Authors: Suzanne Lazear
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Fantasy & Magic, #Steampunk
Innocent Darkness
Table of ContentsFourteen: Progress and Lack Thereof
Seventeen: Preparations and Realizations
Twenty Two: The High Queen’s Palace
Twenty Three: A Rescue, of Sorts
Twenty Five: Sometimes the Truth Hurts
Thirty One: Charlotte’s Solution
Thirty Two: As the Dust Settles
Thirty Four: The High Queen is Law
Innocent Darkness
takes place in an alternate version of 1901, a peek into what might have been. I’ve taken significant liberties with history, both in changing things completely, like adding flying cars and hovercops, and in moving things forward or backward in time. For example there was no “pleasure pier” in Los Angeles until 1916 and the carousel didn’t appear there until 1922. The San Francisco Earthquake was real, however it happened in 1906 and was caused by a rupture on the San Andres Fault, not magical backlash from the Otherworld. A good deal of the city had to be rebuilt from the earthquake and subsequent fires. Over 3,000 people died. Many things in this story are based on actual history. The sensory deprivation box was used to treat different sorts of “imbalances” (along with a great number of very strange inventions). Women and girls really were institutionalized for things like willfulness, hysteria, and nymphomania. The Ancient Greeks considered aether the fifth element and aether appears in a variety of alchemical theories and in early physics. As for Faeries … they could very well walk among us.
Be careful what you wish for
is always sage advice, no matter when and where you live.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a Faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
—William Butler Yeats,
The Stolen Child
The Runaway
Whatever happened, she could not allow them to catch her, nor could a single drop of her blood spill upon the ground. The only sounds were of her labored breath and the hum of night in the wildwood. Soon, the horns and hoof beats of pursuit would follow.
Annabelle’s lungs screamed, as did her body. She’d grown soft, enjoying the lavish lifestyle of the high court, only realizing too late what she’d unwittingly accepted. The sound of the hunting horn echoed in the distance making her run faster. The lake lay to the right. Somewhere.
She continued fleeing into the dark chill of the night, her wispy gown tearing on branches reaching out of the shadows of the wildwood like ghostly limbs. A root tripped her, sending her sprawling through the forest growth. Pain shot up her leg when she landed among the dirt and the leaves, scraping her elbow in the process. The ominous tattoo of hoof-beats filled the air and her heart raced. She stumbled to her feet in a mad panic, heart being so fast she feared the hunt would hear it.
Ignoring the pain, she continued running, not bothering to stop when she lost a slipper. She kicked off the other. If they caught her, they’d kill her.
Not tonight, though. No, they’d continue to charm and cosset her as they’d done since the night Kevighn spirited her away in his airship, rescuing her from being forcibly married to an old drunk three times her age. But the time of the sacrifice approached. They would then ritually slaughter her to enable the magic of their world to continue for seven more years.
Gasping for air, she summoned the last of her strength, going right and pressing on, praying she’d reach the lake before the hunt reached her.
The horn’s call cut through the night air. The wild hunt and fear of being caught nearly paralyzed her—especially being caught by Kevighn. His betrayal burned her soul like a branding iron. Annabelle would willingly die this night to keep them from getting her blood. It would do them no good if she were already dead when they found her.
A body of water glimmered between the tree branches. Shouts pierced the air.
“Annabelle, Annabelle where are you?” Kevighn’s voice reverberated through the dark woods, sending a flock of leather-winged creatures into the air. She pictured him in her mind’s eye, dark, beautiful, strong, and deliciously rakish despite the gentleman aeronaut persona he’d worn when they first met. Sweet words rolled easily off his lips, enchanting her, making her feel special, beautiful. Now she understood why they called him Kevighn Silver-Tongue.
It was not for his kisses, but for his lies.
Her leg cramped and she fell again, terror gripping her. Warm, salty tears rolled down her face. No, this couldn’t be. When she tried to push herself up her arms crumbled beneath under her weight. Her lungs, her limbs, had enough. She crawled towards the lake, her knees growing raw, her fine gown torn and dirty. That no longer mattered. Freedom—and revenge—lay within reach.
Kevighn had lied to her, stolen her from her world, betrayed her trust, her innocence. In return, she promised herself she would deny him and his queen what they wanted most.
“There she is,” Kevighn shouted.
Her hands entered the water. The warm, blissful liquid welcomed her like loving arms. When her body gave up, she allowed it. Yes. Release.
“Annabelle, no. Come back, let me explain.”
Too late. Water covered her face as she sank into the depths of the very lake where Kevighn had professed his love for her. How ironic that it should be the place of her death. The moment her heart stopped, the magic broke, setting her free. The last sounds she heard were the screams of those on shore. The land began to shake, crying for the loss of its gift.
We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?
—Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market
An Afternoon Drive
Six Years Later, Los Angeles, 1901
“Still working, Noli?” V’s voice startled her, making her bang her head against the undercarriage of the automobile. Rubbing her forehead, she tightened the last bolt with her wrench. She wheeled herself out from underneath the old clunker.
“She’s nearly finished.” Noli patted the car. The old Hestin-Dervish Pixy belonged to her father. He’d always said he’d restore the auto, fancying himself a gentleman tinker. After her father disappeared, her older brother had said the same. When Jeff left to become an aeronaut, she’d decided to fix the Pixy herself—much to the chagrin of her ever-proper mother.
“Don’t you have a book to read?” She smiled at her best friend. Sitting up on the dolly, she pushed up her old brass goggles. V possessed an insatiable thirst for knowledge.
“Don’t you have homework to do?” Furrowing his brow in mock disapproval, he put his hands on his hips and raised his voice to mimic her mother’s, making her laugh. Eyes green as oak leaves sparkled at her through wire-rim spectacles.
Steven Darrow, or V, as she called him, lived on the other side of the wooden fence. A year older than she, he stood gangly, lanky, and deceptively strong. As always, his blond hair didn’t quite lay flat. He climbed through the loose board in the fence to visit her every day after school—not entirely proper anymore with her being sixteen and him seventeen, at least according to her mother. Then again, her mother seemed stuck in the last century.
“I’ll do it later.” Still holding the wrench, she grinned. Her gaze fell to her skirt. Despite the heavy leather apron, oil stains spotted her long, navy skirt. How would she explain the stains when she shouldn’t be tinkering in the first place? The well-worn wrench went back into her father’s battered, old toolbox.
“We should go for a test drive.” She patted the side of the auto.
“Noli!” V shook his head. Unlike her, he’d changed out of his school uniform and wore beige trousers, a rumpled button-down white shirt, and brown bracers.
“A quick test drive, that’s all.” Standing, she rolled the dolly away. She’d made it herself from her brother’s old, broken hoverboard and cast-off wheels from a handtrolly “Please? I’ve loaded her up with coal.” Like all good cars, the pixy was steam-powered.