Somewhere nearby, a baby cried.
Glancing to her left, she saw the bundle perhaps a dozen feet away, just at the edge of the water. The baby’s wailing grew louder and more urgent and she started toward it.
She knew the pattern on its blanket. His blanket.
Kneeling on the riverbank, her bloodstained dress soaking up the damp, she reached out to pull the blanket away from the infant’s face. His blue face, bloated and cold, eyes bloodshot and bulging and lifeless.
The sob tore from her chest as she reached for the child, lifted it into her arms and cradled it to her chest. Still she could not weep, but she pressed her eyes tightly closed and prayed for tears.
The bundle in her arms felt too light. Gasping for breath, she opened her eyes.
“No, please,” she whispered as she unraveled the empty blanket. The empty, sodden blanket.
“Mother,” a voice said, so close, and a hand touched her shoulder.
Wendy froze, breath hitching in her chest. This was not the burnt boy or the grim-eyed child from the church. This was another boy entirely.
Still on her knees, she turned back to see his face. Nine years old, now, his skin still blue, eyes still bloodshot and lifeless. Her boy.
“Peter,” she whispered.
He thrust his fingers into her hair and she screamed his name – a name she had never spoken aloud before today. Wendy beat at his arms and clawed at his face as he dragged her to the water and plunged her into the river. She stared up at him through the water and his visage blurred and changed, became the face of his father, James, the butcher’s boy. He’d earned his nickname with the bloodstained hook he used in handling the sides of meat in the shop down the street from the Darlings’ home.
Her chest burned for air, the urgency of her need forcing her to strike harder at the face above her, which now became her own face, only nine years younger. The hands that held her beneath the water were her own, but she was no longer herself – instead she was a tiny infant, so newly born he still bore streaks of blood from his mother’s womb. An infant conceived by a mother and father who were only children themselves, carried and borne in secret – a secret safeguarded by her brothers in the privacy of the room they shared, a secret which destroyed her relationship with them forever. A secret made possible by a father’s neglect and a mother’s denial.
Peter, she thought.
Starved for air, thoughts and vision dulling, diminishing, slipping away, Wendy opened her mouth and inhaled the river.
Blackness crept in at the corners of her eyes, shadows in her brain, and she realized that she had stopped fighting him. Her arms slipped into the water and her hair pooled around her face. Bloodstained white satin floated in a cloud that enveloped and embraced her.
The hands on her now were larger. A man’s hands. They dragged her from the river and for a moment she saw only darkness, a black veil for a cruel mother.
“Wendy,” said an urgent voice.
She saw him then. Not the little drowned boy, but Jasper, her intended. He knelt over her, desperate and pleading and calling her name.
Gathered around him on the riverbank were the Lost Boys, those cast aside children, each murdered by his mother. Those dead boys she had met once before, on the night she had drowned her Peter in the Thames, when they had pointed trembling fingers and told her she would carry the black curse of murder all her days, that she might be allowed to approach happiness but never achieve it. They were the stain on her soul. They had been visible to the people in the church, dark dreams come to life, but now they were unseen once more. Jasper wept over her, unaware of their presence…
Wendy could only watch him, standing a short distance away. Her dress felt dry now, but the bloodstain remained.
“No,” she whispered, as the darkness retreated from her thoughts and she understood what she saw.
Jasper knelt there, mourning her, grieving for the life they might have had. Wendy saw her own lifeless body from outside, her spirit as invisible to him as the Lost Boys. Others began to run toward the riverbank – her parents and her brother John, the vicar’s wife and Jasper’s brother, an aunt and uncle. They seemed like ghosts to her, these living people, their grief distant and dull.
The Lost Boys circled around her, dead eyes now contented.
“Mother,” Peter whispered, taking her right hand.
Another boy took her left hand. She glanced down and saw the grim eyes that had so unsettled her in her dreams.
“You promised to be a mother to us all, forever,” the grim-eyed boy said.
Wendy blinked and turned toward the river. Somehow she could still see the swaddled infant floating on the water, sodden blankets dragging it down, just as it had on that night nine years ago.
“Forever,” said Peter.
They guided her gently into the river, where the dark current swept them all away.
FAIRY WEREWOLF VS. VAMPIRE ZOMBIE
CHARLIE JANE ANDERS
If you’re ever in Freeboro, North Carolina, look for the sign of the bull. It hangs off the side of a building with a Vietnamese noodle joint and an auto mechanic, near an alley that’s practically a drainage ditch. Don’t walk down that alley unless you’re brave enough not to look over your shoulder when you hear throaty noises behind you. If you make it to the very end without looking back, hang a left, and watch your footing on the mossy steps. The oak door at the bottom of the stairs will only open if you’ve got the right kind of mojo.
If it does open, you’ll find yourself in Rachel’s Bar & Grill, the best watering hole in the Carolinas. My bar. There’s only one rule: if there’s any trouble, take it outside. (Outside my bar is good, outside of town is better, outside of reality itself is best of all.) I have lots of stories about Rachel’s. There are names I could drop – except some of those people might appear. But there is one story that illustrates why you shouldn’t make trouble in my bar, and how we take care of our own. It’s also the story of how the bar got its mascot.
There was this young woman named Antonia, who went from a beautiful absinthe-drinking stranger to one of my regulars inside of a month. She had skin so pale it was almost silver, delicate features, and wrists so fine she could slide her hand into the wine jug behind the bar – although she’d have to be quick pulling it out again or Leroy the Wine Goblin would bite it off. Anyway, she approached me at closing time, asking if I had any work for her. She could clean tables, or maybe play her guitar a few nights a week.
If you’ve ever been to Rachel’s, you’ll know it doesn’t need any live music, or anything else, to add atmosphere to the place. If there’s one thing we got in spades, it’s atmosphere. Just sit in any of the plush booths – the carvings on the wooden tables tell you their stories, and the stains on the upholstery squirm to get out of the way of your butt. From the gentle undulation of the ceiling beams to the flickering of the amber-colored lights to the signed pictures of famous dragons and celebrity succubi on the brick walls, the place is atmosphere city.
But then I got to hear Antonia sing and play on her guitar, and it was like the rain on a midsummer’s day right after you just got your first kiss or something. Real lyrical. I let her play at Rachel’s one night, and I couldn’t believe it – the people who usually just guzzled a pitcher of my “special” sangria and then vamoosed were sticking around to listen to her, shedding luminescent tears that slowly floated into the air and then turned into little crystalline wasps. (The sangria will do that.)
So after Antonia got done singing that first night, I came up to her and said I guessed we could work something out, if she was willing to wipe some tables as well as getting her Lilith Fair on. “There’s just one thing I don’t get,” I said. “It’s obvious you’re Fae, from the effect you have on the lunkheads that come in here. And you’re a dead ringer for that missing princess from the High Court of Sylvania. Princess Lavinia.” (Sylvania being what the Fae call Pennsylvania, the seat of their power.) “It’s said his supreme highnes
s the Chestnut King weeps every night, and would give half the riches of Sylvania to have you back. The drag queen – Mab – her eyeliner has been smudgy for months. Not to mention the lovestruck Prince Azaron. So what gives?”
“I cannot ever return home,” Antonia (or Lavinia) wept. “I regret the day I decided to venture out and see the world for myself. For on that day, I encountered a curse so monstrous, I cannot ever risk inflicting it on any of my kin. I cannot undo what is done. The only way I can protect my friends and family is to stay far away. I am forever exiled, for my own foolishness. Now please ask no more questions, for I have tasted your sangria and I’m afraid my tears would sting you most viciously.”
I said no more, although I was consumed with curiosity about the curse that kept the fairy princess from returning to the Seelie Court in Bucks County. I didn’t learn any more – until a few weeks later, when the Full Moon arrived.
Antonia appeared as usual, wearing a resplendent dress made of the finest samite and lace (I think it was vintage Gunne Sax). She muttered something about how she was going to play a shorter set than usual, because she felt unwell. I said that was fine, I would just put the ice hockey match on the big-screen TV. (Did I mention the big-screen TV? Also a big part of the atmosphere. We do karaoke on Fridays.) Anyway, she meant to play for an hour, but she got carried away with this one beautiful dirge about lovers who were separated for life by a cruel wind, and it grew dark outside, just as her song reached a peak of emotion.
And something strange happened. Her hands, so teeny, started to grow, and her guitar playing grew more frenzied and discordant. Hairs sprouted all over her skin, and her face was coarsening as well, becoming a muzzle. “NO!” she cried – or was it a howl? – as her already pointy ears became pointier and her hair grew thicker and more like fur. “No, I won’t have it! Not here, not now. ’Tis too soon! By my fairy blood, I compel you – subside!” And with that last word, the transformation ceased. The hair vanished from her hands, her face returned to normal, and she only looked slightly huskier than usual. She barely had time to place her guitar in its case, leaving it on the bar, before she fled up the wooden staircase to the door. I heard her ascending into the alley and running away, her panting harsh and guttural.
Antonia did not return for three days, until the Moon was on the wane. When next she sang for us, her song was even more mournful than ever before, full of a passion so hot, it melted our internal organs into a fondue of longing.
Now around this same time, I was thinking about franchising. (Bear with me here, this is part of the story.) I had gotten a pretty good thing going in Freeboro, and I wanted to open another bar over on the other side of the Triad, in the town of Evening Falls. The main problem was, you don’t want to open a bar aimed at mystical and mythological patrons in the same strip mall as a Primitive Baptist church, a nail salon and a Bar-B-Q place, right on Highway 40. And Evening Falls only had a few properly secluded locations, all of which were zoned as purely residential, or only for restaurants.
Now, chances are, if you’ve been to Rachel’s, you’ve already heard my views on the evils of zoning. But just in case you missed it... [Editors’ note: the next ten paragraphs of this manuscript consist of a tirade about zoning boards and the ways in which they are comparable to giant flesh-eating cane-toads or hornetaurs. You can read it online at www.monstersofurbanplanning.org.]
Anyway, where was I? Franchising. So I know some witches and assorted fixers, who can make you believe Saturday is Monday, but it’s hard to put a whammy on the whole planning board. So I thought to myself, what can I do to win these people over? And that’s when I remembered I had my very own enchanting fairy singer, with just a spark of the wolf inside her, on the payroll.
Antonia’s eyes grew even huger, and her lip trembled, when I asked her to come and play at a party for the scheming elites of Evening Falls. “I cannot,” she said. “I would do anything in my power to help you, Rachel, but I fear to travel where I may be recognized. And my song is not for just anyone, it is only for the lost and the despairing. Can’t I just stay here, in your bar, playing for your patrons?”
“Now look,” I said, plunking her down on my least carnivorous barstool. “I’ve been pretty nice to you, and a lot of people would have called the number on the side of the thistle-milk carton to collect the reward on you already. Fairy gold! The real kind, not the type that vanishes after an hour. Not to mention, I put up with the constant danger of you biting my patrons and turning them into werewolves. Which, to be fair, might improve their dispositions and make them better tippers. But you know, it’s all about one hand washing the other, even if sometimes one of those hands is a tentacle. Or a claw. Although, you wouldn’t really want one of the Octo-priests of Wilmington to wash any part of you, not unless you want strange squid-ink tattoos sprouting on your skin for years after. Where was I?”
“You were attempting to blackmail me,” Antonia said with a brittle dignity. “Very well, Rachel. You have shown me what stuff your friendship is made of. I shall play at your ‘shindig.’”
“Good, good. That’s all I wanted.” I swear, there should be a special fairy edition of Getting To Yes, just for dealing with all their Fae drama.
So we put together a pretty nice spread at this Quaker meeting hall in Evening Falls, including some pulled-pork barbecue and fried okra. Of course, given that most of these people were involved in local zoning, we should have just let them carve up a virgin instead. I mean, seriously. [The rest of this section is available at www.monstersofurbanplanning.org – The Editors.]
Where was I? Oh yes. So it was mostly the usual assortment of church ladies, small-time politicians, local business people, and so on. But there were two men who stood out like hornetaurs at a bull fight.
Sebastian Valcourt was tall, with fine cheekbones and a noble brow, under a shock of wavy dark hair that he probably blow-dried for an hour every day. He wore a natty suit, but his shirt was unbuttoned almost to the navel, revealing a hairless chest that was made of money. No kidding, I used to know a male stripper named Velcro who was three-quarters elf, and he would have killed for those pecs.
The other startlingly beautiful man was named Gilbert Longwood, and he was big and solidly built, like a classical statue. His arms were like sea-cliffs, and his face was big and square-jawed – like a marble bust except that his eyes had pupils, which was probably a good thing for him. When he shook my hand, I felt his grip and it made me all weak in the knees. But from the start of the evening, both Gilbert and Sebastian could only see one woman.
Once Antonia began to play, it was all over – everybody in that room fell for her, and I could have gotten planning permission to put a bowling alley inside a church. Afterwards, I was talking to Gilbert, while Sebastian leapt across the room like a ballet dancer, landing in front of Antonia and kissing her hand with a sweeping bow. He said something, and she laughed behind a hand.
“You throw an entertaining party,” said Gilbert, trying not to stare at Sebastian’s acrobatic courtship over in the corner. “I don’t think I’ve seen half these people show any emotion since the town historian self-immolated a few years ago.” His voice was like a gong echoing in a crypt. I never got Gilbert’s whole story, but I gathered he was the son of a wealthy sculptor, part of Evening Falls’ most prominent family.
At this point, Gilbert had given up all pretense that he wasn’t staring at Antonia. “Yeah,” I said. “I discovered that girl. I taught her everything she knows. Except I held back a few secrets for myself, if you get my drift and I think you do.” I winked.
“Please excuse me, gracious lady,” Gilbert said. When he bowed, it was like a drawbridge going down and then up again. He made his way across the room, navigating around all the people who wanted to ask him about zoning (jackals!) on his way to where Sebastian was clinking glasses with Antonia.
I couldn’t quite get close enough to hear the conversation that followed, but their faces told me everything I needed to know. S
ebastian’s mouth smiled, but his amber-green eyes burned with desire for Antonia, even as he made some cutting remark towards Gilbert. Gilbert smiled back, and let Sebastian’s fancy wit bounce off his granite face, even as he kept his longing gaze on Antonia’s face. For Antonia’s part, she blushed and looked down into the depths of her glass of Cheerwine.
You could witness a love triangle being born, its corners sharp enough to slice you open and expose your trembling insides to all sorts of infections, including drug-resistant staph, which has been freaking me out lately. I always wash my hands twice, with antibacterial soap and holy water. Where was I? Right, love triangle. This was an isosceles of pure burning desire, in which two men both pined for the same impossibly beautiful, permanently heartbroken lady. My first thought was: There’s got to be a way to make some money off this.
And sure enough, there was. I made sure Antonia didn’t give out her digits, or even so much as her Twitter handle, to either of these men. If they wanted to stalk her, they would have to come to Rachel’s Bar & Grill. I managed to drop a hint to both of them that what really impressed Antonia was when a guy had a large, heavy-drinking, entourage.
I didn’t have to turn on the big-screen TV once for the whole month that followed. Sebastian and Gilbert, with their feverish courtship of Antonia, provided as much free entertainment as ten Married With Children marathons. Maybe even eleven. Sebastian gave Antonia a tiny pewter unicorn, which danced around in the palm of her hand but remained lifeless otherwise. Gilbert brought enough flowers that the bar smelled fresh for the first time since 1987.
This one evening, I watched Gilbert staring at Antonia as she sat on her stool and choked out a ballad. She wore a long canvas skirt, and her feet were crossed on the stool’s dowel. He looked at her tragic ankles – so slender, with tendons that flexed like heartstrings – and his big brown eyes moistened.
And then Sebastian arrived, flanked by two other weirdly gorgeous, unnaturally spry men with expressive eyes. Every time you would think their eyebrows couldn’t get any more expressive, or their gazes more smouldering, they’d kick it up another notch. Their eyebrows had the dramatic range of a thousand Kenneth Branaghs – maybe a thousand Branaghs per eyebrow, even. The other two smiled wan, ironic smiles at each other, while Sebastian kept his gaze fixed on the tiny trembling lips and giant mournful eyes of Antonia.
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