The Chestnut King: Book 3 of the 100 Cupboards (36 page)

His grandmother squeezed his hand. “A dream-walker returns to the body when the dream is done.”

Henry shut his eyes. He wanted to wake up. He didn’t want to hear any more. It wasn’t true. He was making it up. The faerie said no one could come. Suddenly, he could see his grandmother’s face as it had been in the witch’s garden—weak and pale. He opened his eyes, shocked.

His grandmother’s eyes were wet.

“I did this,” he said. Grief surged up inside him. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have gone into the garden. I shouldn’t have gone into her dream. You didn’t want me to; you tried to stop me.” He shoved the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Shhh,” his grandmother said, and she slid closer to him. Her arms went around his shoulders. “You were right to challenge her. I am an old woman, fearful for her grandson. I forgot who you are. I should not have tried to stop you.”

Henry opened his eyes and sat up, breathing hard. “But you died.”

His grandmother smiled. “I die.”

“Then we can stop it,” Henry said. “You can go back to your body. The raggant almost died.”

“Henry,” his grandmother said. “Long your grandfather has waited for me. He was taken by this same witch, when your father was young. And when your father was imprisoned by the faeren, I wandered too far in search of him. My soul and body were torn. In life I am blind; in dreaming, mute. My waking mind staggers along its road, and my speech is cloudy. Look at me, am I not becoming whole again? The last strand stretches between body and soul, it is tearing even now. I must journey after my husband and elder sons and all those who have carried my love and gone before.”

“But you’ll be dead,” Henry said.

“In one world,” said his grandmother. “But not in another. Would you have me for another Nimiane? Flesh afraid to pass to dust? A seed fearful of the flower?”

Henry shook his head. “But what will I do?” he asked. “How can I tell my dad? Will I ever see him again? I can’t even get through a dream by myself.”

Grandmother smiled. “You have gotten through more
than dreams. You have done well, and your blood suits you. Do not do as I did. Do not forget who you are.”

“Who am I?” Henry asked. “I’m a boy with nightmares, a burned hand, a witch’s blood in my face, and her voice in my head.”

Henry’s grandmother tipped up his chin and stared into his eyes. “You are Henry York Maccabee, seventh son of Mordecai Westmore, seventh son of Amram Iothric, in the line long faithful to the Old King, bone from my own bone, blood from my own blood. You are the pride of your father and the glory of your mother, a fire green and gold and a curse to darkness.” She dropped her hand. “May you never need to be told again.”

Henry sat silently, trying to find words, trying to feel like anything more than a beat-up kid.

“Henry,” Grandmother said quietly. “I have already visited your father this night and kissed his hand and kissed his head. I have wiped his tears.”

Henry fought back a sob and bit his lip. “Where is he? What’s he doing?”

“Caleb and Mordecai, my two sons of thunder, look down on the city of Dumarre. But you shall see them soon enough.”

“I will?” Henry asked.

Grandmother nodded. “You will. But now it is time for your birthday gift, and then you must wake.”

“Why?” Henry asked. “I don’t want to wake up. I want to stay with you. I don’t want a gift.”

Grandmother’s eyebrows rose, though she smiled.
“You must wake because your name awaits, and your blood is called. You must have a gift because I must give one.”

She stood and pulled Henry to his feet. The field was all dandelions, but Henry didn’t care. Again Grandmother took Henry’s face in her hands and smiled into his eyes. She wiped his tears with her thumbs, and then she leaned forward and kissed him on the head. Turning his face, she stared at his jaw, and then bent and pressed warm lips to his cold burn.

Straightening, she lifted his right hand. “Sweet boy,” she said, and then laughed with beautiful, wet eyes. “You are a prince among weeds.” She kissed the back of his hand and then his palm where the dandelion bloomed. “It is your birthday, and here is your blessing. For you may the weak have love and the strong have fear. For you may the darkness break. May your life be a truth, and your death a glory. It is your birthday, and here is your gift.” She lifted his necklace from his shirt and gripped the worn silver pendant. “What strength I have left in this world is yours. What love I have left in this world is yours. What courage, what sight, what joy, what hope, all that remains of me and in me, all that remains of your grandfather now becomes yours. You are heir to it all. May it strengthen your arm and brighten your fire.”

Henry felt heat rush into him, the heat of a lifetime of summers, the laughter of a lifetime of feasts, the love of wind and grandchildren. He felt old, like ripened grain, like the burned field, and young as the morning.

His grandmother was gone, gone from his dream, gone from the world. He opened his eyes and blinked up at the empty blue sky.

“The young green wakes with tears on his cheeks,” a deep voice said. “I am impatient for my gift.”

Henry
sat up, blinking. He was on the crest of a very large hill. A landscape of emerald pastures divided by hedges and streams and lanes was spread out beneath him. Beyond the pastures, sprawling to the horizon, there was a forest of finger-leaved trees. Behind Henry, a square tower loomed, crowning the great hill. It seemed empty at its base. Each face was arched with a doorway, meeting in a hollow, vaulted center.

Across from Henry, seated on a living chair plumed with broad-fingered chestnut leaves, a huge faerie with a beard on his chest and a belly on his lap was fingering Henry’s baseball. His hair and beard were deep brown, and wrinkles traced lines on his skin like a wood grain. He looked up at Henry, and his eyes were long tunnels that led through lifetimes. He pulled a red handkerchief out of a pocket and flicked it into the air. It flared its four corners and settled slowly onto Henry’s lap.

“Dry your eyes, little green,” the big faerie said. “And then we will speak of your father’s gift.”

Henry took the red cloth and set it on the couch beside him. He felt no shame in the tears on his cheeks. None at
all. They would dry themselves. Sorrow still ached inside him, but there was more than sorrow. He felt full, crowded with blood and heat. And he felt calm. There was new strength inside him, and he was wealthy with a love for the world, for the smell of the breeze and the texture of the stone, for the height of the hill and the deep moss green of the fields that spread beneath him, for the gently journeying clouds wandering far from their mother the sea. He had smelled his aunt Dotty baking bread and heard his mother singing in her garden, he had stood beside his father and his uncles, he had seen his sisters smile and heard his cousins laugh, he had felt a ball hit the sweet, sweet spot on a wooden bat, and he had held a breathing frog in his hands. He had seen the raggant fly. These things and a thousand others made him rich. A quiet song was pulsing through him, a dandelion telling its story of ash made green and green made gold. A story of death and separation, of strength and reunion and death again. The story was his name.

Henry couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. He could only sit, and with every sense and more straining inside him, he could feel.

“You, lad, have a strange look about you,” the faerie said. “The world is in your eyes.”

Henry blinked and inhaled slowly, and filling his lungs was like walking through a quiet, whispering crowd.

“You are Nudd,” he said. “The Chestnut King.”

“You would call your king by his name?” a voice said
behind Henry. Jacques stepped into view, and his bald head was flushed with anger.

“He is not my king,” Henry said, looking up. “He is my brother.”

Sputtering, Jacques raised his hand to slap Henry, but the big king laughed.

“Jacques, begone with you and your anger. I would speak with my little brother.”

The bald faerie froze, and the color faded from his face. He sniffed and adjusted his eye patch.

“Jacques …,” the king said, and the faerie turned on his heel and walked silently back into the tower. He wound quickly through three of the doorways and disappeared.

When he was gone, the king set the baseball down on a low table beside him and laced his fingers together on his belly.

“Jacques is right,” he said. “You do thieve a liberty. But my faeren underestimate your weed. The little golden lion can do more than roar, as you have shown many.”

Henry’s eyes were on the low table. The baseball sat beside Nimroth’s remaining tattered pages, two or three at best. Coradin’s sword was leaning against the table, and Henry’s hoodie hung from its hilt. But it was something else that really held his attention—a folded piece of paper, loosely open, with a wilted dandelion draped around it.

“My letter,” Henry said. “How did you get my letter?”

“Ah,” the king said, looking down. “How do I acquire many things? Few among the lesser faeren believe that I
ever lived, let alone that I still draw breath. There is little difficulty in sending my own among them. Even less when they are slight, such as Thorn.”

“But,” Henry said, “I need that to get to the Faerie Queene. I need her help. My family needs her help.”

“So Thorn told me, and so I read.” The king stroked his beard. “But the queene is no more than a girl, controlled by committees, though few even know that the elder queene, my own bride, has passed from this world. The queene has no strength.”

“Then you have to help me,” Henry said. The king raised thick eyebrows. “You read my letter. You know what Nimiane is doing. She’ll make a new Endor, and it will be Nimroth all over again. You have to help us stop her.”

Nudd sighed. “Nimiane. Nimroth. Endor. What does a green boy know of these things?” He leaned his bulk over the side of his chair and came back up with a small basket. He held it out to Henry.

Henry took it and looked inside. There was bread and crusty cheese and a small corked bottle. His hunger, a day and a night without food, flooded back over him. He tore off a chunk of the bread and held it.

“I have been to Endor,” he said. “I have seen Nimroth in his crypt and held his marble. I burned his house. Nimiane’s blood is in me, and she must be killed or I will die. That is what I know.” He shoved the bread into his mouth.

The big king chuckled. “Little green, you please me. I will tell you more of Nimroth, but first, I grow weary of waiting for my gift.”

Henry swallowed. “I stole thousands of pages from Nimroth’s library before I burned it. They are all gifted to you.”

Nudd chewed slowly on his lip. His stiff beard wobbled as his jaw moved. “Where would these pages be, and why should I want such a gift?”

“They are stored in an empty world. I brought a few with me. They might help us learn how to kill the witch-queen.”

“Ah,” Nudd said. “We are back to killing the witch-queen. You who have been to Endor and held Nimroth’s marble. You who are dying with Nimiane’s blood in your face. Do you not know that the Endorians cannot be killed?”

For the first time, Henry felt irritation toward the old king. He looked at the broad belly and the big beard. He looked into the deep eyes. “That’s what everyone says.” His voice was flat. “But their power started somewhere. If we knew where, then maybe it could be stopped.” He pointed at the pages on the table. “Burn one of those.”

Nudd stared at Henry, then picked up the pages with thick fingers. There were only two. He held one out by the corner and whispered a single word. The page burst into flame and crumbled in black ash to the grass.

“The other one,” Henry said. While the king held up the other, Henry took a deep breath, hoping that he hadn’t messed up again, that he hadn’t burned too many. The second page floated away like black feathers on the breeze. The king brushed off his fingers and looked at Henry.

“Burn my letter to the queene,” Henry said, pointing. “It’s useless anyway.”

Nudd peeled off the limp dandelion leaves and held up the page. This time, the parchment tightened in the flame and grew white. Black lines took their twisting shape on both sides of the page, and the three words appeared and faded as the paper fell to ash.

Rubbing his fingertips together as if they’d been stung, Nudd looked at Henry, and his eyes were empty of their laughter.

“It’s the Blackstar,” Henry said. “I don’t know how to read those three words. Do you? What do they mean?”

“Son of Mordecai,” the king said. “I know a little of your story. Your father betrayed by low faeren, and you a foundling in another world. I know of your christening and a spell broken, your father’s release. I know that Fat Franklin betrayed the magicking of his people so that a knife might be thrown. More than that, I have heard in the praise and the boasting of your sister and the insults of your young cousin.” Nudd smiled. “Your small friend, the one called Richard, even threatened me with your coming.”

“Where are they?” Henry asked, but the king held up his hand.

“These charmed words around a cursed image are not new to my eyes. They will help you with nothing.”

Henry puffed out his cheeks and slumped. “But what do they mean?”

“Putul Animisti Evrihilo
—the well of daimons, of
undead souls. The incubi. The Blackstar was like a mother to Endor and to Nimroth a father. It was used for the change in their flesh.”

Something was happening. As the king had spoken those three strange words, the ash had stirred at his feet. Now the feathery particles were climbing, drifting around the faerie’s knee. Henry watched Nudd blink in surprise. The ash quickened, tightening and winding around itself until it looked like a ball of gray string floating in the air. Its surface smoothed and darkened.

Henry’s mouth hung open, and Nudd’s chestnut face flushed red. He muttered a quick curse, and the sphere shattered, snowing ash gently across his knees.

Henry dropped his basket of food back onto the couch beside him. “Was that the Blackstar? Will the ash show us where it is? Can we find it and smash it with a hammer or something?”