Poison Fruit

by Jacqueline Carey

  “Lurine said Hades was the god of wealth,” I said, remembering. “Although Lurine’s pretty damn wealthy in her own right.”

  “Mm-hmm.” She turned the next card: La Bandera, the Flag. “This represents a possible course of action.”

  “Well, it’s a little late for me to join the color guard,” I said. “So what does it mean?”

  “Conflict.”

  “As in war?” I asked.

  Mom gave a little shrug, her expression troubled. “As in conflict.”

  “With Hades, the god of wealth?”

  She hesitated. “I don’t know, honey. Maybe we shouldn’t do this. I don’t want you to take it too much to heart. Like I said, they’re just cards.”

  “No,” I said. “Let’s finish it. What’s next?”

  “The major factor influencing the outcome.” She turned over a card to reveal El Corazón, the Heart.

  I laughed softly, the sound catching in my throat. “Funny, that’s exactly what one of the Norns told me.”

  “One of the Norns?”

  “Yeah.” I rubbed my temples. “When Hel summoned me after Halloween. As I was leaving Little Niflheim, one of the Norns warned me that when the time came, the fate of the world might hinge on the choices I made.” I glanced at Mom. “Guess I didn’t mention that either, huh?”

  “No.” In the flickering light of the candles on the dinette table, her expression was unreadable.

  “This whole deepest, darkest fear thing didn’t come out of nowhere.” I traced the outline of El Corazón with one fingertip. “When I asked her if she had any advice, she told me to trust my heart. The Sphinx said something similar,” I added. “Something about learning to see with the eyes of my heart.”

  “Sounds like good advice,” Mom said quietly. “You’ve got a good heart, Daisy, baby. I trust it.”

  My throat tightened again. “What’s next?”

  Her hand hovered over the penultimate card. “Your innermost desire and fear.”

  I pointed at the upside-down World. “I thought we already established that.”

  “That’s an outcome you fear, not something you desire,” she said. “This is both. It’s a sword that cuts both ways.” She turned it over: El Mano, the Hand. Unable to guess, I gave Mom an inquiring look.

  “Power,” she murmured.

  The word fell into my thoughts like a stone into a pond, sinking deep and generating ripples. It was true. I hated the sense of impotence that plagued me. I was Hel’s liaison, tasked with upholding her order, an honor I cherished; and yet I was forced to do it with threats and promises, operating within the tricky network of eldritch protocols, a weak mortal dependent on the tools that had been given me and the hard-won skills that had been taught me.

  Did I want power, my own power? Power that I could claim through my birthright? Power that could make pissy back-talking fairies blanch in their tracks, power that could blow vampiric hypnosis out of the water, power that could trade stare for stare with a lamia, match an ogre’s strength?

  Hell yes, I did.

  Did it scare the ever-loving shit out of me?

  Hell, yes, it did.

  My tail twitched restlessly.

  “Do you think about it?” Mom asked softly.

  I nodded. “Sometimes.”

  “That’s okay, honey.” Her gaze was steady and filled with trust, candle flames reflected in her pupils. “You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t. And whatever else you are, you are human.”

  I gazed at the spread laid out on our old Formica dinette table. A conflict was coming. An influx of wealth threatened to overwhelm the community where my roots lay. I had choices to make, and the world might hang in the balance.

  My father’s voice rumbled in the back of my mind, offering a promise of power. You have but to ask, child.

  I shook my head to dispel it. “Why did you do it?” I asked my mother. “Choose to have me. You could have terminated the pregnancy. It’s what everyone told you to do. Why didn’t you?”

  It wasn’t the first time I’d asked, but it was the first time I’d asked her as an adult, woman to woman. In the past, she’d assured me that it was because I was her baby, and she’d been determined to love me no matter what. Even if I suspected that the truth was somewhat more complicated, that had always been enough for me.

  Now I wanted to know the whole truth.

  “You know, it’s funny.” Mom’s gaze shifted onto the distance. “Growing up in a fairly conservative community, I wasn’t expecting that kind of pressure. Everyone’s pro-life until it happens to someone they know. An unplanned pregnancy, I mean,” she added, looking back at me. “Not, um . . .”

  “A demon seed?” I said wryly. “I thought a lot of people back home didn’t believe that part.”

  She nodded. “Most assumed it was a fantasy I’d created to cope with the trauma of being sexually assaulted.”

  My tail twitched again, this time with anger. Mom had never actually used those words with me before. I might on occasion be tempted by the birthright my father offered me, but I would never, ever forgive him for what he did to her.

  “So the ones who did believe thought you should get rid of the demon seed,” I said. “And the ones who didn’t thought that for the sake of your mental health, you shouldn’t bear your rapist’s child to term.”

  “You knew that, Daisy,” she said, not flinching at the word rapist. “We’ve talked about this before.”

  “It’s just that it’s a pretty huge decision for a nineteen-year-old girl to make in the face of that much opposition,” I said.

  “Grandma and Grandpa stood by me,” Mom reminded me. “It made a big difference.”

  “Yeah, but they weren’t thrilled about it, were they?” I usually saw my grandparents a few times a year. We didn’t have a bad relationship, but it wasn’t exactly a warm one, either. They did their best, but it was obvious that they’d never been entirely comfortable having a granddaughter with an infernal temper and a tail.

  “No,” Mom admitted. She was silent for a moment. “Daisy, what I told you was always the truth. I did decide to love you no matter what. But teenaged girls have some grandiose fantasies, too. I thought . . . I thought maybe I’d been chosen by fate. That I could rise above what had happened to me, that if I raised you with love and kindness and taught you to avoid temptation, one day, if you were ever faced with the choice between good and evil, you’d choose good, and that somehow, it would make a tremendous difference in the world . . . And show your father he messed with the wrong girl,” she added in a harder tone. “That was part of it, too.”

  I looked at the cards spread on the table, one left unturned. “Do you think that’s what this is about?”

  “Oh, honey!” She sighed, making the candle flames dance and sway. “I don’t know that I’m any wiser than I was at nineteen, but I think the world’s a more complicated place than I did then.” She smiled a little. “For example, I never imagined you’d grow up to be the right-hand woman of the Norse goddess of the dead, protecting Pemkowet from things like the Night Hag.”

  I smiled, too. “Neither did I.”

  “Do I think this is about some epic showdown between good versus evil? No.” Mom shook her head. “I don’t believe in those kinds of absolutes anymore. Even your father must have some good in him to beget a child like you. But if it was just the cards . . . well, I’d say what I said before. They’re just cards. But the Norns and the Sphinx, too?” She glanced reluctantly at the spread. “I think there’s a serious conflict coming, and your choices will play a significant role in it.”

  My skin prickled and I shivered. “What about the outcome?” I asked. “What does the last card say?”

  I think we were both a little bit afraid of what we might see, bracing ourselves as Mom turned over the final card in her spread: La Estrella, the Star.

  I looked uncertainly at my mother.

  “Hope,” she said, her voice growing stronger. “It means hope.”
>
  Twenty-four

  I spent Thanksgiving night at my mom’s place.

  After a reading that intense, neither of us really wanted to be alone, so we blew out the candles, turned on the lights, curled up on the couch, and popped the first disk of season two of Gilmore Girls into the DVD player.

  I fell asleep somewhere in the middle of the third episode, waking only briefly when Mom tucked a blanket over me.

  “Sweet dreams, Daisy, baby,” she whispered, kissing my forehead. “No nightmares.”

  It worked. Nothing like a mother’s love to keep the nightmares at bay. Well, other than getting sexed up by a werewolf.

  In the morning, the shadow of my nightmare returned to hover over me, anchored by the image of El Mundo reversed, the world turned upside down. I held the radiant image of La Estrella between me and my fear, kindling it like a mental shield.

  Hope.

  I could live with hope. Especially if it was all I had going for me.

  Everything was still quiet in town, at least on the eldritch front. On the mundane front, things kicked into high holiday gear. By the time I wrapped up a plate of Thanksgiving leftovers and drove back to my own apartment, the decorative harvest-themed banners lining the bridge between East Pemkowet and Pemkowet proper had already been exchanged for banners depicting sprigs of holly and candy canes. I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that Amanda Brooks had workers out there at the stroke of midnight preparing to usher in a new holiday season. The official tree-lighting ceremony was scheduled to take place that evening in the park beside my apartment.

  I didn’t mind, not really. I know it’s almost mandatory to complain about the crass commercialization of Christmas, but secretly, I kind of like all the pageantry; which is why, after I’d placated Mogwai with some leftover turkey in penance for abandoning him overnight, I called Jen to see if she wanted to come downtown for the tree-lighting ceremony.

  Well, that and I wanted to find out how her Thanksgiving with Lee and his mother had gone.

  “In a word?” Jen said. “Unpleasant. But then, that pretty much sums up Mrs. Hastings. How was yours?”

  “Interesting,” I said. “At least in terms of flavor profiles. For the record, lemongrass and chorizo? Not the best combination.”

  She laughed. “How many cookbooks were involved?”

  “Four,” I admitted. “So are you coming to the tree lighting?”

  There was a sound of muffled conversation as she conferred with someone else. “Sure. Sinclair says if the weather holds, there might be a surprise. He’ll finish his last tour of the day and meet us there.”

  “What kind of surprise?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” She sounded a little annoyed. “But he promised it would be a nice one. You know how it is with Sinclair and the nature fey. Right now, he’s thick with that damned hellebore fairy in the backyard.”

  “Right,” I said. “Ellie. Okay, bring a thermos. I’ll make hot cocoa and peppermint schnapps. Lee can come, too, of course.”

  “I’ll ask him,” Jen said. “But you and me? We’re on, Daise.”

  It made me glad, and that was enough. Friendship and community were another shield to raise against whatever darkness might come, whatever darkness lurked inside of me. El Arbol, the Tree.

  These were my roots, and I needed to hold fast to them.

  It was a gray, overcast day, the temperature hovering a bit below freezing. Nothing had changed by the time the sun began to sink in the west, so I guess whatever surprise Sinclair had hinted at remained within the realm of possibility. Inspired by yesterday’s bout of extreme domesticity preparing dinner with my mom, I went to the trouble of making hot cocoa from scratch. I’d just finished whisking it to frothy perfection when Jen arrived with Lee in tow.

  “Check you out!” Lee seemed impressed. “I never figured you for the Martha Stewart type, Daisy.”

  “Oh, I’m full of surprises.” I took the cocoa off the heat and opened the bottle of schnapps. “Did you bring a thermos?”

  Jen passed me hers. “We’ll share.”

  Seeing them as a tentative couple made me happy for them both, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me a little jealous, too. Envy, one of the Seven Deadlies. Just the thought of it made the shadow of my nightmare loom larger. I pushed the emotion resolutely to one side, filling Jen’s thermos with a generous pour of peppermint schnapps before ladling cocoa into it.

  Outside in the park, the ceremony was beginning, the strains of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” rising into the cold air. I filled my own thermos and put on my Michelin Man coat, and the three of us trooped down the stairs and into the park.

  A good-size crowd had already gathered around the big spruce in the center of the park, tourists and locals alike. A dozen carolers bundled in layers of nineteenth-century costume attire launched into “Here We Come A-Wassailing” as we joined the throng. Stacey Brooks was there with a video camera, filming the picturesque scene.

  “Daisy!” Mom called to me across the park, beckoning with one mittened hand. “Come on over.” She was standing arm in arm with Lurine, who was looking fabulous in a full-length ermine coat. Damn, I really needed a new winter coat. Gus the ogre, my mom’s neighbor, loomed behind them, imposing even to mundane eyes.

  “You should have told me you were coming,” I said to Mom. “I would have had you up for cocoa.”

  Mom waved a dismissive mitten. “Oh, we’re just here for the lighting.” She gave Jen a hug. “Good to see you, sweetheart.”

  “You, too, Mom Jo.” Jen smiled. “I hear you put on quite the feast yesterday. Hi, Lurine. Hi, Gus.”

  “Hey, pretty girl,” Lurine said to her. “Nice to see you.”

  Gus ducked his boulder-size head, shuffled his feet, and rumbled something inaudible. Have I mentioned that Gus has a crush on my mom? Well, he does.

  “You must be Lee,” Mom said to Lee. “My, but you’ve turned into quite the gentleman around town! I wouldn’t have recognized you. This is my neighbor Gus, and I think you know Lurine Hollister,” she said, squeezing Lurine’s arm.

  Lee’s reaction also involved foot shuffling and mumbling, something about having had the pleasure. I couldn’t tell if he was blushing in this light, but I’m pretty sure he was. I may have rolled my eyes a little, and Jen may have let out a faint sigh.

  “Shhh!” Mom shushed us as the carolers finished a-wassailing and the town crier stepped forward, ringing his bell. “They’re about to light the tree.”

  “Hey!” Sinclair squeezed through the crowd to join us, sounding a little out of breath. “Glad I didn’t miss it.” I offered him my thermos and he smiled at me before taking a swig. “Thanks, sistah. Don’t mind if I do.” He handed it back to me, lowering his voice. “Are you doing okay, Daisy?”

  “More or less,” I said. “Tonight, more than less. You?”

  Sinclair hesitated a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. I think you were right—the end justified the means. Just don’t ask me to put a curse on you again anytime soon, okay?” He shuddered. “I can’t say I feel good about having done it.”

  “No problem,” I assured him. “I can’t say I feel good about having it done to me. So what’s this big surprise you mentioned?”

  He glanced up at the night sky and pursed his lips. “Wait and see.”

  I waited; we all waited, standing around the park, stamping our feet on the frozen ground and blowing on our fingers while the town crier announced Jason Hallifax, the mayor of the city of Pemkowet, who made a long speech about the virtues of community and togetherness and the spirit of the holidays.

  At last, the mayor gave the order.

  The tall spruce came alive in a dazzling rush of light, a kaleidoscopic beacon against the darkness. The crowd applauded. Overhead, a generous handful of big, fluffy snowflakes drifted down from the hidden clouds—

  No, wait. There were sparkling silver-white figures darting amid the snowflakes on gossamer wings.

  “Frost
fairies!” Jen exclaimed in delight.

  There were oohs and aahs from the assembled watchers as the frost fairies spiraled around the tree, descending to hover just out of reach above our heads, their translucent wings making a faint, musical tinkling sound and refracting the Christmas tree lights in blurred glints of red, gold, blue, pink, white, and green. One alighted atop Sinclair’s head and, with a smug look on her exquisite, minuscule features, gave his dreadlocks a fond tug that coated them with hoarfrost.

  “Nice surprise,” I murmured to him.

  Sinclair gave a modest shrug. “After the Night Hag attacks, I figured we could use a little happy magic. We’re lucky they cooperated.”

  I glanced around at the crowd, the upturned faces filled with wonder. “It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

  The frost fairies’ visit didn’t last long, only a few minutes, but Sinclair was right—it was enough to make the night magical. At an unspoken signal, they vanished all at once, spiraling back upward into the clouds and darkness. Even though I knew what temperamental little bitches they were, my heart ached at the absence of their beauty.

  A voice arose to fill the void with the opening lines of “O Holy Night”—a mortal, human voice, tremulous at first, but gaining confidence and settling into a soaring soprano.

  It was the youngest of the carolers, a tall, awkward girl still in her teens, the too-short sleeves of her costume baring knobby wrists as she clasped her hands before her and sang, her eyes squeezed tightly shut.

  I wanted to cry, or hug her. Maybe both.

  It was a song of redemption and hope, and humility, too, something I’d never been good at. But that night, I felt it. I gazed at the shining tree: El Arbol, my roots. All that I loved. A star shone atop it.

  Hope.

  I whispered the word to myself. “Hope.”

  All too soon, it was over, the last notes fading. The young woman singing blinked her eyes open, looking surprised at herself. Friends and strangers alike laughed self-consciously and hugged one another. Gus the ogre wiped away a surreptitious tear as the crowd began to disperse.