Red Queen (31 page)

His hand tightened for a moment on Eira's back. Then it relaxed.

“I suppose I'm not the sort of person who could care for a baby,” Hatcher said.

“I think you are very much the sort of person who could care for a baby,” Alice said softly. “But there is another who needs her more. And you and I have no home for Eira.”

Hatcher nodded. “It was what my mother did for me. She brought me to Bess, who tried to do her best by me. I never let her do her best, though. Wildness was in my blood.”

“I think Eira will be happy here with Brynja,” Alice said, thinking of the little slippers at the foot of the bed. “And Brynja will be happy with her. She needs happiness.”

“Who is she, then? The boy's mother?” Hatcher asked.

Alice was confused for a moment. “You mean Bjarke. No, she is his sister. Her daughter was one of the first children taken by the White Queen, and her daughter is not coming home tonight.”

She and Hatcher followed the children down the hill and into the village, where many were now awake and crying with joy at the return of their Lost Ones. Others stared into the darkness in hope and grief, looking for the ones who would stay lost forever.

Alice and Hatcher skirted the crowd, staying in the shadows, and Alice used a little magic to keep the village folk from noticing them. She saw Alfhild excitedly telling a woman who must be her mother about the Magician and the wolf who'd saved them from the White Queen. Some of the village elders peered out into the darkness, searching for Alice.

She did not wish to be thanked, nor did she wish to be questioned, and if they wandered into the thick of the crowd they would be both. Alice led Hatcher to Brynja's cottage. The woman stood in the door, her face paralyzed by fear, watching the crowd at the other end of the village. She wanted to see, Alice knew, if her Eira was there but was terrified to discover she wasn't.

Alice removed the little cloak of magic and Brynja started. Her face fell when she saw Alice and Hatcher there and her eyes welled.

“She's gone, isn't she?” Brynja swiped at the tears with an impatient hand.

Alice nodded, and then she turned to Hatcher. “Say good-bye now.”

He bent his lips to Eira's ear, and whispered something there. Then he kissed her round little cheek and passed her to Alice. He did not come closer to Brynja's cottage, but turned away toward the wood as soon as the baby was out of his arms.

Alice carried the child to Brynja, who took the baby automatically.

“Who is she?” Brynja asked, her grief softening as she stroked the baby's face.

“Her name is Eira,” Alice said. “And she is Bjarke's daughter.”

Brynja's eyes came up and searched Alice's. Whatever she wanted to know, she saw there, for she nodded and said, “Thank you for bringing her to me. Who is the man?”

They both looked toward Hatcher, a silhouette of darker shadow against the night.

“He is her grandfather,” Alice said. “Someday a wolf might come to your door, a grey-eyed wolf with a black-and-white pelt. Do not fear it if it comes, or if Eira seems to know it.”

“I understand,” Brynja said.

Alice thought she did. “One thing more—”

“The child was conceived in magic,” Brynja said. “So I shouldn't be surprised by anything that might happen around her.”

Alice smiled. “Yes, that is so.”

Brynja reached for Alice and pulled her close with her free arm. The other woman smelled of wool and the cooking fire and milk, smelled like home like a mother ought. Brynja kissed both of Alice's cheeks and then let her go.

Alice turned away before Brynja closed the cottage door. She
heard the other woman cooing to Eira, singing a song in a language Alice did not understand.

Hatcher had gone into the field already. Alice saw him there, standing with his face turned toward the moonlight and his hands brushing against the tall grass.

Where now?
she thought. Not back to the City, nor over the mountain to the desert. Not into the forest, though it might be safe now that the Queen was gone.

There is a place,
Cheshire said.

Ah, I'd wondered where you'd gone,
Alice said.

I can't chase after you all the time,
Cheshire said.
I am a very important man, after all, and there are things afoot in the City.

Alice knew he wanted her to ask about those things, wanted her to be curious, so that perhaps she might go back to see. But Alice never wanted to see the City again, and she had finally learned that curiosity wasn't always a virtue.

Oh, very well, I thought you would be that way about it. There is a place to the north, though not as far north as the land of the ice bears. If you follow the range of mountains you will come to some foothills, and beyond there is a green valley.

Alice closed her eyes, for she could see it already. A green valley and a field of wildflowers, and a little white cottage by a blue lake. Someone was calling her, telling her to stop daydreaming, that it was time for tea, and she was turning and smiling at the man who waved to her from the doorway, a black-haired babe in his arms.

She opened her eyes, and a wolf stood at her feet, his grey eyes gleaming.

“North,” she said. “I'll see you at sunrise.”

Hatcher ran into the night, and Alice followed. She could already feel the sun on her face.

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