The Tangleroot Palace

by Marjorie Liu

  Barnabus shrugged, gazing past her at the dense tree line. His mouth moved, but not a sound emerged except the whistle of his breath. He looked, for a moment, frustrated—and Lucy wondered what it would be like to have no voice, to have a lifetime bottled up inside her without words or sound. She reached out, unthinking, and touched his lips with her fingers. She only meant to tell him it was all right, that he did not need to explain, but his face was so close and his eyes were so deep and blue, that she found herself leaning, leaning, until she felt the heat of his breath and her fingers slipped away, only to be replaced by her mouth.

  Lucy had never kissed a boy before. His taste was sweet and hot—toe-curling, a delight. It frightened her, but not enough to give it up.

  It did not last. Lucy heard a weeping cry, and broke away, staring at the woods. She heard it again, a voice calling out, and it took her only a moment to find that pale feminine face, luminous in the rich green shadows of the forest. Lucy leapt to her feet and ran. She felt Barnabus behind her, but did not look back, afraid if she did, the woman would disappear.

  Mary. She heard a crow shrieking above her head—an animal caw that sounded very human—but she ignored that, as well.

  She reached the edge of the forest just as Barnabus caught up with her. She thought she heard Henry shouting, but Mary was there—right in front of her—and the woman whispered, “Please, help me.”

  Lucy sucked in her breath—fighting for courage—and jammed her hands through the underbrush toward Mary. Barnabus grabbed her waist—another set of hands joined his, as well—but it was too late. Something took hold of her wrists, yanking hard—and the face in front of her changed. It stopped being Mary, and became instead a shadow, a gasp of night, like that slithering tendril of nothingness she had witnessed in her vision.

  Raw terror bucked through her body. She tried to pull back, fighting with all her strength. Whispers rose from the trees—all those voices she had almost forgotten, soaring into her head like a scream.

  Lucy was pulled into the forest.

  The first thing she noticed, when she could see again, was that the world around her seemed quite ordinary. She was in the forest, yes, but she had been inside forests before, and this was no different. The shadows were long and the canopy thick, and the twilight that filled the air was neither gloomy nor particularly menacing. It was simply dense—with vines of wild rose and new spurting growths of seedlings: poison ivy, ferns, tiny bowing cedars, and those massive trunks of oak that spread fat like squatting giants all around her. She smelled the earth, something else—like rain—and the air was still and warm and humid.

  Lucy turned in one slow circle, trying to find the edge of the forest. She was close; she knew she should see Barnabus or Henry—at least hear voices—but even the birds did not sing, and all she could see was leaf and branch and shadow.

  “Hello?” she called out, thinking of the creature that had pulled her inside the wood. Fear clutched her throat, pounding against her heart, but she steadied herself, fought herself, and regained control. She thought of Mary, too. Trapped here for twenty years. She wondered if the same would happen to her.

  She heard something, and turned in time to see an immense pale figure part the gloom. A white stag. Tall and broad, with a deep chest and a long neck that glittered as though sprinkled with dew. Its hooves had been polished to the sheen of pearls, and its eyes glowed with a wild, raging light. Tiny bells hung from its silver antlers, and the sounds they made were those same whispered voices Lucy had heard in her head—now louder, cries and sorrow ringing with a delicate knell.

  A woman sat upon the stag. She was divine: pale and slender, sparkling as though spun with stars and diamonds, her hair so long it almost swept the ground. A Snow Queen, with a manner that begged a bow. White furs and silks crisscrossed her high breasts, which were quite nearly exposed, though covered with faint lines of pale rose, curling like poems and wings upon the skin below her throat.

  She held herself with such lightness, Lucy imagined she might float to fall, and as the stag stepped near, Lucy saw that the woman was perched on a fine dainty saddle shaped like a frog.

  “Witch” was not the right word for this woman, Lucy thought. A witch was human. And this . . . creature . . . most definitely was not.

  “You are trespassing on the land of the Sidhe,” said the woman, her voice strong, ringing. “What say you?”

  “I say no,” replied Lucy awkwardly, fighting for courage. “You brought me here. So I was invited.”

  A faint smile touched the woman’s mouth. “You thought you were saving a heart that belongs to me. So you are a thief. Much worse, I think.”

  Lucy steeled herself. “You’re talking about Mary. Mary doesn’t belong to you.”

  The stag shook its head, and the bells wept. Lucy thought she heard Mary’s voice within those tones. She closed her eyes for just a moment, searching. Listening hard, but when she looked again at the woman, she was gone from the stag.

  A cold hand caressed the back of Lucy’s neck, and she flinched, whirling. The woman stood before her, impossibly tall, peering down like a snowy owl about to bite a mouse. The hunger in her gaze was implacable and terrifying.

  “All that enter the forest belong to me,” said the woman softly. “And now you, as well.”

  “No,” Lucy said. “I want to go home.”

  “Home.” The woman smiled. “This is home.”

  “There are people waiting for me. For Mary, too.”

  “Mary,” she said quietly. “Mary betrayed my trust. She tried to fetch help. You. Quite shocking that you were able to see and hear her. I find that fascinating.”

  Lucy did not. “Let us go. Please.”

  “For what reason?” The woman smiled, tilting her head. “Shall I tell you a riddle and have you guess the answer? Or perhaps have you perform three impossible tasks, each more harrowing than the other. Oh, better still, tell me stories to keep me amused. Be my fool, my jester of the wood, and perhaps in a year or twenty I will release you.”

  Lucy doubted that. So she said nothing, instead waiting, watching, refusing to let herself feel a moment lost. The woman’s smile faltered, just slightly, and that momentary weakness humanized her presence in a way that made her seem less regal than ridiculous—as though her shocking appearance was nothing but an attempt to awe, and intimidate.

  Lucy suddenly felt stronger. “I won’t beg you. I won’t be a fool.”

  “You already are,” said the woman darkly. “You are nothing.”

  “No more than you,” Lucy replied recklessly, following her intuition. Perhaps too well: a cold hand grabbed her chin with crushing strength, yanking up until she stood on her toes, forced to look the woman in the eyes.

  “You love,” she whispered harshly. “I can smell it on you. Should we test that love? Do you truly think the one your heart cares for would wait? That handsome young man who used to be mine?”

  “Barnabus,” Lucy said, hoarse.

  “Barnabus,” she hissed. “I raised him long before that old crow sank her claws into his heart. He was mine. My son, in every way but one. But that one . . . he remembered.”

  “He did not love you.” Lucy could feel it, see it, a little boy with blue eyes running naked and wild, engaging with the woman, but never with emotion. Never with affection, or a smile.

  The woman glanced away, and then, softly, almost to herself: “He would never call me mother. He refused. And so I punished him.”

  “You took his voice.”

  “I could not have him calling another by the name he refused me.”

  “So if someone refuses you, you hurt them? What good does that do?”

  The woman gave her a sharp look. “Respect must be shown. I am a queen.”

  “You are a queen who is alone,” Lucy said, and the woman released her so quickly, she staggered, rubbing her ac
hing chin. The woman—the queen, the Sidhe, whatever that might be—watched her with cool, steady eyes, a gaze she now knew Barnabus copied well. Lucy met those ageless eyes, letting her thoughts roam, picking up as she did tendrils of some alternate vision: the woman in her finery, wandering the endless expanse of forest, alone. So very alone.

  “You wanted Henry to love you as a man loves a woman,” Lucy whispered. “You wanted Barnabus to love you as a mother. And there have been others, haven’t there? People who caught your eye. You brought them here, and then you hurt them because you couldn’t understand why they didn’t return what you feel.”

  “Love,” whispered the woman. “It is a myth that belongs only to humans, and those who pretend to be like them. It cannot last.”

  “I used to think that,” Lucy told her. “Until I met Henry, and I saw how he loves.”

  “Henry will give up his wife.”

  “Henry will love her forever.”

  The woman smiled coldly. “Forever does not exist for mortal love.”

  “It doesn’t exist for immortals, either,” Lucy said, still listening to that little voice inside her head. “Or maybe that’s just you.”

  The woman sucked in her breath; the stag backed away, eyes keen on its mistress. Lucy did not retreat. She took a step, overcome, as though she could hear her soul humming, as though the world was in her veins, alive and strong. Her heart, full to burst—and she thought of Barnabus, Henry, Miss Lindsay. People who cared for her. People she cared for, in ways she had not known possible.

  She loved them. She loved. And she knew what love was now, even if it was never returned. Even if one day, it all fell away.

  The woman flinched, staring at her. She began to speak, then stopped. Light burned in her eyes, but Lucy did not falter, nor did her heart dim. The woman turned, stopped, and in a muffled voice said, “Go. Leave. You have your freedom. I give you my word.”

  Lucy blinked, startled. “And Mary.”

  The woman stiffened, her back still turned. “I have blessed Henry with a gift. I would have returned Mary sooner, but she stopped loving him as she should. She is not worth his heart. He will be hurt, he will be broken. He has loved an idea for all these years.”

  “Because of you,” Lucy said, and then, softer: “Henry loved the woman before the idea. Let him find his own way.”

  The woman’s light seemed to dim, her radiance faltering beneath the gloom. Lucy, in a moment of pity, said, “You could leave this place if you’re so lonely.”

  That flawless head turned just a fraction, enough to show the corner of an eye, the curve of a high cheek.

  “We all have our homes,” she said quietly. “The ability to choose yours is not a gift to take for granted.”

  The woman plucked a silver bell from the stag’s antlers and tossed it at Lucy’s feet. A heartbeat later she was perched high on the fine saddle, her composure fixed and utterly regal.

  “Give my regards to Barnabus,” she said coldly. “The crows, as well.”

  And then she was gone. Vanished into the forest twilight.

  Lucy picked up the bell and shook it. Mary’s voice echoed, like an eerie chime. She held it tight after that, steady in her hand—scared somehow of hurting the woman, no matter how odd it was to think of a woman as a bell—and chose a direction to walk in. Voices whispered all around her, and what filled her ears and head tasted like music, a delightful mix of laughter and argument, lilting into a bustle that burst and billowed like bubbles, or birdsong. The queen—the woman—alone. Or not. There were things living in this place, in this entire world, that Lucy imagined she would never understand.

  Twisting trees grew before her, and after a moment, it seemed a path appeared, grass rimming its edges. Ahead, light. Lucy ran.

  She pushed out of the forest into a sunlight that felt like holy fire, bright and hot and clean. She was not beside the pond any longer, but on the meadow across from the old house. She could see Barnabus in the distance, with an ax in his hands. Miss Lindsay and Henry were with him. Above her head, in the branches of the trees, crows began to shout. And after a moment, so did Henry.

  The bell in her hand rattled. Lucy released the silver charm, unable to hold it. She instantly felt light-headed—had to close her eyes to keep her balance—and when she opened them, there was a woman on the ground.

  Mary. Still in her wedding dress. Looking not one day older.

  Again, Henry shouted. Lucy was not able to see the reunion. She staggered, eyes closing. Inside her head, voices, bells, a woman whispering. The dizziness was too much; her muscles melted.

  She fell down and did not get up.

  Lucy dreamed. Of women and men who turned into crows, and other creatures with burning gold in their eyes; of beings who grew tails like fish, and dragons that breathed fire; dark figures with green shining eyes, and the woman, the queen herself, with a similar gaze, effortlessly regal and unrelenting in her stare.

  “Truce,” said the woman, in Lucy’s dream. “Never ask me why, but between us, a truce. For one who loves.”

  And Lucy woke up. She was in her bed. Miss Lindsay was seated beside her, as was Barnabus. There were shadows under his eyes, as though he had not slept in days. She wondered, fleetingly, if he might speak to her—if perhaps there were other gifts in her release—but when he picked up her hand and brought it to his mouth with that silent, gentle strength, she knew instantly that was not the case.

  “Henry?” Lucy breathed. “Mary?”

  Miss Lindsay briefly shut her eyes. “Gone. Already gone. Henry wanted to stay to see you wake, but Mary . . .” She stopped, hesitating. “Mary wanted away from this place, immediately. She said to give you her thanks.”

  Miss Lindsay made the words sound flat, cheap. Barnabus looked unhappy. Lucy did not know what to think. She felt an aching loss for Henry. She wanted to see him, but thought of Mary, twenty years trapped, and knew why the woman had run—and that where she went, so would he. No choice. She was his home.

  Miss Lindsay seemed to read her mind—she was good at that, Lucy mused wearily—and said, “For both of us, thank you. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you, always.”

  “It was her, not me,” Lucy pointed out. “She gave us up.”

  Miss Lindsay looked sideways at Barnabus. “She does that, sometimes.”

  Lucy shifted, uncomfortable. “What is she?”

  “I don’t know,” said Miss Lindsay. “She is old, though. Her kind always are. So old, they don’t have children anymore. Not with each other, anyway.”

  “She’s lonely.”

  “Tell Henry that.”

  Lucy held up her hand. “He and Mary have their time now. Time to make their own way.” Time to finish what they had started, if such a thing was possible. To have their honeymoon, their marriage, their life.

  Miss Lindsay murmured, “Patience. I told Henry—both of them—to have patience. They’ve been through so much. Neither is the person the other married. Not anymore.” She glanced away, bitterness touching her mouth. “Is it wrong to wonder whether I should be happy for them?”

  Lucy closed her eyes, savoring the warmth of Barnabus’ hand. “Did you ever marry?”

  Silence, long and deep. Finally, Miss Lindsay said, “A woman like me rarely does.”

  Lucy opened her eyes and gave her a questioning look. The woman sighed. “I’ll tell you some other time, perhaps.”

  Some other time, Lucy thought. Like how you read minds? Or how sometimes you are a woman, and sometimes a crow?

  Miss Lindsay stared at her, startled, and then laughed out loud.

  “Yes,” she said, still smiling. “Just like that.”

  But she never did. At least, not for a long while. One morning soon after, she approached Lucy and Barnabus as they were weeding the garden, and said, crisply, “I think I will go away for a time. There’s a w
orld beyond the wood, you know. I’ve been here my entire life, already.”

  “Yes,” Lucy said, though she herself had no desire to go elsewhere. Barnabus put down his rake and regarded the older woman thoughtfully, with no small amount of compassion in his steady gaze. He nodded once, finally, and held out his arms. Miss Lindsay fell into them, hugging the young man so tightly, Lucy thought his bones might break. And then Miss Lindsay did the same for her, and she was quite certain that was indeed the case.

  “Tend this place for me,” whispered Miss Lindsay, her eyes glowing golden as the sun. “For all of us. We’ll be back. And we might bring others. There is so much in this world I have yet to explain to you.”

  And then, with no shyness or hesitation, she did a shocking thing—stripping off all her clothes, right in front of them, with hardly more than a smile. Golden light covered her body. Feathers black as night, thick and rich and hot, poured up from her skin and rippled like water. Lucy could not help but gasp; her knees buckled. Barnabus caught her, and she glanced at his face. He did not appear at all surprised by what he was seeing.

  He nudged Lucy, gestured for her to look again—and she found Miss Lindsay shrinking, narrowing—until she was no longer a woman, but a crow.

  A crow who stared at them with golden eyes—cawed once—and leapt into the air, followed by a flock of companions that shrieked and beat their wings in raucous sympathy.

  Quite a sight. But it was not the last time Lucy ever witnessed it.

  Time passed. Lucy and Barnabus did as Miss Lindsay asked—maintaining the house and land, as well as the cemetery—though they married soon after to keep local tongues from wagging. She kept the name of her birth, since Barnabus had none to give. Lucy Steele. They called their son William, who also, on occasion, exhibited peculiar talents.

  And sometimes Lucy would take a book and sit on the edge of the woods, and read out loud. She never knew if the woman, the Sidhe queen, was listening, but she liked to think that the trees were, and that through them the immortal could hear another voice, speaking just for her.