Bad Luck Girl (30 page)

I moved forward. The purple grapes looked sweet and ripe, and I really was hungry. I stretched up on my toes, but stopped. Something was clouding my vision. Another memory. A memory of the hot sun on my back and watching while bark closed over my fingertips. Slowly, I settled back down on my heels. Why didn’t I pull the grapes? What was the matter with me?

“Not ready,” said the Seelie king softly. “Not yet, but almost. There’s still something we don’t have.” Ivy’s mouth smiled. “You should go to your room, Your Highness. There’s going to be a dance tonight, to welcome you home, and you want to be ready, don’t you?”

Of course I did. I didn’t want anything else. I especially did not want to look back to see who was trying to scream. They had nothing to do with me.

There is no time in the fairy lands. No sunrise or sunset. Everything bleeds together, just like a dream. I danced with the Unseelie nobles in a dress of diamonds and stars with a diamond tiara on my head. I sat at a table that stretched out under the bone trees and watched those trees bowing to my uncle and the Seelie king.

Eventually, I walked out with my uncle and the king all across the Emerald Fields and up the Scarlet Hills. There, we could see all the way to the border of the Unseelie land,
where the twilight shadows ended and the pure white cliffs waited. That was the Seelie country. It hadn’t always been there, of course. Fairy lands were as fluid as magic and could travel as easily as wishes and dreams, if their rulers wanted them to. The Seelie land had rolled right up to the border when the king won the war over my grandparents, but it couldn’t come any farther. It was pushing against a barrier, but there was no way through. There could be, of course. I could make one if I reached out. I knew where to touch and turn to open the way up wide, or close it down so small a mouse wouldn’t have been able to wedge a whisker through. It was strange that that other country was struggling to discover a thing I could see with one glance. It was funny.

“Open the gate, Calliope Margaret LeRoux deMinuit,” the king made Ivy say. “Open the gate to the Seelie land.”

“Why?”

“Because I want you to,” answered Ivy’s voice. “Prophecy Girl, Bad Luck Girl. Open the gate.”

That confused me. “But it’s perfect here. What do you need with that old place?”

The Seelie king was angry. I felt it burning all around me, and I didn’t like it. It reminded me of all kinds of things from long ago and far away, beyond the borders of the Unseelie country, and I didn’t want to think about any of them, ever again.

“Not yet,” my uncle said. “Not quite.”

“Why not?” Ivy stamped her foot. “What’s left? How many names can she possibly have?”

“We will find out,” said my uncle. “It will happen. She cannot keep the secret from us forever.”

And that was how it went. My uncle walked me round and round the Unseelie lands. This country was a simple, ordered place, not like the jumbled-up chaos of the human world. There was the forest, the field, the hills, the road, the two gardens, and the palace. All was as it should be, and my uncle showed me everything, great and small. He let me walk alone sometimes, through the forest, over the fields, and up the hills. We even walked all the way back to the spot where I’d locked the other gate, the one that led to the human city. All the time, he watched me. I could feel him watching me as clearly as I could feel all the other hungry lives that made up our home. He especially watched when I went down to the Kitchen Garden and reached for the grapes, and came a little closer each time.

Usually, the Seelie king met me in the broken greenhouse. When he did, he made Ivy’s voice ask, “Who are you? What is your name?”

Each time I answered, “Calliope Margaret LeRoux deMinuit, Prophecy Girl, Bad Luck Girl, Heir to the Midnight Throne.” Because those were the names that came to me. I couldn’t think what else I was supposed to say. I just knew my uncle and the king wanted me to remember something more. But I hadn’t brought any other names with me from the human world, and I didn’t know anything more about myself than what they shared with me.

One time, I wandered into the Throne Room to see the Seelie king standing in front of my grandparents. He was angry at them. Even though the heart of their kingdom was crumbling around them, there was still something between them and him, and he hated that. He was so angry at them he wanted to swallow them whole. But he couldn’t. They couldn’t move, they couldn’t speak, but this country still belonged to them. He’d have to kill them to take it away, but if he killed them, the Unseelie country would come to me, not him, and he didn’t want that either. Not yet. I watched for a while, because the hate was something new and it was interesting in its way. But it got familiar after a time, and I wandered away again.

Once it was certain I knew every inch of the world, and every inch of it knew me, I was allowed to walk as I chose. But it was strange. If my uncle and the Seelie king weren’t with me, I frequently didn’t want to walk outside at all. I sat in my silver chamber, or I just wandered through the palace. I noted without surprise that new trees and new ivy had grown since I’d last been by. They drank their sustenance from the starving stones, slowly hollowing them out. Even if the Seelie lands never rolled over this place, the palace would eventually dissolve into the trees and ivy and smoke moss. If I opened the gate to the Seelie land, it would happen that much sooner. That would be different. It would be nice to see something different, I thought. Maybe one day. Maybe soon.

Sometimes when I sat in my silver chamber, I saw things in the reflections on the polished floor and the smooth curve of the bedposts. There was only starlight and twilight, so those reflections weren’t very bright, and they didn’t last long. But I liked it when I could see them, because they were new and different. They didn’t fit the world around me, though, and I liked that part less.

Sometimes, I saw a human boy with blue eyes in a frail house talking seriously with ugly creatures. They wanted to listen to him, but they were afraid. He kept on talking anyway, which was silly of him, but it made me sad for some reason. I didn’t watch him that much.

Other times, I saw a green place where a thin human woman moved among more of the ugly creatures. They were clustered around kettles of hot oil. They tossed lumps of pale dough into the golden liquid so it bubbled violently. It was interesting for a while, but not for long, and I turned my eyes away.

One time, as I wandered through the palace, I found my father. He sat in a golden chamber, much like my silver one. In fact, he never left it. The Seelie king and my uncle wanted him to stay here, so he did. He didn’t come to the dances or the feasts, the hills, the gardens, or the fields. I never wondered why. He didn’t need to be near me, after all. I always knew where he was. So did they.

But now that I saw him with my actual eyes, I saw he was
writing in a book. Something rippled through me, and I realized it was surprise. I could see the book, but couldn’t touch it, not the way I could touch the stones and the trees, and the guards and the servants. It was different. I moved closer, and I read,

 … ready. The last ones coming in …

They’ve had three days already. No time left and only one more name. If they find it before …

My father snapped the book shut, and tucked it away in his golden robes, and that fast, it was gone from my mind.

“I dreamed of this,” he said to me. “In that other place. I dreamed of being whole again, just like this.”

He wasn’t making any sense. But he kept on. “I was angry for a while when I first got here. That’s what the other place does to us. It pulls our kind away from what we are. It cuts us off from the power and the hunger. We become just like them. It’s the love, you see, Callie,” he said. “There’s no hunger left where the love is.”

“How charming,” said my uncle from behind me. He laid both his hands on my shoulders. “How very, very charming. Now, remember what we spoke of.”

They’d been talking. I frowned. Had I known that? I must have. I just hadn’t been paying attention.

“Of course.” My father smiled. “Daughter, tell me your final name.”

I frowned harder. “But you know all my names.” Why were we even talking about this?

“Not all,” said my father softly. “There’s one left. Tell it
to me, as your father, and then I will be able to walk with you and help you to your throne and help you rule. It has been promised. But you must tell it to me.”

He wanted it. He really did, and so, of course, I wanted it too. The whole of the Unseelie country was sure there was another name belonging to me, so I was certain too. But I didn’t know what it could be. I couldn’t see it anywhere; I couldn’t feel it anywhere. If I had known it, it was all gone now.

My father was looking at me and his eyes were dim as the darkness between the stars. He wanted something from me, but I couldn’t tell what. He was as hungry as all the others around us, but it wasn’t the same kind of hunger. It had a different weight and texture. It was tied up in me, the frail woman, and the blue-eyed human boy, and the three days they’d lived away off in the human world. It kept him separate enough from me that I didn’t understand and that made me angry.

“Maybe it’s in that book,” I muttered.

“Book?” said my uncle. “There’s a book here?”

“Tell me about your father’s book, little niece,” ordered my uncle.

I frowned. My uncle wanted me to tell him what I’d seen since I walked in here. Why? There was no separation between us here. That was the nature of our home, and its promise. Why would he need me to talk when he ought to already know everything that had happened?

My father smiled. “I think my brother is playing a game with us.”

My uncle did not answer this. He turned his glittering mask to me. “What was he doing when you came in here, Callie? Who was he talking to? You need to answer me.”

I giggled. “What’s that for?” my uncle snapped.

“You can’t see.” I giggled again. “You took that fancy mask from the Seelie king, and you still can’t see.”

“He can’t see?” said my father softly. “Not even a little?”

What was the matter with these two? “Of course not. It’s all in the memories, Papa, haven’t you looked?” My grandparents had cut across one eye when he rebelled the first time so he wouldn’t see what they were planning, and then across the other as punishment when he rebelled the second time.

“No.” Papa narrowed his two good, whole eyes at my uncle. “I didn’t see that. I must not have looked carefully enough.” There was something wrong with the way he said that, like he was suddenly speaking from a great distance. “What is it humans say?” he went on. “None so blind as those who will not see?”

My uncle didn’t like that. I felt his annoyance like a harsh curl of smoke on the wind. A spot of tarnish crept across the golden floor from under his faint shadow.

“Come out of here, Callie,” said my uncle. “The Seelie king wants us.”

What was he talking about? I always knew when the king wanted me somewhere, and I didn’t know that now. I stared at my uncle, and saw my own eyes reflected back in his mirrors. For one second, those eyes looked stormy blue, and worried. I blinked. My uncle didn’t feel close anymore. His anger was pulling him away from me, even though he was mostly angry at my father. That tarnish beneath his feet spread farther, and turned darker. I felt squirmy. Maybe if I told my uncle about the book, he wouldn’t be so angry.

“What is this book?” said my uncle. “Where did you see this book?”

“Why, it’s just the notebook, brother.” My father pulled the battered object out of his robes. “The one I’m holding for her. You saw me take it when we came here.”

“Of course,” my uncle answered. “What I can’t understand is why you’d keep such a shabby thing. Why don’t you give it here?” He extended his hand.

“If you want it, you’re welcome to take it.” My father held the book high up in the air.

My uncle’s hand stayed where it was. His head tilted up and down. The air around him curdled, like the tarnish forming around his shadow. I waited to feel him see the book my father was holding in plain sight. But he didn’t, and a new thread of feeling ran through his anger. Fear.

“Blind,” my father whispered. “You are blind, and the king will not let you heal. What were you promised, brother? That you’d be whole again as soon as the Seelie king was safe on our parents’ throne? Or would it only be when the Seelie country devoured our own?”

Anger swirled between them, sharp, hot, and bright, until the whole room shivered and the wall behind my father bubbled uneasily. Liquid gold dripped down toward the floor.

I didn’t know what to do. I could feel everything that was happening, but I couldn’t form any intention. No one had told me what I should do. I didn’t like feeling helpless. It reminded me too much of things back beyond the gate, and that only made the helplessness worse. I felt the gold softening under me, beginning to bubble and melt like the wall
behind my father and the tarnish stretching out from my uncle’s shadow.