I was standing at the edge of a grassy meadow that sloped down to a riverbank lined with green willows. Wildflowers of every imaginable color dotted the grass. White and pink blossoms floated from flowering trees through the air. I stepped toward one of the trees and saw that there were ripe apples amongst the pink blooms. How could it be, I wondered, that the tree bore flowers and fruit at the same time? It was as if it were spring and fall and summer all at the same time. Then I remembered what Raven had said about the timelessness of Faerie. Looking down at the ground, I saw spring violets growing beside late-summer goldenrod, all glowing in the golden light that flowed around me like honey.
I looked up into the lavender sky but could find no sun. The honey-colored light bathed everything evenly. It wasn’t just that time was different here; there was no time at all—or all time all the time. Spring, summer, fall—even winter, I noticed, as I looked into the surrounding pine trees and saw icicles hanging from their boughs—were all happening at once, as were all the times of the day. The grass was wet with morning dew, the sky as bright as noon, the edges of the meadow shadowy with dusk, the woods dark as night. All of time was here at my fingertips, for me to pluck as easily as I might pluck the red-and-gold apple from the tree.
I did pluck it, my thought turning into action as swiftly as a hummingbird’s wings. The apple was in my hand, firm and round, so fragrant it made my mouth water . . . I could almost taste it already . . . perhaps I had tasted it already. Time meant nothing here. I had already done everything I ever would and everything I ever had. If I bit into the apple I would be merging with all time. I could move within it freely. Perhaps I could even go back and undo what I had done. Perhaps I could go back to the day of the fire. I could warn the girls not to go to work that day. Or I could go back even further, to the day my mother died. I could stay home with her and fight the tenebrae with the bells inside my head. . . .
“It doesn’t work like that.”
I looked up from the apple into my mother’s face.
I dropped the apple. It rolled over the grass toward my mother and cracked open at her feet. She knelt, picked it up, and held it out for me to see. Inside, the pulp was black with rot. The sweet, sickly odor of decay rose into the air between us.
“You can no more go back and make me live than you can make this apple whole again. But”—she tossed the apple away and stepped closer to me—“I can enjoy your company for a few moments.” She held out her arms and I rushed into them.
She was real—solid and warm, indeed, more solid than I remembered her from her last months when she’d grown so fragile. When I buried my face in her neck and inhaled she smelled like violets and rosewater, not laudanum.
“Yes, it is really me, my dearling Avie.” She stroked my hair and then tucked a strand behind my ear, the touch so familiar I burst into tears.
“Don’t cry, dearling, I’m all right now.” She held me at arm’s length to look at me. “To see you looking so well is all I need for an eternity of peace. I was afraid the shadows would find you . . .”
“I led them to you!” I cried. “It’s my fault you died.”
Her face, which had looked so radiant and peaceful a moment ago, darkened, and the light around us dimmed as well. “Oh no, Avie dearling, it was I who led them to you! I had sunk so deep in my own fear and despair that I’d become easy prey. When I saw Judicus on your birthday I was frightened they would take you from me.”
“You knew him, didn’t you? Judicus van Drood. You were engaged to him.”
A shadow of pain crossed her face—even here where there were no shadows. “Yes, the Order arranged the match. At first I didn’t mind. I cared for him . . . but then he changed. Or maybe I changed and it was my fault that he became lost in the shadows. I ran away when I should have faced him . . . and then I lost myself in the shadows. I’m sorry for that, dearling. I should have been braver, but sometimes the hardest thing to do is to remain yourself. When the tenebrae came for me I knew that if I let them in they would destroy us both. I did the only thing I could to defeat them.”
“You drank the laudanum before they could get inside you?”
Her eyes widened and gleamed. “No, dearling, I let them in and then I drank the laudanum. It was the only way to destroy them so they wouldn’t get you. I would never have willingly left you otherwise.” She stroked my hair back behind my ear and cupped my face with her hand. I felt the hard calluses on her fingertips from years of sewing and trimming hats to feed and shelter us. All other signs of age and care had fallen from her face, but not those signs of wear.
As if she’d heard my thought she held her hands out, palms up, between us. “Here in Faerie we keep the marks we’re proud of. I am proud of these calluses I got working to keep you safe. But I’m not proud of the fears I let prey on me, so I’ve let those go. Remember that, Avie, remember the strong things I did and forgive the weak ones. . . . Oh, there’s so much I have to say to you, but there’s no time!”
“I thought there was all the time in the world in Faerie,” I said, surprised to feel a smile on my lips.
She returned the smile, but sadly. “Yes, we in Faerie have all the time in the world, but your friends don’t.” She took my hand and pulled me down the hill. “Vionetta has been trying to get Nathan to leave with her, but . . . well, you can see why he won’t.”
Below us on the banks of a river that looked much like the Hudson, Vionetta Sharp stood above two figures sitting on the rocks. I recognized one as Nathan and the other as the girl whom I’d seen before in Faerie.
“Louisa! He’s found her!”
“Yes, but it’s too late for Louisa to leave. Look . . .”
The girl was hunched over, looking intently at something laid out on the flat rock where she sat. I moved closer and saw that she was staring at a line of playing cards. She turned one over and let out a little yelp. “The queen of hearts! Exactly what I needed.”
“Patience?” I asked. “She’s playing patience?”
“Not just patience,” Nathan said. “La Nivernaise. She’s working through all the solitary card games in Lady Cadogan’s Illustrated Games of Solitaire or Patience. Klondike, fortress, General Sedgewick, La Belle Lucie . . .”
“Light and shade is next,” Louisa said. “That’s a really hard one. But I’ve gotten very good at it.”
“She ought to have,” Nathan said. “She’s been playing for seven months.”
“Isn’t there any way to make her stop?” I asked, sitting down next to Nathan.
“Not that I know of,” Miss Sharp said. “Playing the game has bound her into the fabric of Faerie. If she breaks those bonds . . . well, it might break something inside her mind.”
“Anything is better than this!” Nathan cried. “I can’t just leave her here playing cards for all eternity.”
“There might be a way.”
The voice came from behind us. I turned and found a tall middle-aged man in a pith helmet and tattered, brightly hued rags. He looked familiar.
“Sir Miles Malmsbury?” I asked tentatively. Although he looked like the photograph in Miss Frost’s classroom, that man had had trim muttonchops and wore a neatly pressed khaki safari jacket and trousers. This man had a full-grown beard and long straggly hair braided into a long queue. His jacket appeared to have once been a khaki safari jacket but was covered with tiny brightly colored feathers. But the biggest change was in his eyes. The man in the photograph had looked out at the world with a haughty, superior expression. This man’s eyes were humbled, and more than a little bit mad.
“At your service,” he said, saluting and attempting to click his heels even though he was barefoot. “I assume from your Bell and Feather insignias that you are members of the Order. May I ask who is in charge of this expedition?”
Nathan and I stared at each other, but Miss Sharp stepped forward and returned Sir Malmsbury’s salute.
“That would be me, sir. Vionetta Sharp. I teach English literature at Blythewood.”
“Ah, Blythewood . . . ” he said with a misty look in his eyes. “I had a most promising student at Blythewood . . . but no matter . . . we don’t have much time. I observed the boy enter Faerie and engage with the girls. He hasn’t taken part in her game or eaten anything, so he may leave.”
“I won’t go without Louisa,” Nathan growled.
“So I understood. Admirable of you, son. I myself would never abandon a team member in the field. Luckily, I have been carefully observing the customs of the country during my . . . er . . . sojourn here in Faerie.” He took out a worn notebook from his canvas bag. “With the help of the lychnobious people, who have been most kind considering my past unfortunate treatment of them, I have learned that the feathers of the lychnobia protect the unwary traveler from becoming trapped in Faerie. I gave this young lady a feather as soon as she arrived.”
We all looked down at Louisa and saw that she was wearing a necklace of brightly colored feathers.
“So she can leave?” Nathan asked.
“Yes,” Sir Malmsbury replied. “However, I cannot vouch for the time shift that may have occurred during her—or your—stay here. The lychnobia have a poor sense of time.”
A lampsprite landed on Sir Malmsbury’s shoulder, flicked its wing across his face, and chattered angrily.
“Excuse me,” Sir Malmsbury said, looking quite abashed, “I was guilty once again of a hominid-centrist judgment. The lampsprite’s sense of time is different from ours.”
“But that’s all right!” I cried. “Raven is holding open the door for us. He said that we’ll be able to return to our time as long as a Darkling holds open the door.”
“A Darkling is holding the door open for you?” Sir Malmsbury asked in awed tones. “Why, then, this is my chance to go back! We must all go at once!”
Nathan grabbed Louisa’s hand and tried to pull her up, but she screamed and clutched the cards to her chest.
“I know something that might help,” my mother said. She knelt down beside Louisa and gently laid her hands over Louisa’s. Louisa looked up, her eyes vague and clouded. “There’s another game we used to play at Blythewood,” she said to Louisa. “Perhaps you remember it? It’s called flush and trophies.”
A flicker of recognition passed over the girl’s face. “Oh yes, we played it after dinner in the Commons Room . . . only I don’t recall the rules. . . .”
“But I do,” my mother said with the same gentle smile she’d given me when I was frustrated that I’d forgotten a tense in Latin or a stitch for trimming a hat.
“And so do I,” Vionetta said, sitting down next to Louisa and reaching for the cards laid out on the rock. Louisa flinched when Vionetta swept the cards up into a pile, but Nathan quickly diverted her.
“Flush and trophies! My favorite!” Nathan said with false enthusiasm; I was quite sure he loathed the game. “We all four can play.”
“I thought we weren’t supposed to play any games in Faerie,” I whispered into Miss Sharp’s ear as I sat down.
“All except this one,” she replied as my mother dealt out the whole deck to Louisa, Nathan, Miss Sharp, and me. “Flush and trophies was designed to break the spell of Faerie.”
“The game is quite simple,” my mother was explaining to Louisa. “The object is to get all of one suit—hearts, clubs, spades, or diamonds. The trick is figuring out which suit your opponent is trying for—to flush them out, so to speak—and keep them from getting all of their suit before you can claim the trophy. Each turn you discard a card. If anyone has the same card in a different suit they can trade it for you. Vionetta, you’re north. You go first.”
Miss Sharp laid out a two of clubs. I had a two of hearts, but I’d already noticed that I had more hearts than any other suit so I didn’t offer to trade. Louisa would have beat me to it anyway. She slapped down a two of spades.
“She’s looking for clubs,” my mother whispered in my ear. “All we have to do now is keep feeding them to her.”
Nathan obligingly laid down a queen of clubs next. Louisa made a face. She must not have any queens. It was my turn next. I laid down a jack of clubs. Louisa immediately reached for it, but Miss Sharp deftly knocked the card off the rock. It fluttered over the grass like a butterfly. Louisa sprung to her feet and went after it. Nathan and Miss Sharp got up and followed her, cards in hand. I followed with my mother and Sir Malmsbury. The rest was simple. All we had to do was keep laying out clubs and tossing them closer to the place where Raven was holding open the door.
“But you’re not playing!” I said to my mother as we got closer. “Can’t we use the game to free you, too?”
My mother regarded me sadly. She brushed back a lock of my hair and cupped my face with her hand. “Avie, dearling, I died in your world. A Darkling carried me here to Faerie because I wanted to come here instead of the mortal afterworld. But I can never go back to your world.”
“Of course you wanted to come here,” I said. “It’s so beautiful! Can’t I stay here with you? There’s nothing for me back there.”
A faint smile fluttered over her lips. “Nothing? Look . . .”
Nathan and Louisa had reached Raven, who still stood like a marble statue holding open the door to our world—only the marble was streaked with veins of fire now. He looked like the lampsprite had just before it exploded. His eyes were still shut, his jaw clenched, the muscles in his arms and chest straining like Atlas holding up the world. “It looks as if the light is crushing him!”
“It is,” my mother replied. “A Darkling can only hold the door between worlds open for so long before he’s crushed between them. This one must care for you greatly to do this for you, Ava.”
“Then Ava was telling the truth, Evangeline?” Miss Sharp asked my mother. “The Darklings aren’t evil?”
My mother shook her head sadly, her eyes still on Raven. “The Darklings are cursed, but no, not evil. You can trust them, especially this one. But he’s not the only one who cares for you.”
She nodded her head toward Nathan, who was holding Louisa’s hand with one of his and an ace of clubs in the other. All he had to do now was lead her under Raven’s wings back into our world, but he had turned and was looking back at me. The light behind him turned his fair hair into a golden halo. He looked more like one of the Botticelli angels than dark-haired Raven, but the light also threw his face in shadow. The tenebrae still lurked under his skin.
“Nathan doesn’t care for me,” I said.
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. But what I am sure of is that without you the shadows will claim him forever. So unless you care nothing for him . . .”
I shook my head, my body denying the statement before my mind knew what I felt. “I can’t be the only one who can help him.”
“Avie, all the years the shadows preyed on me, the one thing that kept them from claiming me was you. I had only to think of you and I was able to fight them off—until the end when I knew I had to sacrifice myself to save you. The only thing that gave me solace as I died was that you would be strong enough to go on without me . . .”
I began to object but she held up a hand to silence me. “You have no idea how strong you are, Avie. You’re a chime child . . . and so much more! With training you, and you alone, will be able to banish the shadows—from Nathan and from your world.”
I looked away from my mother to the two men who stood on the threshold of my world. One light, one dark . . . I wasn’t sure which was which, only that both would perish if I didn’t go back.
I turned to my mother. I could see by her face that she already knew what my decision was.
“Will you be all right here?” I asked.
“I will be now. Now that I have seen that you are,” she replied, wiping the tears from my face. Then, before I could change my mind, I turned
and ducked under Raven’s wing.
36
AS SOON AS we had all passed through, Raven collapsed on the ground, his wings crumpling around him like charred paper. When I touched them my hands came away black. His face was gray as ash, soot-black lashes fluttering over sightless eyes.
“I didn’t know it would hurt him like this!” I cried. “What can we do to help him?”
“There’s nothing we can do,” Sir Malmsbury said, “but his own kind can help him. Look: they’re waiting for us to leave to take care of him.”
I looked up into the trees to where Sir Malmsbury was pointing. At first I didn’t see anything, only pockets of shadows in the pines, but then as my eyes adjusted to the dimmer light of this world, I made out the shapes of winged figures perched in the trees. An old man, two old women, a young girl, many young men . . . all their eyes trained on Raven. His flock.
“Can you help him?” I cried. My voice sounded hoarse as a crow’s caw.
Wings fluttered in answer. Miss Sharp tugged on my arm. “They won’t come down until we leave. And we need to get Louisa back to the house. She’s not . . . herself yet. If she sees an opening to Faerie she may try to slip into it.”
I looked back down at Raven. His eyes fluttered open and seemed to focus on me for a moment. I touched my hand to his cheek. “Thank you,” I said.
His lips, cracked and seamed with ash, parted. “My . . . pleasure,” he croaked, with a smile that turned into a wince. Then Miss Sharp was pulling me away.
The Darklings descended as soon as we were out of the clearing. The sound of wings was deafening, a black rain that fell like a curtain between us, obscuring Raven from my view. As if he were being devoured by the dark. How could I leave him to that darkness?
“Let me go,” I cried, struggling against Miss Sharp’s grip. “You can take Louisa back. Let me stay with him.”
“I can’t,” she said, taking me by the shoulders and turning me away from the clearing. “Listen.”