The dates on the books Father found were so varied, he eventually came to understand that he was reaching into different times and climes, different libraries or bookshops around the known and unknown world. Slowly—because he could not retrieve a book every time he tried—he built up quite a collection and began putting it in order. In fact, ordering that library became his life’s work. He was the first Keeper of Books the Family had ever had.
That is how Father became extremely well read in Gramarye, of course, but also Astrology, Astronomy, Archaeology, Architecture—“the important A’s,” he called them. He also knew Philosophy, History, Mineralogy, Necrology—and Computer Science, an art whose time was yet to come. The Aunts didn’t read—though they could—preferring instead to tell stories and embroider taradiddles, gossip, and lies.
Mother? Well, Mother was always a puzzle to me. She didn’t defend Father, but she didn’t condemn him either. Until . . . well, that comes rather further along in the story.
Besides his large, pointed ears, Father also had a strong nose, rather like a hawk’s beak, and the bluest eyes. His was the gentlest soul in the Family, if somewhat shy on magick. His elven ancestry showed most prominently in those ears, which he was careful to hide under a fringe of graying hair so as not to plague the Aunts. His lack of wings he disguised beneath loose jackets, the pockets of which were always stuffed with sweets for all the Family’s children. He always carried a book with him, sometimes more than one.
I never heard him raise his voice.
The Aunts could have left Father alone. They dwelt nearby in their own decaying whimsies, reposes, follies, and belvederes; close enough for picnics, far enough away for secrets. But almost as if Father’s mere presence was an insult—or perhaps they thought it was his fault that we were no longer a Family Under the Hill, though that had happened in the Great-greats’ time, so he certainly couldn’t be blamed for that—the Aunts continued to sniff at him. Believe me, they were very accomplished sniffers. It would take a lot for them to forgive him.
Father didn’t return their sniffs, or even act as if he’d heard them. And Mother, her beautiful face serene, not a bit of her golden hair, caught up in its gilded hairnet, disturbed, seemed not to notice them either, which was just as well, since she was never so gentle as Father. After all, we were of the line of the Shouting Fey, who can cause death and consternation simply by the timbre of our voices.
• • • • • • • •
Yes, we were Shouters, born and trained, though amongst ourselves we were known as the Family. To all others, we were the Shouting Fey.
How does that work? It is our magick, the little that is left us. That and the few implements of the Old Magick, things like wands, spindles, a long piece of the thread of life, all things that were light enough to carry and could be hastily packed up.
According to Great-aunt Gilda, when we came into the human world, much of what the fey can do—the vast array of wishes, enchantments, large glamours—was stripped away from us by the vengeful Unseelie faerie court. And if you are on the run, who could carry a large Vanishing Cupboard or Renewal Chamber? Or perhaps the magick was simply leached out of us by living so long close to humans.
Great-aunt Gilda tells the story both ways, depending upon her mood, her humors, if it is raining, or if it’s a Tuesday. When she is in a remembering mood, she reminds us how it was back when we lived Under the Hill, when glamours and the Renewal Chamber would have kept her young and beautiful, without the need for an entire table of useless powders and paints. She would always add with a heavy sigh, “Those were the days when our world was as full of wishes as the sea is filled with fishes.” Though of course she was born here and not Under the Hill and only had the stories from her Mother and Father, who died before she reached her majority.
It has always been Father’s hope to try and find out through his books what is missing and perhaps get it all back. But none of the Aunts understands that. Or if they did once, they no longer do. Instead, they rely on the Shout, that one big piece of magick that has remained with the Family, though a Minor Shout can only be done once a day at most. As for a Major Shout, it may take up to a week for the Shouter to recover. Great Magicks are like that. You expend all your magickal energy and are left in a state of near coma, like me in a fever. Besides, it takes years and lots of study before any of us can be good enough to control a Shout. I am still trying. Or as Dusty likes to say, “Goosey—you are very trying.”
Now, Great-aunt Gilda can bring down milk from dried-up cows with one voice or gum it up with another. Aunt Glade can curdle blood in the veins of man or beast with a low growl. Aunt Goldie’s Shout drops horses in the meadow, and that can be a good thing in battle, but it’s something else altogether when it’s a farmer’s large herd on his own land, which occasionally grazes too near us. Aunt Grania is able to scream in six registers at once. As a child she broke windows in all of the Western Counties when a silly prince Bid her do it for a lark.
Over the years, the women of our court have honed their Shouts: Aunt Glade has a voice that can startle starlings from their nests. Aunt Gardenia can shout down rooftops, scattering the pantiles in four different directions when she really gets going. Aunt Goldie has been known to lift the wigs off the heads of human judges in the middle of their deliberations with a single loud hum. And Mother’s Shout is said to cause the dead to rise and the lame to dance. She’s a seventh child, after all.
To be truthful, I’ve never actually seen any of those dread things happen with a Shout. Not by any of them. But of course I’ve heard all the stories. As for Mother, I knew she could lift a slow-moving child fifteen steps away from danger simply by the power of her voice. This is exactly what happened to me one soft summer night at a family picnic. I’d fallen asleep and was sleepwalking, heading toward a cliff, when she found me and Shouted me back.
Oh, the women of the Family have many varieties of Shouts, but in my opinion, Mother’s cliff-rescuer was the very best. Until . . . well, you shall hear about that anon.
• • • • • • • •
Now, this story really begins with a Royal Bidding, and Royal Biddings always start the same way. Some idiotic prince or princess or other member of the royal family demands a charm or a favor, and we must respond. We cannot do otherwise. It has been laid upon us as if it’s a Curse, and it’s my opinion it certainly is.
Sometimes in a Bidding things work out for everyone.
Perhaps the girl the prince desires is persuaded by a charm to love him in return.
Perhaps a king’s war is won by a Shout.
Perhaps a prince’s enemy is changed into a toad.
Perhaps a queen gets a baby by means of a Wish.
But often the Biddings go awfully, terribly wrong. A beautiful girl is changed into a horror by a jealous princess because a fey was Bidden to do it. A bishop is struck by lightning because a duke covets his land. A young boy is crippled because a princeling wants to win a race.
We Shouting Fey have to do as we are Bidden. We cannot question the royal who asks. And we are Forbidden, I don’t know how, to use magick for or against a royal unless we are specifically asked. It takes cunning and charm to work around Biddings, which is why we children are not supposed to talk to the royals about them. Mother said it was because we didn’t know enough, but Father disagreed. “You children are too transparent,” he said, by which he meant we lied badly. And of course he never lied at all.
One Bidding I remember in particular began when a squire sent by Lady Caledon came wheedling up to Aunt Goldie’s front door. She wasn’t home, but my brothers Necrops and Dusty and two of our cousins were playing in front of her whimsy with a golden ball they’d found in a well. They hadn’t known it belonged to anyone, and certainly not to Lady Caledon.
When the squire started his long, whiny run-up to the actual Bidding, Necrops—too loudly and al
most in a full Shout—said, “Get on with it, already. You’re ruining our game.” Boys take games very seriously. And, after all, the squire was hardly royal, just a lackey sent by a lady.
The almost Shout blew the squire all the way back to Lady Caledon’s small house. She complained at once to the king, who was not amused. He sent two of his men-at-arms to bring a large iron bar to set against Aunt Goldie’s front door, knowing that none of us fey could move the bar. We’re terribly allergic to iron. In the worst case, it can cause the True Death.
Poor Aunt Goldie looked out of her window in dismay. She was much too old and much too fat to go climbing out the window, and her whimsy had no back door.
Brave Necrops knew it was his fault, so he went to move the thing and rescue Aunt Goldie from her confinement. He’d actually managed to pick up one end of the bar before screaming and dropping it, and breaking out in spots from head to toe. Well, I never actually saw all the spots, but Father said it was so, so it had to be true.
The cousins ran off. They usually do when things get hot. But young as he was, Dusty went over to examine the bar, put his hand on it, and was burned. He still has the scar to this day. Still, he didn’t let that burn stop him. He squatted there for nearly an hour, drawing plans in the dirt with his finger till he figured out that, with a tree limb as a lever, he could move the bar a little, though it was so heavy it had taken two men-at-arms to carry it. And once he’d shifted the bar, he was able to send it rolling along with a small Shout until it had gathered enough momentum to roll down a hill on its own, fetching up against a tree along the Wooing Path.
After that, he was a hero in Aunt Goldie’s eyes, even when he was a scamp to all the others.
Unusually, Father gave the boys a tongue-lashing, then handed Dusty a book on levers and fulcrums by someone called Archimedes, and returned the golden ball to Lady Caledon with a note regretting his eldest son’s behavior.
“The note hurt me not at all,” Father said, “and may have stopped further Biddings from that quarter. And it wasn’t a lie because I did regret greatly that the boys’ behavior caused themselves and your Aunt Goldie such pain.” He was right, of course. Lady Caledon never Bid any of us to do anything again, as she married out of our kingdom and was gone from us forever.
• • • • • • • •
So, now you know all about Shouts and Biddings. But you need to understand one more thing before I tell you the whole story.
From our earliest walking days, we children of the Family played together in the fields and meadows and woods around our houses, though not along the Wooing Path, of course. The games we played were simple ones, like Red Rover, Fly Over, or Beggar My Lady, like Which Flower of Power Are You, as well as the ever-popular Tag. While we girls played with cornstalk dolls, ivy-plaited jump ropes, and pretend stoves that could almost but not quite warm up river water with our feeble heating spells, the boys all played mumblety-peg with wooden knives carved from the bole of a lightning-split sycamore. They dared one another to fly the highest or the fastest. They bet acorns and apples on the outcome.
One time Dusty challenged Carnell to a boxing match, and we all watched as Carnell knocked him out with a single right hook. When Dusty woke, Necrops had Carnell in a grip around his neck.
“Swear,” Necrops said angrily. “Take an Oath that you’ll never hit anyone younger or smaller again.” His arm tightened around Carnell’s neck until Carnell was ready to swear.
Just then, Father—who’d been alerted by the noise—came outside and heard the last bit.
“Let him go. Let him go now!” His voice was sharper than I’d ever heard before. “If he had spoken that Oath, here where there is still a magick surround, and then if by accident or design, he violated that Oath, he would burst into a thousand stars. Do you, Necrops, want to be responsible for your brother’s death?” Father’s voice ended on a ragged note, the word death seemingly enough to scare him as well.
Necrops looked shaken; Carnell even more so. They hugged each other and then together helped Dusty stand. Then all the boys went over to Grandfather Oak, where the grand tree house sat in its long branches. They climbed up quickly, and Mother sent up a pot of dandelion tea and a platter of rough cheese toasties.
We girls weren’t invited, of course. We were never allowed into the tree house. That didn’t stop us getting in, of course. We could still work minor mirages and glamours, so we could always disguise ourselves as one of the boys. And unless that particular boy was in the tree house at the time, we were not discovered.
That same day, Solange glamoured herself and—looking just like Cousin Alliford, from his twisted toes to his bright red hair—she flew to the top of the tree. Slowly she shinnied down the trunk. What she didn’t know was that as she was climbing down, Alliford was climbing up. They both got to the tree-house door at the exact same moment.
Push and pull, pull and push.
Alliford was no match for a seventh child of a seventh child, and he tumbled down, hitting branch after branch along the way. There was a tear in the primary of his left wing—he had dragonfly wings, and they tear quite easily. He hurried back to Great-aunt Gilda for a weep (he was always a weeper), a bit of healing, and some sassafras tea.
Meanwhile, Solange, glamour intact, went into the tree house for the tea and toasties, and got to smoke forbidden hazel squibs with the boys and try her hand at mumblety-peg. She was much better than Alliford at tossing the knife, which made the boys a bit suspicious, but she waved them off, saying, “I’ve been practicing.”
As for the hazel squibs, they made her sick, of course. Girls simply can’t do that without throwing up. But as she told us afterward, “Every bit of puke was worth it.”
But that was the day I learned about the power of Oaths and about the starbursts. And while then it seemed like a romantic notion of death, when it came to it, I realized that Dead is Dead and awfully final. Not romantic at all.
• 2 •
SHOUTING FEY
Mother thought I was blessed with the Sight, something every fey family looks for in a child, and especially, as it turned out, the Shouting Fey. It was because each time I had the ague—and I was often sick—I had wild dreams.
“The Sight comes once in every third generation,” Mother announced at an all-Family picnic, the first time I’d ever heard of any such thing. I’d had another bad night of fever dreams, and she was telling the Aunts all about it.
I was almost four, sitting in her lap, and lisped in a childish voice, “What’s the Sight?”
“A hope, a wish . . . ,” she said, stroking my straight, dark hair. I was the only one who was dark, the only one who looked like Father. The others all had milkweed fluff, white-gold and flyway curls. True fey hair.
“Not just a hope and a wish. A necessity,” Great-aunt Gilda added.
By Mother’s side, Father was dishing out the mallow and marmalade sandwiches, silently. He loved his children as we were, not for what we might be. What he lacked in the ability to fly, he more than made up in patience and love, not a family trait of the Shouting Fey. We tend to be competitive and say what we think.
Later at the picnic, Solange told me that the Aunts had mentioned the possibility that I might be the One, and she didn’t say it pleasantly.
“They’re looking at you,” she said, pointing a finger at me that might as well have been a poisoned arrow. “Because you are the thirteenth, and no one guessed you were coming. Because you have wild dreams. Because you flew early. Because . . . well, because. Don’t expect anything to come of it.” She glared over at the Aunts, then turned back and said, “They looked at me, too, because I’m the seventh and the only one born with a caul.” She meant a veil of skin, which is supposed to be magickal. Evidently nothing had come of them looking at her. I thought she was just jealous.
“What’s expect?” I asked.
/> “Wanting something to be true when it isn’t,” she said.
“I expect honey cake.” I looked longingly at the golden brown cake sitting on the blanket next to the big withy basket.
Solange huffed through her nose and turned her back on me. She already had the Aunts’ sniff down and was working on her own version of the Shout. I’d eavesdropped on her practicing out in the meadow using a voice that was both angry and loud. Butterflies had fallen in little patches and shreds from the trees as a result. It was impressive and sad at the same time. I carried a pocketful of the dead butterflies back to Father, hoping he could reanimate them, but when I drew them out of my pocket, there was nothing left but dust.
However, my expectation of that honey cake was quickly satisfied by Father, who cut the cake and offered me the very first slice. So, I thought no more of my failure to be “the One.” At not yet four, my expectations were small and easily filled.
• • • • • • • •
Yet, I had been marked by being the thirteenth child. And as Solange had said, there’d been other signs as well. I’d been early to walk, even earlier to talk. And when I flew by myself at two, long before anyone even realized my tiny wings were fully opened, Mother was positive I was the fey spoken of in the prophecy, though prophecies are notably hard to read and usually only understood long after they’ve been fulfilled. Still, that never stopped any Shouting Fey from trying to figure one out.
The prophecy about the One ran like this:
The One comes into the daylight veiled,
So long awaited, hoped for, hailed
Where others tried and always failed.
And from a deep and darkened space,
A Savior of an ancient race,
The One will, wingless, come apace.
With brand-new wings, the One can fly,
Makes truth come out of ancient lie,
So severs bonds and every tie.