Fairytales for Wilde Girls (20 page)

 

Betrayal

Ruslana and Alejandro eyed each other across the bedroom, tersely listening through the walls, waiting for something to happen – to Isola, to one another, to themselves. The Fury's hand rested constantly on the sword at her waist now, and Alejandro often stared at the walls, as though trying to discern patterns in the ornaments and posters, the strips of naked wall.

‘The window was open,' said Alejandro quietly.

Ruslana snapped her head towards him. ‘What?'

‘That night when Furlong was meant to be watching over her,' Alejandro said, addressing the wall. ‘He had already gone, and the window was unlocked and opened just enough for her to get in.'

Ruslana said coldly, ‘Then Furlong betrayed us, just like Rosekin and Christobelle did.'

Isola jumped up from the beanbag. ‘They didn't!' she yelled. ‘They wouldn't do that! I-I don't know how, but she's been
making
them act like that!'

A strange relief flooded her when neither argued back – she felt more reassured that it hadn't been because her beloved princes had acted of their own free will.

The two princes each strode to the centre of the room, regarding the other warily.

‘Can I trust you?'

‘Only as much as I can trust you.'

‘Are you intending to harm her?' asked Alejandro forthrightly.

‘I have no intention of allowing
anyone
to lay a hand on her,' growled Ruslana. ‘Florence . . . or otherwise.'

They all heard the threat ringing, and although neither had raised their hands or even their voices, Isola leapt between them, hands raised to disperse the seemingly inevitable fight.

In the tense silence, they heard the ghost girl singing in a distorted language, nursery rhymes and curses, her broken voice splattering the front of the house like paint.

Still eyeing each other, Ruslana and Alejandro reached around Isola and shook hands, swift and business-like.

‘I'll take first watch,' said Ruslana authoritatively. ‘You go find out
everything
you can about that girl.'

 

The starry sky stretched over the house, God's screensaver. Despite Winsor's appallingly bad behaviour recently – even for
her
– Isola had grudgingly allowed her to sleep in Rosekin's old nest in the music box. Winsor deigned to wait in Rosekin's most familiar place for her inevitable return.

As such, it was Winsor who saw it. The faintest pink glittering on the lawn: the feeble sputter of an unwell fairy. It woke the small fairy from her usual dreams of rose-munching; she jumped out of the small nest of feathers and thimbles, and gave a loud, excited squeak.

‘Rosey! Rosey! It's Rosekin!'

Isola awoke at once; half-surprised she'd even managed to get to sleep in the first place. She staggered upright, hurrying to the window ledge where Winsor perched, and as the words registered, a bubble of warm hope rose up inside her.

‘It's Rosekin, Isola!' Winsor yelled, already impatient, and with a great heave, the tiny fairy scraped the window open.

The opening was barely enough for a fairy to squeeze through – but that was all Florence needed.

A pale hand snatched through the gap and knocked Winsor aside with the suddenness of a viper rearing in long grass. It plunged its fang-fingernails deep into Isola's neck, flooding her with toxins – terror, shock and, oddly, rage.

Isola tried to scream – but the choked sound she made was strangely reminiscent of Florence's speaking voice as the dead girl hauled herself up the side of the house.

‘Lovely songs he played, that man on the roof.' Blood foamed around the dead girl's mouth.

‘Where – is –
he
?' Isola snarled between gulping breaths.

The girl grabbed a fistful of her hair, trying to pull her over the sill. ‘He's gone the same way as those little birds that bothered me with their awful songs!' she shrieked, rabid-eyed. ‘And you will too, you and your horrible heart-music, because you won't be quiet and you won't
stay out of my woods!'

Then a swoop, a slit, a spurt of blood; Ruslana had materialised in the shadows of the bedroom, slashing at the ghost's forearm with a long crooked dagger. Abruptly released, Isola fell back on the floor; Alejandro was standing over her, and he slammed the window shut, but that didn't block the noise of the dead girl's screeches as she scrabbled at the latch, lost her grip and vanished down the wall again.

Ruslana rounded on Winsor.

‘
What were you doing
?' she snarled, and even Alejandro cringed away at her devastatingly angry voice.

Winsor squeaked and ducked down behind the music box she'd flown to. ‘I just – I thought I saw . . . Rosey was outside –'

‘Rosekin's dead,' said Ruslana harshly.

Isola couldn't help herself – a horrified yelp escaped her, and Alejandro's arms pulled her close.

‘And you'll go the same way if you try anything like that again!'

‘Ruslana –' Alejandro began, but the Fury rounded on him now, shadow-cloak billowing, eyes turning black.

When he didn't speak, she shifted her gaze to the quivering faerie. ‘Get out,' she snapped. ‘I can't stand the sight of you.'

‘But –'

‘GET OUT!'

Winsor hiccupped and sped under the door in a flutter of green faerie-glitter.

All night, the dead girl stood barefoot on the frosted lawn, her nails scraping at the walls, her black-hole mouth wide open as she sang indecipherable lyrics.

Isola curled up on her bed with her hands over her ears, shuddering violently. Alejandro clamped his hands over hers as he whispered Spanish lullabies. Ruslana stood guard at the window, her dagger raised in tireless hands, blood trickling steadily down the hilt.

Isola didn't think she would manage it, but she slept.

It was nearing dawn, the world blue-rinsed, when she was startled awake by Ruslana's cry.

‘NO!'

Once again the window was scraped open; Isola jerked upright; Alejandro had already left her side, and she sprang to the window after him.

What Isola saw on the grass below made her blood turn thick in her veins.

The ghost girl had indeed caught a pink-glowing faerie, pinching her by her cellophane wings. The faerie seemed to flicker feebly, and her glow was almost the colour of Rosekin's – but not quite.

The dead girl smiled up at them, relishing their gazes as she lifted the squealing faerie to her mouth – and bit her in half.

Ruslana began trembling.

‘Ruslana, don't!' yelled Isola, but the reaction was immediate. The Fury's whole body shook as her hair snapped free of its braid, whipping around her as if caught in a storm of her supernatural rage. Her cape of swirling dark changed consistency; now it was feathers, and it seemed to flow from her shoulder blades like great black wings. Her talons elongated, and she curled her hands, showing her blood-coloured palms. The whites of her eyes vanished completely into black. She opened her razor-mouth and gave an unearthly howl.

Below, the dead girl had swallowed the whole faerie and was licking blood from her lips. She had triggered this on purpose, Isola was sure, and this was Ruslana at her most Furious – terrible, beautiful, and driven by vengeance, the only emotion she ever felt filled by, the fuel that powered her endless life.

Isola grabbed Ruslana's shaking arm. Alejandro immediately broke her grip, pulling her away from the avenging angel. Ruslana was insensible, screaming bloody murder as she launched herself through the window.

‘Alejandro! Get her back!' Isola pleaded.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that Ruslana might not return to her; her eyes mightn't pale and her claws mightn't retract and she might be nothing more than the Fury, and she might scour the globe for every faint echo of a girl unavenged, forgetting Isola, forgetting what it was to be a brother-prince.

But Alejandro seemed at a loss; they both hurried back to the window, and saw Ruslana crouch, her murderous gaze fixed on the dead girl; the girl merely licked her stained lips again and laughed. ‘Aren't you supposed to avenge girls like me, Fury?' she said mockingly. ‘Where were you when
I
was screaming for help?'

Ruslana roared and lunged, forgetting her weapons, using her talons instead. She slashed at the girl, her red hands dripping.

Isola felt coldness like a physical presence, a hand gripping hers, caressing her neck. Part of her thought the girl would run or dissolve in the shadows. Instead the girl took each wound and danced around, laughing all the while. How would they be rid of this dead-caged-witch-girl? How could they kill a ghost?

‘Ruslana!'

‘RUSLANA!' Alejandro bellowed over Isola's plaintive cry, and both she and the Fury froze – they'd never heard him shout before. ‘YOU CANNOT LEAVE ISOLA!'

And that was all it took; feathers moulted, wings melted back into the cloak. Ruslana blinked, standing human on the lawn, and the lily-white was there in her eyes again.

But the ghost girl was gone.

 

True Nature

Vivien's Wood was suffering the same fate as the plum tree and Sylvia Plath before it.

It was a slow and noxious death, the smell of it wafting miles down the valley, making vaporous SOS patterns in the sky.

Ruslana had gone to lick her wounds; Alejandro said she had been embarrassed to lose control like that, especially in front of
her.
Isola, while admittedly a little frightened by the transformation she'd seen in her brother-prince, could never be leery of Ruslana, her willowy warrior, with her stretching, pale legs and secretly soft centre.

After a week, and after quite a bit of wheedling and begging, Alejandro took Isola to the woods. They only managed a few steps in before the thorn thickets grew too thick, and he stood silently while Isola dragged her hands over the forest floor, catching clumps of dead flowers and grass; a cancer patient's chemo-hair. The leaves that had shrivelled in wintertime were unravelling blackened in the spring. Some trees were birthing toxic fruits and berries, and she found more dead rabbits, foam bubbling along their lolling mouths, their babies starved in lonely burrows.

Not one bird sang in the woods these days.

Everywhere were empty nests, rotting beehives. A dead forest.

All because of one dead girl.

 

Dame Furlong was in her usual place, curled in the heart of one of the potted rosebushes standing guard by the door. Mother had never got around to planting them – the illness had struck her down before she could, but the plants had thrived in captivity nevertheless.

‘I'm glad you're still here,' Isola told Dame Furlong, plopping moodily down on the step. ‘Otherwise I'd start thinking I dreamed Grandpa up entirely.'

Dame Furlong said nothing, as was her way. She twisted in the web, making a sticky-thread ‘?'.

‘Where's he gone?' Isola guessed she had said. ‘I don't know. I'm sorry.'

The spider knitted again, tugging her wiry body this way and that. She revealed a crescent-moon shape.

‘Oh, this?' Isola rubbed a hand along her neck, over the red mark that had not faded since Christobelle first pointed it out. ‘Just another trick of that dead girl, I hope. Don't worry about me.'

Dame Furlong peered at her with eight blinking eyes for a long moment. Then, she wove one last symbol – a heart.

‘Thank you. I love you, too.'

 

Madame Guillotine

Isola had not slept.

‘Don't you dare move,' hissed the voice that hung over her in the darkness like a mushroom cloud, rousing her from her semi-conscious slumbering.

‘Ruslana?'

Isola's blue eyes were reflected in the blade – wide and terrified. The Fury's coarse black hair tickled her forehead. She could hear her stilted breathing from above.

It didn't sound much like Ruslana.

The Fury was crouched over Isola, her red palms wrapped resolutely around her dagger's handle. She was trembling slightly, not from cold or fear, but in the furious way that heralded her shocking transformation. While one hand was plunging the dagger down, the other seemed to be trying to wrench it upwards, and she huffed with the effort she was exerting into the checkmate.

‘Ruslana,' Isola said again.

‘Princess,' whispered the Fury, and she was shaking all over now, little eruptions racking her entire body as someone else's anger fought her loyalty.

Isola raised a hand to shield her face. Ruslana immediately forced the blade nearer, the edge cutting close to Isola's right eye, hanging Damocles-style, the glinting guillotine.

‘No, no, I won't, I don't want to,' Ruslana moaned, her sweat-slicked grip on the dagger increasing. Her wings were arching high over the bed, and a single black feather fluttered down to rest on Isola's cheek.

‘I understand,' whispered Isola, her breath hitching as the blade shivered closer. ‘I know this isn't your fault.'

The cold steel of the blade's edge bit into the bridge of Isola's nose. The tip aligned with her wide, watery iris.

A tiny gasp of horror – but it wasn't made by Isola. Tears fell thick and fast on Isola's face; trickled into her hair.

‘Oh, Isola,' came the whisper.

The dense shadow above her vanished; the weight lifted from the bed.

‘What is it,
querida
?' asked Alejandro urgently, two minutes too late. ‘Where is Ruslana? Why are you crying?'

The Seventh Princess: An Instalment

‘The fourth dragon was Anger.

‘By now, there were only three princes remaining, and none knew what exactly had befallen their younger brothers, but they were certain that they would not be returning, and they each silently swore to escape their brother's fates.

‘They walked closely together, and trod the most well-mapped paths through the rural edge of their kingdom, but as time passed and their quest seemed more futile than before, they began to squabble amongst themselves. They were entering the dragon's domain now, and none were sure which path would be best to take, though each voraciously voiced his own opinion.'

A rocking horse in the corner of Isola's room blinked dolefully whenever she wasn't looking; she narrowed her eyes, trying to catch it out.

‘Tiring of the rowing between his passionate oldest brothers, the third prince, the most calm and levelheaded, opted to walk away rather than engage in another pointless argument. This proved his downfall, for while the brothers shouted, they did not hear his cries for help, and the third prince never settled a discussion again in this world.'