Unthinkable (12 page)

Faerie, Fenella stood unsteadily before Queen Kethalia.
She was unsteady because her feet were burned stumps.
It was not possible to understand how they held her up
at all.

Ryland sat on his haunches a short distance away, cleaning ash from his fur with a fastidious pink tongue. When he
glanced at Fenella, there was wary respect in his gaze.

Fenella’s damaged lungs were trying to breathe. Her
damaged eyes were trying to see. She raised her skeletal
arms. They were horrific even to her blurred vision, with
blackened crispy edges around flesh melted into a red and
yellow lava-like substance. In some areas, her skin had
burned away entirely to expose bone.

She could sense pain hovering. It would rush through
her, beyond excruciating, once she regenerated sufficient
nerve endings to receive it.

“Fenella,” said the queen. “Sit down. There is a chair behind you.”
She managed to sit, even though that hurt more than
standing.
Then the real pain swept through her body and it was
worse than she had imagined. If her lungs could have managed screaming, she would have done it.
She endured.
Sometime later, she realized that she must have regrown
her eyelids, because they were closed. Despite the glass
curtain of pain enveloping her, she opened them.
The female before Fenella had the queen’s voice, and her
carriage, but she looked like someone else: a human girl
with long, silky hair and supple skin. The girl wore jeans
and a soft orange cashmere cardigan that was opened two
buttons at the throat. The girl’s eyes were lovely and deepset. There was self-confidence and power in them, but also
loneliness.
“Why are you staring at me?” said the girl tartly. “You were
helpless. I had to drag you into Faerie so that you wouldn’t
be seen in your current state. It was necessary for me to take
human form. Ryland certainly couldn’t do it.”
This really was the queen, then.
Fenella managed a nod as a new kind of pain swept in.
It was the inexorable tide of renewal. Her muscles and skin
knit together. Her nose and ears regrew. Smoke began to
clear from her throat. Helplessly, she leaned over and
retched.
The pain became a terrible itching.
Eventually she sat up.
Naturally, my sister took this particular form, Ryland said
to Fenella conversationally. She would. But the good news is
that we’ve made progress. One task down, two to go. By the
way, Fenella? You did well. I’m proud of you.
Fenella could now bear to rest her forearms on her lap.
The pain was nearly gone. She clung to the last few seconds
of it as if it were the press of a dying lover’s kiss.
“How long do you wear your hair, again?” asked the girlwho-was-the-queen briskly. Only then did Fenella realize
the queen was speeding her healing. She put up a hand to
her head. She felt the lengths of hair grow and begin to tangle around her fingers. “Stop there,” she muttered when her
hair tangled at the familiar length around her throat and
down her back. The sounds caught roughly in the back of
her throat.
The queen nodded. “You may dress.”
It took this for Fenella to realize she was naked. The
clothes folded neatly before her were the same ones that
she’d been wearing earlier in the day. Their originals
would have burned off her body, yet here they were again
anyway. She stood up awkwardly and put them on. Then,
without thinking, she slipped a hand into her pocket,
even though the abrasion hurt the tender skin on the
back of her hand.
The leaf was there, soft, vibrating faintly. Alive. Hers.
Her gift from Walker and from—she suspected—the tree
fey. She sighed in relief, and looked around quickly. But
though she saw a few trees, none were fey. She sat down
again in the chair and looked at the pretty human girl facing her.
She remembered the stories about the queen that had
flooded through Faerie. The queen must be wearing the
guise of her alter ego, the teenage girl Mallory Tolliver.
Naturally, she took this particular form, Ryland had said.
Ryland jumped lightly up into Fenella’s lap, where he
briskly kneaded his claws through her clothes into the tender new skin of her upper thighs. She winced but did not
stop him. He settled himself down like the most ordinary of
lap cats, even purring.
So, was he fully reconciled to being her adviser? Now
that he had seen that she really would go ahead and destroy?
Fenella felt sick. She wanted to push him off her lap.
She said to the queen uncertainly, “Did I really complete
the first task?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve truly destroyed my family’s feeling of safety?” As she
thought about it, Fenella was dubious. “I’m still not even
sure what safety means. It was only a house. They loved it,
of course . . .”
The queen nodded. “You must turn your attention to the
second task.”
The second task would be harder. Fenella couldn’t help
thinking of the first task that Lucy had performed: making a
shirt without needle or seam. It had seemed impossible only
at first glance; in fact, it was quite approachable, and other
Scarborough girls before Lucy had succeeded at it, including
Fenella.
Fenella had woven together thin, flexible green willow
branches using her own hands. It had made for an awkward, ugly, and unwearable shirt. Fenella had despaired
and taken it apart—only to discover later that it would have
been sufficient. She had tried to tell Bronagh that you could
be practical, not elegant, in your approach to the tasks.
But she could not, she would not, think of Bronagh. She
would confine herself to remembering the lesson of that
maddeningly easy first task—Minnie had simply used a
crochet hook, arguing that this was fair because, properly,
it was a hook and not a needle—and that the second task
would be harder.
Fenella sat bolt upright. The cat mewed as she jostled him.
“Wait,” she said urgently to the queen. “About that first task?”
“It’s done. Nobody was hurt, as you wished, yet your
family’s feeling of safety has been destroyed.”
“But listen. I just had a thought. Miranda felt unsafe
and afraid from the moment she saw me. She said so. She
said that she could smell Faerie on me. What if—” Fenella
was breathing quickly. “What if I had come to you after I
first saw her? What if I had said to you that Miranda felt
unsafe simply because I was there? Would that have fulfilled the first task? That alone?”
A pause.
“Why, yes,” said the queen. “Absolutely.”
Fury gripped Fenella. She grabbed the cat and hurled
him from her lap. He landed neatly on his feet. She leaped
up and faced him with her fists clenched.
“You were supposed to advise me! You were there! Why
didn’t you say something?”
I didn’t think of that. Ryland gave a furry shrug. Besides,
what you did worked perfectly well. What does it matter?
Fenella was incredulous. “I was trying to minimize the
damage I did. You knew that!”
Even if I had thought of it, you had to figure it out for yourself. That’s the rule. Anyway, you were set on your path from
the moment you learned about gas heating systems.
“But now my family is homeless, and I caused it. And I
didn’t have to! There was a better way.” Fenella was panting. “It was a trick.” She whirled on the queen. “You tricked
me! I thought I needed to do something active. Something
physical.”
“What you do is your choice,” said the queen quietly.
“Keep in mind that all choices in life are made in blindness
to the full range of options. At least now, as you go forward,
you will know to search for more . . . metaphysical answers.”
Fenella put her hand in her pocket and clutched her leaf.
“If you are still going forward?” asked the queen.
“Of course I am,” Fenella snapped. “I am not giving myself to Padraig. I shall see him dead. And I still want to die
myself.”
“Well, then.” The queen glanced at her brother. “Perhaps
you can take comfort that you were not the only one blind
to a more benign path.”
Ryland bristled at his sister. He yowled something.
She yowled back.
Fenella wondered if she had been blind because of
her own desire to burn in the flames. Even though she
had known she would survive. Perhaps she had not quite
believed it. All that lovely new technology. The dancing blue
gas flames. They had seduced her.
She sat down again, heavily, on her chair.
She had done wrong. So wrong.
The queen rose from her throne and crossed to kneel
next to Fenella. “Nobody was hurt. You may still cling to
t hat.”
“Their home . . . it can’t be undone, and it was unnecess ar y.”
“I want you to see something.” The queen raised her
hand to her face and licked her palm. She held it out before
Fenella.
In the faint wet glistening on the queen’s palm, a tiny
pattern formed. It was the street on which Fenella’s family
lived. Little figures ran past; Fenella could see smoke.
“This is real?”
“Yes. This is what is happening now.”
There was no sound, only images. A fire truck racing
down the street, and then another. Firefighters with hoses
facing the house as it collapsed into itself. Crowds forming
at a safe distance.
Her family pushing frantically through the crowd.
Leo and Soledad Markowitz standing side by side before
the blazing, smoking ruins of their home. Lucy sinking to
the ground at their feet, hiding her face, clutching Dawn
against her shoulder. Behind her, a bulky, tense figure—
Fenella’s heart paused—Walker Dobrez? But then the
images shifted and he was gone.
Three firemen restrained Zach and Miranda as they argued and pointed. Miranda’s face was ravaged and Zach’s was
gray as the firemen made discouraging gestures. Zach moved
away and knelt by his wife and child. He said something. In
Lucy’s arms, the child’s body went rigid. Lucy began rocking
her desperately. Zach held them both.
Fenella grabbed the queen’s hand and fisted it shut. “This
is supposed to make me feel better?”
“Did you see what I saw?” asked the queen. “It is your
safety that they believe was destroyed. They believe you died
in their home, on their watch. An accident.” She paused.
“Or possibly a suicide.”
“What are you saying?” Fenella let go of the queen’s hand.
“That they are thinking about you,” said the queen
steadily. “You and only you. Their home is secondary. Life is
the only loss that matters.”
“They will change their minds,” said Fenella tightly, “once
they see that I am fine.”
Absolutely, said Ryland cheerfully.
“Yes,” said the queen. “You’re correct about that.”
Fenella lifted her chin. She said, “All right. The second
t ask.”
If it is the destruction of life, she thought, I will not do it.
I will go back to Padraig instead. The decision was sudden,
but it felt good and it felt right. It gave her strength. She put
her hand in her pocket to touch the leaf again.
“What must I destroy next?” she asked.
“Love,” said the queen.
“Love?” said Fenella incredulously.
“L ove.”

“I’m not ready yet.” Fenella touched the bark of a nearby
tree, and put her other hand in her pocket to feel the soothing vibrations of the oak leaf.

Ryland paused, one paw still extended, the other three
firmly on the ground. He turned his furry head to look at
her.

“I’m thinking,” said Fenella.
The longer you delay, the more suspicious—
“This won’t take long. I have a question about the destruction of love.” Fenella’s hands trembled on the leaf.
“My presence alone made Miranda feel unsafe. So: Can
my presence alone fulfill the second task too? If my family feels unsafe and afraid because of me—and we know

they will—then they won’t love me anymore. Destruction
of love. Done. Right?”

She held her breath.
Love must first exist, said Ryland. In order to be destroyed.
“Miranda loves me.” Fenella’s voice was uncertain, though.

“The others—I don’t know. But Miranda. At least, she loved
me once. When we were together in Faerie.”
This is so not my area, complained Ryland.
“I’m only asking you about the logic.”
I understand. I don’t know. Let’s go see your family. Then
you can tell me if Miranda, or anybody else, loves you. If you
think so, you can ask my sister if you can simply do nothing
and call the second task complete. He paused. I doubt it, okay?
So did Fenella. But she held on to hope nonetheless.
She came running up to the ruins of the house with the cat
in her arms. Most of the crowd had dispersed; only the firefighters, the immediate neighbors, and Fenella’s family were
left.
No Walker Dobrez. But she could not afford to think
about him.
She called out. Her family—Lucy, and Zach, and Soledad, and Leo, and Miranda—turned. Their mouths dropped
open. Shock filled their eyes. Shock and relief.
Then—within seconds—another emotion crept in.
They surrounded her, though. There were exclamations.
There were hugs. There were even nods of understanding,
as Fenella explained that she had gone off to the parade;
that she had looked and looked for everybody there; that
she had not at first thought the sounds of the fire engines
had anything to do with her.
“But then,” Fenella said, “I heard somebody say the name
of the street. And I ran . . . What happened?”
It was Miranda who said, after the tick of three long seconds, “They’re saying that it was a gas explosion.”
“Oh,” said Fenella.
Miranda said nothing more.
No one did.
They looked at her.
Fenella said, “I read about explosions. I read it in my
book.” She immediately knew that this had been a mistake.
But then, anything she said would probably have been a
mistake.
There was silence in the circle around her. Lucy glanced
at Zach. Zach half turned and looked at the smoldering
house, and so did Soledad. Leo had already stepped fully
away. He was holding the child and looking only at her. In
that moment Fenella realized that, in fact, Leo had not been
among those who had hugged her.
Yes, Fenella had certainly destroyed safety, and not just
for Miranda, but for them all.
Miranda was the only one who met Fenella’s eyes. She
did it only for the barest moment.
“We need to figure out what to do next,” said Lucy, at last.
“The police told us about the homeless shelter. They would
have room for all of us, for a few days. Or we could go to
Sarah’s. Only thing is, there’s only one guest room there.
They have some air mattresses, though. Also, Walker said
he has a sofa bed.”
Walker, thought Fenella. She had the wild urge to speak
up, to say that she could go sleep on Walker’s sofa bed—it
would get her away from her family, which suddenly she
desired more than anything. She did not belong here, with
them.
But she had a job to do. She could not leave that job.
If she did leave, she would be not with Walker, but with
Padraig . . .
She bit her lip, frozen, bewildered—and terrified. She felt
as if walls had started to close in on her.
Zach said, “Brenda Spencer has a nursery already set up
for Dawn. We could go there, Lucy and Dawn and I.”
“There’s my friend Jacqueline,” said Soledad thoughtfully.
“She has a pull-out bed.”
“Mrs. Angelakis offered us a room too,” said Leo. “Listen,
let’s get ourselves situated somewhere for tonight, wherever
we can, however we can. We can regroup in the morning.”
There was silence.
Don’t worry, Fenella, said Ryland. They can hardly throw
you out. They wouldn’t, anyway. They’re suspicious, but they
haven’t even talked among themselves yet. They have more
important things to think of than you.
“We really have to split up?” asked Lucy.
Leo nodded. “Probably. For tonight. Until we figure out
a plan.”
“I don’t want us to split up,” said Lucy. “I’d rather we all
be together at the shelter. Let’s call everyone we know first,
and ask for help.”
“Yeah,” said Zach. “Somebody might have space for all of
us. Or know somebody who does.”
“But we need three bedrooms,” said Miranda.
“Two bedrooms and part of a basement, or a sofa.”
“Let’s go over to Mrs. Angelakis’s and talk,” said Soledad.
“See? There she is.”
Fenella saw the neighbor waving from her front steps.
She was holding her door open and gesturing at a platter
that she was also holding.
“Look at that,” Zach said. “Mrs. Angelakis has a Boston
cream pie.” It wasn’t much of a laugh he gave then, more of
a chuckle.
Then, somehow, for no reason, all of them burst out
laughing. Laughing and crying, really, but mostly laughing. All of them except Fenella. Then they were all moving across the street in a great big group, clumped together,
holding hands and shoulders. Leo was even calling something out cheerfully to Mrs. Angelakis about the pie.
Fenella trailed behind, feet dragging, Ryland in her arms.
She watched Miranda’s straight back in front of her.
They’re fine, see? Ryland spoke impatiently. They’re going
to eat pie. I bet they have shelter for the whole family figured
out by suppertime. Including for you. It’s just like you hoped.
Cheer up!
It was all true.
But Fenella felt terrible, wrong, doomed.