Untamed

by A. G. Howard

  Nauseated by the gruesome spectacle, David slings his goggles at the group to distract them, then jumps out from his hiding place.

  “En garde!” he shouts, and swipes his sword at the silvery creatures in an attempt to frighten them away.

  They screech in unison and squirm into some hedges nearby. Whimpers shake the leaves, followed by flashes of light from their caps.

  David sheathes his sword and stoops beside the boy, releasing his binds.

  “Yous-es aughtent shouldn’t do it, talker,” one of the creatures warns in an airy and threatening singsong voice. “The gardener omescay on the ayway.” The others snicker in response, causing the shrubs to rattle, but then they grow disturbingly silent, as if listening for something.

  Gardener? David keeps an eye trained on them as he continues to untie the boy. Uncle William niggles in the back of his mind. David hopes his other family members have found the old man by now. One thing he knows: Uncle William and his father both would want him to do the right thing. He took an oath to protect all humanity from the magi-kind, and this boy obviously needs protecting.

  So intent on his inner battle, he doesn’t see the giant hovering shadow until he hears the haunting song:

  “The itsy-bitsy spider went up the water spout,” an eerie voice croons from above.

  His shoulders grow chill in the same instant his eyes snap up—too late. The horrific sight mesmerizes him.

  A human-size spider hangs upside down overhead. The top half is female—translucent face with scars and bloody scratches scattered all across her purplish lips, cheeks, chin, and temples. Her silvery hair hangs down in thick coils, nearly reaching David’s head. Her bottom half is a black widow’s, five times bigger than the size of the medicine balls the knights use to build muscles and stamina. She’s balanced on a strand of web affixed to the branches, and it glistens like her hungry blue eyes. Eight shiny spider legs bend around the anchor line, both terrifying and graceful.

  David considers drawing his sword, but he’s frozen with awe and fear.

  She brings her left arm down, and it almost looks human, aside from the garden shears in place of a hand.

  Gardener. The word taunts David, biting at him, nudging him back into the moment.

  Snip, snip, snip. The whisk of the scissors wakes David completely from his trance. He crab-walks backward, pulse racing as the blades barely miss his face.

  The spidery woman alights delicately onto the ground in front of him.

  Terror skitters through his nervous system—a thousand icy sparks igniting chill bumps along his skin. Before he can right himself and run, a thick spray of web encases him from his feet to his thighs, catching up his sheath and rendering his sword hidden and useless. David totters off balance and flattens to the ground, right next to the boy he tried to save. The boy stares at him with those numbing, desolate eyes. He pushes the web from his mouth with his tongue and garbles again in that senseless mantra, as if trying to tell David something.

  The left side of David’s body aches where it hit the ground, and strands of grass tickle inside his ear.

  “Well, well,” their spidery captor says with a breathy voice that leaves a coppery taste in David’s mouth, like flakes of rust and despair. “Did ye two make friends? How precioussss.”

  The silvery monkey creatures snicker and creep out from their hiding places. In a last-ditch attempt to escape, David claws his hands into the grass and pulls himself along toward the edge of the thicket.

  Two of the creatures leap on him and another drags the ring from his finger.

  “Sparkly!” it shouts, and holds up its prize.

  “Give that back!” David demands, though he has no idea where his courage comes from.

  Growling, the spider gardener sweeps the chatty monkeys aside with four spindly legs and then pins David in place, spinning him around and around until he’s wrapped in web up to his shoulders.

  “This ones-es is a sparkly talker,” a silver captor taunts as it jabs at David with a stick.

  “A talker he may be, my slave.” The spidery woman bends low, her breath rushing across David’s face. He coughs, gagging on the scent of decay and damp earth. “But is he a dreamer?” Her right hand, cloaked in a rubbery glove, catches his chin. She looks into his eyes—an intense study that pulls at his insides—like a child worrying at a loose scab. He feels the tug deep within, deeper than his heart, deeper than his bones and blood . . . until it rips free and exposes all of his fears and hopes, all the way to his soul. “Aye. He be a most unique dreamer. And he be mine.”

  At the spidery witch’s proclamation, the monkey creatures dance, their oozing silvery slime slinging across David’s face.

  “Let us go,” he pleads, casting a glance to the other boy.

  “Oh, nay.” Her rubber glove pets his head, tugging his hair at the scalp. “Ye came to Sister Two of yer own free will. Yer a gift for me, ye are. Ye shall be magnificent in me garden. Ye’ve seen things other humanlings haven’t. Ahhh, ye will have the most vivid dreams. And nightmares, oh, the nightmares we will spin together.” Drool dribbles from her lower lip and combines with the blood already on her chin. She swipes it away with her scissored hand, slicing her skin once more.

  David tenses inside his webby casing, trying to work his hands closer to his sword. But his limbs are plastered in place—immovable.

  The fallen boy whimpers across the way, and the spider scrabbles over to him. “It would seem we have a replacement for ye. Wasn’t that easy? No more suffering.” She inches off her glove, using her teeth to help in the absence of another working hand. The rubber sheath peels away to free five scorpion tails curling and uncurling in place of fingers.

  David groans at the sight, repulsed.

  Sister Two bows over her captive and rips the web from his chest, exposing pale skin. “Time to join the others.” Her venomous hand presses against the boy’s sternum and poison wells from the tip of her forefinger; then she punctures through the bone into his heart.

  The boy howls and convulses. David cries out and struggles to get to him, but can’t move. Within moments, the boy’s body has shrunk and transformed to a silvery monkey slave, like the others. At last he stops struggling and closes his pupil-less eyes, his primate face relaxed and a black tongue hanging out of his mouth. Bubbles of slime ooze off what was once human flesh, and a long, thin tail thrashes at his backside.

  David clenches his eyes shut, trying not to scream like a little boy. Be brave, he tells himself. You’re a knight. But he’s losing courage . . . he’s forgetting everything he’s been taught. All he remembers is blood and death and snapping teeth and stingers. There’s a flash of his mother’s soft and gentle hand stroking his head. It’s sliced away by a pair of garden shears.

  “Be not afraid, little dream boy.” Sister Two has returned to lean over him as the slaves pick up their newest member and drag him away. “Ye’re home now. Ye have an immortal brotherhood and sisterhood here. One day, when yer dreams dry up, ye’ll join them. But first, ye’ll feed my wretched, hungry souls.”

  “Nooo!” I shout. It’s a scream both for David and for the lost boy we’ll never know. The lost boy who will never be reunited with his loved ones. Who’s now lost forever, even to himself.

  I scream louder as the web covers David’s face and he’s no longer able to cry for himself or anyone else. “Noooo!”

  “Alison.” Thomas shakes my shoulder, and the scene scrambles and blurs around me, dragging me from his memory and dropping me back onto the chaise lounge, cradled by the dimness surrounding us.

  I bury my face in Thomas’s arm, seeking his scent and warmth. Reminding myself he’s here and will never suffer like that again. “I’m so sorry.”

  “No, baby. You saved me. You have nothing to be sorry for.” He wraps his arm around me and pulls me close, waiting until my heartbeat stops pounding in my ears, until I can breathe without heaving.

  “Sister One lied to me,” I say, struggling to make
sense of things. “She said the pixies used children’s bodies to feed the flowers. But that wasn’t it at all.”

  “No. The pixies were once children themselves.” Thomas sighs heavily, his rib cage lifting my head with the effort. “And they can never return to that form again.”

  My face burns with rage. “I can’t watch anymore. Please tell me that’s where it ends.”

  He squeezes me. “It’s okay. That’s the blessing. Something in the web worked like a sedative. I was in a trance. I have no memories of my time in her lair, because I made no memories. All I did was dream. But I do remember stirring when you freed me from her trap and I fell to the ground. I remember you wrapping me in a blanket.”

  “Yes,” I whisper in the darkness. “Sister One let me borrow it. That was all she could offer. She was terrified of her twin’s wrath. I used the blanket as a stretcher—to help me drag you out.”

  “I remember that, too. I saw glimpses of you, glancing behind to make sure I didn’t fall off. Your eyes were the color of freedom. Of my future. They were full of so much sorrow, so much determination. And strength.” Thomas hugs me tighter. “Then as I roused on Morpheus’s shoulder when he carried me through the portal, you and your wings flickered in and out of my view. You were transcendent . . . ethereal. Waking up in your bed was like waking from a ten-year coma and seeing an angel. Your face was familiar, I guess from those glimpses of consciousness. For some reason, when Ivory erased my other memories, those moments remained. Maybe because they weren’t quite memories yet. They were more . . . awakenings. And with all my other memories gone, you were the only thing I recognized. Later, I convinced myself I’d dreamed of you and those wings, but it didn’t matter. Because just looking at you, with or without wings, I was reborn.”

  I snuggle closer to his chest so I can hear his heartbeat. Shutting my eyes, I replay in my mind that moment we first officially met as if I were viewing it on the screen across the room.

  I had sat beside the bed and kept vigil that night, after breaking all my mirrors so Morpheus couldn’t find his way back into my room. I knew I’d let him down. I also knew he would be furious. But I didn’t care. All I cared about was helping the boy in the web.

  Knowing he’d have no identity when he woke, I named him as he slept. He reminded me of a painting I once saw in one of my foster homes. They were religious people, and a portrait of Saint Thomas hung over their fireplace. His hair was brown, his face young but etched with wisdom, and his dark eyes sympathetic and soulful. He was the patron saint of people who struggled with doubt, and I had never believed that I had a place in the human world. So I appointed him my personal saint.

  But as I watched the dream boy sleep that night in my bedroom, a boy I’d helped save . . . a boy I’d given a home, I knew I would never doubt my place again.

  Nervous and insecure, I watched his brown eyes flicker open the next morning. A peachy dawn danced upon the walls in the room, animated by the tree branches swaying outside my window. I wondered if he would fear me, if he would panic or lash out. But when our gazes connected, I felt—for the first time in all my years—safe. He reached for me as if he’d known me forever. Considering how long he’d been without human contact, I didn’t hesitate to reach back. Silently, I took his hand and slid under the eyelet quilt, nestling into his side. Without a word, his fingertip glided over every feature on my face, his breath sugary and sweet across my skin—a residue of the forgetting potion Ivory had poured into him. To me, it was the scent of fresh hope and new life. Then he stopped at my mouth, cupped my chin, and pressed his lips to mine, his touch so tender yet so confident for a nineteen-year-old boy who had never kissed a girl. It was my first reciprocal kiss, the only one that reached into my heart and lit me up like a torch standing strong against the wind. I stayed there in the warmth of his arms and we slept for hours, until the sun peaked in the sky and it was time to give him answers, however false they were.

  Thomas couldn’t speak for those first few months. He understood the things I said, but he had to relearn words—how to articulate and read them. It was as if Sister Two not only drained away his dreams and imagination, but also stole a lifetime of communication. Though it was frustrating for him, it made it easy for me, to tailor his impairment and amnesia to a car accident and head injury.

  I look back now at the lies I told in hopes to keep him sane, and wonder how different things might have been had I brought him here to the train for his truth.

  But the past can never be undone. He’s forgiven me, and loves me despite it all.

  “I only wish I could’ve saved all those other children along with you,” I say, clenching my hands in Thomas’s shirt. “Or saved Alyssa from the pain she went through.”

  “Come on, sweetie. Can’t you see how many lives you did save? Not just mine. You and I were both destined to be a part of Wonderland. No matter what paths we might’ve chosen. We were caught in that web from the moment we were born. Which means it was inevitable that our daughter would be as well, and that her part would be bigger than both of ours.”

  “I understand that, but—”

  “But what you keep forgetting,” Thomas interrupts gently, “is that without your role in all of it, our girl would’ve never been born to begin with, because I would’ve ended up a pixie, constantly in search of that missing sparkle of inspiration, never knowing exactly what I’d lost. I can’t think of a more tragic ending. Can you?”

  A new emotion rises inside me. A splash of righteous indignation for all the lost human children and the one I was able to save, hot and overpowering.

  “By stepping into Wonderland in the first place,” Thomas continues as he takes my hand and presses it to his heart, “you gave our daughter life, and a chance at life to all the children Sister Two would’ve caught and used up in the future. Morpheus’s luring Alyssa into being queen led him to fall in love with her, which in turn gave a selfish, solitary fae the chance to grow and do something honorable . . . She’s with us now because of it. Jeb giving up his muse for human children—a boy who didn’t have much of a childhood himself—another honorable sacrifice. We’re all better people . . . or netherlings in some cases . . . because of you being brave and daring enough to seek a better life for yourself. Because of your choices as that young, lonely thirteen-year-old girl, and then again as that righteous and caring sixteen-year-old princess, countless lives were saved and improved. And by saving Alyssa’s father, you gave her the chance to exist in the first place.”

  I stave off a sob. “Which gave you the chance to raise her. She’s strong and amazing because of you.” I take his hand in mine, curl his fingers to a fist, and kiss his knuckles. “Thank you for never giving up on me or our girl. You’re our hero.”

  “You’re my hero, Alison. Literally.” He brushes a strand of hair from my face that has fallen from its pin. “How many men can say that about the woman they love? Huh?”

  I stop fighting the tears. I let them stream quietly down my face. These are different than the others I’ve cried. They’re pure, healing, and happy. Blissfully happy. In spite of the darkness we’ve all faced, I have my family. I’ve honored my mother’s death by enabling others to live. Just like Morpheus once said . . . he gave me a chance to make peace with her death. And now Thomas has given me a chance to make peace with my life. Everything is as it should be. At long last.

  There would be times the dark thoughts would revisit, I was sure. But now . . . now I had a light to shine upon them. A beacon to guide me through.

  “No more looking back,” I say to my husband, my voice surprisingly strong.

  “No more train rides.” He strokes my jawline with his knuckles. “Only forward, from this day on. Cherishing each and every moment we have left together in this world. You with me?”

  “Until the very end,” I answer.

  Thomas dries my tears. “Happy anniversary, Ali-bear.” He draws me into his lap on the chaise lounge, and kisses me until I’m breathless and blushing
like a new bride. After he stands me up to straighten my clothes, he whispers in my ear, “I’m starving. How about some spaghetti Bolognese?”

  I laugh. “You read my mind.”

  As we make our way off the train toward the mirror, he holds my hand. The boy in the web, and the man of my dreams. Always and forever, my anchor.

  THE MOTH’S MACHINATIONS

  “You’re sure about this, Morpheus?”

  “I am,” Morpheus answered, dragging off his gloves and tucking them into his jacket. “You, however, appear to need convincing.” Magic tingled at his fingertips, a pulsing blue light just beneath the skin. Due to the iron bridge outside, his powers were limited to a few benign tricks. But it would be enough to get his point across if necessary.

  The carpet beetle—who stood as high as Morpheus’s collarbone after Morpheus had consumed a shrinking potion—gulped behind his many clicking mandibles. His carpeted hide quivered. “No, no. Please, you misinterpret my reservations.” The insect’s twiggy arms trembled as he flipped through the alphabetical tally on his clipboard of all the memories that had been lost in Wonderland. “It looks like a boring way to spend an afternoon, is all . . . spying on a human’s forgotten moments.”

  Morpheus shifted, and his wings cast a shadow over the beetle’s face. “Ah, but this particular human has much to teach me.”

  This particular human had managed to capture something Morpheus desired above all else in the world.

  “Have a seat”—the beetle pointed to a white vinyl chair—“and I’ll ready the memories for you.”

  Morpheus swooped his wings aside, sat down, and took a drag from the hookah provided by his host as a courtesy. The sweet, candied tobacco seared his windpipe. He blew puffs of smoke, fashioning them into Alyssa’s face. It was easy to picture the way her eyes always frosted to blue ice when she saw him, filled with both dread and excitement. He adored that about her: the sharpened edge of her netherling instincts, warning her not to trust him, softened by human emotions forged during their shared childhood.