Bones of Faerie (17 page)

Above, the sun shone like hammered copper. Tallow
nudged Allie's hand, but she didn't move to scratch the cat's ears. She reached down and sifted a handful of ash through her wet fingers. The wind picked up, blowing the ash away and leaving black streaks on her hands and face. No bird flew. No animal called. No tree whispered to the wind. Faerie—yet I knew now Faerie hadn't always been like this.

“It's worse than Caleb told me,” Allie whispered. “I had no idea.” She looked down at her ash-stained hands. “The fey don't live forever, you know, no matter what people think. Harder to kill, harder to heal. That's what Caleb says.”

The fey folk lost as much as we did during the War.

My people had done this. Ash blew into my eyes and clogged my throat. Whatever power had done this, it was better gone, along with the ways of making nylon and plastic and knives that kept their edge.

Behind me someone began to sing in a voice dry as old corn husks:

I stiffened. Wind burned the dampness from my face. Slowly I turned, scarcely daring to breathe, knowing hope had no place in this dead land.

Behind me lay a small lake, a stone's throw across. Orange flames danced beneath its surface, as if the lake bottom was on fire. The lake was perfectly round and perfectly still. Less than a hundred paces away a figure huddled on the far bank, rocking back and forth as she sang. My throat felt dry, but that might have been from the heat.

I walked around to her, ignoring heat, ignoring wind, ignoring sky. Matthew and Allie and Tallow followed, but their steps seemed far away. Only the woman by the lake mattered. I knelt beside her and reached out slowly, afraid this was some vision that would dissolve at my touch.

“Mom,” I said, and laid a hand on her shoulder.

Mom stared into the water and sang on, as if I hadn't spoken, as if I weren't there at all.

Chapter 14

F
lames rose from beneath the water and subsided again. Mom stretched her hands into the lake as if reaching for something. Her arms were red, burned—she didn't seem to notice. Her lips were cracked and bleeding. Red marks and ash streaked her face and neck. A pack lay open beside her, half-filled with black dust. I saw a canvas bag and a couple empty water bottles within.

Weight settled like lead in my stomach. Rebecca reached toward Mom, made an uncertain sound, and drew back.

I shook Mom's shoulder, first gently, then harder. She leaned away from me, her hair trailing into the lake. I bent around to meet her gaze. Her eyes were dull as ash.

“Mom!”
I put force into that call, as much force as I could. Mom sang on, unhearing. I thought I might throw up. Sweat trickled down my neck, evaporating before it could get beneath my sweater. I felt something cool against my skin and reached beneath the sweater to clutch Caleb's token. I took the chain from around my neck and offered it to Mom, praying there was some power in the disk.

For just a moment her eyes focused and her song fell silent. She grabbed the disk, jerking the chain from my hand. Then her gaze changed to something young and far away.

“Tara,” Matthew whispered. His bare feet were black with ash. He rubbed at his scar as if it itched something fierce.

Allie reached tentatively out and touched Mom's cheek. “Something's wrong,” the girl said. “I don't understand. She's lost, but not only lost. Something's wrong.”

Mom's lips moved, forming words I couldn't hear. Around her neck her own disk hung, the veined metal bright in the sun.

“Mom.”
She had to answer. I'd make her answer.

She stared into the glowing water, as if she saw
something I couldn't. Visions, I thought, but I didn't know whether the visions came from the lake or from somewhere inside her. I gripped her shoulder tighter. I remembered Caleb grabbing my arm, forcing my gaze to a mirror. He'd followed me.

I drew my hand abruptly away. I couldn't enter my mother's thoughts like Caleb had entered mine. I had no right.

But I also couldn't lose her. I couldn't let the darkness swallow her, not after I'd come so far. I turned to Matthew. “Be my watcher,” I said.

Allie drew a sharp breath. “Mind injuries aren't like other hurts, Liza. You can't go in and heal this as if it were a break or a fever.”

I forced my voice steady. “I'm not trying to heal it. I'm just trying to find her.” I'd worry about healing later. I untied Rebecca's sling and set her down beside me. “Matthew?”

He looked first at Mom, then at me. “I'll watch you. I won't let you get lost.”

No one could promise I wouldn't get lost, not when magic was involved.

“Trust me,” Matthew said, and he gave a lopsided smile. I did trust him, whether it made sense to or not.

Tallow stalked to Rebecca's side as if keeping a watch of her own. Allie threw a handful of ash across the plain. “Be careful, Liza. I didn't heal you so you could get yourself killed some other way, you know.”

“I know,” I told her.

Mom still clutched Caleb's disk. I gently placed my hand over hers. Her skin was hot. I followed her gaze to the water. Flames roared up, and for a moment I felt I was falling through the fire. It burned all around me, and in the flames I saw—

Sun through leaves, a soft breeze swaying high branches. I walked without fear through a blue-green forest. No vines lashed out, no thorns tore at my boots. The mossy earth felt soft beneath my feet. A small bird flew past with a twig in its mouth, building a nest amid the leaves. Those leaves were perfectly round, bright with afternoon light. Or maybe the light came from within the leaves. I couldn't tell—

A young man and a young woman walked through the forest, their fingers interlaced, a hawk riding on the man's shoulder. Caleb again, and with him—

I'd seen her before, but I hadn't known her until now. How could she and Caleb— He should have been
younger then, but who knew how long the faerie folk lived? I reached for the woman's hand. “Mom.”

She drew back, turning to Caleb. “I don't understand,” she said. To Caleb, not to me.

“It is time for you to return to your own people, Tara. Past time.”

Mom shook her head. “No. There is nothing for me there. And if I return, my father will never let me out of his sight again.”

“This isn't even real,” Caleb said soberly. “This is past, this is memory. It cannot be undone.” He drew his fingers from hers. “You must go. Our commanders have met, Karinna among them. War draws near, to your land and to mine.”

Mom laughed, a joyless sound. “Most of my people don't even believe in your land. It's a ballad, a song, a story for children.”

“But some of those who do believe hold power in your world, including your father. Just as some of those who disdain to talk to your people hold power in mine. Anger catches on all sides, like fire to fallen wood. The time when words could quench it is past.”

Mom looked up as if to protest, but then Caleb bent
and brushed his lips against hers. I wanted to cry out, to tell him to leave her alone—but there was longing in her eyes as he drew away. Caleb took something from beneath his shirt: a silver disk on a chain, the disk Mom had worn all my life. If it weren't so clearly metal, it could have been a leaf fallen from one of the trees. Mom reached for it, then drew back her hand.

“Take it,” Caleb said. “It's a gift to follow you from my world into yours.” He draped the chain around her neck. “The quia leaf beneath the plating is real enough.”

“I have little to offer in turn. I've always had less to offer.” Mom fumbled in her pockets, pulled out a disk of her own. “Here.”

Caleb turned it in his hands. An arch was inscribed on its surface, and a river, and words from Before. “I shall treasure it.”

Mom laughed, a brittle sound like the crackle of old plastic. “It's just a quarter. Worth next to nothing in my world.”

“I shall treasure it just the same.”

“It's not so simple, you know. My world, your world. You're the one who told me that our worlds are linked by
more than the Arch. There's less place for me there than here.”

“There is no place for you here. I am sorry. If you still care for my world when the War is through, return then. The quia leaf will open the way to the land of its growth, even if none of my people are here to greet you. And should you choose not to return, still the leaf will protect you when you walk in dark forests.”

“This parting is your choice, Kaylen, not mine.” Mom's shoulders stiffened as she turned from him. “If you wish to see me again when this is through, come into my world and find me.”

Caleb shut his eyes as if in pain. “All may yet be well. Goodbye, Tara.”

Mom walked away, not crying, not looking back. I fell into step beside her and reached for her hand again. This time she let me take it. “Come on, Mom. We're going home.” Mom shuddered at the word, but she followed me through the cool forest. The sun above us grew brighter. I shut my eyes against it, and when I opened them again—

I knelt with Mom beside the lake. Flames danced beneath its surface. Sun burned against my face. Mom's
hand fell limp, and the quarter rolled to the ground. I stared at her, remembering a young woman, a stranger.

She turned to me, her eyes dull as old coals. “You should have left me there,” she said.

I jerked as if slapped, even as Mom turned to the water once more.

I grabbed her arm, trying to pull her away. She fought me, and as she fought she started coughing, dry coughs that rasped through her chest like wind through old paper. I didn't care. I shook her harder. She'd run away; she'd left me; I wouldn't let her leave me. How could Mom abandon me for Faerie, for Caleb, for a stranger who wasn't even human? I felt hands trying to pull me away, but no one could make me let go. I began crying or screaming, I couldn't tell which. My chest and throat burned beneath the cursed Faerie sun.

As if in answer Rebecca cried out from where I'd set her down. Mom went limp in my arms. I went still, too. Only the wind blew on. “Rebecca?” Pain flashed through Mom's eyes like lightning. “No, you're Liza. Oh, God, Lizzy, I'm sorry, so sorry. I only sought a safe place for us all. I failed you….” She stumbled to her feet, and I helped her up, but then her legs gave way. I caught her and helped her back to the ground.

Matthew held a water bottle to her lips. I should have thought of that. I trembled like a leaf fighting wind. Per haps Mom only needed water or food.

Mom took a swallow, coughed up water and phlegm and little spatters of blood. She closed her eyes, whimpering like a child. Matthew glanced at me, looking as lost as I felt. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words came out. He held the water out again. Mom shoved it away. The bottle flew from Matthew's hands and spilled to the ground. Ash swallowed water, leaving dry earth behind.

Allie moved to Mom's side, hesitant as a cat near fire. She moved slow healer's hands over Mom's body, then jerked back as if burned. I knew by the look on her face that this was more than dehydration or hunger.

“Allie?” I said.

Her hands shook, and she wouldn't meet my eyes. She looked at Matthew instead.

“It's like something's coming unraveled inside her. I don't understand. I need more time, but if I touch her too long—if I try to heal her—I'll start unraveling, too.”

“Don't,” Matthew said at once. Beneath the sun his face was ashy pale.

“We can't lose her,” I said.

Allie's hands clenched and unclenched. “Don't ask me again, Liza. If you ask again, I won't be able to say no.”

I bit my lip, swallowing my words. Wind blew through my silence.

Allie stood and backed away. “There's more. What ever made her sick, I think it's still in the air here. I think if we stay too long, we'll get sick, too.”

I brushed the hair back from my mother's forehead. Her skin burned beneath my touch. “Mom,” I whispered. I wanted her to tell me everything would be all right, but she closed her eyes and said nothing.