Unthinkable (27 page)

_{Lucy swiveled back.}
Her cell phone was in one hand
and the broom handle in the other. Fenella blinked in surprise as Zach’s tired voice came out of the phone, on speaker.
“Lucy?”

“Tolkien,” Lucy said tensely. Then the phone was tucked
in Lucy’s bra and she had both hands on the broom handle,
holding it positioned horizontally across her middle as if it
were a fighting staff.

And she was standing so as to block the door of the room
in which Dawn lay sleeping.
Lucy said, “Zach’s on his way, with backup. Just in case
your grasp of technology is shaky, he’s listening. He can
hear everything that happens in this room.”
It’s all right, Fenella told herself. I can adapt.
Tolkien, said Ryland bemusedly. They prepared for an

emergency with a code word. How sweet. But you’re the only
one who can hear me.
It was a good point.
“Zach,” Lucy said. “Fenella is here with the cat. I have things
under control so far. But the cat isn’t a cat. He’s faerie.”
“I understand,” said Zach.
“Come as quickly as possible. Fenella, start talking. You
burned down our house. You ran Leo down. Why? And
what does that faerie cat have to do with it?” Her voice
sharpened. “Tell him not to move.”
Ryland had poked his head out from behind Fenella.
“The cat can’t do anything without my agreement,” Fenella
said soothingly. “I came here to explain to you what’s going
on.”
“Go ahead.”
“I will. Uh, I just wonder why you locked Walker out.”
“If I have to attack you, I can’t have Walker getting in the
way.”
“But Walker thinks I’m crazy. He was here to protect you.”
Fenella had no idea why she was persevering with this instead
of proceeding with her planned and necessary confession.
“I won’t take the risk. He’s in love with you.”
“No! Walker hates me.” Fenella paused and then added
stupidly, “He said so.”
Lucy didn’t reply. Her grip tightened on her broomstick.
Fenella got hold of herself. She raised her voice to make
sure that Zach would hear her.
“I wasn’t released from Faerie to freedom. That was a lie.
I have been given three new tasks. They aren’t like the tasks
from before. These are tasks of destruction, and—and all of
them had to be aimed against my family. Against you.” She
swallowed. “I got to pick what to destroy, though. The first two,
you already know. But there is the third task still to perform.”
Lucy assimilated this. “You could simply pick any three
things to destroy? No puzzle, no song? How easy for you!”
Her voice sharpened. “Was it fun? Was it more fun than the
three tasks that I did when you couldn’t?”
“Don’t judge me! So, you made a shirt and found some
land and so on!”
“You couldn’t do it.”
“I could have, if I’d had help like you did! How dare you?
You have no idea what you’d do, if you were in my place.”
“I know I would not get in a car and—” Lucy’s eyes shot
poisoned arrows. “Nothing could make me hurt someone
else. Nothing!”
“You are very young.” Fenella tried to regain control.
“Really? That’s my problem? Then I never want to be old!”
“Neither did I! Nobody wants to lose their ideals and
their dreams and the certainty that they will always find a
way to make things right. But that’s what happens when you
grow up.” Fenella twisted her hands together. “You do all
sorts of things you never thought you would. Some of them
are—are bad.”
Lucy’s face was hard.
Fenella cried out with complete sincerity. “You go down
a path you never meant to go! If you would only understand
why—”
“I’ll never understand. Not if I live to be a hundred.” Lucy
said this like it was impossible. “Tell me anyway. Tell me
about these evil tasks of yours.”
Fenella looked into Lucy’s implacable face. This was how
it had to be: Lucy on one side, Fenella on the other.
But it hurt even more than Fenella had thought it would.
She said, “I had to commit three tasks of destruction. The
first was to destroy safety.”
“Zach?” said Lucy.
“Yeah. I’m listening. Go on, Fenella.” Zach used the tone
you might use in trying to soothe a wild animal.
Fenella said, “I burned down your house. But I was
careful to make sure nobody was there.” She swallowed.
“Then—you see, the second task was to destroy love. I had
other ideas but they didn’t work out. I thought maybe the
dog, but at the last minute, I couldn’t do it and then Leo ran
into the road. It was an accident.”
Fenella searched Lucy’s face, and at the same time, she
listened for anything Zach might say. She hoped he was putting the pieces together. She hoped he remembered those
moments between the two of them in the kitchen of the
church apartment, and now understood that he had been
an alternate answer to the second task.
And that she had backed away from that choice.
She said, “I had to choose. I had to find some way to
destroy love within our family.”
Silence from Zach.
Lucy’s brow knitted. “But until the day I die, I’ll love my
daddy. Everyone still loves him. Anyway, he’s not dead. He’s
in surgery.”
Fenella said, “I’ve thought of that. But the Faerie Queen—
she was the one who explained the tasks—said the second
task was complete.”
Zach’s voice came in. “Maybe the queen is trying to trick
you.”
My sister is many things, but not a liar! flashed Ryland.
The second task is complete.
“Ryland says it’s not a trick and that the second task is
done.”
The expression on Lucy’s face made it clear what she
thought of Ryland’s assurance.
Fenella said, “So, only the third task is left.” She paused.
“Destroying hope.”
Lucy looked at her. “Zach? Did you get that? Destroying
hope?”
“Yes,” said Zach.
Lucy said, “What you still haven’t said is why. Why do you
have to do these things? Are you still in Padraig’s power?
Were you forced?”
How Fenella wished she could have said yes. That, Lucy
might have understood.
“No. I am not in Padraig’s power. You released me when
you broke the first curse.”
Lucy waited.
“And nobody forced me. I agreed to the tasks.”
“You agreed? You agreed to destroy your family?”
This was the moment, then.
“So I could die,” said Fenella. She met Lucy’s disbelieving
gaze. “I am under a secondary curse that gives me long life.
I am sick of it. I planned to do the tasks in such a way as to
minimize your pain, and yet get what I needed.
“I deserve peace. I must have it. I must have death at last,
and this is the only way. You won’t forgive me, I know. But I
must and will complete the third task. I must destroy hope.”
She turned to the cat. “Ryland. This is when I need you.
Do as I say. Take Dawn to Faerie. I am going to give her to
Padraig.”
“What?” yelled Lucy. She dropped the broomstick handle.
There was a blur as Ryland raced through Lucy’s legs
into the room beyond, where Dawn had been placed. Lucy
whirled instantly to follow.
Fenella ran faster than she ever had in her life. She arrived in the next room on Lucy’s heels, just as Dawn’s voice
sang out, finally, with the first word she had ever uttered.
“Keekee!”
Kitty, Fenella translated. Dawn couldn’t pronounce it,
but her intent—and her delight—was perfectly clear.
In the dim of a child’s night-lamp, Dawn was sitting upright on her bottom on a small mattress set directly on the
floor. Her attention was focused entirely on Ryland. The cat
had draped himself over her lap and against her tummy,
and Dawn had both little hands ecstatically star-fished in
his thick, soft fur.
Lucy leaped toward her daughter, both hands outstretched.
But Fenella was already there too. With one hand on the
child and the other on Ryland, she said to the cat, “Go.”
Then Fenella, Ryland, and the child were in Faerie, leaving Lucy behind.

Fenella had never wanted to hold the child. She had
managed to avoid it this whole long while. But Dawn pulled
in several shallow, frantic breaths as she looked about in
this strange land and did not find her mother. Abruptly, she
yelled; a single, high, piercing shriek. Fenella knew what
was coming.

She picked Dawn up. She cradled her in her arms.
She felt the weight of the child’s compact, strong, yet vulnerable body. She smelled the powdery scent of her skin.
She was shocked by the softness of the child’s hair under
her cheek.
Fenella had never held Bronagh. Upon Bronagh’s birth,
with the three impossible tasks left undone, Fenella had
been snatched immediately into Faerie. She had next seen

Bronagh when her daughter came of age. Bronagh was
eighteen and Padraig’s property.
Fenella had failed to save her.
Dawn tried to fling herself away from Fenella. “Keekee,”
she wailed.
Fenella held her tightly. “No,” she said. “No kitty.”
Dawn’s frightened gaze caught Fenella’s. The child had
wide hazel eyes, lightly lashed, with deep, dark, thoughtful
pupils. Fenella and Dawn stared at each other for one seemingly endless moment. Fenella felt as if her heart were being
squeezed.
Then the child’s fist caught Fenella a hard blow on the
chin. “Keekee,” Dawn said again, dangerously.
Fenella looked belatedly for Ryland. But the fluffy white
cat with the lush tail and the black, heart-shaped marking
was gone. The manticore stood in his place.
Ryland in his true form was larger than Fenella remembered. The shoulders of his powerfully muscled lion’s body
came higher than her elbow. His feathered wings were spread
and his spiked dragon’s tail flickered high. Fenella blinked,
trying to match him to the delicate cat she had known.
Dawn had no trouble. “Keekee,” she cooed.
It was a shock to hear Ryland speak aloud from his human mouth. “Fenella, you may place the child on my back.
Don’t worry—she’ll love it.”
Fenella tightened her arms. “We’re fine.”
“You don’t look fine. You look terrified. I won’t hurt her.
I see myself more as a babysitter.”
“We’re fine.” Fenella hitched Dawn higher in her arms.
Again she inhaled the child’s powdery scent. “Where’s the
queen?” she demanded.
“Here.”
Fenella turned. The queen stood in the glade. Her clawed
hands were folded before her, and an honor guard of six
tree fey surrounded her. The presence of the tree fey made
Fenella’s chest expand in unexpected relief and gladness.
She took a step toward the queen.
“See?” said Fenella tensely, even as the child strained
again in her arms toward Ryland. “I’ve kidnapped the child.
I have destroyed hope.”
“Explain,” said the queen.
Fenella held the squirming child firmly. “There is nothing worse for a mother than the destruction of her daughter.
That’s what Lucy is feeling. She believes that I’m giving
Dawn to Padraig. This time, Lucy has no way to protect her,
no way to save her.”
“Keekee!” screamed the child.
Fenella began rocking her.
“Put Dawn on my back,” said Ryland patiently. “To quiet
her down. Or we won’t be able to hear ourselves think.”
Fenella cast him a look. “No!”
The manticore took an involuntary step back.
“No!” cried Fenella. “This time I’ll protect her!” She
whirled back to the queen. “Summon Padraig. Do you hear
me? Summon Padraig here. Now!”
The child began crying in earnest. Fenella knew it was because she was holding her too tightly. She managed to loosen
her arms. “Don’t worry,” she murmured. “I’ll take care of you.
Mommy promises. Be brave. Just a while longer.”
She was aware of Ryland sidling up next to his sister. “It
was too hard. She’s lost her mind after all.”
“I have not,” Fenella whispered. “I am strong.” She gathered her breath and fixed her eyes on the queen’s. “Summon
Padraig.” Her voice cracked. “I need him here now.”
The queen nodded to the tree fey. Two of them slipped
away, the wind rustling through their leaves.
Fenella found a better way to fit Dawn in her arms.
“There,” she said. “There, there. I’ll love you always.” She
rocked the child as she held her against her own thudding,
terrified heart.
The child’s cries gentled to a whimper. Her limbs relaxed.
And then, abruptly, she fell asleep, her exhausted head lolling on Fenella’s shoulder, her arms curled loosely around
Fenella’s neck, and her body tucked up against Fenella’s
breasts.
Fenella held Dawn. She held Bronagh.
She held them both.
“Fenella Scarborough,” said Queen Kethalia, softly, after
forever. “Attend.”
Padraig stepped into the clearing along with the tree fey
guard, one to either side, as they made him walk forward.
He lifted a thin, shaking hand to his thick dark hair. The
gesture was as vain as ever. But as he touched his head, his
hair fell away in clumps. Scalp gleamed ghoulishly beneath.
Fenella tilted her chin. She approached. Taking great care
not to jostle the child, Fenella faced him.
“I give you this child. Dawn.” Her voice was steady.
Padraig did not move. She looked into his eyes. They
were hazy.
“Hold out your arms. Take this child from me. You must
do it.”
Stiffly, like an automaton, Padraig tried to obey, reaching
out toward the child. He failed to raise his arms fully, however, until the tree fey’s branches bound his arms together
to form a safe cradle.
Fenella placed the sleeping child into the cradle. Her
breath burned in her throat. She could barely speak.
“I have kidnapped the child. I have taken her from her
mother. I have delivered her into the center of the nightmare that all the Scarborough women have dreaded for
generations. Her mother will scramble for hope, but in the
darkest hour, she will not find it. This I know, for I have
done it too. So, the third task, the destruction of hope, is
complete.”
Fenella stepped away, leaving the child in Padraig’s arms.
She felt the gaze of the queen, and of Ryland. The wind
whistled through the leaves of the tree fey.
Everything depended on her being right.
She said, “But simultaneously, with the completion of the
third task, the life-spell upon me is broken. With its ending,
Padraig is destroyed. And therefore Dawn is free.”
Fenella turned. She met the gaze of the queen.
The queen nodded.
Fenella exhaled.
Then her body acted so quickly that her mind was left
stuttering behind. She darted forward. She grabbed once
more for the sleeping child. She snatched her away from
Padraig, forever.
She held Dawn safe.
The Mud Creature fell to his knees. “I would have loved
you.” His voice was a rasp. “The curse was your fault.” He attempted his old sharp-toothed smile, but two teeth fell from
his gums.
His death came rapidly then. The sockets that held his
eyes shrank to bare white skull. Skin sloughed away from
his cheeks. How he kept his head upright and his back erect
without either muscle or skin, Fenella did not know. Yet the
Mud Creature managed, until he had rotted to bone.
With a clatter, his skeleton fell to the earth.
His clothing remained. Fenella recognized the empty
knee-length boots of supple leather, the same boots he had
worn on the day she had first seen him, four hundred years
ago, when she was coming home from market with her
donkey.