The Modern Fae's Guide to Surviving Humanity (6 page)

Corey's smile was radiant. “I think so, too.”

With her eyes closed, Marisol took a deep breath and held it, then cracked open her right eyelid. She didn't know if she expected his features to remain the same or not. But when she saw him through the film of ointment, she had to stifle a gasp. The baby in her arms didn't have red hair, nor did he have the perfectly imagined features she'd seen on the changeling in the hospital.

But he was hers. Undoubtedly hers. Black wisps of hair curled damply around his face. Delicate lips, red as a rosebud. Black eyes—no newborn blue here. A strong Aztec nose, just like Raffe's, only tiny and snubbed and perfect. He rooted frantically at her blouse, as if he knew her, knew that she had what he needed.

Mrs. Brown was still a turtled old woman who smelled of cut grass and oregano, but her white uniform had given way to a raggedy dress of leaves and feathers and bits of fur. She grinned sideways as Marisol examined her, then her black eyes widened as she realized Marisol could actually see her. She nodded an infinitesimal nod, and Marisol interpreted that as encouragement. Taking a deep breath, she addressed Corey again. “Actually, he
doesn't look anything like you, does he?” She took a step back, away from her hostess. Anger fueled her demand: “Did you really think I'd let you keep him? You didn't even try to make that changeling believable—a bundle of sticks and a brown paper sack? Is that all you thought my grief was worth?”

Corrigan drew back at the force of Marisol's words, but Marisol knew she wouldn't be able to outrun her. She was only a few hours out of the hospital and even just standing here, her belly ached, her breasts had begun to leak, and she felt more than a little shaky from exhaustion as well as adrenaline.

Corrigan's eyes narrowed as she forced a smile. “I keep telling the doctors that putting new mothers on morphine is a bad idea. Someone's going to have a bad reaction one of these days, but does anyone listen to me?”

“No one is listening now, Queen Corrigan.” As Marisol spoke, Corey's face eased into its actual lines: much starker, much more beautiful, and much more frightening than she had been before. Now Marisol recognized the woman in the portrait.

“If you won't listen, then what will you do, little girl? Will you run? I can shut my doors against you and you will never find your way out.”

“Your door is warded with iron.” Corrigan's head snapped around and the smile slid from her face, replaced by something darker. Marisol swallowed and said firmly, “So you can't seal me in. I haven't eaten or drunk anything, nor has my son, or else you wouldn't have needed me so badly.”

Corrigan's smile grew tighter. “And who will help you? You are a grieving woman whose postpartum depression has sadly morphed into psychosis.” Her eyes
widened and her mouth thinned as she promised, “I will make your stay at Kingsboro Psych a torment such as bards could write sagas about.”

Marisol could almost smell the industrial disinfectant, see the fluorescent lighting, feel the helpless terror of that future, but she said as calmly as she could, “You have no power over us, unless I give it to you.”

“Who told you that?”

Instead of answering, Marisol groped for the baby food jar in her jacket pocket and opened it, unceremoniously dumping its contents over her son's head. Tomás squared his mouth in an outraged wail. She spoke loudly enough to be heard over his screams. “I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.” Her words crackled in the air, and Mrs. Brown began edging back toward the dark corridor.

Corrigan narrowed her eyes and took a single step toward Marisol and Tomás. “We could help each other, you know. I am a wealthy woman and you have nothing—not even a husband anymore. I could ease your way considerably in this world, if you were to help me.”

“By giving you my child?”

“You can have others. I cannot. Let me adopt him, and you never need work another day in your life.”

Marisol felt her lips lifting back from her teeth in a snarl. “I may be poor, but I would never sell my baby.”

“But what does he have to look forward to with you? Your world is a dark and dismal place. And your man was easy to chase away, you know. He won't be back. This child will always know something is missing from his life—you won't be enough to fill it. Let him stay with me and he will be honored and cared for and beloved by all of my people. It is no small thing to be the son of a queen.”

Marisol's breath caught in her throat—who would not want the life of a prince for their child? What kind of a mother was she? Bridget had warned her that Corey would try to talk her into giving him up, but this was more difficult than merely refusing to give up her son; if she took him, she would be taking opportunities away from him. Then she breathed in the fragrance from the top of his head. He smelled warm and human and whatever else she worried about, he was hers. He belonged with her. “I will not.”

“If you leave him with me, he will live practically forever, never aging, surrounded by marvels and delights. With you, he will grow old and die. Are you so selfish?”

Marisol looked at the baby in her arms. It was hard to imagine him as an old man, frail and sickly, but she knew it would happen someday. She had watched her grandfather waste away after her
abuelita
died, and had grieved for his death most of her life. Then she looked up, meeting Corrigan's calculating gaze. “We die eventually. But sometimes we find someone to love and have children with—children who carry the best part of us into the future. That's how humans become immortal. A child of mine will value that, for I will teach him.”

Corrigan shrugged, as if Marisol's victory meant nothing to her but her lips were pressed thin. “Thrice I have asked and thrice you have refused. May your lying eye … no, actually—” her angry expression grew satisfied. “When your son looks away from your face, I want you to know who was able to make him laugh when you could not. I want you never to be able to forget that he spent the first hours of his life with me. Some part of him will always be mine.”

A grue ran down Marisol's spine. This was a truer
curse than the infection that took Bridget's eye, but she could not keep silent. In a low voice, she said, “Some part, yes, but not the greatest part. Tell yourself whatever stories you like,
Xana
. But he is mine.” Marisol felt the ache in her heart ease as her son pushed his damp head under her jaw.
My son!
She took a deep breath, anticipating Corrigan's next offer or curse. She was ready.

Instead, Corrigan's face softened. “He might be yours, but now that you have seen us, you will be forever caught between our worlds, too. Unless—” From a small drawer in the sideboard she withdrew a tiny round tin, no larger than a wedding ring. Delicately, with the tips of her fingers, she opened it, showing Marisol the faintly shimmering ointment inside. Marisol recognized the smell of flowers and blood but did not reach for it. “Someday, if you wish it, if your world proves to be too much—or too little—for either of you, we would welcome you among us. We can always use more heroes, and despite my current annoyance, young lady, you do qualify. You would be welcome with or without your son.”

Marisol shook her head, holding tight to Tomás, savoring the human smell and warmth of him as she continued backing toward the door. “He is human, like me. We need to live in our own world.”

“So you say. But remember my invitation.” Marisol took one last look around the room that reminded her so strongly of her grandfather, of her life before she came to this country that promised so much and had, thus far, given her so little. Life with the fairies might be nothing more exotic than living in the best place she could imagine. It might be entirely outside of her reality, but it might also feel like she was finally coming home.
She took a deep breath, put her hand on the closed door, and then she closed her eye.

A screen of ivy and thorn barred her way. She hunched her shoulder to shield her son and her own face; but at a word from the queen, it fell away and the sun blazed in, streaming through the trees in a fall of golden light. Tomás screwed up his eyes when the sunlight hit his face, and opened his mouth to protest. But Marisol soothed him, stroking his cheek, which felt as soft and insubstantial as a memory. In her mind, a voice whispered, “Remember,” but she did not answer, nor did she turn back.

Bridget waited at the iron gate and pulled Marisol through. “You have him. Oh, dear saints and little fishes—you did it!”

Marisol looked down at her son's face. To both her eyes, he looked the same, human and beautifully imperfect. His brow wrinkled as he stared past her, then he buried his face in her shoulder, searching for the nourishment he needed.

Bridget led them to the nearest bench, and Marisol opened her blouse. She winced as his mouth clamped over her tender breast, then relaxed as his suckling began to ease the terrible pressure that had been building since his birth. While he nursed, his eyes remained fixed on something over her right shoulder, but she did not turn to look, just as she did not reach into her pocket to see if the lump against her hipbone was a tiny jar of ointment she could not recall taking from Corrigan. Instead she watched her son's face, so pure in his intent, so angry in his hunger, so human.

Bridget said, “I'll write you a new birth certificate in
the morning. In the meantime, we should celebrate—it's not every day you beat the Queen of the Fae at her own game.”

Carefully cradling her son in the crook of one elbow while he nursed, gulping audibly, Marisol glanced up at Bridget and shook her head. “I haven't beaten her. Not yet. But I will.”

“What do you mean? He's here. You did it, Mari. What more do you want?”

“I still have to prove her wrong. I have to make sure he learns what's best in the world, and that he knows how much he's loved, knows I would do anything for him, knows I'll never let him go, never leave him. No matter what.”

Bridget grinned. “Sounds like you're saying you have to learn how to be a mother.”

More slowly, Marisol said, “I have to make this world worth living in. For both of us.” Stroking her son's cheek she whispered in his ear, “Come on,
mi hijo
, let's go home.” She refused to look over her shoulder to see what still held her son's interest. She would not open the jar of ointment. She would not look for Queen Corrigan every time her son smiled or laughed in an empty room. She would make a life for them in this world—as good a life as she could create, for as long as Tomás had need of her.

She would not look back.

Kari Sperring

J
enny peered through the eyes of the dead man where he floated in the canal. His body hung just below the surface of the water, entirely submerged save for the bagging fabric of his dirty cargo pants above his knees. His hands drifted on either side, palms upwards in silent exhortation. Her waters had already begun to bloat his body, plumping out the dead tissues, filling all his secret cavities, revealing to her all his petty daily secrets. Last meal: a greasy pasty from a corner shop. Last drink: the cheapest cider. Last sight: nothing. Her long fingers, her filaments and streams could run as they wished through his flesh, but his mind, his memories, were all already fled, poured away with the blood that seeped from the narrow punctures that marred his neck. He lay cradled in her waters and gave her nothing, no fear, no glimpse of soul, no sweet last breath to feed on.

There had always been bodies. Since the first settlement of humans in her territory, men and women had
run and walked, staggered and slipped and hiccupped their way into oblivion in her rocking embrace. Of course, in the old days, her range—of control, of weapons, of human compliance—had been much, much greater. Humans were easily lured to wander from the known paths into the softer, hungry areas of her marsh, even in daylight, drawn by the silver flash of fish scales or the green promise of edible weeds. At night, cloud often sucked all light from the low moist East Anglian skies. Sometimes, others amongst the old denizens of the fens would help her, leading victims to her marshes for a share of the spoils in flesh and bone. For long years, she had eaten as she willed, and the humans had feared and honored her, offering to her the first fruits of their harvests (of more interest to the waterfowl than to Jenny herself). She liked their darker festivals better by far, when they offered to her not their planting but the firm flesh and smooth skin of their youngest adults or the trussed bodies of their enemies. She drew them close, wrapped them in her tightest embrace, and savored the desperate sweetness of their final breaths. Good days, rich days, days of regular meals and human respect. Better days by far than these, when her waters were trammeled by concrete walls, the only offerings she received bent bicycles and rusting shopping trolleys and the occasional careless drunk. Their last memories were thin and sour—the haze of alcohol and nausea with only the dimmest film of surprise at their fall. Many lost consciousness before they drowned, cheating her of even that small pleasure. And this man … This man held nothing, dead before he ever hit the canal. She had swum up to meet him, hungry for her meal, and found only emptiness and the sour taste of stale booze. Footsteps walked
briskly away from her banks: peering from behind the body, she caught sight of a hunched figure in jeans and a long dark coat. Another human had done this, had slain one of their own kind and used her waters as a midden. She snarled, sending waves lashing the sides of the canal.

This was her place. Her territory. She would not tolerate another hunter in the lands about her waters.

The New Canal ran through the northeast corner of Fenborough, separating the crush of low-rent red-brick Victorian terraces from the richer tree-lined curves of the streets around Miller's Park, the proud Gothic edifices of the university, and the glossy buildings of the city center. Its banks were mean and muddy, brambles warring with litter for supremacy behind the twisted hanks of barbed wire that the council strung here and there in the vain hope of keeping people away from the towpath. Toward the east end, where it came closest to the park, attempts had been made to tidy the path up with woodchips and rustic benches, in the hope of luring cyclists and walkers. But there was nothing to see, save the flat waters and the graffitied ends of the red-brick terraces on the other side. The woodchips clumped, harboring earwigs and black beetles and sticking to the wheels of any bicycle or pushchair that tried its surface. Homeless drunks colonized the benches, pitching their empty bottles and cans into the canal when they were finished. Sometimes, these days, Jenny joined them, pitching herself down on one of the benches and snagging a can of precious cider with a skinny hand. They respected her, these booze-worn men and women. They remembered the old folk-learning, living as they did close to the edge of things. They knew death all too well, whatever shape it wore, and they
treated it with caution, even while they courted it. They might throw their empties into her waters, but they knew better than to get too close themselves. “I'll drink with you, Jenny,” Other Tom would say, “but I'll not dance. Not on your dance floor.” Then he'd salute her with his bottle or blow her a kiss and go back to his drinking. Tom knew his limits—and hers, too—and he headed off through the park when the last bottle was emptied to find himself a place to sleep in the warm smelly stairwell of the multi-story car park, in some dark corner in the loading bays at the back of the Alderman Center, or the empty stairwells of the university lecture blocks. They respected her, but they took care never to lie in her arms. It took the casual drinkers, the careless young, to come close to her by night these days.