One Black Rose (25 page)

“Don’t get any hero worship ideas about me,” he said drily. “Holt attacked the Winter Queen and tried to make her stop hurting you. He just sent me to see if you were alright, since he’s a little busy.”

I tried to say something, but my throat was dry. Logan handed me a cup of water, and after I’d gulped it down I said, “Where are they?”

Logan’s frown deepened. “In the house.”

I staggered to my feet. Logan had to grab hold of my arm to keep me from falling.

I pushed my way into the kitchen. The table and chairs showed signs of frost, as did all of the plants, if they weren’t already completely dead. I was about to head into the living room when a voice behind me said, “Well, well, still can’t listen, I suppose?”

Lydia lounged on the counter, her elbow resting on the smooth tile. She smiled at me. Now that I wasn’t being suffocated I could see that she had dressed for the party in something sparkling -- black, of course.

I knew very well I was no match for Lydia. She was more powerful, so I just had to hope I was smarter. Without thinking I grabbed a heavy pot that was on the stove and heaved it at her. I wasn’t even close to hitting her (blame my dad for never making me play softball) but she was forced to duck anyway.

 I gave a triumphant whoop. And, taking the small opening I had while she was distracted by the clattering kitchenware, I rushed past her into the entryway.

I expected to find them all there, the Winter Queen, Leslie, the other Cheshires, and the Roths, but the hall was empty. The pressure I had felt a moment ago was still in front of me.

Suddenly I knew where they must be: in the front garden. The Roths must have forced the Winter Queen out of the house and into the garden where her powers might be weaker.

Without hesitating I pushed the front door open, ready for my last confrontation with the Winter Queen.

As soon as I stepped through the door and onto the patio, chaos enveloped me. I could see the Summer Queen locked in battle with the Winter Queen. Susan, Casey, and Holt were squared off with Leslie and two black-haired men I didn’t recognize, but who could only be Cheshires. There was no sign of Samuel.

“Stop,” I screamed, cupping my dirty hands around my mouth for emphasis. No one stopped. No one even acted like they had heard me.

I felt an almost physical stab to my chest as I realized that everything in the front garden was dead. Even the grass looked brown, brittle, and battered, as if we’d just gone a month without rain, which I can tell you wasn’t true.

An overwhelming grief filled me at the sight of all that death.

But I had no time to mourn.

The Summer Queen was sending a steady stream of gold-tinted power at the Winter Queen, who deflected it with her own silver shield. But just as I walked towards them, Mrs. Roth stumbled and the Winter Queen had her chance.

Without thinking, I flung myself forward. If I’d asked anyone, they would have told me I was insane for stepping into the middle of a Fairy magic battle when I had none of my own. Luckily, I was never very good at bowing to other people’s opinions. I dove in head first.

Dimly, I heard a familiar male voice screaming for me to stop. I ignored it.

Instead of jumping in front of the stream of magic headed towards Mrs. Roth, I slammed into the Winter Queen. Her magical shield had apparently been there only to stop magic, not to deflect some crazy teenager flinging her body through the air. She was knocked over by the impact, and I felt like my entire body had run smack into a mountain of ice.

I heard the Winter Queen give a cry of shock and felt her trying to disentangle her hands from beneath my body. “Shouldn’t you be frozen?” I thought I heard her hiss. I fought hard to keep her pinned, harder than I’d ever fought for anything before in my life. Somehow I knew that if she managed to get her hands free, I’d be dead.

With every ounce of strength I had, I squirmed to keep her under me and immobile.

But she was too fast.

With lightning speed her right hand shot up, hitting me square in the temple. She wasn’t trying to hit me, though, just touch me. As soon as her skin met mine, my world descended into darkness.

The last thing I heard was someone calling my name….

I woke up on my back. I felt like someone was smothering me with a blanket, and I gasped for air. I shoved out, trying to remove whatever was keeping me from breathing, but my hands met only solid, cold walls. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. I turned my head from side to side, rubbing it into the dirt on either side of me, but nothing worked. Soon, without air or hope, I sank back into oblivion.

When I woke up the next time, I felt better. I no longer felt stifled; instead, a warm breeze played over my face and body. I knew my clothes were no longer on me, which would have concerned me if I hadn’t also been aware that a thin sheet had been laid over me. I tried not to smile, but knew that I was anyway.

All around me was the sweet smell of flowers.

I rolled from side to side and lifted my arms up experimentally, meeting no resistance to my movements. I opened my eyes.

I was in a white room. Everywhere I looked there were flowers. Sitting nervously next to my bed was a person, his head bent down so that all I saw was a mass of blond hair.

“Morning,” I said, though I had no idea what time it actually was.

His head shot up and he reached for one of my hands. I noticed in a sort of detached way that there was a thin bandage on it and wondered what other parts of me were damaged.

“Thank god. Are you alright?” he asked, his bright green eyes soft and kind.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Really.” Actually I felt very odd. Sort of light, like I couldn’t actually feel anything.

“Good,” he said, nodding. “I was worried.”

“Why do I feel funny?” I asked.

“Medicine,” he replied. “You got a blow to the head, and you hit the ground pretty hard when you tackled the Winter Queen.”

For some reason that sounded perfectly normal to me right now. Must be the medicine, I thought.

“You have a black eye,” I said. He did indeed, but otherwise he looked fine, which was a relief.

“Lydia punched me,” said Holt ruefully.

“You got hit by a girl?” I squeaked. “Awesome.”

“Hey,” said Holt, laughing. “Not awesome. She hits hard.”

Suddenly everything came flooding back to me and I realized that Lydia was part of the Winter Court and I didn’t want her hitting Holt.

“She’s a terrible person,” I said sagely.

“Yeah, well, you need your sleep,” he said. “Rest.”

“I don’t want to rest,” I said. “I want to know what happened.”

Holt shook his head. “Thanks to you and your tackle of the Winter Queen, everyone is fine. A few bruises here and there, and my mom is completely drained, but everyone will be okay.”

“Where’s the Winter Queen?” I asked. I was more than a little disappointed that no one had kicked Lydia or Leslie’s ass.

“Samuel made her leave,” said Holt quietly.

I gasped. “Where is Samuel?”

“Gone,” said Holt. “He left with his mother. Someone had to escort her away to make sure she actually went.”

I took a deep breath. So Samuel was gone. I guess it made sense. He hadn’t wanted any of this to happen in the first place, he had simply wanted Holt to leave me alone, and except for some weird twist of fate he probably would have. Even then I wondered if I’d ever see any face on Samuel besides a cold glare.

But at that moment I didn’t care. Particularly because his mother, The Winter Queen, was also gone, and I was here with Holt, who had a black eye.

I sighed. “Okay,” I said. I was getting very tired. “Good story.”

Holt laughed quietly. “I’ll leave you to your rest.”

But I wouldn’t let go of his hand. He tugged a couple of times on it, but I wasn’t giving up. Gently, instead of leaving, he lay down beside me. Carefully he wrapped one arm around me and I turned my head into him. He smelled great, his usual mint and mix of flowers.

“Now I can sleep,” I said into his chest. “Now I’m happy.” I didn’t know how long it would last for, but at that moment I couldn’t have cared less.

The next morning I woke up in my bed at Carley’s house, coming to awareness slowly out of a dream of flowers growing in the snow. For a few moments I wondered groggily if the whole thing I thought I remembered -- the party, the fight, and for that matter the whole ridiculous idea that there were tribes of Fairies living in Maine -- had been a dream. As I turned over to get out of bed my aching muscles and my bruised head said: No. Not a dream, just the new reality of your life.

That realization sent me back under the covers ; I needed to stay there for a little longer to collect myself and get my bearings before I started my day. It seemed funny that even though I had been in Castleton for barely two weeks, being back at Carley’s house after everything that had happened felt like coming back home.  Or at least, a home away from home.

Fully awake now, remembering everything, I knew what the Solstice Party meant, to me at least. It meant that my life would never be the same. I’d come to Castleton two weeks ago a normal girl, but this summer had changed me. Even if nothing ever happened with Holt, I wasn’t the same girl I had been when I stepped off the plane. I felt different, more alive. When I’d thrown my body into the Winter Queen, simply because there was no other option, I was a new Autumn. The old Autumn wouldn’t have done that. The old Autumn would have waited for someone else to fix it, for someone else to help, but I had known that I had to be the one to do it. When it had come time to confront Samuel’s mother, it had to be me.

Samuel came to see me the next day. I was still busy relaxing. Carley and Nick had gone to the beach, but I had decided to stay home. I was still tired and shaky and I wondered how long it would last. He called to me from beneath my window, and as soon as I saw him standing there I felt the old familiar thump in my chest. I wondered how I could still feel that when I had felt so good in Holt’s arms, but ignoring the worry, I raced downstairs.

Holt had told me that it was Samuel who had stopped the Winter Queen. After I’d thrown myself into her with such abandon, Samuel had joined the fight. His mother wouldn’t fight her own son, and in the end a truce had been called. No one knew how long it would last. Already, in the light of an ordinary day, the vivid memory of the fight was fading more and more from my mind. I wondered if by the end of the summer I would forget it completely. Seeing Samuel again made me doubt it.

Samuel was standing on the porch surrounded by dusk. He looked good, better than he’d ever looked before. It looked like something inside him had relaxed. Maybe he finally didn’t hate being in my presence.

I gave him a timid smile.

“How are you?” he asked me, his voice filled with concern.

“I’m fine,” I told him. “I wasn’t hurt.”

He sat on the porch and I sat next to him. Not touching, but almost. I couldn’t even feel his usual cold.

He paused, unsure how to start. “I wanted to come see you,” he finally said, “but I wanted to give you some time. I wasn’t sure what you’d think after my mother…did what she did.”

“You aren’t your mother,” I pointed out, wrapping my arms around my knees and looking at him sideways.

He laughed ruefully. “No, but I should have known better. I thought she’d just give you and the Roths a talking to. I never thought she’d act on her anger the way she did. I’m not saying she doesn’t have a right to be angry. Part of me thinks she has every right. Holt should have left you alone until you and I had a chance to figure something out. I knew he couldn’t do that. though. I knew from the first time I saw him looking at you….” he trailed off.

I repeated what I’d been saying the whole time. “If you don’t want me you shouldn’t care who I’m with.”

He nodded. “But I do,” he said. “I do care.” He wasn’t looking at me. Instead he was looking out at the ocean. “As stupid as it sounds, I expected bad behavior from Lydia and Leslie. Especially, I knew they’d threatened you. But I didn’t expect it from my mother. She’s the Queen and she’s supposed to set an example.”

I could tell Samuel felt bad, and I knew why. It was tough realizing that your parents weren’t perfect, no matter how old you were when you realized it. “She could have hurt you,” Samuel continued. “And I don’t know that I could have forgiven her for that.”

That sounded strangely like he cared about me.

“I’m fine,” I said again. “I truly am fine. The Roths took good care of me.”

Samuel nodded. “No one ever accused them of slacking,” he said, grinning. “They are good Fairies. That’s the problem.”

I could see his reluctance. Samuel didn’t want any of this. No one had asked for it. It was the first time I realized that I wasn’t the only one who was confused and hurting, and it felt good to see that I wasn’t alone. Samuel always seemed so strong and confident and to have no interest in me at all, but now I could see that I was wrong about that, at least a little. Samuel was interested, and some part of him, maybe a small one, did care.