When Rose Wakes (26 page)

“Maurelle was the oldest of us,” Aunt Suzette said, her eyes going distant, as though she saw into a past to which she wished she could return. “We weren’t born in the Feywood, you understand. But the place of our birth can’t be reached by any road. Couldn’t, even then. Some paths, if you walked them properly and knew the very moment to step sideways, well, they might take you there. Not now, though. Now there is no way to go back.”

“Faerie,” Rose said.

Aunt Fay smiled sadly. “If you like.”

Rose sipped her tea, scowling at the taste but persuaded now that it was for her own good.

“Sometimes our people slipped into human places, and found spots where glamour seemed as strong here as it had been at home,” Aunt Suzette said. “They explored for the reasons people always do, drawn by fascination or running from something. The four of us came with our mother to the Feywood, but she died soon after and so we sisters were left to fend for ourselves. We were welcomed by the
duke who lived in the castle, a kind man who did not fear enchantments.”

“Your father,” Aunt Fay said.

“But my father was a king,” Rose replied, hearing how absurd the words sounded, having difficulty even now accepting that any of this was real. But her throat stung where Maurelle had punctured her skin, and that reality could not be escaped.

“No,” Aunt Suzette said, her kind eyes gleaming. “He liked to think of himself that way, and he called you his princess. He ruled a small duchy called Rigaud—”

“And the duke loved your mother,” Aunt Fay added. She paused, her gaze darkening. “But he loved Maurelle first.”

Rose spilled tea on her shirt. “What?”

“They never married and she would not sacrifice her glamour to bear him a child who could pass for human,” Aunt Suzette said. “But she did bear him a child. A son.”

“God, my brain hurts,” Rose said, downing what was left of her tea and setting the cup on the table. She took a deep breath. “You’re saying I have a brother.”

“Somewhere,” Aunt Fay replied. “If he’s still alive. His name is Etienne.”

Aunt Suzette got up and went to the window, growing jittery and impatient. She looked out at the street and then glanced up, as though fearing an attack from above. A chill ran through Rose.

“Etienne was a beautiful child, but not by human standards,”
Aunt Fay went on. “Your father felt betrayed because Maurelle had not warned him. He believed she had only wanted a child, and perhaps there was some truth to that. Now she wanted him to marry her and declare her son would one day be duke of Rigaud, but he refused and banished her from his castle, forbade her from leaving the Feywood. But the worst was yet to come. She nursed Etienne on her bitterness, but he had a kind spirit, so that by the time he grew to manhood he could not bear to be in her company any longer. He left the wood and never returned. His fate is a mystery to us.”

An image swam into Rose’s mind, herself a little girl, a dark figure sitting at the end of her bed, speaking softly. Small horns and sharp teeth. Skin like hard leather. Eyes glittering gold.

“He came to see me,” she whispered. “Before he left.”

“Etienne?” Aunt Fay asked, obviously surprised.

Rose nodded. “I remember, I think. A little, anyway. He said he loved me.”

“He was a good boy,” Aunt Fay said. “I only wish I knew what became of him. But that is a mystery for another day, if we live to see it.”

Aunt Suzette turned away from the window. “We never knew if Maurelle’s heart was truly broken or if her hatred came from the injury to her pride, but she changed afterward. Darkness can come upon us, Rose—those of our blood—in a way that alters us forever. Hatred is like poison in us.”

“When the duke fell in love with your mother and they married, and then she became pregnant, Maurelle’s heart grew blacker than ever,” Aunt Fay said. “And when your mother died, her hatred fell upon you as well. Though I think she wanted your death mostly for the anguish it would cause your father.

“While we were celebrating your birth, our sister cast an insidious glamour upon you, so that on your wedding night, when you made love with your husband, you would die in his arms in the very moment you surrendered your virginity.”

It all began to coalesce in Rose’s mind, now, dreams mixing with newly surfacing memories and the things her aunts were telling her. She ran her hands through her still-damp hair, eyes widening as she stared at them.

“You didn’t really change her curse,” she said. “You just added one of your own.”

Aunt Suzette glanced away.

“That’s not—” Aunt Fay began to protest.

“I overheard part of your conversation with my father. I remember now. And I dreamed about it. But you lied to him, too. You cursed me so that when I kissed my husband, I would sleep! For a thousand years! I… I married the son of my father’s enemy—”

“The count of Roussillon,” Aunt Suzette said.

“But Maurelle’s curse is still on me,” Rose went on, looking from one woman to the other, hoping they would contradict her.

“We’re not actually sure,” Aunt Fay admitted. “You might only have been married for a single day, but the man who was your husband died many centuries ago. The curse might be broken simply by virtue of his death, depending on precisely how Maurelle worded it.”

“And if it isn’t broken?”

“Glamours fade. It’s possible you would become very ill, but survive.”

Rose felt like throwing up. “And this is why you’ve been such lunatics about me not having sex?”

Aunt Fay nodded.

“But Maurelle’s ‘death curse,’ or whatever, was supposed to kill me if I had sex with my husband. What if I have sex with someone who isn’t my husband?”

“It’s difficult to be certain,” Aunt Fay admitted. “Again, it depends entirely upon the words used to curse you. It might be tied to the loss of your virginity, or to the first time you have sex with someone you truly love. But we simply cannot take chances.”

“Understand, Rose,” Aunt Suzette said, glancing again out the window. “We have heard only whispers of Maurelle for ages, so we couldn’t be certain she would come for you. But we thought if we came to America, so far from home, and put you in school like an ordinary girl…”

She shuddered.

“But how did you hide me from her to begin with?” Rose asked.

“The night of your wedding, once you fell asleep, we stole you away,” Aunt Suzette explained. “Your father pretended that you had died, and it wasn’t difficult for him. Asleep or dead, he knew he would never see you again either way. But he knew that someday you would live, and he suffered his own heartbreak so that he could make sure of that.”

Rose could picture him now, that weary smile, the gray beard that she had always tugged on to tease him. Tears welled in her eyes and slid down her cheeks.

Aunt Suzette came to her and touched her shoulder, began to brush her hair from her eyes. “By the time we brought you to America, it had been more than two hundred years since even a mention of Maurelle had come to our attention. We didn’t know if she was still alive, or if she had somehow found her way home to our birthplace.”

“So you wanted to keep hiding me,” Rose said.

“The wards on your windows,” Aunt Fay said. “The herbs in your tea. We wanted you to have a new life, but we couldn’t leave you unprotected.”

An idea formed. “The crows,” Rose said. “They were watching me all along. I wasn’t just being paranoid.”

“They were, yes,” Aunt Fay said. “But now you need to talk to us, Rose. You weren’t drinking your tea. What else have you hidden from us? What happened today? Your chorus instructor said your friends thought you had been attacked, and then you didn’t answer your phone and the
crows were confounded, somehow. A glamour, I think. They lost track of you.”

“We were so afraid,” Aunt Suzette said.

Aunt Fay leaned toward her, gaze intense. “Where were you, Rose?”

She stared at the empty teacup on the table for a few seconds and then she exhaled loudly. Without looking up, Rose began to talk. She told them all of it, everything she had lied about, everything she had hidden. Chloe’s birthday party. Seeing Maurelle on Newbury Street, and then again on the T. Studying with Jared, the things they’d done, and the things they had almost done. Aunt Suzette had gone deathly pale during Rose’s recounting of her time alone with Jared, and Rose understood why. Sleeping Beauty or not, it hadn’t been the prick of a spindle she needed to fear.

“I’ve kissed him, but nothing more,” she said. “Nothing dangerous.”

“Rose—” Aunt Fay began, but Rose silenced her with a look.

“No. You don’t get to yell at me. You could have told me all of this any time, but you thought protecting me meant keeping me in the dark. I thought I might be crazy, do you know that?”

“We didn’t know what else to do,” Aunt Suzette said.

Rose sighed. “All right. I’m trying to understand this. Obviously the spell you two put on me worked, but it’s done now. I kissed Jared, and it didn’t put me to sleep.”

“It worked as it was intended to,” Aunt Fay said. “It won’t affect you now. But Maurelle’s curse… we just don’t know.”

The answers did not satisfy her, but she believed that her aunts knew nothing more. Frightened and confused, she told them about Courtney’s attack in the bathroom after chorus, still shaken as she explained the girl’s vanishing.

Aunt Suzette sank back into her chair as though deflating. She turned to stare at her sister.

“Fay, we’ve been such fools.”

Aunt Fay rubbed a hand over her eyes and then nodded. “It’s all right, though. Rose is here. She’s still safe.”

“For how long?” Aunt Suzette asked.

“What do you mean?” Rose asked. “What happened to Courtney?”

“That wasn’t Courtney,” Aunt Fay said, shaking her head. “I’ve no idea where she is, but that thing was a construct. A wood spirit, probably.”

Rose frowned. “Like…”
What was her name? Violet eyes. Silver wings.
“Like Rielle, you mean?”

“Not a sprite. A spirit,” Aunt Suzette said. “Maurelle has been unable to get close to you, so she’s had spies watching you.”

“Or trying to influence her,” Aunt Fay said, then turned to study Rose closely. “Courtney frightened you. Terrorized you. It might have been meant to push you into the arms of this boy, Jared.”

Her aunts glanced at each other, dark suspicion forming in their eyes.

“If he’s really a boy,” Aunt Fay said.

“That’s crazy,” Rose said.

“Is it?” Aunt Suzette asked.

Rose dropped her gaze. She wasn’t sure. Jared wanted her, she knew that. But wasn’t that natural? Did it make him some kind of monster that he wanted to have sex with her? She had been the one to initiate things between them today, but he had been upset when she had put a stop to it. Maybe they were right.

“No,” she said. “I don’t… if you met him, you’d know. He’s just Jared. He hasn’t tried to make me do anything.”

Both aunts hesitated, but then Aunt Fay nodded reluctantly.

“All right. Just understand what this means. Unless we can kill Maurelle, or escape her somehow, you can’t trust anyone.”

“So what are we going to do?” Rose asked. “Run?”

“If we can think of a way to prevent her from following, then yes, we’ll run,” Aunt Fay said.

An image of Maurelle flickered across Rose’s mind.

“When the crows attacked her, they kind of forced her into the gate,” she said, remembering. “She screamed like it hurt her, just touching it.”

Aunt Suzette nodded grimly. “Iron. It’s poison to us. It weakens and sickens us just to touch it.”

“But it’s never bothered me,” Rose said.

“You’re half human,” Aunt Fay said, as though that explained everything. And perhaps it did.

Rose thought about St. Bridget’s—about Jared and Kylie—and a great sadness filled her. Some of her memories had begun to come back, but they might as well have been dreams. Those things had happened a thousand years ago. All she knew of life in this modern world had taken place at that school, and Jared and Kylie were her only friends.

“I left some things at the school,” she said. “My jacket and my backpack. I’d like to get them.”

“And say good-bye to your friends,” Aunt Suzette said, smiling softly.

“Could I?” Rose asked.

Aunt Fay seemed about to say no, but her sister spoke up first.

“The school would be safest,” Aunt Suzette said. “Maurelle’s not likely to attack in broad daylight with hundreds of witnesses. Though we’ll need to be wary, and be sure that your friends are who they appear to be.”

“All right, then,” Aunt Fay said. “Tomorrow, in the sunlight. With the crows watching out and the glamours on the school, it should be simple enough to protect you there.”

“If the school is safe, couldn’t I stay?” Rose asked.

Aunt Fay shook her head. “It would be too dangerous for you to keep going back. Eventually she will get to you.”

Rose wetted her lips with her tongue. “Tomorrow, then,” she said. “But can I ask you one last question?”

“Of course,” Aunt Suzette said.

“This is going to sound so stupid, but… Sleeping Beauty. I mean… am I her?”

Aunt Fay rolled her eyes and then shot her sister a withering glance. “I told you to stay away from Charles Perrault. But no, you just couldn’t help yourself. You had to seduce the man.”

Rose laughed in disbelief. “I didn’t need to hear that.”

Aunt Suzette got up from her chair. “Let it go already, Fay. It’s been three hundred years.”

She went to the window and looked anxiously out at the street and the momentary amusement evaporated.

Rose would have felt much safer if she hadn’t seen the fear in her aunt’s eyes. Tomorrow, Aunt Fay had said. But she suspected the night ahead would be a very long one, and that sleep would prove elusive.