The Crosswood

by Gabrielle Prendergast

  She shakes her head.

  “Thornwood?” Salix says.

  Finola nods. She lifts one wing, spreading her flight feathers out.

  “Feathers?” I ask.

  She nods again. I can see she’s excited. She hops up and down on her webbed feet. All I can do now is try it.

  “Finola Thornwood Feathers MacLear,” I say. “I command you to return to your original form.”

  I expect it to happen in a puff of smoke or a flash. That’s how magic works in movies and TV. But what actually happens is much worse. Finola’s swan body becomes misshapen. It stretches. Her feathered skin seems to tear. And she honks and hisses like she’s in pain. I’m so freaked out I actually close my eyes for a second.

  When I open them, a girl is standing there. She’s wearing what looks like a white feather bikini. Her hair is long and black, swept back by a feather crown. Her eyes are a very dark brown. She looks to be about the same age as Salix and me.

  “Finola!” Salix says. “You look great!”

  “I’m half-naked!” she says. “Blue! Can you command me some proper clothes?”

  “Oh…uh…” I stumble. What clothes would she want to wear? I’m sure to get it wrong. “Finola Thornwood Feathers MacLear, I command you to clothe yourself in…uh…something sensible,” I finally say.

  This spell does involve smoke. When it clears, Finola is wearing a tunic, leggings and a short cape. She has leather boots and a belt with a sword in a sheath. In short, she looks awesome.

  “That’s better,” she says. “Blue, you have one more wish. Can you use it now so I don’t have to worry about it?”

  I really want a sword like hers now. But I’d never be allowed to keep it back in the human world. I get an idea.

  “Finola Thornwood Feathers MacLear, I command you to give me a real sword and sheath that only I can see!”

  Finola smirks at me. At first nothing happens, but then I feel something in my hand. I look down. I’m holding a leather belt with a sheath attached. There’s a sword in the sheath!

  “Did it work?” Salix asks.

  “Wait,” I say as I buckle the belt on. It fits perfectly. “You mean you can’t see this?”

  His face lights up. “No!” he says. “Do you really have an invisible sword? That’s amazing!”

  “I didn’t even know I could make invisible things,” Finola says. “I—”

  But she’s interrupted. There’s a noise behind us. Seconds later a dozen armed men smash through the trees.

  “Halt in the name of Oren Bramble, King of Farwood!” one of them says. “Put up your hands!”

  Oren’s soldiers march us through the castle gate. They take Finola’s sword. And Salix’s lantern. But they don’t even bother to frisk me.

  “Look at the little human!” one of them says. He laughs. I guess I don’t look very threatening.

  Inside the castle, we are taken down a dark, winding stairway. The soldiers carry burning torches to light our way. We seem to descend hundreds of feet. Finally we reach the bottom.

  It’s a dungeon.

  “This isn’t good,” Salix says unhelpfully.

  The soldiers lead us along a long passageway. At the end is a set of bars. One of the soldiers jangles some keys. The bars swing open. The soldiers shove us through. The lock clangs shut behind us.

  This cell is quite large. It’s about twenty feet wide and at least as long. The walls are very high. Way above us in the gloom, I can just make out two small barred windows. Combined with the torches on the walls outside the bars, they let in a little light.

  Something up there moves.

  “What’s that?” I ask. I’m tempted to draw my invisible sword. But I can’t—I don’t want the guards to know I have it. I step in front of Salix and Finola.

  “Blue?” a soft voice says.

  There’s more movement up in the gloom. A small shape moves past one of the windows.

  “Blue? What are you doing here?” another voice says.

  I blink and try to see in the dark as two shapes move down toward us. My fingers twitch over the hilt of my sword. The things coming down have wings!

  Oh, wow. It’s Indigo and Violet. And they’re flying.

  As they flutter into the light of the torches, I get a proper look at their wings. Unlike Olea’s bat-like ones, these look like butterfly wings. They are large and rounded, blue with black edges, white spots, and curled tips. Indigo’s wings are slightly larger than Violet’s. Hers are more shimmery. They sparkle in the torchlight.

  Indigo is shirtless and barefoot. But he’s wearing the shorts I last saw him in. Violet has torn and refashioned her shirt into a halter style so her wings can flap free. She’s barefoot too. They both look a bit dirty.

  As the twins settle to the floor, their wings retract. Soon they are nothing but vague ripples on their backs. Neither Salix nor Finola seems concerned about this.

  “Are you two okay?” I ask. I decide to worry about the wings later. “Has anyone hurt you?”

  “We’re hungry,” the twins say together.

  I quickly dig out the granola bars and hand them over. I’m pretty hungry myself, but they’re just little kids. As they chew, we all sit down. I introduce the twins to Salix and Finola.

  “Do you know why you’re here?” I ask them.

  “King Oren kidnapped us,” Violet says.

  “Because he hates our mother,” Indigo says.

  “Not Mom,” Violet adds. “Our other mother. Queen Olea.”

  “How long have you known you had another mother?” I ask.

  Indigo shrugs. “A while,” he says.

  My ears start to ring again. I have to shake my head to make it stop. If the twins knew about the Faerie Woods and everything, why didn’t they tell me? They must have known how much danger all of us were in. Good grief, why were these two always so frustrating?

  “Queen Olea killed King Oren’s father,” Violet says in a calm voice.

  “What?” I yell. That is a detail Olea left out of her story.

  “It’s true,” Indigo says. “We heard the guards talking about it. Didn’t we?”

  Violet nods.

  “Why did she kill him?” I ask.

  “No one knows,” Indigo says. “It was years ago. They had set up a camp in the Crosswood to discuss merging the kingdoms. They were there for weeks and weeks. Then Olea left suddenly. And one of the guards found King Gelso—Gelso Bramble, Oren’s father—dead. They found him with silver in his mouth.”

  Salix and Finola gasp.

  “Silver poisons Faeries!” Finola explains to me.

  “This is not good,” I say. “We need to get—”

  But I don’t finish. I hear someone marching toward our cell. A large guard appears.

  “Let’s go!” he says as he jams the key in the lock. The bars swing open.

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “To the Great Hall,” the guard says. “King Oren has summoned you.”

  Chapter Nine

  The Great Hall is not the right name for it. It’s not really a hall. And even though we seem to be inside a castle, Oren’s Great Hall is outside. Or it seems to be outside.

  Faerie land is very confusing.

  The walls of the Great Hall are made up of massive trees. They curve over us to make the ceiling. It’s daylight now. Sunlight dapples through the leaves and branches. The floor is made of stone paths crisscrossing grass. We walk behind some guards up the long path to the throne. I notice that one of them has a tail.

  I look around, trying not to be too obvious about it. There are dozens of creatures sitting in the hall. Some sit in circles on colorful blankets like they’re having a picnic. Others are curled up against the trunks of the trees. I think they’re asleep. Some stand as we pass. They watch us curiously.

  These are Faeries, I guess. I’ve never put much thought into what Faeries look like. Or what Faeries don’t look like. They don’t look like Tinker Bell, for example. None of them a
re tiny, as far as I can see. Most of them are a least human-sized, if not larger. Some of them have tails, like our guard. Some have horns like a goat’s or deer’s. A few have wings, mostly leathery ones like Olea’s. I do see a Faerie whose wings are gray and feathery like a sparrow’s. She looks kind, so I smile at her. She doesn’t so much smile back as bare her teeth. They are sharp and pointed, like a shark’s. I quickly look away.

  At the end of the path, a young man sits on a throne similar to the one Olea had in the forest. He is dressed in a similar way too. He wears a blue, sleeveless tunic that reaches just below his knees. On his feet are gold sandals with laces up his calves. A black-and-white, fur-lined cloak lies open on the throne behind him.

  His crown is a pinkish gold and is trimmed with blue stones.

  Once we get close enough, I can see he is not much older than I am. A teenager.

  When we stop in front of the throne, Salix bows deeply.

  “Salix Flapfoot, Destroyer of Rugs,” King Oren says. “Which piece of my property are you planning to ruin this time?”

  Salix doesn’t look up. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty. That spell got out of hand. It won’t happen again.”

  “Hmm,” Oren says. “See that it doesn’t.” He turns to his guards. “Put the prince and princess back into the cage. I doubt anyone wants to climb after them into the trees again.”

  The twins give me their best innocent faces, as though they would never climb somewhere dangerous and awkward. Yeah, right. One of the guards ushers them into a large ornate cage beside the throne. It looks like a birdcage.

  “Let them go,” I say angrily.

  Oren turns to me. “Ah, Blue Jasper, the human brother. How—” he looks me up and down “—charming.”

  He doesn’t look charmed. I put my hands on my hips. The fingers of my right hand rest on the hilt of the invisible sword.

  “You have broken Faerie law,” I try, even though I know almost nothing about Faerie law. “You have kidnapped the children of Queen Olea of Nearwood.”

  “Kidnapping children from the human realm is not against Faerie law,” Oren says. “We do it all the time.”

  That makes me lose my train of thought for a second.

  “Indigo and Violet aren’t human though!” is what I come up with.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Oren says.

  “What do you want them for?” I ask. I’m getting desperate. And I’m getting nowhere, clearly.

  Oren softens suddenly, and when I meet his eyes I see they are icy blue. And sad. His whole face looks sad.

  “Faerie law is complicated,” he says. “Olea killed my father. Had she tried to enter Farwood to do it, the magical treaty would have prevented her. Had she lured him to Nearwood to do it, Faerie law would have prevented it. But she did it in the Crosswood. The magic of the Faerie Woods is now unbalanced. It knows Olea must pay for what she did. But it doesn’t know how. That causes problems.”

  “What kind of problems?” I ask.

  Oren shakes his head. “Magical problems. Things falling into the Faerie realm from the human realm. Last month a beagle fell into my bathtub. Toadstools growing ten feet high in my dining room.” He looks pointedly at Salix as he says this. Salix averts his eyes. “The worst thing is that bad magic grows,” Oren says. “My kingdom is threatened. Witches gain power they never had before.” He turns to Finola. “I see you’ve broken the bog witch’s spell at last.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” Finola says.

  “What does this have to do with the twins?” I ask.

  Oren takes a breath and leans forward in his throne. He fixes his blue eyes on me.

  “I have restored balance,” he says. “Olea took my father. I took her children.”

  “What are you going to do with them?”

  Oren suddenly seems even sadder. He looks away, shrugging. “Nothing,” he says. “Keep them. Hope that is enough to satisfy the Woods.”

  “And if it’s not?” I ask.

  “It will be,” Finola says. Her voice sounds too small.

  I start to panic. I know what no one is saying. If the balance of Faerie Woods isn’t restored, Oren will kill the twins. That thought gives me focus like I’ve never had before. I start talking. Fast.

  “What if—okay, I’m a human, right? I’m not constrained by Faerie law. I can get into Nearwood. I can get at Queen Olea. What if I punished her in some other way?” I ask. I’m thinking of my invisible sword. Could I really do that? Kill someone to protect the twins and Mom? Am I going to have a choice?

  Oren looks almost amused. “How could a human punish a Faerie?” he asks.

  I don’t want to suggest murder just yet. That seems extreme. And unlikely. I try hard to think of something.

  “Silver!” I say. “Mom has some silver jewelry. I could go and get it and give it to Olea somehow. Like… use it to…tie her up?”

  No one says anything. I look over at Salix.

  “No offense,” he says, “but that is a really dumb idea. For starters, we don’t have time.”

  He’s right. There’s no way I could get home and back again before sunset. That’s when Mom’s payment for breaking the pact with Olea comes due. That’s when Faerie magic will kill her.

  I really hate Faerie land.

  Chapter Ten

  There’s only one thing left to try. I know Oren isn’t human, but I’m going to try to appeal to his humanity. It’s all I have. Unless I want to bust out the invisible sword.

  Which I don’t.

  I go down on one knee. “King Oren,” I start. But I find it hard to say what I want to. “I know how hard it is to lose a father,” I finally get out. “My father left me when I was just a baby. Since then it’s just been my mom and me. And the twins.”

  I don’t know what I expect. Maybe some sympathetic looks. A couple of tears. Oren just looks confused.

  “The twins’ human father doesn’t live with you?” Oren says.

  Now I’m confused. Why would he ask that? And what does he mean by human father?

  “No,” I say. “I don’t know who their father is. I don’t think they know either.” I turn to the twins, who are watching, wide-eyed, from their cage. “Do you?” I ask them.

  “No, Blue,” they answer together.

  Oren frowns. His body language changes. He seems angry now. “The twins’ human father has never lived with you?” he asks through his teeth.

  “Not that I know of. Who told you he did? Olea?”

  Oren stands. “Your mother told me,” he says. “She told me the first time I tried to take the twins from her. Magic stopped me, but I was able to ask a few questions. Your mother told me the twins’ father was her human husband. That he had been with Olea before they met. That Olea sent him away from Faerie land to be with the twins. And that he married your mother.”

  “Mom told you all this?”

  Oren sits back down with a huff. “Yes,” he says tightly. “I do not like to be told lies.”

  The word lies hangs in my head. Lies. I remember Salix telling me that Faeries can’t tell lies. But humans can. In fact, we do it all the time. Olea must have asked Mom to lie about the twins’ father. But why would she do that? It seems pointless.

  Unless she didn’t want Oren to know who the twins’ father really is.

  Or was.

  I get a chill. The hair on the back of my neck prickles. Oren is glaring down at me.

  “I do not like to be told lies by humans,” he says.

  I think I know why Olea wanted Mom to lie. I hope I’m right. I hope Faeries can’t read minds. I also hope what I’m about to do is not crazy.

  “Is it against Faerie law to have a human lie on your behalf?” I ask.

  Oren makes a face. “I don’t know,” he says. “If it’s not, it should be.”

  “Maybe Queen Olea knows,” I say. “At the very least you should ask her why she wanted my mother to lie.”

  Maybe if Olea comes here, I can push her into attacking Oren. I can defe
nd him with my sword. Then he’ll owe me his life, and I can take the twins instead.

  It’s a dumb plan, but it’s the only one I have.

  Oren stares at me for a long time. Finally he nods. “I’m curious now,” he admits. “If Olea is having humans lie for her, there’s a real story. I’d like to know what it is.” He stands, reaching for an ornate staff by his throne. He raises it up and bangs it on the stone floor three times. With each bang a bright spark shoots out from the top of the staff. The sparks fly up into the trees as Oren speaks.

  “Olea of Nearwood,” he says loudly. “I invite you to Farwood, to my court. Come alone!” Then he tosses the staff down and sits.

  “Uh…okay,” I say. “When will she be here?”

  “Soon,” Oren says.

  I sit with Finola and Salix as we wait. Oren has lost interest in us. He is flirting with a pink-haired Faerie girl.

  “You have some kind of bonkers human plan, don’t you?” Finola asks me. She is grinning. I get the feeling she enjoys bonkers human plans.

  “It’s bonkers, all right,” I admit. “But I don’t know how human it is.”

  “Don’t tell us about it,” Salix says. “If it goes wrong or something happens, we can’t lie about it to save you. Or ourselves.”

  “Good thinking,” Finola says. “The less we know, the better.”

  Not exactly the kind of support I was hoping for.

  Just then the ground starts to rumble. Faeries sitting around the throne stand and move out of the way. Finola, Salix and I join them. Oren sits up on his throne, shoving the pink-haired girl away. The twins poke their heads through the bars of their cage, straining to see.

  The stone in front of the throne cracks. The noise makes me jump. The two pieces of stone move apart, and a pair of feet appears, roots and earth churning around them. Oren watches, mildly interested. But when two more pairs of feet appear, he signals his guards. They come forward, swords drawn.

  I arrived in the Crosswood in pretty much the same way. Upside down through the earth. I didn’t realize how clumsy it looks. Olea’s skirt tangles around her legs as the roots push her up. She finally emerges, pulling her head out of the dirt. She jumps to her feet just as her guards pull themselves up too. They draw their swords.