“They brought it on.”
“So you’re just going to stab one of them?”
“Look,” Adie said. “They’re not even people, okay? They’re bugs. And the thing you do with bugs when they start annoying you is you squash them.”
“But—”
“No one threatens my sisters, Elsie. That’s the bottom line.”
After checking to make sure that they were still unobserved, she cut through Elsie’s ropes.
“Make sure you hold your hands like they’re still tied,” Adie said.
Elsie nodded. Her gaze went to where the twins were being brought up to the fairy bee queen.
“Look what they’ve done to our Ruthie and Grace,” Elsie said.
“I know. They may be brats, but they’re our brats.” Adie touched Elsie’s shoulder to get her to turn around. “I’m going to slip off into the woods. What I need you to do is create a diversion in about, oh, say, five minutes.”
“I think we should try the disbelieving business first.”
Adie shook her head. “I think it’s way too late for that so far as we’re concerned. I mean, we know they’re here, right?”
“I suppose.”
“Trust me on this,” Adie said.
Before Elsie could think of something else to try to get her to stay, Adie slipped off behind the tree and into the woods.
3
Laurel and Bess
“I think I hate the dark,” Laurel said.
“This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
“Maybe I’ve always hated it, but I just didn’t know till now because I was never anyplace so dark before.”
Normally, all Laurel had to do was close her eyes and she could call up Bess’s features in her mind’s eye. But here, where it was just as black whether she had her eyes open or not, she couldn’t do it. There was only the unending dark and it was beginning to get to her.
“If we were Girl Scouts,” she went on, “we’d have come prepared with a flashlight.”
She couldn’t see Bess’s smile, but she could feel it.
“Or at least candle and matches,” Bess said.
“Exactly. And maybe a bag of chips or some cookies.”
“Except if we were Girl Scouts,” Bess said, “we’d still be working in the garden, because Girl Scouts do what they say they’ll do. They don’t go off chasing after fiddlers in the woods.”
“So we’d be lousy Girl Scouts from the get-go.”
“Pretty much.”
Laurel sighed. “I guess we should have been looking out for some old lady to help on our way into the woods. Or a talking spoon. Or a lion with a thorn in his paw or something.”
“What for?”
“Well, you know. In the stories they always come back to help you when you get in a pickle.”
“I hate stories like that,” Bess said. “People should help each other for the sake of doing a kind deed—not because they’re scared not to, or for some reward.”
“You mean like Sarah Jane helps Aunt Lillian.”
Now it was Bess’s turn to sigh. “And we’re always teasing her about it. I guess you’re right. We should have been looking for talking spoons and the like.”
“Nobody even knows we’re here, do they?” Laurel said.
“Except for the little man who dumped us here.”
Neither said anything for a long moment.
“Did I mention how much I hate the dark?” Laurel finally asked.
“Maybe once.”
Laurel squeezed Bess’s hand. If she had to be stuck in a place like this, there was no one else she’d rather be with. This was how they came into the world, the two of them, together in the dark womb. Perhaps they were going to go out in the darkness as well. That made her think about her life and what she’d done with it. Sarah Jane had a few years’ worth of good deeds in her favor. What did she have?
“So do you think we’re shallow people?” she asked.
“No,” Bess said. “We’re passionate about music, aren’t we? I don’t think that shallow people are passionate about anything.”
“Music. That’s what got us here in the first place. There was some kind of magic in that fiddling, wasn’t there? You knew right away, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t know exactly,” Bess said. “But I knew there was something not right.” Laurel thought Bess was finished, but after a moment Bess added, “Maybe we should make our own music magic.”
“With what? We don’t have any instruments.”
“We could lilt a tune.”
“And do what with it?” Laurel asked. “If you’ve been taking magic lessons, this is the first I’ve heard of it.”
“Well, at least it would help to pass the time.”
“That’s true.”
They both fell quiet until Laurel finally said, “I can’t think of a single tune.”
“This from the girl who was ready to have a tune contest with a woody fairy man.”
“I can’t believe I was so stupid.”
“You weren’t stupid,” Bess said. “You were enchanted. It’s not the same thing.”
“I suppose. Oh, I know. We could try that version of ‘Walk Like an Egyptian’ that we never got to play at the dance last night.”
“I don’t know. I think it’d be too hard without my banjo. How about ‘Sourwood Mountain’ instead?”
“Okay.”
Bess started to hum the tune. When Laurel came in with a nasal “diddly-diddly” lilting, Bess joined her, the two of them taking turns harmonizing on the melody. They went from tune to tune, sticking with those that were associated with the Stanley Brothers, since that was how they’d started, and it was like they were sitting in on a session with their instruments in hand. Everything went away, except for the music. It didn’t particularly help them in their present situation, but at least it made them feel a lot better.
4
Sarah Jane
I let Aunt Lillian and the Apple Tree Man take the lead and followed along behind with Li’l Pater at my side. The little cat man still seemed put out that I hadn’t wanted to include him in our party and wasn’t talking to me, but that was okay. I didn’t really want to talk to anybody. I didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to think. I just wanted my sisters to be safe again.
The only thing that made any of this even remotely bearable was seeing how well Aunt Lillian and the Apple Tree Man were getting along. She seemed younger than I ever remembered her to be— her back was straighter, she was sprier and giggling. Maybe it was something in the air of this place, but I think it was the fact that the Apple Tree Man was finally back in her life.
Personally, I don’t know what she saw in him. I won’t say he was butt-ugly, but he sure wasn’t going to win himself any prizes for handsomeness either. I guess it’s that he just wasn’t human, not with his gnarly limbs and that barky skin with all those twigs and leaves and such growing out of him every which where. I’d have thought that maybe at Aunt Lillian’s age, it wasn’t a physical thing, that courting wasn’t so important anymore, but she was acting just like Adie or the older twins do when they’re flirting with some fellow.
It got me to wondering if I was ever going to know what it felt like. I decided that since it hadn’t happened yet—and here I was about as old as Adie when she took off with Johnny Garland—it probably never would.
That just made me glummer.
Then I realized what I was doing—worrying about my love life, or more to the point, the fact that I didn’t have even the slightest promise of one—while the only thing that should have been on my mind was the trouble I’d put my sisters in.
That totally depressed me.
“How come you’re so mad at me?” Li’l Pater said.
I turned to him. “What?”
“Well, you must be, the way you’re giving me the silent treatment and all.”
I didn’t really want to be talking about this with him, but I suppose it was better than listening to
the conversation inside my own head.
“I’m not mad at you,” I said. “I don’t even know you.”
“And that’s why you don’t want my help.”
“Look,” I told him. “The Apple Tree Man vouches for you, and Aunt Lillian vouches for him, so here you are.”
“But you don’t want me to be here, do you?”
“I just want my sisters to be safe.”
“We’ll rescue them,” he said with a confidence I didn’t feel. “We’re in the middle of a story now and since we’re the heroes, it has to all come out right for us in the end. You’ll see.”
“Except in their minds, the bee fairies and ‘sangmen are the heroes. Who’s to say that the story won’t go their way?”
“I never thought about that.”
“Well, don’t,” I told him, already regretting that I’d put the question in his head. Mama often said that putting bad thoughts into the air by speaking them aloud was a sure way to call bad luck to you. “I like the way you think it’ll all work out, way better than I do the worries in my own head.”
I was so busy talking to Li’l Pater that I bumped right into the Apple Tree Man, never having realized that he and Aunt Lillian had come to a stop.
“What is it?” I asked.
But I guessed pretty quick by the stony ground underfoot and the thick canopy of poplar and beech and oak. We were on familiar ground, standing at the top of a slope running down into a ‘sang field, the plants growing thick and tall below us. We could have been in the same one as I found the ‘sangman in yesterday. I suppose some places aren’t that much different from one world to the other.
“I’m going to call the ‘sangmen to us,” the Apple Tree Man said. “Unless they ask you a question directly, let me do the talk-ing.”
I gave him a reluctant nod, still not trusting him as much as Aunt Lillian did.
“And if you do have to answer a question,” he added, “give them the answer and nothing more.”
“Do you know these people?” I asked.
“We’ve met, but I’ve never spent a lot of time with them. I don’t much cotton to the whole idea of courts and royalty and all the way some of the fairy do.”
“Why not?”
“Well, the trouble with courts,” the Apple Tree Man said, “is you’re stuck with a king or a queen and they almost always think that the whole world turns around them.”
I knew a few folks like that back in our own world.
“I like to go my own way,” he added, “and not be beholden to anyone else.”
I knew a bunch of folks like that, too, starting with pretty much my whole family.
“I’ll follow your lead,” I told him.
He called out, making a sound that was like a cross between the nasal yank-yank of a nuthatch and a fox’s bark. I gave Aunt Lillian a look, but she was studying the land below. When I turned to have my own look at the ‘sang field, I saw them come popping up all over the patch, little ‘sangmen and women, all gnarled and rooty like the wounded fellow I’d rescued, the one that got us all into this mess in the first place.
It was eerie to watch. One minute there was just the ‘sang, growing taller and with more prongs than I ever saw back in our own world, and the next we had a whole mess of these little people in among the ‘sang, and not much taller than the plants, looking up at us. It was like they’d come right up out of the ground, and for all I know, that’s exactly what they did.
But what concerned me right about now was how there wasn’t the one of them was wearing what I’d call a friendly expression. I looked to the Apple Tree Man and didn’t take much comfort from the fact that he didn’t seem near so worried as I was feeling my own self. I started to say something, but then I remembered his warning. So I just stood there and kept my mouth shut, waiting along with the others as those ‘sangfolk came up the slope towards us.
Oh, it was a strange sight. A goodly number of them were taller than the little man I’d found—two or three times his one-foot height, some of them. But if a lot of them were bigger, they looked pretty much the same, more tree than man. They were like walking bushes with bark for skin and rooty hair and twigs and leaves and every such growing up out of them every which place you might look.
The one in front was near four feet high, but he gave off something that made him seem bigger still. I can’t tell you exactly what it was. I guess maybe it was the fact that he was the boss, which was something I found out as soon as he and the Apple Tree Man began to talk.
“So, Applejack,” this big ‘sangman said. “Have you come to trade my boy’s life for the girls?”
The Apple Tree Man shook his head. When he spoke, his voice was mild, with just the smallest hint of a rebuke in it.
“We were only bringing him back to you,” he said. “Doing what any good neighbor would do, he sees someone in trouble.”
I felt Li’l Pater stiffen at my side and knew what he’d be thinking. The Apple Tree Man was just up and giving away our bargaining chip. But I figured I knew what he was about and I guess I’d have done the same. There’s no time when it’s right to trade in people’s lives, no ifs and buts about it. Though if you want to look for a silver lining, I suppose it’s always better to have somebody be beholden to you than not.
But I still held my breath, waiting for that ‘sangman king to answer. After all, these were my sisters we were talking about.
“Looks like I owe you an apology,” the king finally said. “I’d been told you were ready to trade him to the bee court, but I should have known better.”
The Apple Tree Man didn’t reply. He just handed over that basket as easy as you please. A ‘sangwoman come up from behind the king and plucked the boy out of the basket. The way she held him so close to her chest, I figured she had to be his mother. ‘Bout then I also noticed this pretty little thing, as different from the ‘sangmen as I am from a crow. She was pale-skinned and golden-haired, her features fine and sharp, and fluttering at her back were a pair of honest-to-goodness little wings. She came sidling up and the ‘sang-woman included her in her embrace.
“Someone bring up those red-haired girls,” the king said over his shoulder.
One of the other bigger ‘sangmen popped out of sight and before you could say Jimmy-had-a-penny, he was back with Laurel and Bess in tow. The two of them stood blinking in the sun, Bess brushing dirt from her jeans.
Soon as I saw them, I didn’t mind me either the Apple Tree Man’s advice, or the worry of maybe upsetting ‘sangmen. I just ran forward and hugged them both, as happy to see them, I reckon, as the ‘sang queen was to get her own boy back.
While we were still in the middle of all of that was when the king started in with the tall tales, covering up for how he hadn’t taken the time to trust that the Apple Tree Man, at least, would do right by him and his people. I guess royalty in fairyland isn’t all that much different from the politicians in ours. Folks in charge just can’t seem to actually admit to making a mistake and you can’t really call them on their lies because, as soon as the words leave their mouth, it’s gospel, so far as they’re concerned.
“We aren’t like the bee queen,” he said. “We took the girls, sure, but it was only to protect them. When we heard that the bees had captured two of your young miss’s sisters, I sent my forester to watch over the others and bring them here if they should happen to come into the forest.
“Two did, and he brought them safe. But when he got back to watching for the others, it was to find that they’d already been taken by the bees.”
I led the twins back to where Aunt Lillian was standing with the Apple Tree Man. They gave Li’l Pater a curious look, but by then they must have been getting as used to fairy-tale people as I was, and they were more interested in what the king was saying. Laurel hadn’t heard the Apple Tree Man’s warning about letting him do the talking, and I guess, being who she was, she probably wouldn’t have listened anyway.
“He wasn’t just watching anythin
g,” she said. “He pulled us right into the forest with his fiddle playing.”
“What else was I supposed to do?” the forester said.
I recognized him as the ‘sangman who’d brought the twins up from wherever it was they’d been kept, and was surprised to find myself starting to tell the difference between them, because when they first came popping up all over the ‘sang field, I’d have said they all looked the same.
“You try sitting in a meadow for hour after hour,” he went on, “waiting on the chance that somebody might or might not take it into their head to come rambling up in the woods.”
“So instead you put some kind of spell on us with your music.”
He shook his head. “I was just passing the time.”
“And your ‘contest’?”
“I thought it a good way to bring you back without having to get into all the whys and wherefores that you probably wouldn’t have believed anyway.”
“Right. So then you stole our instruments and—”
“Now that’s just a plain lie!”
“Now everybody hold on here,” the king said. “Maybe we didn’t choose the best way to bring you here—”
“Not to mention that the accommodations sucked big time,” Laurel muttered.
“But we meant well.”
I didn’t care if that was the way he wanted to see it. He could tell any kind of story at all so far as I was concerned, just so long as the twins were safe. But my sisters weren’t ready to let it go just yet.
“Then who stole our instruments?” Bess asked.
“Maybe we can worry on that some other time,” the Apple Tree Man said. “Right now we should be making plans to rescue your other sisters.”
“Just say the word,” the king said. “We can’t field the same numbers as the bee court, but we’ll fight beside you until we win, or there’s none of us left standing.”
“I was hoping to find a more peaceful way to settle this,” the Apple Tree Man said.
I was ready to go along with that, but the king shook his head.
“The bees only know one kind of argument,” he told us. “And that’s who’s stronger.”