Bones of Faerie (2 page)

“She knew the rules,” Father had said when she failed to return by nightfall. I searched his face for some hint of the grief he must have felt and saw a tightness around his jaw and eyes, nothing more. He knew as well as I how unlikely Mom was to have survived a night alone in the dark, yet he didn't cry. He said there was no sense wasting tears on things you couldn't change.

I did my own crying alone in the dark, where no one could see. Why would Mom leave without telling where she'd gone? I would have gone with her. I'm good with a knife and a bow. I'd have kept watch for her or done whatever else she needed.

I gripped the bucket's handle with both hands and climbed back up the slope. As I reached the top I saw Matthew emerging from the path between river and town. His fair hair was pulled back in a ragged ponytail, but as usual it had escaped and fallen loose around his ears. He smiled when he saw me—an easy, comfortable smile—but I looked away. I didn't find being around Matthew comfortable at all.

“Hey, Liza. Your dad's looking for you.” Matthew rubbed at the jagged white scar around his left wrist, and
his smile faltered a little. “Wondering why you're not to work yet.”

I glanced at the sky. The sun shone like tarnished silver through layers of gray. When had it risen so high? Sweat trickled down my neck and made my sweater itch against my clammy skin. How long had I stared into the water? Had magic held me transfixed while time flowed on all around me?

No. I was tired, that was all. I'd lost track of the time.

“Need any help?” Matthew asked.

“I'm fine.” I walked past him, back toward the town. I'd pay for being so late, but that was none of Matthew's concern. He came up beside me anyway, matching my pace with his own loping gait. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his deerskin jacket and said, “Your dad's in one of his moods.”

Of course he was. I kept walking. The sun grew brighter, turning the maple and sycamore leaves deep green. Mom said before the War, leaves had changed color in autumn, first blazing fiery shades of yellow and red, then falling softly to earth, leaving behind bare branches that shivered beneath winter snows. It would take a fire now to make any tree release its grip so easily.

Matthew lifted his head and sniffed the air. The scent of leaf mold was heavy around us. “I can go with you,” he offered. “Maybe if I'm with you, Ian won't …” Matthew let the words trail off.

“You can go
away.”
Water sloshed over the edges of the bucket. Bad enough that Father would likely lash me for being late. I didn't need Matthew to follow and see. He stayed with me, though, right up until we reached the edge of the fields. There, he hesitated and glanced at me. I scowled. Matthew shrugged uneasily and turned away, heading off along a side path between fields of corn. The stalks’ long leaves rustled as he went by. In the distance, corn ears moaned as townsfolk pulled them free. The corn had grown well this year, and the squash and beans, too. They'd all fought our harvesting, and we had the bruises to show for it, but come winter we would eat well.

I continued back into town. This time when I reached the gap among the houses, I couldn't help it. I stopped, thinking of how Matthew smiled as if no magic had ever touched his life. I knew better. We all did.

Matthew's little brother, Cam, had called blackberry brambles into their house nearly two years ago now, though we didn't know he'd called them at first. We just knew we woke to the sound of Cam's parents screaming.

All the townsfolk came running, and by the lanterns we brought with us we saw Cam's house swarming with thorny blackberry stems. Wood walls creaked and snapped as the screams fell to silence, yet even as the house collapsed we heard Cam laughing. We couldn't get him or his parents out. We could only burn the house down to keep the blackberry bushes from attacking the houses around it as well.

Everyone thought Matthew had died with his family, until a few hours later when he appeared at the edge of town. His clothes were gone, his skin was crossed with ragged scrapes, and his wrist still bled where the thorny stems had grabbed him. At first he was too dazed to speak. Later he told us what had happened, though he kept insisting Cam hadn't done it on purpose. His brother was just a little kid, Matthew said, throwing a little-kid tantrum. Cam didn't know a blackberry plant had taken root beneath his porch. No one knew, for all that we checked for new growth as often as we could. Yet the plant had heard Cam's cries. It had broken through the porch and headed straight for him. Father said Matthew was a coward for running away instead of going for help. He said even a few extra minutes might have saved Cam and his family. I didn't know what to
think, just as I didn't know quite what to say to Matthew after that. Mostly I didn't say anything at all. After two years, it had become a habit.

Later Brianna the midwife admitted she'd seen a few clear strands in Cam's hair earlier that year, meaning it'd likely been Cam's magic that had called the plant, and not simple bad luck that it had come. Until then we'd thought magic showed up either at birth or not at all, but now we were more careful. Cam and Matthew's grandmother Kate gathered the town's children together regularly to check our hair for magic, just as she checked for lice and fleas. As far as Kate could tell, though, Cam had been the only one.

I turned away from the empty space where Matthew's family had died and hurried on to my own house. As I started up the creaking steps, I saw a yellow dandelion growing beside them. I set my bucket down and tugged at the green stem. A thorn sliced my palm. I brought it to my mouth, cursing the spiteful plant, then took the knife from my belt and cut the dandelion free with a single stroke. “I'll be back for your roots,” I promised as I hefted the bucket again and stepped inside.

A streak of amber fur leaped across the living room. I dropped the bucket as Tallow, my old yellow barn
cat, landed in my arms. In spite of myself I smiled and scratched her behind the ears.

“Where were you?” I whispered. Tallow had lived in our town since I was small. When she was a kitten she'd sneak beneath the covers with me at night, until Father found out. “She's no use as a mouser if she spends her days lazing on feather mattresses,” he'd said. Tallow kept sneaking in despite my best efforts, though. Until last night, when she'd gone missing and I went out calling for her, afraid she'd left this world at last. I called until my throat grew itchy and tight, but Tallow didn't come.

Yet now she purred as if she'd never been gone. I held her close a moment, then gently carried her outside and set her down on the stairs. Tallow looked up at me, green eyes large, as if hurt that I'd even consider setting her out. “You have to earn your keep,” I told her. “Just like the rest of us.”

Tallow yawned, telling me what she thought of that notion, and curled up on the top step to sleep.

I went back inside and carried the water past our couch—its cushions torn and patched and torn again— past a fireplace filled with cold ash, and into the kitchen. Plastic bins of corn and dried meat lined the kitchen walls. Their labels were faded beyond reading, but like
old nylon, old plastic endured. It was one of the things that had best survived the War. I set the bucket down beside the sink.

Light flashed off the sink's metal surface, even though the kitchen windows were shuttered. The light turned bright and clear, reflecting back my own face. Ice-pale hair tumbled over my shoulders, flowing like water into my outstretched hands—

“No!” I wrenched my gaze away and tore at my hair. The strands that came free were as black as they'd ever been, dark as rich soil, dark as a moonless night. Yet there was a hint of something paler at their roots. I sank to my knees and pressed my face to the cool, crumbling kitchen tiles. Had some of Rebecca's magic lingered on the hillside? Had that magic found me, even as I ran? Was I the one faerie-cursed now?

My hands shook. Whether I spoke of this or not, sooner or later someone would find out and destroy me and the magic both. Or worse, I would destroy them, just as Matthew's little brother had done. Magic always did harm sooner or later. I drew a shuddering breath and stumbled to my feet.

When I turned, Father stood in the doorway, watching me.

Chapter 3

W
ords froze in my throat as I stared at my father. Had he seen the light in the sink, the paleness in my hair?
Cast out the magic born among you.
Yet I was no babe to set out in the night. Father had told me often enough how he'd have dealt with Cam had the boy lived: “With a single stroke across the throat, swift and deep.” Father killed deer that way after the hunt, his knife cutting so fast there was never any pain.

“You're late, Liza.” Father stared at me through hard gray eyes.

I let out a breath. I'd forgotten he might have ordinary reasons for anger, too.

“Why are you late?” His voice was a growl at the
back of his throat. He crossed the room with a few quick strides. I wished I were like Tallow, who could disappear when she didn't wish to be found. “Where were you?” Father demanded.

“Ou-out,” I stammered. “Out getting water …” My words trailed to silence. We both knew getting water ought not to have taken so long.

“There's work to be done.” Father's eyes flashed like iron in Jayce's forge, but his voice remained low. “People who don't work don't eat.”

“I know. I'm sorry. I—”

He slapped me so hard and fast, tears came to my eyes. I blinked them back even as he grabbed my arm. “People who don't work starve. Don't you understand that?”

I said nothing. I feared any wrong word might betray the magic that had delayed me.

“Five lashes, girl.”

I knew better than to run. Running would only make him angrier. Instead I turned my back, lifted my sweater, and bowed my head against the pain I knew would come. Silently Father drew his belt. The first blow hit— I fought not to cry out. The second broke skin and sent stabs of pain down my back. I bit my lip and tasted blood.

With each lash Father spoke quiet angry words about faerie fire and human death, about people starving and ungrateful children who didn't understand. My back throbbed. Three, I counted. Four. With the fifth lash a sob burst from my lips.

“Weak,” Father said as he tied his belt back in place. “You'd have died during the War, Liza. Remember that.”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

“Now pull yourself together and join me in the fields. No more delays.”

I listened as his deliberate steps crossed the house and the outside door shut firmly behind him. I let my knees give way and sank, trembling, to the floor, sweater falling back into place. More sobs came, along with a throbbing pain that grew with every breath. If Mom were here I might have run to her so that she could hold me and whisper some of the pain away. Mom didn't think me weak or slow. She didn't think that at fifteen I was too old to beg for comfort like a child.

How could she have left me without a word?

I staggered to my feet and headed back outside. I'd barely made it down the stairs when the pain slid up a notch and I fell to my knees again. I reached around and touched my back. My hand came away sticky with blood.

It was worse than usual. I tried to pull the wool away to feel the skin beneath, but wool and blood and skin stuck together. Redness shimmered before my eyes.

I felt something like old sandpaper against my cheek. Tallow licked my face. Her rough tongue hurt. I pushed her away. She mewed in protest.

I couldn't work like this. Father didn't believe in numbing pain—he kept none of Jayce's whiskey on hand. I forced myself to my feet and stumbled down the path toward Kate's door, Tallow at my heels. Matthew's grandmother didn't have whiskey, either, but she did have a cupboard full of teas and herbs. She'd have something for the pain. And she'd be home: her knees had grown too weak for her to help with the harvest.

I hesitated, then knocked and nudged the door open just as Kate called at me to enter. She sat on a stool in front of her loom, her hands in her lap as she stared at a half-finished bolt of reddish-brown cloth. Her long gray hair was twisted into a tidy bun. Across the room, a low fire burned in her fireplace.