Fair Peril (23 page)

But she knew, as a flash of gold glared in those fine eyes, as a white hand lifted and beckoned at her, she knew that it was as the prince had said: the Queen was pretty damn pissed at her.

“No,” she whispered. She had to stay a bit, to see whether LeeVon—

But “No” was the wrong thing to say. The glittering eyes flared like fire, the white hand flexed. Buffy wanted to scream but couldn't as she felt herself whirling away into darkness.

Thirteen

In silk and velvet LeeVon leaped, LeeVon vogued, LeeVon danced, jingling like a great green tambourine, and his attention was all for the partner who guided him by the hands, whose presence he sensed just inches from the taut, tender skin of his belly; the world he saw, behind him and upside down and wildly in motion, was like a video that accompanied the music, the dancing, the partner. It was a lushly atmospheric video—the dim, smoky room, dusky wood and tawny lights, starry display of glass behind the bar, the people, the half-naked men and the woman in the cloak and the woman in blue jeans, all ebbing and flowing to the rhythm of the music; he would remember it forever, what he had seen on this most important of all nights, yet it did not concern him.

LeeVon saw Buffy disappear and kept right on dancing. On his own again. Just as she was once again on her own in her story.

This, then, LeeVon dared to think it … this was his story.

His
story.

All of this suffering, being turned into a frog and dragged around and thrown around and starving … it was for some purpose.

The music was thumping, pulsing, pounding like his dancing heels, his dancing heart. With a titanic effort LeeVon jackknifed his head forward, creasing his throat, to look at his partner.

The blond young man stared back at him in fascination and terror. Lovely, those wide gray eyes shaded by long toast-colored lashes. Lovely, those grave brown brows, that high forehead, the shining hair pulled back. LeeVon had never before noticed a young man's eyes. Typically, he had been paying more attention to other parts. But this dancing partner was special, different, dancing arrow-straight, head high, brave gaze despite his fear, ponytail swinging—something about him reminded LeeVon of a character from Kipling, or maybe from Robert Louis Stevenson, some adventurous lad with the ponytail, the shining hair, the high forehead over sweet eyes, couldn't think which boy, which book, maybe
Alice in Wonderland
—

“Kiss me,” LeeVon said, his voice issuing as a strangled croak from his constricted throat.

The dance went on, yet everything seemed to slow down. The young man's lips parted, moving wordlessly. LeeVon felt his soul hanging upon the softening of that Cupid's-bow mouth; he could have died that way and withered into a hook of bone hung on this darling's pocket. Yet he knew that the soft stirring of those delectable lips was not for him. Not yet.

He begged, “Kiss me. Please.”

The young man moved his mouth again and this time managed to get a word out. “Why?”

“Because …” To help me, to turn me human so I can get on with my life, so I can go back to being LeeVon the librarian … but as he thought it, with a soulquake, an interior cataclysm ten on the Richter scale, LeeVon realized that it was not enough. Not nearly enough, just to go back to being what he was before. His story wanted more. Demanded far more.

The floor seemed to shift under his feet. He could not dance any longer.

Because I want someone to love me.

God oh Jesus oh God, he wanted, wanted, wanted to be loved and not lonely anymore. He had reached through his pride to truth, that was something … but no, it got worse. Oh God oh God of mercy, he wanted—this lover whose name he did not yet know. This one, this brave, grave, blond dancing partner, this gray-eyed ponytailed prince, and no other.

The dance was drawing to a close. There was not much time.

Say it, then.

And he would have said it. He had found his way past pride. He could tell the truth.

Kiss me. Do this for me. Love me.

But—his own aching need—it was true, but it was the wrong truth for the story.

LeeVon of all people knew: the happy ending had to be earned. Always.

All around him, couples were going off to get a drink. He stood a green, silent grotesque on the dance floor. The one who could save him stood facing him, gray gaze steady upon him, waiting for an answer. How much longer would he wait?

LeeVon had not thought there could be anything more difficult to confess than this:
because I want someone to love me.
But there was one thing more difficult. And even more deeply true.

He got his wide, slimy mouth moving and said it.

LeeVon said, “Because I will love you.” He thought of Adamus, of how Adamus felt about Emily as he said it, and he knew he had reached the bottom line. Seemingly on their own, his sticky, splay-fingered hands lifted, reaching toward the other, though not presuming to touch. Hoarsely he said, “Because I will adore you and cherish you. Maybe you won't care for me; it won't matter. I'll love you like a mother. Take it or leave it.”

His could-be true love gawked at him, mouth softening again, this time in astonishment. And terror. Understandably terror. Either it would happen—or he would go out the door into the night and LeeVon would never see him again. It was up to him.

I don't even know his name.

LeeVon lowered his tacky green hands and waited.

Buffy did not think she had moved, but there was no longer any Pony Ride. No LeeVon, no cute blond guy, and no men, cute or otherwise, dancing in suggestive clothing. Neither was there any court this time, with lambent men dancing in tights. No lute music, no courtiers, no Prince Adamus to help out. No golden orbs of light, no lavender walls, no up and no down. Just scared self and the Queen—alight with incandescent rage.

“You stood me up!”

“No. I—Majesty, I beg your pardon.” I plead your pardon, I grovel your pardon, I toady your pardon. Buffy actually attempted a curtsy, which in a black place of no up and no down necessarily failed. She babbled, “I was just running a little late.”

“You—stood—me—up!”

“I had to keep a promise, your Majesty! I had to help a friend!”

“Friend? You dare to speak to me of a friend? What of me? What of your daughter?” The curled white hand lifted to do God knew what to her, maybe send her into orbit, and even though she knew that the Queen's outraged concern for Emily was wholly a convenience of the moment, Buffy felt terrible. For just that moment she felt guilty enough to accept her punishment.

She had no thoughts of escape; she felt only a strange empathy. In utter submission she whispered, “Once upon a time there was a cold old queen.”

The white hand hovered in black-ice nothingness. Buffy watched the hand, the white, angry face—yet it was not that cold old Queen of Fair Peril of whom she spoke.

“There was a cold old queen who had a warm young daughter,” she said. “The queen loved her daughter as well as she was able, which was not very well. And the queen said to her daughter, Come, let us go down to the river, let us catch a shining fish for you.

“The daughter loved her mother the cold old queen as well as she was able, which was not very well. She loved other things more. She loved the leaping of deer and she loved the flying of birds and she loved animals, all animals. Still, because she loved her mother as well as she was able, she walked with her mother down to the river to catch a shining fish.”

The Queen of Fair Peril had lowered her hand. Out of her porcelain face her golden eyes steadily watched the story unfolding on Buffy's face and on the storm-colored air.

“At the edge of the river a frog sat waiting with his heart pulsing in his throat. The queen's stare upon him made him unable to leap away. A few steps, then the queen crouched and imprisoned him in her hand. Now, she said to her daughter, with this fat frog as bait we shall catch you the greatest of shining fish. She stood up, and in her other hand she seized the fishhook and prepared to thrust it through the frog.

“No, the daughter cried, don't. Don't use the frog so.

“But we are going to catch you a shining fish.

“I don't want a shining fish! Please, let the frog go. Thus the warm young daughter begged for the life of the frog. But the queen was stubborn in her cold old heart and would not grant it to her.
My
frog, the queen said. She readied the hook again, and seeing it coming, the frog screamed like a human child. So the daughter snatched the frog out of her mother's hands and ran away.

“Because she had disobeyed her mother, she ran far, far away with the frog in her hands. She ran across the river and into the other kingdom.

“Then the frog said to her, Princess, thank you for saving me. For in the other kingdom the frog could speak to her. I will grant you three wishes, the frog told her. For in the other kingdom the frog had that power.

“Now, the princess was warm of heart, but she was also young and foolish. So she wished for a golden star on her forehead and a garland of golden roses around her neck and for the frog to be her playmate and companion and love her forever.”

Buffy closed her eyes and waited for the rest of the story to come to her. She had to trust that the Queen would wait with her. The blackness around her reminded her of having been buried and made her sweat. Closing her eyes let her think better. Less black.

“The cold old queen cried out for her daughter,” she said slowly. “She cried out, I have been a fool. She cried out, I have made my daughter run away from me. I must find my warm young princess daughter. And she followed her. She followed the princess across the river of shining fish into the other kingdom.

“She searched for her beautiful daughter who had run away with a frog. She searched for fair hair and wide eyes and a winsome face and a sweet voice. She had caught no shining fish, so she went hungry. She asked the hedgehogs, Have you seen my beautiful daughter? But they only looked at her with their silly faces and shook their heads. She asked the deer, Have you seen her? But the deer only flagged their white tails at her and leaped away. She asked the parrots in the trees, Have you seen my beautiful daughter? And the parrots told her, Look down. She looked down, and at her feet was a puddle of muck, and there in the mud sat a slimy, potbellied frog with a golden star on its forehead and a wreath of golden roses around its neck. The frog looked at her with sullied golden eyes and cried out to her, Mama. Mama! I only wanted him to love me.

“The queen looked down and felt her cold old heart catch fire with sorrow. Then the queen crouched and picked up the little mud-brown frog tenderly in her hands and kissed it. With its slime on her hands and its stench in her face, she kissed it again and again. Little by little, her kisses gave her princess daughter back to her. And she hugged her and kissed her yet again and took her home across the river.”

Buffy opened her eyes and ended the story there and was silent. The Queen of Fair Peril looked silently back at her, floating on—no longer blackness. The two of them seemed to be drifting in the midst of a fiery magenta sunrise.

“I understand most of it,” the Queen said judiciously, “but what were the shining fish?”

In Fair Peril, everything was itself and also something else—but that did not mean Buffy had to understand. Besides, floating without footing was making her queasy. And irritable. “I have no idea, your Majesty.”

“Huh.” The Queen gave her a measuring look. “I suppose you don't understand soul cake, either.”

“Sorry, no, I don't.”

“You storytellers, you are foolhardy, you tell tales the way angels sing, without understanding. Do you at least understand that the river is a form of the Pool?”

“Uh, yes.” Buffy was ashamed to admit otherwise. Anyway, there was something about water, something linking all waters. She had sensed that.

“Very well.” The Queen's steady eyes held no more expression than a pair of golden rings through which the black depths of the universe showed. The Queen said, “It is a good story. The Queen said, “If you go to the white snake and bespeak it nicely this time, perchance it will tell you where Emily is.”

“Look, I swear to God,” the young man was begging the attendant on duty in the wacky ward, “you gotta give me back my uniform and let me out of here. It really was a six-foot frog. It really did come up out of the fountain. Why would I be saying something that crazy if it wasn't true?”

The attendant did not want to listen to this. The attendant was sweating. The attendant just wanted this guy, this cop, probably an ex-cop now, to take his soap and his towel and shut up.

But he didn't shut up. He pleaded with great sincerity. “Listen, you got to give me back my uniform and my gun. Maybe it's some kind of alien invasion, and I'm the only one who can do anything about it because I'm the only one who goddamn believes me.”

The attendant said, “Look, just save it for the doc and get in the shower.” He didn't say it too hard, because he had a neurotic respect for authority and it wasn't a good idea to make a cop mad, not even a stripped-down cop who was probably never going to work again, a cop who had spent the night in the loopy room. The attendant was sweating and starting to shake, not because the cop was gaga but because he was afraid the cop was going to say “frog” again and he bloody hated that word “frog.” He hated the word, he hated Kermit, cartoon frogs, T-shirts with pictures of frogs on them, pocket frogs, frogs that went a-courtin', fairy-tale frogs, real frogs, frogs inclusive. HEHATEDFROGS HEHATEDHEHATED HEHATEDFROGS! The cop better by damn not say “frog” anymore. Aside from that, the attendant was sweating and shaking because they had put the cop in the wacky ward and he, the attendant, felt pretty sure that the cop was as sane as he was. Either they were the only two
compos mentis
people in a crazy world or they were both over a green, croaking edge they hadn't even seen coming. The only difference between him and this cop was that he, the attendant, didn't have the guts to say anything.