The Goodnight Kiss

by Jennifer L. Hart

  I sigh, leaning back in my window seat and let my mind wander. One memory pulls itself apart from the others and floats in the forefront of my mind like a soap bubble. Winter has a firm hold on the land, her icy chill spreading out like a great white cloak that covers all in sight. It is late at night, the hall is empty, but I am restless, unable to sleep. My chambers have grown smaller until I leave them, needing to do something.

  The Hunt left without me, on my orders. My fertile time approaches, and there is no guarantee that they will be back in time for the moon of conception. I long for Freda’s freedom to choose any bed partner she wishes to spend a night with or Nahini’s to decline all offers that come her way. If I had just one child, a son or daughter of royal blood to ensure the line of succession, everything would be different. I could refuse the suitors that gather around me like dogs around a dinner table, hoping crumbs of my power will fall so they can gobble it up.

  The iridescent pearl floor is cold beneath my bare feet, but I am unwilling to return to my room for shoes. Most of my kind do without shoes or clothing, or if they do happen upon them, they use the items until they are threadbare and full of holes. It bothers me immensely, that the fey possess such great powers but most are forced to do without, relying on tokens from humans or outright thievery. But what can be done?

  I pause by one of the windows and stare at a shaft of moonlight playing on the endless lake. The light is bright tonight, the moon full so that even here we can feel the pull of the great celestial rhythms that are a part of us all. Though the palace itself is situated well below ground, the light from the moon and the sun is reflected down to us by tightly woven iridescent webbing, a gift from the great spiders long before my birth. Their gift of peace outlasted them. I hope the same won’t be said of the Unseelie fey.

  It is the loneliness I feel, the frustration and yearning that has attached this moment to my present self. Nahini says that just as familiar faces can act as a trigger, so too can my own emotions create tethers to a time from before when I felt the same.

  Connection, yes and a healthy dose of frustration. Mostly at my past self for being so damn helpless. The poor wittle queen who accepted starvation and exposure of her subjects as part of life’s unfairness. Who hated sex yet submitted to it, so she could turn around and pass the buck to her innocent offspring. Where is my will to fight? To kill or die in the attempt to make the world a better place? Is that so unique to me, to Nic Rutherford, the child that was abandoned and almost molested in her first decade of life?

  Apparently, a life of entitlement and privilege has its downside. I wouldn’t change places with that milquetoast version of myself for the world. I’m tempted to crimp the thread, to go to bed and seethe over my past impotence but I sense I am on the verge of some new revelation. I grit my teeth and stay with the memory. Curiosity will be my undoing.

  It is as I stare out at the still lake the color of pitch that I first see the figure. At the distance I can make out nothing more than the fur lined cloak, dusted with snow and pulled up to conceal his or her face. The boots are coated with snow and ice. The traveler seems to be alone and judging from the quality and newness of the garments, is a fey of means newly arrived from the world above.

  My fingers grip the windowsill until my knuckles turn as white as bone. An inward shudder racks me from head to foot. All the signs point to the same—another lordling with royal ambitions. That makes five for this month.

  Fury bubbles up in me, and I want to lash out at him, with my words, with my powers. I should freeze him where he stands, send ice to encase him as a warning to the rest of them. Or maybe go greet him with a deadly kiss, catch him off guard, and then press my poisonous lips against his chill ones until they grow even colder.

  Such thoughts are treasonous. This traveler has done nothing wrong. And deep down I know it’s not him or any of the others I hate. It is myself and my crown. My duty.

  He pauses in a shaft of that reflected moonlight and looks up. Directly at me.

  My breath catches. Only once before had I seen eyes so green, as vivid as the first shoots of spring. That night, that oddly bizarre night with the young man who’d craved death, the fire and the wolf with eyes the exact same hue. His face has changed much over the years, but I would recognize those eyes anywhere.

  We stare at each other for an endless time. I drink him in, this strange man yet not a man. Power eddies around him in invisible waves. What is he? Who is he? How did he find me here? What does he want?

  You. I hear his voice in my mind. I only want you. You told me to find something worth dying for and to live for it. I live because of you. I will die only for you.

  A knock on the front door pulls me from the scene. I blink, my hand going automatically to my chest, feeling my heart pounding beneath trembling fingers. The intensity of the emotions rock me to my core. While many of my memories about Aiden are more vivid than the others, this is the first time since training began that I had been so caught up in the memory and lost track of who I really was, where I need to be.

  Shaking the last of the past from my head, I hop off the window seat and make my way to the door. After lifting the latch, I pull it open to see Jasmine and Freda on the other side.

  “My queen.” Freda is in her full armor with her winged helmet tucked in the crook of her elbow. She bows her head respectfully, as she always does when operating in the official capacity as leader of the Wild Hunt. “We have been called into service.”

  “When do you need to leave?”

  She gestures to the open field in the distance, where the Hunt is mounted, the ghosts in line behind the living. “Immediately.”

  I nod and wrap my arms around myself. “Okay.”

  Freda shifts, appearing uncomfortable. “Might I beg a favor?”

  “Of course.”

  “Would it be possible for Jasmine to stay here? I do not know how long we will be gone and the regular food and rest has been beneficial to her. She will not be a burden. She will go about her training and stay out from underfoot.”

  My gaze falls on the red-haired girl. She does look much improved. Her cheeks have lost the hollowness and her skin glows with health from regular meals. “Of course. Though I would like her to stay in the house, so I can keep an eye on her better.”

  After the protests Freda and Nahini had put up the first night, I expect some hesitation, but Freda surprises me. “We would both be honored, your highness.”

  She turns to her daughter. “You know the rule.”

  “If anything tries to kill me, I should kill it first,” Jasmine’s lyrical voice is definite.

  A laugh bubbles up, my very first. “We’ll get along just fine.”

  Freda grins. “So long as you don’t try to kiss her goodnight.”

  IN A STRANGE WAY, HAVING Jasmine in the house makes it feel like a home again. She’s not little and impish like the fawn kits, which I doubt I could handle. She possesses her mother’s adventurous spirit and appears to love all things modern.

  “Show me how it works again,” quickly becomes her constant refrain. She uses it for the television, the washing machine, the dryer, the toaster. Each time a machine performs its function her face lights up.

  “I thought the fey couldn’t touch iron.” I say one day as we are preparing dinner. She picks up a cast iron skillet, which prompts the question.

  “That’s only full blooded fey, and there aren’t many of them left, at least not on this side of the Veil.” She sets the pan on the stovetop, turns the burner on and grins at me.

  Questioning Jasmine is much more straightforward than with any of the adult immortals I’ve encountered. She is completely guileless and often volunteers information I would have to pry out of anyone else. “What about the lying thing. Can fey lie?”

  “They can’t speak an untruth, that’s different.” I watch as she mixes eggs and green onion with quinoa to form patties the way I showed her. “Neither can I or anyone else I know, including the
turned humans.”

  “So, your mom can’t lie? Or Nahini?”

  She shakes her head and drops a fully formed patty into the pan with a plop. “No one that survives the gauntlet can lie. It’s the curse of the gods.”

  “You forgot to grease the pan.” I add some avocado oil and then turn the patty before it sticks. “Which gods? Last time I checked there were about a dozen different polytheistic religions.”

  “The gods.” Another irregular shaped blob hits the pan.

  At my blank look she blows a strand of hair out of her face since her hands are still covered with goop. “Long ago there was only darkness. Then fire clashed with ice and formed the first giant. From his body, Odin and his brothers built the nine worlds.”

  I recognized the tale. It is in the book, the origin story of Norse mythos. “If there was only fire and ice, where did Odin and his brothers come from?”

  “From the giants of course.” Jasmine scrunches her forehead at me as though I’m a bit simple.

  “Okay so you’re saying the Norse gods are the gods? What about the Greek and Roman gods?”

  “They were the descendants of the Vanir, who warred with the Aesir until a truce was called and Freya agreed to join the Aesir.”

  Which explained why there were so many intersections between the Greek and Norse stories, like the Norns/ Fates. “So, tell me about this curse.”

  “I’m getting to it. I need to wash my hands, first.”

  I man the pan as Jasmine rinses the goop from her fingers.

  “The fair folk are descendants of Freya, before she joined the Aesir. She made them perfect, in her image from the light of a newborn star and her brother, Frigg, watched over them in the lands of Vanaheim, where the tribes of the Vanir dwelled. The fair folk possessed magic and glamour and were content. But the Aesir gods grew jealous of a race at peace that had no cause for war. They banished them to Alfheim and Svartalfheim, the land of light elves and the dark elves or dwarfs. The two worlds together make up Underhill.”

  “Let me guess.” I remove the patties from the pan, add more oil and start forming the rest of the mixture for a second batch. “The Seelie Court went with the light elves, and the Unseelie Court with the dwarves?”

  “Right, though those two races have blended with the fair folk almost entirely over the millennia. And many of the Seelie Court have bred with humans as well.”

  “Whereas the Unseelie just want to eat them. Yeah, saw that one for myself.”

  But Jasmine shakes her head. “Only when they cross the boundaries. It’s more that the Unseelie want to be left alone. How would you like it if some man came to your home, ate all your food, polluted your water supply, burned down your house and put one up for himself in its place?”

  No question about it. “I’d kill him.”

  She points the spatula at me. “Right. The Unseelie Court of Alba values survival above all things, their own survival and that of their offspring.”

  “Where does the lying thing fit in?”

  “It’s part of the banishment curse. That any with the gift of regenerating youth to speak no word that is untrue until the day when they’re permitted to return to Vanaheim. This doesn’t apply to the gods themselves.”

  “Our own personal Garden of Eden.” Except the fey hadn’t been booted because of anything they’d done. Just like Aiden’s curse hadn’t been because of his actions, but the sins of his father.

  I was developing a major dislike for these so-called gods.

  We sit down with the plate of quinoa patties and dig in. Jasmine eats three helpings with none of the cautious reserve I’d seen with other adolescents. Probably because she knows what it feels like to go hungry.

  “I wish I could live in a place like this all the time.” Jasmine says on a sigh. “To go to school the way you did and come back to the same place every day.”

  “You’ve never been to school?”

  She shakes her head. “Just training.”

  “Some mortal children think of school as a special hell.”

  “Oh, but why? Imagine a place where anyone can learn anything they wish.” A dreamy look passes over her face.

  “And what is it you would like to learn?”

  She scrapes some loose bits of quinoa into a pile. Mumbles something unintelligible.

  “Say that again.”

  “To read.”

  I blink at her. “Your mother never taught you how to read?”

  “It’s not her fault,” Jasmine is quick to defend Freda. “I’m sure she would have if she knew how. But reading wasn’t something women were taught in her time.”

  My throat is dry. I reach for my water glass, trying to reconcile myself with the idea that Freda couldn’t read, couldn’t teach her daughter one of the most basic forms of communication. And Jasmine. Such simple things she desires, to go to school, to read to be normal. What did I want when I was her age?

  Probably my next victim.

  “Jasmine, if you want to go to school, I’ll figure out a way to get you there.”

  “Really?”

  I nod. If Aiden could saunter in like he always belonged in school, Jasmine can as well. “When Aiden comes back. We’ll figure out what we need to do. You can be miserable right along with the normals.”

  She jumps up and rushes around the table, wrapping her arms around me. “Oh, thank you. Thank you so much!” The gesture is pure affection, with no motive other than the obvious.

  I stand there frozen, unsure of what to do with my arms. Eventually I hug her back and it’s an awkward thing. “Have you had enough?” I clear my throat and start collecting dirty silverware onto my plate.

  “Yes, thank you, my queen.”

  I fight the flinch. “When it’s just the two of us, please call me Nic.”

  “Okay, Nic.” She yawns so large her jaw cracks.

  “Why don’t you head up to bed? I’ll do the clearing up.”

  “Thank you again.” She pushes back out of her chair, gives me a final sunny smile and then retreats up the stairs to the loft.

  Slowly, I set the dishes down and then stumble toward the fireplace, and lower myself onto the couch. My thoughts are in turmoil. Losing Sarah almost destroyed me. I hadn’t recognized how important she was to me until it was too late.

  Now I have feelings for more people, have more friends. Jasmine, Nahini, Freda. Aiden. More who can be taken from me. More to be used to cripple me.

  More who can betray me.

  I shift, uneasy as though bugs are crawling over my skin and glance about for something to take my mind off my troubles. The house is a mess, my mind has been on my training and not on tidying up. Organizing my environment always helps bring order to chaotic thoughts. It’s as though by physically removing clutter I can mentally do the same.

  Mind made up, I tackle the dishes then move on to wiping down the counters and table, then sweeping the floor. The last weeks’ worth of newspapers, still wrapped in their protective plastic coating sit in a basket by the front door. I drag the basket over to the hearth. It’s chilly out, much colder than it’s been all summer. A fire would be perfect.

  I stack the kindling and then slide the papers out and begin crumpling them up. The long-handled matches are in the lipstick tube tin Chole bought Addy as a gag gift last Christmas. Her grin had been infectious as she crowed, “I’ll finally get to see her use lipstick!”

  I strike the match and am about to light the fire when a headline catches my eye.

  Grave robber strikes in high country.

  Curious, I remove the paper from the grate and begin reading.

  In what appears to be a pattern of grave robbing incidents in North Carolina, the body of a local teen has been removed from her burial plot. Sarah Ann Larkin, age sixteen, died less than a month ago in a car accident and was buried in a local cemetery. The family cannot be reached for comment. This is the fourth incident of this kind to happen this year. So far, the police have made little progress.
<
br />   The match falls from nerveless fingers. Why would anyone steal Sarah’s body?

  Cold to the bone, I crumple the paper, stuff it into the fire and then light a new match before heading into my bedroom to retrieve my laptop. The internet doesn’t provide any more insight into the disappearance of Sarah’s body than the article, but I do find more in-depth mentions about the other grave robberies.

  One a month, since the end of January. An elderly woman in Gastonia, a middle-aged bank executive in Charlotte, a young boy in Wilmington. A range of ages, genders from diverse backgrounds with different causes of death. The body snatching is the only common thread. No suspects yet in any of the cases.

  I’m not aware of falling asleep, but the next thing I know I’m being pulled from its warm embrace.

  “Nic,” the voice calls my name urgently. “Nic, wake up.”

  Fatigue holds me down hard and my lids are heavy. “Who are you?”

  “Come on. We don’t have much time.” It’s a female voice, a familiar one.

  “Huh?” Forcing my lids up, I stare at the smoldering embers that remains from the fire. At the hand protruding from it, with the little snake encircling a pale wrist.

  “Come with me,” Hel says. “Quickly, I can’t hold this open forever.”

  “Why do you want me to come with you?”

  “There are things you don’t know yet, Nic. Important things that they won’t tell you.”

  “And why should I trust you?” I ask the fire with a frown. “You tricked me and admitted that you’d been sending me nightmares. I’d be a freaking idiot to trust you.”

  Her next words change everything. “There’s a way to get Sarah back. A way no one else will tell you. But I will.”

  I swallow hard. “What do you know about Sarah?”

  “She was your friend. You feel responsible for her death and you crossed the Veil to retrieve her.”