted Paul from the kitchen, as cupboards banged and drawers slammed. “No knives, no matches-nothing!” Then came silence, and at last in a voice soft but deadly: “Oh, look. How sweet. She put all the hurty things up where her little crippled boy couldn’t reach them.”

  Knife clenched her teeth and kept walking. All the windows at this end of the house were shut, so she quickened her pace, hurrying down the corridor to the sitting room as the crashing noises resumed. She glanced around, but the din made it impossible to think, and at last she shouted into the kitchen, “Stop it!”

  A saucepan belled out as Paul flung it across the tile. “Shut up!” he spat back at her.

  Knife ran to the sitting room doors and tugged, then with grim purpose took hold of the sheer curtain and began swinging herself up hand over hand. She had almost reached the latch when she heard Paul’s voice behind her:

  “What are you doing?”

  Knife kicked herself upward, grabbed the latch with both hands, and hung there. “I’m trying-to open-the door.”

  “It’s locked.”

  “Fine.” She slid back down the curtain, turned to face him. “Then I’ll find another way to get out.”

  Paul looked down at her, his expression bleak but no longer angry. “Look, I’m sorry if I frightened you,” he said. “I’d just…I’d forgotten that picture was in there.”

  “I don’t care! I don’t want to hear about it! Just let me go!” She ran past him and jumped into the air, wings fluttering wildly as she tried to reach the window above the kitchen sink. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Vermeer slink into the room and crouch down, watching her; but still she continued leaping and dropping back to the floor, until she was almost sobbing with frustration.

  “Knife,” said Paul. “Knife, don’t.”

  “I thought I could trust you.” The words burst out of her, and only as she spoke them did she realize that they were true. She had stopped being afraid of Paul, stopped thinking of herself as his prisoner, stopped even trying to escape-what madness had po
ssessed her, to make her think that she could be friends with a human?

  Well, she knew better now.

  “You can trust me,” Paul was pleading. “I know I frightened you, but I never meant-”

  “You nearly killed me!”

  His face paled. “But you-you were on my shoulder. You jumped off-”

  “I fell off. And then you threw that book on top of me!”

  Paul’s face went slack with despair. At last he said, “You’re right. I’ll let you go. Tomorrow.”

  She lifted her chin in defiance. “Tonight.”

  “No. It’s almost dark, it’s not safe. Just stay until morning. Please.”

  “I’m not going to change my mind, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “I know.”

  “And I’m not going to talk to you either. Not even about art.”

  “I know.” His eyes begged hers, and finally she gave in.

  “Oh, all right,” she said.

  Paul let out his breath. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t you dare!” she snapped at him, furious all over again. After what he’d done already-how could he cheapen something so precious, speak those sacred words as though they meant nothing?

  “What?”

  Too disgusted to answer, Knife stalked past him into the corridor. She could feel his eyes on her, but she refused to look back until she was nearly to the bedroom, and by then he had turned away.

  When she did look back, she saw Paul bow his head, then slowly unfold his hand to reveal the photograph he had torn from the album. With surprising gentleness he smoothed it out upon his lap and gazed down at his younger self, while Knife watched, her anger melting into perplexity. Why that picture, she wondered, of all the pictures they had seen?

  No. She was not going to think about this-about him-anymore. Tomorrow she would return to the Oak, resign as Hunter, and throw herself into whatever other work the Queen might give her, until she had no energy left to even think about humans.

  And maybe then she would stop feeling Paul McCormick’s pain.

  Ten