The Treachery of Beautiful Things (10 page)

The rustling of leaves startled her out of the reverie. Jack!

He moved forward, his eyes clamped shut, his leaf cloak draped across his hands. On his knees, he eased his way to
the bank, and yet each movement was filled with studied grace, as if he felt the earth beneath him as a guide. He crouched at the water’s edge, still without looking at her, and offered the cloak.

“If you’ll let me, I’ll wash your clothes. Your own clothes, I mean. You can use this until they’re dry.”

Jenny wasn’t sure which image struck her as more comical—Jack kneeling there with his eyes closed for fear of embarrassing her by seeing her naked, or that of him doing her laundry.

“You’ll wash them with your eyes closed?”

Confusion flickered over Jack’s face and she realized he had been in earnest. Resignation replaced confusion and she felt a stab of guilt when he frowned.

“If you really think I ought…”

Her own laugh took her by surprise. She wasn’t in any mood to laugh and yet there it was.

“I’m sorry,” she sighed. “I was joking. Just…just give me a minute.”

Jenny took the cloak and rose from the pool, quickly wrapping the strange fabric around her as she stepped onto the bank beside him. Warm and surprisingly soft, the cloak carried the scent of spring mornings, like blossoms and new growth. She’d expected it to be scratchy and harsh, but it wasn’t. Leaves wrapped around her like an embrace. She lifted the fabric to her face, inhaling. When she opened her
eyes, Jack watched her again, his eyes like two jewels. There was no expression she could discern on his features now. The silence stretched.

“Thank you,” she said stiffly.

He nodded once and gathered up the clothes, as quietly formal as a hotel bellboy.

He paused for a moment, his head cocked to one side as he studied her jeans. Or rather the pockets of her jeans.

“What is it?” she asked, bemused by his confusion.

“These…things in your clothes.” He pushed his fingers inside and pulled the pocket inside out.

“They’re pockets.” She smiled, then laughter broke her voice again. He looked up at her sharply, so quickly, and the look silenced her. He expected her to mock him. It was a look she knew too well, having worn it herself too many times. She forced her voice to be gentle, softened its edges with kindness. “You put things in them, things you want to carry with you. Like that pouch on your belt. See?”

Jack nodded and bent his head, concentrating on gathering her clothes together instead of looking at her.

The sun passed behind a cloud and in the shadows, she saw something else. Jack crouched low, like the creature had crouched over the Woodsman’s body. Jenny drew back and shivered. It haunted her, the thing she had seen. Like a bad dream dogging her all day.

“Jack? Why didn’t you come with Puck? Didn’t you…”
She paused, finding herself unable to ask the question she really wanted to ask.

He looked up. Was it a flash of concern in his eyes? Or just surprise? Jenny couldn’t tell. She had a hard time reading him.

“There are many things in the Realm that are dangerous while appearing wholesome, and many that are quite the opposite. No one knows the real motivations and drives of another.” His shoulders sagged. “I thought they could be trusted. They were my friends. I had no idea the Redcaps had claimed them. Please, believe me. I would never have sent you there if I had.”

Pain wormed its way through his voice and Jenny felt a pang of unexpected sympathy. For him. For them. She didn’t like it much, but she couldn’t deny it either. There it was. “What killed them?”

“The forest. Nature itself. As a Woodsman, he had an agreement with the trees, which—by serving the Redcaps, by threatening you when he promised to aid you—he broke. There are things that—that— Leave it at that, Jenny Wren. Any more, you don’t want to know. Come now, Puck has gathered some food for you and I will take care of these.” He cradled the clothes against his chest. She looked away from the dirty white fabric of the nightdress.

As they left the river, the water stirred, the ripples changing. They shifted direction, moving. Jenny glanced back
and for a moment, the light on the surface looked like eyes watching her.

She blinked and reached out to stop Jack, to show him. But in that instant the breeze changed again and the curious alignment vanished. Just light on the surface of the water. That was all. She shook her head and hurried after Jack.

Jenny ate sparingly of the berries Puck had gathered while she had washed. They tasted sweet and tart all at once, but she didn’t feel like food any longer. The day had slid onward to afternoon while she hadn’t noticed. Jack had gone back to the river to wash her clothes, taking that filthy nightdress with him. And now Puck dozed in the sunlight, stretched out like a satisfied dog, belly up, snoring.

Time to herself meant time to think, to plan. Jack was determined to see her go back home. He wasn’t terribly forthcoming with information. He wasn’t likely to lead her to Tom. And right now she had no idea where her brother might be other than the queen’s castle. But she could find out, couldn’t she? If she asked the right questions. How hard could it be to find a castle when almost everything else in this world seemed to be trees?

Jenny got to her feet, stretching her sore limbs. The pain had mostly gone now, the touch of the water having soothed the bites and hastened the healing process. She almost felt herself again.

Except for the fact she was wearing Jack’s cloak of leaves. And was completely naked underneath.

She wondered where Jack was. The river, she supposed, still washing her clothes as he had promised. Which meant only Puck was there to keep an eye on her. Puck, who snorted, muttered something, and rolled over, smacking his lips together.

How far would she get before he noticed? Neither of them was even bothered to keep an eye on her.

Jenny walked out of the camp. Moving through the forest, her instincts sharpened, the old fear reasserting itself. Forests were dangerous. Leaves and twigs crunched beneath her bare feet. She’d forgotten her mud-clogged shoes. Backtracking, she found them on the edge of their hiding place. The mud had dried, so she scraped it off and slipped the shoes onto her feet. If only she had the rest of her own clothes. Maybe Jack had finished and they were already dry in this warm air. She set off again, picking her way through the forest, back toward the river.

She hadn’t gone far when she saw the tree. Not as big or as impressive as many of the others around her. It was a small, twisted hawthorn, gnarled and ancient. Its branches carried both white clumps of sweetly scented flowers, and sharp thorns. And tied amid the branches, from the lowest to the highest, were scraps of white cloth. They fluttered in the breeze. Jenny reached up to touch the nearest rag and
shied away again as she recognized it. The remains of the nightdress.

She recoiled, her breath caught like a lump in her throat.

“There you are,” Puck said sleepily, his voice emerging from the undergrowth a moment before him. “Don’t wander off. It’s dangerous.” She glanced down, irritated that he’d appeared. “Don’t scowl at me, lass. Jack said I was to keep you safe when he’s not here. He doesn’t trust anyone else to do it, barely trusts me. Made me swear binding oaths. My life wouldn’t be worth dirt if anything happened to you.”

A rustling in the bushes ahead made them both stop, frozen on the narrow path, fixed in place by a jolt of sudden fear. There was something in the bushes, something small and furtive, coming closer.

“Down,” Puck barked. “Use the cloak to hide. Stay still.”

Jenny drew in a breath and dropped to her knees, the leaf cloak camouflaging her against anything that might come out. She made herself small and still. Waited.

Then she realized, Puck was gone. Completely gone.

So much for her fearless oath-bound protector.

A tiny figure, like something a child might make from clay, lichen, and fungus, tumbled out from under the bush, dragging a sycamore leaf twice its size after it. Jenny made a surprised sound and it twisted around in front of her, baring its teeth and a tiny knife. The obsidian blade flashed in the late afternoon light and they both froze, staring at each other.

The little creature took in the cloak she wore and slowly lowered the knife. Jenny allowed herself to breathe again. The thing retreated, dragging the leaf after itself, then stopped suddenly and tried to jump up at the tree, the lowest branches far out of its reach.

Jenny followed its frustrated gaze to a spiderweb spun between the branches of the rag-strewn tree.

“It’s a pixie,” said Puck’s voice from behind her. “It just wants the gossamer. Silly thing. It’s too high. Let it be, let’s go back.”

But Jenny didn’t move. She rose slowly, taking care not to startle the pixie, not to move too fast. She pulled the web free carefully, trying not to break too many strands, and bent, offering the web. The pixie stared at her, jerking forward suddenly to snatch it from her hand, grabbed hold of its leaf again, and took off into the darkness of the undergrowth.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Puck muttered. “Taken it off the tree. May Tree’s magic. It’s dangerous.”

“Right, dangerous. It’s a tree.” She was careful to say it casually, but a chill passed through her. Who was she kidding?

“The Realm is dangerous,” Puck said. “Especially to those who would be kind, like you. Especially when the queen is out and about. Mind you, she’ll follow the river home soon enough and we’ll all breathe more easily.”

“What’s a May Tree?” she asked, ignoring his admonition. He couldn’t know what she was planning. The idea itself was only germinating, and she’d need to pick her moment.

“That is.” He yawned and scratched his rump, referring to the tree tied all over with scraps from the white nightgown.

“The rags, Puck. What are the rags? Did Jack do this?”

Puck froze and then his face fell. “Ah…” he sighed. “Yes, probably. He would do that.”

“Why?” She folded her arms across her chest, the effect of which was lost inside the cloak. But her expression seemed to do the trick.

Puck rolled his eyes to the heavens. “They’re wishes. Each and every one. They’re his wishes.”

“So many?”

“No. Jack only has one wish. But he wishes it a thousand times a day.” Puck turned aside, gazing off through the trees where the song of the river came from. “He dreams of it, dreams of a future. Few creatures in the Realm are so cursed as to live in hope. Poor Jack o’ the Forest, Jack in Green. He only longs to be free.”

I
t started like a warm summer breeze moving through the trees in late afternoon, a whispering voice in the forest itself. Jack lifted his face to greet it, closed his eyes and inhaled. Sweet summer flowers, all things in the fullness of life…and beneath it, decay, the moment where everything began to eat itself away.

Titania.

It could only be Titania. He shifted, looking around for Jenny and Puck, but they were back at the camp. The river sang on, the clothes hanging to dry in the sunlight. It would be evening soon. But he could not ignore such a summons. Nor did he want to. He only wished he did.

“Your Majesty.” The words stuck in his throat, bitter, but her pleasure broke over him in a wave of sweet fragrance. A series of notes rang out in the air, a trill of magic in the music. Light exploded inside his mind and he cried out wordlessly at the shock of pain.

And then he was gone from the forest.

He stood instead on her marble floor, its surface shining, inlaid with intricate patterns of roses and thorns made of many shades of stone. This was her audience chamber, the great mirrors lining the walls reflecting everything a thousand times, capturing light from the high windows overhead, multiplying it until it filled every corner. It was like standing in the center of a cut diamond. Countless Jacks, with the same blue and green eyes, gazed back at him. He shivered. But held his ground. To show weakness before Titania was suicide.

Beautiful as the sun itself, she stood before him in a gown of pale green that hugged her neck, her arms, her torso, but fell away in a sweep of silk from her slender hips. Her golden hair was arranged to emphasize the elegant curve of her neck and the porcelain smoothness of her heart-shaped face. Everything artfully prepared to show her beauty, and it worked. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. The queen. His queen. His heart sped up, hammering against his rib cage. She smiled to see him, a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, and opened her arms in welcome.

“It has been a very long time, Jack.”

Not long enough. The thought sprang up. But he couldn’t speak the words even if he’d dared. Even if he’d wanted to. Here, in her domain, her power held sway—over him, over everyone. He was only a creature of Faerie. She was its queen.

He struggled to clear his head, forced his shoulders to relax, his hands to loosen, though he kept his weight on the balls of his feet.

They weren’t alone, of course. The queen was never alone. With effort, he dragged his eyes away from her. Two blank-eyed servants in their dove-gray clothes stood at either side of her throne in the great mirrored room, awaiting her command. Jack didn’t need to look in the mirror to know that behind him, three shallow steps fell away to the vast lower part of the chamber. He could hear the drone of her courtiers, elegantly beautiful Sidhe lords and ladies, standing where the queen’s balls and entertainments took place, perfectly positioned so she could look down on them all. They hovered in their fine clothes, perfect hands covering perfect mouths, sharp smiles reflected a million times over as they laughed at him, at his freakish apparel and wild appearance.