The Treachery of Beautiful Things (30 page)

Folletti and sprites clung to the trees as they passed. Jenny watched them cautiously, aware of other eyes following them, unseen, some benign and some hostile. Not to her, she realized, but to Tom. The piper. They knew him too well to trust any apparent change in his nature.

It sent a chill through her. What had he done under the power of the queen to make them hate him so? And just what did they expect of her? Because clearly the forest fae were looking for something.

Other creatures flitted around her, their voices rising in song as she passed through the trees. Slender girls in white and pale green shifts drifted through the forest, smiling at her and bowing their heads. Little gnarled figures like living mushrooms crawled from the ground to watch her go by.

The sound of the hunt fell away as they passed deeper and deeper through the trees. The path was easier now, as if it opened up to admit them, to let them through. The forest had done it before, Jenny realized, remembering the night the trees had unfolded, ushering her toward the greenman, toward Jack. And maybe even before that as well. The forest had known, even if she hadn’t. She glanced back to find a tangle of briars and undergrowth in their wake. The forest had closed around them, sealing off any possibility of pursuit, or escape.

“Puck,” Jenny murmured, keeping her voice as quiet as
possible. “Puck, please tell me what happened to Jack. He can’t be dead.” It was more of a plea than a statement. She needed it to be true.

“No, not dead,” Puck replied, his voice a low rumble, and he glanced at Tom from the corner of his eye. “But Oberon has locked him away for his failure. He may not have betrayed you to Titania, but neither did he bring you safely to the king. He’ll never see the light again. And that, for a forest creature…” Puck lowered his gaze and kept walking. “That is death indeed.”

“But he’s not dead,” she said. “He’s still alive.”

Puck turned sharply, his eyes narrowed to slits. “You don’t understand. He might as well be. Jack isn’t human, Jenny.”

Her temper flared then, and she turned around slowly, glaring at all of them in turn, all the gnomes and sprites, the Foletti and the Dames Vertes, all the fairy-tale creatures who had been proved real to her. “And who among you is?” she asked. “I won’t give him up, Puck. I won’t let him be a sacrifice for me. I won’t let him die in my place.” That was Titania’s way. Not hers. It would never be hers.

The forest path fell hushed. They stared at her as if she had just uttered something earth-shattering. And perhaps she had, for the unexpected words that had just come from her mouth had indeed come from her heart.

Puck’s voice broke the silence.

“Will you be Queen o’ the May, Jenny Wren?” His eyes
shone in the dark. “With all that it entails? The tithe is not the only sacrifice in the Realm, you know. The May Queen too. She must give up all in the end. She must die, to reign.”

“This is madness,” Tom interrupted. “You said you’d get her out, Robin. What’s this talk of sacrifice now?”

Puck’s lips quirked up at the corners. “Ah, but here we are.”

And they were. The trees before them were the ones she knew from Branley Copse. Old bags and wrappers tangled in the briars still shrouded in morning shadow. Beyond, the morning sunlight streamed onto the top of the mound, casting shadows of trees in long lines across the sports field. The sound of traffic on Guildford Road hummed in the distance, a murmuring, and on the air a smell that made her nostrils flare. Tart and chemical. The tang of iron. The modern world. Her world.

Without hesitating, Tom stepped forward, through the trees, over the Edge, and into the scattered sunlight. He turned around with his arms stretched wide and laughed, a sound that spoke as music as much as anything he might play on his flute.
This
was her brother. The rumpled hair, the smile that turned up one cheek. His clothes transformed to a simple T-shirt and jeans, not so terribly different from those in which he had vanished, though larger to suit the body of a man instead of a boy. The flute was tucked into a leather belt at his waist, still with him. Always with him. He tilted back his head so the sunlight fell full on his face.

He was back in their own world and free of the Realm. All she had to do was follow and she would finally have her dream of so many years. She had brought her brother home.

Just step through. And it would all be over. All the nightmares, all the lies. Just a step.

“Go,” said Puck, and he gave her a little push.

Jenny didn’t move. She stood between worlds, right on the Edge.

“Jenny,” Tom said, reaching out his hand in the sunlight, joy making his face look young again. “You did it. Come on. You can go home.”

J
enny didn’t move. Her feet felt rooted to the spot, though she longed to follow her brother.

“Is Tom safe?” she whispered to Puck.

“Aye, lass. Safe as houses.”

“He can’t come back. You made sure?”

“I’ve sealed it to him, just as you asked. And she can’t touch him now that he’s out there. Not without great sacrifice, which isn’t worth her while. And you?”

She smiled, wishing with all her heart to step out of the woods, into the sun, into the newborn morning, to join her brother and go home. Oh God, almost all she wanted was just to go home.

But it wasn’t to be. Not yet.

Tom seemed to realize. He stood there, staring back through the trees, the sunlight gilding the top of his head, his mouth open, eyes wide. “Jenny?”

“I—” She cleared her throat and turned to face her brother. “I have to stay,” she called to him, and even to her own
ears her voice was forlorn. “I have to find Jack, Tom. I owe him…that much at least.”

“Owe him?” Tom exclaimed. “He sold you to the queen, Jenny! Are you insane?”

The word made her bristle, made the fire lick up inside her and strengthen her resolve. Insane. No. Definitely not.

“If he sold me, he never got paid,” she said with a calm that belied her rage. She wasn’t angry at her brother, no. She was angry that everything had gotten so twisted around that he couldn’t see who was worth saving. She knew the feeling. Or had, at least. “He was duped as well. I have to stay, Tom. I have to help him.”

“So be it,” said Puck. “Then turn away. Come back with us, Jenny, for you’re to be Queen o’ the May. What is your wish, Highness?”

Jenny squirmed at the word. But a wish—her breath caught in her throat. She still had a wish. The wish for her heart’s desire that the Leczi had promised her. She fumbled in the deep pockets of the apron, trying to find it.

She tore the apron off and tried to shake it out, catching the jack as it fell.

Puck and Tom looked at her, so very different from each other but wearing matching bewildered expressions.

“Don’t you understand? I could wish for Jack. I could get him back with the stone!”

“Ah, Jenny Wren,” Puck sighed and sank down to the mossy earth. “It’s not that easy. It’s never that easy.”

With a soft chink, the stone fell to the ground, bright green, shining in the light.

Jenny snatched it up, scraped back the dirt, and buried it, patting the soil over it feverishly. “Jack, I wish for Jack. I want him back. I want…I love him…” She closed her eyes and pressed her hands down on the pile of earth. “Please…”

The ground beneath her rippled, as if deep inside the earth a tremor tore rocks apart, but nothing else happened.

Nothing happened at all. She stared at the spot where she’d buried the stone and then cursed loudly, words she shouldn’t know, not caring who heard her anymore. She wanted to scream, to pound the earth.

Nothing happened.

Another trick, another lie, another betrayal in this wretched place that thrived on such things. Why would the Leczi be any different? Why had she even dared to hope?

She opened her eyes to see Puck shaking his head. Her dirty hands trembled and she couldn’t bear the look of pity in his eyes.

“It’s the long road, lass,” he told her. “It has to be. Leczi stones work when the time is right, when they want to, and not a moment before.”

No, nothing was ever easy, she thought. But just once—just
one miserable time in her life—it would have been good to have something go her way. She looked at Tom, standing there, waiting for her. He looked young. A boy. And she felt suddenly so much older than him. The expression on his face broke her heart.

“Go home, Tom,” she said to him. “They’ve missed you so much. Just—just go home. I’ll come as soon as I can.”

“Jenny, you can’t be serious. You can’t go back in there and face Oberon. If you thought Titania was bad…You can’t!”

She didn’t move. Everything in her wanted to go with him. Everything. She laid her arms across the spot where she’d buried the stone and briefly rested her forehead on them. Everything except her heart.

“I’ve got to,” she told him.

“What?” Tom called from beyond the trees.

She sat up and turned to him. “I’ve got to,” she repeated, louder.

He started forward, heading for the trees to grab her and pull her out with him, but stopped at the Edge like he’d run into a wall of air.

“Damn it, Puck,” he yelled. “Let her go. I know you and who you serve. He’s Oberon’s through and through, Jenny. He’s worse than Jack. He serves the king. Don’t trust him. Not even for a moment.”

“I won’t,” she said softly, and turned away, looking down at Puck. “I really won’t.”

Walking through the forest seemed different this time, less rescue and more…procession. She could hear no sound of the hunt, and if the queen still pursued them, the forest hid them far away from her. The faerie folk sang as they wove a garland of white flowers and settled them on her head as a crown. Flowering hawthorn twisted together—a May crown for the May Queen, but this time the thorns didn’t hurt her. The petals brushed gently against her forehead.

As they passed beneath the trees, pale blossoms rained down on them. The gray servant’s dress melted to white, as if the petals falling about her blended into the fabric. Strips of silver-birch bark wound themselves around her. They twisted together to make a shimmering material in elegant strips of iridescent white that clung lightly to her body. Tiny flowers of Queen Anne’s lace and dandelion seeds, and fronds of Old Man’s Beard, knotted in a delicate web like the finest filigree lace around her bodice, sweeping down to the skirts. Threads of gossamer wound about her waist, and gleamed as they caught the light. It was the dress from her vision, the dreamlike creation she had worn to the ball, but this time woven by the forest, from the forest, and far more beautiful for that. She turned slowly, admiring it, and yet fearing this magic. Fearing what it might mean. But she had agreed to be Queen of the May. Behind her, the gown’s train swept through the forest, an abundance of flowers leaping
up from the rich earth—lily of the valley, snowdrops, wood anemone, wild strawberries, daisies, and a hundred others, all pale and perfect. Sunlight followed her path, picking out the flowers like jewels.

“You’re old, right?” she asked Puck.

“Old as the hills, old as the dales.”

“And when you said the May Queen was a sacrifice?”

“I meant just that. She was a sacrifice, brought to the forest, brought to the king, and down through the centuries she became a myth. May is the month of rebirth, Jenny Wren. And to bring about a rebirth—”

“All right, all right. I get it. Something has to die first. So you’re taking me to Oberon?”

“Of course.”

“And you’ve no choice in the matter. I mean, you’d help me, if you could. Right?”

He glanced up at her. “I would. But…I’m bound. As bound as Jack was. I serve the king. You have a heart like no other, Jenny, and we respect that. All of us. And you might just be strong enough.”

“What does he want from me?”

“He wants a willing queen. Then his power will be complete.”

“And if I don’t want that?”

“He’ll ask a riddle, most like. Or a test. Or offer you a choice. You can never tell. It’ll be a trick, though. He’s
never without his tricks, and he doesn’t lose his wagers.”

“And Jack? I can free him?”

“What’s a Jack?” Puck asked. Jenny scowled down at him. What game was it this time?

“You tell me,” she replied coolly.

“Jack the lad, Jackanapes, Jack Frost, Jack Tar, Jack O’Lantern…there are so many. Which one, sweetling?”

“Just Jack.” She buried her hands in the folds of the skirt, where flowers became fabric. The gown had no weight at all. She twisted the material around her fingers. It was soft and smooth as silk. “You’re the riddler, Puck. I get that. You’re the trickster and you serve the king, but I thought…I thought you were my friend too. And his friend. Tell me what you know.”

Puck’s eyes darkened. He loved Jack too, she could see that, could recognize it as clearly as she knew it in herself. “He’s everyman, and no one. He’s the guardian of the Edge of Faerie, once the mightiest of the forest folk, as near to a king as we’ve ever had among the lesser fae, now the lowest of the court. Oberon stole him from us.”

“To be his servant?”