The Modern Faerie Tales Read online

  “No, wait,” said Kaye, shaking her head. “The problem is that it sounds totally worth it. It sounds possible for him to win. I bet Roiben thinks he can beat Talathain. Silarial didn’t want them to go at it today, but Roiben didn’t seem to mind. Why would she give him even a chance to win?”

  Luis shrugged. “Maybe it’s no fun if it’s too easy to take over the Unseelie Court?”

  “Maybe she’s got some other plan,” Kaye said. “Some way to give Talathain an advantage.”

  “What about cold iron bullets?” Corny said. “Fits in with her use of that big rig. She’s on a whole mortal tech kick.”

  “Is any bullet really more terrible than an arrowhead that burrows through your skin to strike your heart?” Ethine asked. “No mortal weapon will kill him.”

  Luis nodded. “Then Roiben’s name. That’s the most obvious, right? Then the whole duel becomes a smoke screen because she can force him to lose.”

  “Whatever my Queen’s plan, I imagine it is beyond your ken,” said Ethine.

  The waitress came and poured coffee into their cups. Corny raised his in one yellow-gloved hand. “Here’s to us.” He looked at Ethine. “Brought to this table by friendship or fate—or because you’re a prisoner—and here’s to the sweet balm of coffee, by the grace of which we shall accomplish the task before us and ken what we need to ken. Okay?”

  The three of them lifted their cups of coffee and clinked them together. Kaye clinked her cup against Ethine’s.

  Corny closed his eyes in bliss as he took his first sip. Then he sighed and looked over at them. “Okay, so what were we talking about?”

  “The plan,” Kaye said. “The plan we don’t have.”

  “It’s hard to come up with a scheme to thwart some other scheme you don’t even know about,” Luis said.

  “This is what I think we should do,” said Corny. “Lay low until after the duel. We surround ourselves with iron and keep her for insurance.” He gestured toward Ethine with his coffee spoon, and a few drops spattered on the table. One hit the faerie woman’s gown, soaking into the strange fabric. “So, Kaye, if you’re the linchpin of Silarial’s plan, the plan won’t happen. The duel will go fairly. May the best monster win.”

  “I don’t know,” said Kaye. The waitress set a steaming plate in front of her. Her mouth watered at the smell of the cooked onions. Across the table, Luis picked up a mozzarella stick and dredged it through a dish of red sauce. “I feel like we should be doing something more. Something important.”

  “Do you know what fairy chess is?” Corny asked.

  Kaye shook her head.

  “It’s what they call it when you change the rules of the game. Usually it’s just a single variation.”

  “They really call it that?” Kaye asked. “Like in chess club?”

  He nodded. “I was the president. I should know.”

  “There were absolutely no blueberries in that pie, were there?” Ethine asked as she climbed into the car beside Kaye, the handcuffs taut.

  “Dunno,” said Corny. “How was it?”

  “Barely edible,” said Ethine.

  “Right there, that is the great thing about diners. The food is much tastier than you would think. Like those mozzarella sticks.”

  “My mozzarella sticks,” Luis said as he started the car.

  Corny shrugged, a wicked grin spreading across his features. “Worried about getting my germs?”

  Luis looked panicked, then abruptly angry. “Shut it.”

  Kaye poked Corny in the back of his neck, but when he turned to her, his expression was hard to decipher. She tried to mouth a question. He shook his head and turned back to the road, leaving her more puzzled than before.

  She leaned against the cushions of the seat, letting her glamour slip away with relief. She was coming to hate the weight of it.

  “Once more, I ask you to release me,” said Ethine. “We’re well away from the court, and my continued captivity will only draw them to you.”

  “No one likes being a hostage,” said Luis, and there was some satisfaction in his voice. “But I think they’re coming whether you’re tagging along or not. And we’re safer with you here.”

  Ethine turned to Kaye. “And you are going to let the humans speak for you? Will you side against your people?”

  “I would think you’d be glad you’re here,” Kaye said. “At least you don’t have to watch your beloved Queen kill your beloved brother. Who she’s probably in love with.” As she said it, her stomach clenched. The words echoed in her ears, as if she’d doomed him.

  Ethine pressed her mouth into a thin, pale line.

  “Not to mention the pie,” said Corny.

  Exits streamed by as Kaye stared out the window, feeling sick and helpless and guilty.

  “Do we need to pick up Dave somewhere?” Corny asked softly, his voice pitched so that Kaye knew she wasn’t included in the conversation.

  Luis shook his head. “I’ll call from your place. My friend Val said she’d pick him up at the station and keep an eye on him. She could probably even drop him off if we need her to.” He sighed. “I just hope my brother actually got on the train.”

  “Why wouldn’t he?” Corny asked.

  “He doesn’t like to do what I say. About a year ago, Dave and I were living in an abandoned subway station. It was shitty, but the iron kept away the faeries, and this bargain I’d struck with the faeries kept away most everyone else. Then Dave found this junkie girl and brought her down to live with us. Lolli. Things were tense between me and my brother before that, but Lolli just made everything worse.”

  “You both liked her?” Corny asked.

  Luis gave him a quick look. “Not really. Dave followed her around like a puppy dog. He was obsessed. But she . . . Inexplicably, she liked me.”

  Corny laughed.

  “I know,” said Luis. He shook his head, clearly embarrassed. “Hilarious, right? I hate this girl’s guts and am blind in one eye and . . . Anyway, Dave never really forgave me. He used this drug, Never—it’s magic—to make himself look like me. Got really strung out. Killed some faeries to get more.”

  “And that’s why you have to work for Silarial?” Corny asked.

  “Yeah. Only her protection really keeps him safe in New York.” Luis sighed. “It barely works. The exiles are sworn to nobody and they were the ones he was killing. If he would just straighten himself out . . . I know things could be better. Next year he’ll be eighteen. We could get loans from the state on account of both our parents being dead. Go to school.”

  Kaye thought about what Dave had said when they were in New York, about having some fun before he died. She felt awful. He wasn’t thinking about getting an education.

  “Go to school for what?” Corny asked.

  Luis sighed. “It’s going to sound dumb. I thought about being a librarian—like my ma—or a doctor.”

  “I want to stop at my house,” Kaye said loudly, interrupting them. “If you turn here, we’re really close.”

  “What?” Corny turned around in his seat. “You can’t. We have to stick together.”

  “I want to make sure my grandmother’s okay and get some clothes.”

  “That’s stupid.” Corny turned around farther in his seat to look back at her. “Besides, you’re handcuffed to our prisoner.”

  “I have the key. You can cuff her to yourself. Look, I’ll meet you at your house after I get my stuff.” She paused, fishing around in her pocket. “I need to feed my rats. They’ve been alone for days and I bet their water bottle is getting low.”

  “You’ll never feed them again if you get carried off by faeries!”

  “And I don’t wish to be left alone with two mortal boys,” Ethine said softly. “If you won’t let me free, then you are charged with my comfort.”

  “Oh, please,” Kaye said. “Corny’s gay. You don’t have to worry about—” She stopped as Corny glowered at her, and she sucked in her breath. He liked Luis. And he thought Luis knew, b
ut didn’t like him. That was what all the defensiveness about the mozzarella sticks and the germs had been about.

  “Sorry,” she mouthed, but it only made him glare more. “Turn here,” she said finally, and Luis turned.

  “You misunderstand my concern,” said Ethine, but Kaye ignored her.

  “I know you want to check on your grandma and your mother.” Corny’s voice was low. “But even if your grandmother knows something about what’s going on with your mom—which is a long shot—I really doubt you are going to like what you hear.”

  “Look,” Kaye said, and her voice was as soft as his, “I don’t know what happens next. I don’t know how we fix things. But I can’t just disappear forever without saying good-bye.”

  “Fine.” He pointed for Luis. “Stop there.” He looked at Kaye. “Be quick.”

  They pulled up in front of Kaye’s grandmother’s house. She uncuffed her wrist, handed the key to Corny, and got out.

  Luis cranked down the window. “We’ll wait for you.”

  She shook her head. “I’ll meet you guys at the trailer.”

  All the lights on the second floor were on, glowing like jack-o’-lantern eyes. No holiday lights trimmed the front steps, although all the neighboring houses were bright and twinkling. Kaye climbed up the tree in front of her bedroom, the frozen bark rough and familiar under her palms. As she stepped onto the snow-covered asphalt of the shingles, she could see figures in her bedroom. Crouching, she scooted closer.

  Ellen stood in the hallway, talking to someone. For a moment, Kaye touched her hand to the window, ready to throw it open and call to her mother, but then she noticed her rat cage was missing and her clothes had been piled in two garbage bags on the floor. Chibi-Kaye, Corny had said, joking. Chibi-Kaye came into the room, wearing Kaye’s Chow Fat T-shirt. It hung to her scabby knees.

  The little girl did look like Kaye in miniature—dirty blond hair in tangles over her shoulders, brown eyes and a snubbed nose. Looking through the window was like seeing a scene out of her own past.

  “Mom,” Kaye whispered. The word clouded in the air, like a ghost that could not quite manifest. Her heart hammered against her chest.

  “You need anything, Kate?” Ellen asked.

  “I don’t want to sleep,” the little girl said. “I don’t like to dream.”

  “Try,” said Kaye’s mother. “I think—”

  Lutie flew down from the branch of a tree, and Kaye was so startled that she fell back, sliding a little ways on the roof. From inside, she heard a high-pitched shriek.

  Ellen walked to the window and looked out at the snowy roof, her breath clouding the glass. Kaye scuttled back, out of Ellen’s line of sight. Like a monster. Like a monster waiting for a child to fall asleep so she could creep in and eat it up.

  “There’s nothing,” Ellen said. “No one to steal you away again.”

  “Who’s she?” Lutie whispered, alighting on Kaye’s lap. Lutie’s wings brushed Kaye’s fingers like fluttering eyelashes. “Why is she sleeping in your bed and wearing your clothes? I waited and waited like you said. You have taken a long time coming back.”

  “She’s the baby who got taken to make room for me. She’s who I thought I was.”

  “The changeling?” Lutie asked.

  Kaye nodded. “The girl who belongs here. The real Kaye.”

  The cold of the snow seeped through her faerie gown. Still, she sat on the roof, peering at the girl inside as Ellen shut off everything but the night-light.

  It was a simple thing to wait until the hallway light went dark, climb a little ways, then push open the window to the attic. Kaye ducked inside, swinging her feet over the ledge and slithering through.

  Her feet touched grime-covered floorboards, and she pulled the switch to turn on the single bulb.

  Her hip hit a box, sending the contents spilling out. In the sudden light, she saw dozens and dozens of photographs. Some of them were stuck together while others were chewed at the edges, but they all featured a little girl. Kaye bent low. Sometimes the girl was a swaddled-up baby sleeping on a patch of grass, sometimes she was a skinny thing dancing around in leg warmers. Kaye didn’t know which photos were of her and which ones were of the other girl—she had no memory of how old she’d been when the switch occurred.

  Kaye traced her fingers through the dust. Impostor, she wrote. Fake.

  A gust of wind blew through the open window, scattering the photographs. With a sigh, she started gathering them up. She could smell the droppings of squirrels, the termite-eaten wood, the rotted sill. In the eaves something had made a nest of pink insulation, garish against the planks. Looking up at it, she thought again of cuckoos. She shoved the pictures into a shoebox and headed for the stairs.

  No one was inside the second-floor bathroom, but another night-light glowed beside the sink. Kaye felt empty in this familiar space, as though her heart had been scraped hollow. But she had guessed right; no one had packed away her dirty clothes.

  Picking through the hamper, she pulled out T-shirts, sweaters, and jeans she’d worn the week before, balled them up, and tossed them out the window onto the snowy lawn. She wanted to take her records and notebooks and novels too, but she didn’t want to risk going into her bedroom to get them. What if the changeling screamed? What if Ellen walked in and saw her there, clutching the stupid rubber necklace she’d five-fingered at a street fair?

  Carefully, Kaye opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, straining for the sound of her rats. She couldn’t just leave them to get dumped out in the snow or given to a pet store like her grandmother threatened whenever their cage was particularly filthy. She felt panicky at the thought of not being able to find them. Maybe someone had put them on the enclosed porch? Kaye crept down the staircase, but as she snuck into the living room, her grandmother looked up from the couch.

  “Kaye,” she said. “I didn’t hear you come in. Where were you? We were very worried.”

  Kaye could have glamoured herself invisible or run, but her grandmother’s voice sounded so normal that it rooted her to the spot. She was still in the shadows, the green of her skin hidden by the darkness.

  “Do you know where Isaac and Armageddon are?”

  “In your mother’s room—upstairs. They were bothering your sister. She’s afraid of them—has quite an imagination. She says they’re always talking to her.”

  “Oh,” Kaye said. “Right.”

  A Christmas tree sat near the television, trimmed with angels and a glitter garland. It was real—Kaye could smell the crushed pine needles and wet resin. Underneath sat a few boxes wrapped in gold paper. Kaye couldn’t remember the last time they’d put up a tree, never mind bought one.

  “Where have you been?” Her grandmother leaned forward, squinting.

  “Around,” Kaye whispered. “Things didn’t go so well in New York.”

  “Come on, sit down. You’re making me nervous, standing there where I can’t see you.”

  Kaye took another step back, into deeper darkness. “I’m fine here.”

  “She never told me about Kate. Can you imagine that? Nothing! How could she not tell me about my own flesh and blood? The spitting image of you at that age. Such a sweet little girl, growing up robbed of a family to love her. It hurts my heart to think of it.”

  Kaye nodded again, stupidly, numbly. Robbed. And Kaye was the robber, the shoplifter of Kate’s childhood. “Did Ellen say why Kate is here now?”

  “I’d thought she’d have told you—Kate’s dad checked himself into a rehab. He had promised not to bother Ellen, but he did and I’m glad. Kate’s a strange child and she’s clearly been raised terribly. Do you know that all she’ll eat is soybeans and flower petals? What kind of diet is that for a growing girl?”

  Kaye wanted to scream. The disconnect between the normalcy of the things her grandmother was saying and what she knew to be true seemed unendurable. Why would her mother tell her grandmother a story like that? Had someone enchanted her to believe tha
t was the truth? Magic choked Kaye, the words that would conjure silence sharp in her mouth. But she swallowed them, because she also wanted her grandmother to keep talking, wanted everything to be normal for one more minute.

  “Is Ellen happy?” Kaye asked quietly instead. “To have . . . Kate?”

  Her grandmother snorted. “She was never really ready to be a mother. How will she manage in that little apartment? I’m sure she’s happy to have Kate—what mother wouldn’t be happy to have her child? But she’s forgetting how much work it all is. They’re going to have to move back here, I’m sure.”

  With growing dread, Kaye realized that Corny had been right all along. Giving her mother a changeling child had been a terrible plan. Ellen had just been getting ahead with her job and the band, and a kid completely derailed that. Kaye’d screwed up, really screwed up in a way she had no idea how to fix.

  “Kate’s going to look up to you,” her grandmother said. “You can’t be running around anymore, missing important family things. We don’t need two wild children.”

  “Stop! Stop!” Kaye said, but there was no magic in her words. She put her hands over her ears. “Just stop. Kate isn’t going to look up to me—”

  “Kaye?” Ellen called from the top of the stairs.

  Panicked, Kaye headed for the kitchen door. She yanked it open, glad for the cold air on her burning face. Right then she hated everyone—hated Corny for being right, Roiben for being gone, her mother and grandmother for having replaced her. Most of all, she hated herself for making all those things happen.

  “Kaye Fierch!” Ellen shouted from the doorway in her seldom-used “mom” voice. “You get back in here right now.”

  Kaye stopped automatically.

  “I’m sorry,” Ellen said, and Kaye turned toward her, saw the distress in her face. “I handled things badly, I admit that. Please don’t leave. I don’t want you to leave.”

  “Why not?” Kaye asked softly. Her throat felt tight.

  Ellen shook her head, walking out into the yard. “I want you to explain. What you were going to tell me last time, at my apartment—tell me now.”