Faerie Path #6: The Charmed Return

by Frewin Jones

  There was a window in the far wall, little more than a rough hole in the wall, covered with wooden shutters. Together, they forced the shutters back. Through the window Tania could see a few scattered houses and a gray stone building under a clouded night sky. Trees huddled in the distance. There were few lights and no people.

  Tania climbed through the window and helped the princess to follow. She struggled to get over the sill, and Tania had to take her weight on her shoulders, easing her legs out into the night. The air was sweet and fresh outside the pest house—it was like stepping into another world. Tania could hear the sound of a river from somewhere close by.

  Hand-in-hand they ran at a crouch away from the ghastly hut, passing between darkened wooden houses and pausing only when they came under the deep shadows of the trees.

  The princess was gasping for breath by the time they found shelter. She sat under a tree, hunched over, her face ashen, her hair hanging. Tania stood over her, staring out at the little hamlet—trying to make sense of where they might be.

  “This is the hamlet of Kentisston,” murmured the princess. “Do you not remember the men throwing you upon the cart and bringing you here?”

  “Vaguely,” said Tania. She had so many new memories—and it was sometimes tricky to sift through them. But she did remember the horrors of the jolting trip to the pest house.

  Kentisston? That name meant something to her. She’d seen it somewhere. Yes! The last time she’d been in Mortal London during the hunt for Queen Titania she’d taken a few minutes to try and find out whether Camden had existed five hundred years ago.

  She’d learned that in that time Camden had been no more than a few scattered houses lying in the valley of the River Fleet, to the northwest of the teeming medieval city of London. But a little way to the north—no more than a mile along a dirt track—a hamlet had lain in the Manor of Hampstead. The hamlet of Kentisston.

  Kentish Town in the modern world. No more than one stop away on the tube.

  She crouched in front of the princess. “Can you walk?”

  “Mayhap with your aid,” said the sickly girl breathlessly.

  “I think our best hope is to go to Camden. It’s not too far—south of here.” She frowned. South? Which way was south? Oh yes, now she remembered—they had come into Kentisston from the south. There was only that one roadway. Find that and their path would be clear ahead of them.

  The princess used Tania’s offered arm to climb to her feet. “You hope to make contact with the children there?” she said. “Yes, ’tis a plan not without merit. Give me your shoulder, my friend.”

  Tania supported the princess as they made their way along the eaves of the woodland, skirting the buildings, avoiding any contact with people.

  The road south was rutted and muddy. They kept to the edges, where hoof and wheel had not churned the ground to a sticky mire.

  They moved slowly, pausing often to allow the princess to catch her breath. At these times she would sit under the trees, her head down, her chest heaving, while Tania stood close by, watching the road and dreading the sound of a horse or a wagon. The princess was too obviously sick; Tania had bad feelings about how a plague victim might be treated if found at the roadside. She could be killed to prevent the illness spreading.

  Tania’s thoughts strayed to Edric and to the girls they had already gathered. Edric must be frantic. Would the girls understand what had happened? Would they be able to help?

  The starless night stretched on and on as step by slow step the princess leaned more heavily on Tania’s shoulder.

  Rooftops appeared from the darkness.

  Camden?

  Please let it be!

  Tania let the princess slip down into the grass at the roadside. Her body ached from the weight, but she pushed away all thoughts of fatigue and discomfort.

  Stepping into the middle of the road, her eyes toward the rooftops, she worked to clear her mind of all thoughts but one.

  Marjorie? Gracie? Are you there? Flora? Can you hear me? Can you feel me? Georgina! Ann? I’m here! I’m right here!

  There was nothing. The night lay over her spirit like a dead body. This agonizing journey had been a waste of time—a waste of effort.

  She tried again, concentrating until her head throbbed.

  “Edric?” she called. “I need you to find me!”

  Silence as still as the grave.

  But then . . . a twittering among the trees as of tiny voices calling from afar.

  She stared around, trying to home in on the direction from which the voices were coming. But they were all around her now—a whole band of female voices all speaking over one another.

  “One at a time!” she cried, her hands over her ears. “I can’t understand you!”

  One voice rose above the others. Georgina’s voice. “Go to the light! We are there!”

  A moment later Tania saw a flicker of movement in the trees.

  It was a bright ball of blue light, about the size of her clenched fist, and it was moving steadily toward her.

  It hovered a few yards away. Full of new hope, Tania ran to the princess and drew her to her feet.

  “We have to follow the light,” Tania said.

  “There are sweet voices in my mind,” murmured the princess.

  “Yes. In mine, too.” Tania half carried the princess toward the ball. It moved away, guiding them deeper into the trees.

  The shining sapphire ball halted in a clearing.

  The voices were an urgent chorus now. Come, Tania! Come to us! We can see you now! Oh, come to us! Quickly!

  She stepped toward the light. A deeper blue blossomed at its center, and a hand reached out from nowhere. Around the wrist was a thin leather band strung through a black jewel.

  Edric. The jewel was black amber to protect him from the curse of metal.

  Clinging tightly to the princess, Tania took hold of his hand.

  Chapter XV

  Tania gripped Edric’s hand and held on with all her strength. She hooked her other arm around the princess’s waist as they were dragged by the Dark Arts from one century to another.

  There was carpet under her feet and a blue light surrounded her.

  Her mother’s voice rang out. “Edric! You found her! Oh, thank the lord!”

  Tania gazed around. The five girls were in the Globus with her. They were holding hands and gazing at her and the princess with eyes full of gladness and calm understanding.

  “We helped bring you back,” said Flora. “You would never have got back without us.”

  “I know,” said Tania. “Thank you.”

  “We had to rescue you,” added Georgina. “We have important things to do together.”

  “We know everything,” said Marjorie. She frowned. “I feel like I should be scared and sad . . . but I’m not. Isn’t that peculiar?”

  “There is great wisdom and strength in the Power of Seven,” said Edric. “The wisdom to see your own fates and the strength to face them with fortitude.”

  Beyond the limpid ball of sapphire light Tania could see swimming faces.

  The curtains had been drawn back from the windows of the Palmers’ living room, and the light of dawn was filtering into the room.

  Jade’s voice. “Way to go, Edric! You’re awesome!”

  And Rathina: “Praise the goodly spirits, she is found!”

  Zara’s voice was calm. “Did I not say all was not lost?”

  Edric walked Tania and the princess out of the ball of light. The five other girls followed, still holding hands. Tania felt dizzy and drained. But she had succeeded! She’d survived the challenge.

  “By the rood!” murmured Rathina, gazing saucer-eyed from Tania to the princess. She reached out tentatively and touched the princess’s ragged clothes. “This was the very gown you wore when you . . . when you disappeared.” Her expression crumpled.

  The princess put her arms around Rathina’s shoulders. “It was not your fault, Rathina, that I was lost to the
Mortal World. Gabriel Drake had great and terrible power over you. Your mind was not your own.”

  Rathina lifted her tear-streaked face. “I would die a thousand deaths to roll back time to the first moment I set my eyes upon Lord Drake,” she said grimly. “A crystal blade through the heart would be his payment for the evil he was to do!”

  Tania’s father stepped forward. “Are you all right?” he asked. He turned his eyes to the princess. “Both of you?”

  “Thank you, Master Clive,” said the princess. “My sickness abates for a while. The good spirits allow me the strength to do what must be done ere the end.”

  “Unbelievable!” breathed Jade, looking from Tania to the princess. “Two of you! As if one wasn’t enough.” She took the princess’s hand. “Hi—I’m Jade.”

  “Aye, I know you well, most loved friend of my friend.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “We both have the same memories now,” said Tania. “A thing happened when we touched. She knows everything I know, and I know everything she knows.” She looked from Edric to Zara and Rathina. “It’s all come back!” she said. “I remember everything!” She looked at Zara. “Like the time we were on the Cloud Scudder, on our way to visit Chalcedony for the Masquerade of the Wingèd Moon. You lost your flute overboard and Father—Oberon, I mean—he asked the sea creatures to search for it for you, and a dolphin found it!”

  “I remember it well,” said Zara with a smile. “And I rejoice that you know it also.”

  Tania turned to Rathina, full of excitement. “And you!” she said, emotions thick in her throat. “For weeks before your tenth birthday you were dropping huge hints about wanting a horse. And on your birthday the King and Queen gave you a wooden statuette of a horse, and you tried really hard to look pleased.”

  “And ’twas not till eventide that they relented of their teasing ways and I was blindfolded and taken to the stables,” said Rathina, her eyes welling with tears. “And there I met for the first time my noble and beautiful Maddalena!”

  “So?” asked her father. “How does it feel to remember everything?”

  “It feels good, Dad,” Tania said, taking his hand. “It feels really good.”

  Mrs. Palmer glanced over to where the five girls stood watching them. “Do they know what’s going on?” she asked in a low voice. “They seem so normal. As though nothing extraordinary has happened.”

  “They are in a state of grace,” said Zara. “They know where they are, Mistress Mary—and they understand everything.”

  “Can you not feel it?” said Rathina. “Their Faerie souls burn like suns. With my eyes closed I can feel the warmth of it.”

  Edric was standing a little apart from them, his brow creased. A glow like trapped moonlight seeped from between his eyelids.

  Tania went to him and kissed him gently. “You found me,” she whispered.

  “You found me,” he replied, his voice a little strained.

  “We found each other.”

  He opened his eyes and the silvery light flared. “Always!” he said.

  Tania bit her lip. Don’t be scared by the light! It’s Edric. It’s not Drake. Edric will never harm you.

  Edric turned his face away. “I cannot maintain the Globus Heim for much longer. We need to try and get into Faerie soon, or I won’t have enough power left.”

  “Indeed, it is most imperative you act swiftly,” agreed Zara.

  Tania nodded. “What do I need to do?”

  “The Seven must step together into the blue Globus,” said Zara. “Stand you with your other selves, and with Edric at your back.” She glanced at him. “You know what to do, Master Chanticleer?”

  “I do,” said Edric.

  Tania looked at the princess. She had moved to be with the five other girls, and she was speaking softly to them.

  “Is there really no time for . . .” Tania had been intending to say, “time for them to enjoy being alive for a little longer.” But she knew it wasn’t possible.

  Zara had said they knew everything.

  They know they’re going to die.

  The princess took Marjorie by one hand and Flora by the other. The other girls linked hands again.

  “We are ready,” said the princess.

  Tania turned to her mother and father. “I’ll find a way back here,” she said earnestly. “I don’t care what gets in the way—I will find a way back to you.”

  “I’m sure you will,” said her mother, hugging her. “Take care of yourself, please.” She smiled. “You’re the only Faerie princess daughter we’ve got!”

  “I will.” Tania gave her father a fierce hug.

  “That’s my girl,” he said. His mouth came close to her ear. “I’m more proud of you than I can ever say,” he murmured. “Come back soon, okay?”

  “Absolutely!” said Tania, breaking free. She looked at Jade.

  “Thanks for everything,” she said.

  “No problem.” Jade grinned. “Kick some bad-guy butt for me!”

  “I will.” She turned to Zara. “Are you coming with us?”

  “Alas, I cannot.” Zara sighed. “The realm of Faerie is closed to me.” She smiled ruefully. “Indeed, I have also fulfilled my task in this place—it is time for me to step over the Eternal Threshold.”

  Mrs. Palmer came forward and put her arms around Zara, pressing her close. “Your own mother was never able to say good-bye to you,” she said, her voice full of tears. “Let me do it for her.”

  They hugged, and Mary Palmer whispered something into Zara’s ear that Tania didn’t catch. They parted and Zara lifted her hand to touch Mrs. Palmer’s cheek. “Thank you.”

  Wordlessly Mary Palmer walked back to stand beside her husband. His arm came up to circle her shoulders.

  Rathina stared at Zara. “No!” She caught hold of her sister’s hands. “You cannot go! I will not allow it!”

  “There is naught you can do to prevent it, Rathina, my love,” said Zara. An odd echo had come into her sister’s voice, as though it was already sounding from far away. She leaned forward and kissed Rathina on the forehead. “I do not say you will ever be entirely free of pain, Rathina, but I tell you this—someone will come. Someone to soothe your agonies, someone with a healing heart . . .” She began to fade. Rathina’s hand fell through Zara’s fingers. Rathina stumbled, trying to catch hold of her, but her smiling sister was gone.

  A trill of laughter sounded out of nowhere, followed by a series of rising notes on a flute, playing a melody more achingly beautiful than anything Tania had ever heard. Then . . . silence.

  Princess Zara Aurealis, fifth daughter of Oberon and Titania had passed from the Mortal World and had entered forever the hallowed land of Albion.

  “We should go,” said Edric, taking Tania’s hand.

  She reached for Rathina’s hand, and together the three of them stepped through into the blue globe. The princess was close behind, leading the five girls.

  Tania could see her mother and father and Jade as wavery images through the blue haze.

  “Stand in front of me,” Edric told her. “All of you—link hands now.”

  Tania stood staring into the blue shimmer, Rathina on one side, the princess on the other. The other girls stood with them in the globe—hand in hand in hand in hand.

  “Ready?” asked Edric from close behind.

  “Yes.”

  For a moment there was nothing. Then Tania felt a lightning sharp pain strike the back of her head. It bore through her skull and burst in her brain. A blue light filled her mind, like water rushing through her, sending her senses tumbling and rolling on its flood. But deep inside her head, the blue light was met by a blaze of purest white that burst upward like seafoam on rocks.

  She felt a sparking, streaming power pulsing in her body, passing along her arms, entering Rathina and the princess, moving through them and into the other girls. Into little Flora and Gracie, Georgina and Marjorie and Ann—until they all blazed with the scintillating white energ
y.

  Tania felt it building within her—like a slow explosion until, at last, she had to let out a shout.

  The others cried out with her, and from their mouths came shafts of brilliant white light. Spears of dazzling white light darted from their eyes.

  “Take the step!” Tania could only just hear Edric’s voice.

  She gripped Rathina and the princess hard and made the impossible side step that would take her between the worlds.

  Everything was white. It was a white so incandescent that Tania felt as though she had become the light, that she had shed her body and melded with something eternal.

  She heard a voice.

  “Wait for me!”

  There was a curious tugging to one side as she stepped through the skin of light and found herself standing in a grove of aspen trees, in a glowing Faerie dawn.

  “Oh, wow!” said a shaking voice. “That was totally amazing!”

  Chapter XVI

  Jade was clinging on to Georgina’s hand and looking like someone who had just been dragged into another realm.

  “Jade! You idiot!” yelled Tania. “Have you any idea what you’ve done?”

  “Chide her not, sister,” came Rathina’s voice. “Does the rhyme not say that only those who love you and whom you love may pass between the worlds with you?” She smiled. “Be glad, then, for the love of your friend, and give her good welcome into the Realm of Faerie.” She took a deep breath. “I have longed for pure Faerie air in my lungs. It is nigh on twenty days since last we were here!”

  Jade was gazing around with her mouth half open. The light of a fresh dawn was washing over the rolling green hills, sweeping down to the gardens and walls of the Royal Palace. Halls and battlements, spires and towers wound away into the hazy distance under a clear blue sky, the rising sun glinting on a thousand windows.

  But Tania had no eyes for the beauties of Faerie. “No! We have to take her back—it’s too dangerous!”

  A weak voice gasped at her back. “No time . . .” She spun around. It was Edric; he was on his knees, panting for breath.