Briar Queen (3 page)

Aubrey turned and trudged away as Sophia Avaline walked past. Lovely as a fashion model in high heels and a sleek dress, the history professor glanced at them but didn't say anything. Like Jane Emory, she was part of the cabal who knew about the Fatas. Unlike Jane Emory, Sophia Avaline had been there on Halloween night when Finn had nearly burned.

Finn frowned at Jack. “What is Aubrey talking about?”

He pushed his hands through his hair, and the bronze ring she'd once bound him with, two lions clasping a heart, glinted on one finger. “Someone—a Fata—will try for Reiko's place. It has nothing to do with you. With us.”

“Jack, that has
everything
to do with us.”

He whispered, “Not here. We'll talk later.”

The Wolf at the door,
Finn thought, remembering Reiko's words in her dream. “Okay.
Later
.”

“I'll pick you and Anna up. She wants to see
Swan Lake
for her birthday.” He flashed a smile and she almost believed everything was going to be all right, that the world would remain normal.

“‘THE ERL KING' BY
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.” Professor Fairchild, as rumpled and charming as ever, stood at his desk. His British accent tended to make his words seem more interesting than they sometimes actually were. Gothic Literature was the official name of the course, not—as Christie called it—Defense Against Dark Faeries 101, although three of the poems they'd read in the past few weeks had been about malign spirits: Keats's “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” Robert Browning's “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came,” and Christina Rossetti's “Goblin Market.” It
did
seem as if Fairchild was trying to teach them something about defense against the Fatas.

Christie, who had recently taken up the course, was seated beside Finn, scrawling in the margins of his own copy of
Romantic Poets of the Victorian Age
. Finn looked down at the passage she'd read three times now, from “The Erl King.”

“Father, my father, are you listening

To what the Erl King is promising?”

“Child, calm yourself, be calm, please
.

It's just the wind rustling in the leaves.”

Surrounded by invisible threads of electricity, by sunlight and whispered conversations, Finn felt the hair rise on the nape of her neck. Why didn't parents ever believe kids who claimed there was a monster under the bed or in the closet? Just because they couldn't see the monsters? In her experience, the monsters never showed themselves to anyone who had outgrown adolescence and its aftermath.

She looked up at Professor Fairchild, who had attended the Halloween ceremony that had nearly resulted in her death.

“The Erl King,” Fairchild continued, “is an elemental, a thing of nature with unnatural intelligence. Why does he want the child?”

“Because,” Finn spoke quietly, “he's a predator. And predators hunt the weak.”

Fairchild blinked as if she'd pulled him out of a dream. He said, carefully, “The Erl King is one of the characters in poems of that time who symbolized primordial destruction.”

“But that would mean
mindless
destruction.” Finn realized they were talking about something else, something dark and secret. “And predators aren't mindless.”

“Good answer, Finn, good answer.” Christie applauded.

“Mr. Hart”—Professor Fairchild actually sounded stern—“this is not a game show.”

“You're right, Professor. But I'd rather watch game shows than, say, human sacrifices.”

Fairchild said, “Mr. Hart, stop wandering off topic. Now, interestingly enough”—he began to saunter around his own desk—“Mr. Hart's ancestor, Augusta Danegeld, was an accomplished poet whose works could be considered Gothic poetry.”

Christie muttered, “Leave my ancestors out of this.”

Finn gazed down at the poem again. “
Lovely, lovely child, come with me, such wondrous things you will see
.”

FINN HAD FORGOTTEN
the story of
Swan Lake,
of the wicked swan and the pure one, and the evil sorcerer who ruled both. The costumes were phantasmal,
the swans in tatters of gossamer, feathers, and primitive half masks, the sorcerer a feral figure in black fur and plumes, a cross between an Aztec priest and a glamorous werewolf. When the curtains parted and the orchestra's music soared, Finn sat, enchanted, and didn't say a word. She'd been afraid the ballet might resurrect her grief for her ballerina sister, but she became lost in the gorgeous story and the music. Jack, who was from the Victorian era, when such productions were a luxury meant only for the wealthy, was reverentially quiet.

Anna Weaver, now fifteen—who still became silent and lost whenever her own murdered sister was mentioned—never took her attention from the stage.

Afterward, outside the Marlowe Theater, Anna asked if they could visit her sister. Finn looked frantically at Jack, who said gently, “Of course.”

“Annie!” Someone moved from the theater crowds. Finn recognized Kevin Gilchriste, Fair Hollow's local celebrity, who had starred in a movie about wolves and winter and a girl in red. With his spiky brown hair and model cheekbones, he looked like he belonged in an Abercrombie ad.

“Kevin.” Anna smiled shyly. “Did you like
Swan Lake
?”

“I did. I came with . . .” He glanced over his shoulder. “Well, she's still in there. Anyway, happy birthday. Hey, Finn, right? And Jack?”

“Hey.” Finn watched warily as Kevin held out a hand to Jack. Jack gripped it and said, “I liked your movie.”

“Thanks.” Kevin stepped back, nodded to Anna. “I'll see you at the shop, Annie.”

As he vanished into the crowd, Anna gazed longingly after him, and Finn thought,
Is that how I look at Jack? Like a little kid?
She turned her head to see Jack watching her with some amusement and said, rebellious, “Should we really be visiting a cemetery, knowing what we know about your family?”

“Phouka's regime is a lot less deathcentric—is that a word, ‘deathcentric'? We'll be fine.”

They drove to Soldiers' Gate. Although the sun had set, the gates were still open, revealing a Gothic and haphazard landscape of tombstones and mausoleums beneath snow and tree branches still crystallized in melting ice.

Anna led them to a simple granite headstone piled with bouquets of flowers, angel figurines, and trinkets. She bowed her head, her sun-gold hair gleaming. Finn glanced at the headstone carved with the name
Angyll Weaver
. Anna whispered, “I miss her.”

“I miss my sister too.”

“The girl who was named after flowers.” Anna turned to Jack and frowned. “You're human now. They'll use that against you.”

“I know.”

“Who'll use it against you?” Finn's heart jumped. “Jack?”

Anna answered in her usual cryptic fashion, “I see their shadows in my dreams; even when I'm dreaming about stupid things like my mom's meat loaf, or gym class, I can see the shadows, running—”

A cell phone buzzed in Anna's coat. As she took the phone out and frowned at a text, Finn crouched down near Angyll's marker and righted a vase of chrysanthemums that had tipped over. “What shadows, Anna?”

“I don't know.”

“
There
you are,” came a voice from behind.

They whirled around.

Moving through the tombstones, the lamplight silvering his citrus-bright hair, Absalom Askew was a vivid figure in a jacket of red fur and jeans with embroidered Chinese dragons snaking up the sides.

“Absalom.” Jack wryly greeted his friend. “Imagine meeting
you
here. In a graveyard.”

“Jack. Finn.” Absalom Askew's red Converses didn't make a sound on the crunchy snow and leaves. “Nice to see you out and about.”

Finn carefully asked why he was there.

“I'll show you. Come, my children.” Unusually solemn, Absalom led them to a tombstone engraved with a winged girl reading a book. Beneath this image were the words:
Here lies someone's child, one who was sweet and mild, one who, in our eyes, will, above all of us, rise
. The name
Mary Booke
was scripted into the marble.

Mary Booke had been Nathan Clare's true love, a human girl stolen by the Fatas, raised among them, and murdered by Caliban. As Jack sank to a crouch before the stone, his face solemn, Finn said, “Who had this made?”

“We did.” Absalom looked at her. “No one in your world knew who she was.”

Finn touched the tombstone as Jack spoke softly—
that,
Finn knew, was when he was at his most dangerous. “We were all just pawns to you, weren't we? To get rid of Reiko.”

“You weren't
my
pawns.”

“Were we Phouka's?”

“Did you know it was Anna's birthday?” Absalom, with that unsettling way he had of abruptly changing topics, turned to face Anna. He was, suddenly, holding a long gift box wrapped in pink satin ribbons, with a little porcelain doll's head in the center. Anna looked delighted.

Jack, rising, told Anna, “Don't accept tha—”

“Thank you, Absalom.”

“Open it.” Absalom glanced slyly at Jack as Anna unwrapped the package and lifted out . . . an umbrella. The handle and tip were made from wood painted white, and, when she snapped the umbrella open, an extraordinary painting from
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
was revealed.

“How
lovely,
” she whispered, eyes wide as she turned it.

“An umbrella?” Finn arched an eyebrow at Absalom.

“Now, it's just a
regular
umbrella—don't go trying to do a Mary Poppins off a roof or anything,” Absalom said to Anna. Then he turned to address Jack, and shadows seemed to fall across his face. “We think the Wolf is here. Phouka believes he's been here since All Hallows' Eve.”

Frost-glazed leaves skittered across the tombstones and snow as silence followed Absalom's words. Anna snapped shut the umbrella, looked from Jack to Finn, and said, “The shadows in my dreams are wolves.”

“See?” Absalom regarded Jack, who remained grimly mute. “Talk to you later, Jack. I've got to be on my way.”

“Wait.” Finn stepped forward, but Absalom had already disappeared between one tree and the next. Finn turned on Jack. “
What is the Wolf?
”

He raised his eyes to hers and said, low, “Not in front of Anna.”

“I'm not a kid.” Anna's voice was calm. “And I'm not
slow,
like people think.”

“No, of course you're not. But the Wolf is not a bedtime story for little girls.”

“I'm
not
a little—”

“We're taking you home, Annie.”

ANNA LIVED ON MAIN STREET
,
in a two-story apartment above Hecate's Attic, the shop her parents owned. Since the shop was just across from the park, Finn and Jack left the car and walked Anna home, then went for a stroll. As
they wandered down the park path, Jack said, “Do you remember the Fata I told you about? The one I first worked for in Ireland? I thought Reiko was his wife?”

Finn tugged up the hood of her red wool coat. “He was a very bad man.”

Jack gently corrected, “He was never a man.”

Finn knew he was about to tell her about the Wolf and braced herself. “Go on.”

“His name was Seth Lot. In 1800s Dublin, he was Reiko's lover, the one, I think, who made her what she was, cruel and reckless.”

“What you're saying is—he's evil.”

“There are levels of evil. I saw the worst kind in Seth Lot's house.”

The winter night became threatening. Finn began to wish she was home.

“His house was like some of the abandoned mansions here in Fair Hollow, but it's older than any human residence. It was called Sombrus. And it could move, appear and disappear in and out of the world. Once, he and Reiko argued and she pinned his house in place. It took him and his pack a week to find the wand of sacred wood she'd staked into the roots of a tree in the courtyard, to hold the house down. For a while, he was stuck where he could do no harm.” Jack looked down at his hands. “Then he and Reiko made up. They surrounded themselves with pretty young things, unfortunates who would eventually disappear. Reiko would never tell me what happened to them.”

Finn could guess.

They were approaching the other end of the park, where a quaint white chapel stood for sale on the corner. There was a fire escape along the chapel's side, and a mass of fir trees darkened the street beyond. It was quiet here, free even of the sounds of traffic.

“Come on.” She tugged him toward the building. The moonlight glittered on the snow, and the white chapel looked charming, not creepy.

“The chapel's closed.”

“We're going to sit on the roof.” She reached up and grabbed the handle of the fire escape to pull down the lower half. She felt a heady rush of fear and recklessness.

“Don't you think it'll be a bit icy?” He watched her, amused.

“It's all melted and the roof's flat.” She was still trying to tug down the ladder. “Scared?”

“You'll break your wrists, doing that.” He took hold of the bar and pulled the fire escape down with an ease that made her feel all warm inside.

They clambered onto the roof, which was damp but not icy. The view of Fair Hollow was magical. The moon was a crescent and the wind had that peculiar warmth that sometimes came during winter's beginning—she remembered that from Vermont, when her mom would take her and Lily onto the patio during a winter warming and make dinner on the grill.

As they selected a relatively dry space near the steeple, Finn said, “What do you think happened to the young people in the Wolf's house?”

In the moonlight, the colors of Jack's irises—one blue, one gray—was evident. He replied, “There was a rumor that Lot had once ruled La Bestia, the court of beasts in France.”