Fae Nightmare Read online

  You are small. You are nothing. You can fit in my cage with ease.

  I heard a curse from the cage and with my heart in my throat, I held it up.

  Disappointment filled me.

  Had I been hoping that Scouvrel would be sent out as a scout again? I must have been, or else I would have been thrilled, because standing in my cage, hissing angrily, was the beautiful orc Lieutenant who had told me all about tricks of marriage.

  “Lieutenant,” I said with a smile. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “I hate your dull world with its bland colors and ugly people,” she spat.

  “Well, at least you aren’t prone to flattery,” I replied, my eyebrow lifting. I had to be sly and cool. I didn’t dare let her know how much my heart was racing. “How many of you are there out in my woods?”

  “Just me,” she said with a sneer. “An insulting job, but your Lord Cavariel is not a male known for his value of females.”

  “Man,” I corrected.

  “Does the word ‘male’ bother you?” she asked, looking interested.

  “The suggestion that people are nothing more than their sex does.”

  She laughed. “And what are you going to do with me now that I’m in your cage, Rat Killer?”

  I swallowed. I hadn’t thought that far.

  “I’m going to send you back to the Faewald,” I said.

  “Great. I’m sick of scouting this place and I’ve seen all I need to see.”

  Oh great, Allie. You’ve backed yourself into a corner now!

  “Like what?” I countered and she laughed. Despite the cold, she wore only a black leather corset, fish-skin breeches, and a fish-skin jacket so short it covered only her shoulders and chest. She stood easily in the center of the cage, a bronze throwing axe in each hand. Uh oh. I hoped she didn’t’ try to attack with those. Even in miniature, they would hurt.

  “Like how pathetic your knight and his so-called militia are,” she said with a laugh.

  I did not dare let her go back.

  “You’re staying with me,” I said grimly.

  “To what end?”

  “You’re going to help me set a trap for your armies.”

  “Unlikely.” Her tone was disinterested.

  But I would find a way. And I would trap them all.

  Chapter Five

  By the time I wandered into the Chanters’ kitchen – cluttered and filled with odds and ends just like their house had always been – it was past dawn. I brought eggs in from the hens and a bucket of water – the least I could do.

  I had the Lieutenant in the cage at my belt, grateful that no one could see her without my spirit vision. I’d given her my handkerchief to sit on so that the iron didn’t burn her, but she’d taken it in slit-eyed, stony silence.

  My mother took the eggs silently, her eyes wary as she poured the water into the kettle and laid the eggs into a basket. Beside the fire, my father sat wrapped in blankets and muttering to himself.

  “One in two, and two to be one. Rip and mend. Tear and treat. Open and close. Sow and reap.”

  You could go crazy listening to him. Maybe my mother was going crazy listening.

  “Come now, Chanter, let’s clean you up for the wedding,” I heard Goodie Chanter saying on the porch.

  My mother shot a furtive look in her direction before leaning close to me. “You can’t spend every night up there, Allie. People are going to notice. I can only cover for you so often.”

  I didn’t bother denying it. I had slept in my tent at the circle when I came back from my strange adventure walking through wagons and oak trees. It had seemed like the best place for me. I was neither of one world nor the other, after all. And it gave me a chance to interrogate my prisoner, which hadn’t worked at all. She hadn’t even been willing to part with her name.

  “They’re coming, Mother,” I whispered. They wouldn’t send a scout if they weren’t. “And there is no Chanter or Hunter now.”

  “There are Knights, Allie,” my mother said gently. “The world changes and we change with it.”

  “And what if I don’t want to change?”

  My mother seemed to sag. “Ah, daughter. I don’t want you to change, either.” She sighed. “But all of this changed without you. The town changed. The people changed. I changed. I didn’t mean to, Allie, but loneliness and grief hollow a person and I’m hollow, Allie. I’m nothing but a shell.” She was crying now. Gently. Tears leaking down her face. I gathered her into my arms and she leaned her forehead on my shoulder, whispering as she cried. “I’m as bad as your father. Worse, because his mind is drifting away but mine is still here and it’s only my hope that is gone.”

  “What would get it back for you, Mom?” I whispered. “I’ll do whatever I need to do.”

  “I’m worried about your sister. You haven’t spoken of her which must mean ... did she die, Allie? Is she gone?”

  From the cage, the Lieutenant snorted.

  “No. She’s the one leading the army planning to invade our land.”

  My mother hissed, pulling back from the hug and looking frantically around the room before leaning close to me. “Don’t let anyone hear you say that.”

  I nodded, widening my eyes as if to say, ‘obviously.’

  “Allie,” she said, her eyes wild now. “I have to stop her. She’s my daughter, my responsibility!”

  “No!” The word ripped out of me before I could stop it. The thought of my mother being snatched by my sister – of her being tortured and hurt – it made something in my heart burn.

  She slammed a finger against her lips, looking frantically toward the porch where Goodie Chanter was still cooing to her mad husband.

  I brought my voice back down to a whisper. “Someone has to tend Father. He might still get his mind back. He might just need a little time.”

  I was pleading, I knew that, and I could see her agreement in the way her lower lip trembled, and she glanced back at my father by the fire.

  “You know I’m not fit to nurture anything,” I whispered with a teasing tone. “Hulanna always took care of the baby goats. I was out trapping marten and fox.”

  My mother nodded, her eyes glassy with tears and the tip of her nose reddening over her wry smile. I let my expression sharpen with determination.

  “So, let me do what I do best. Let me hunt my sister. Let me bring her down. You said she was our responsibility. Well, I’ll take that responsibility, and you take this one.” I nodded to my father.

  Her pause was long and heavy but after a moment she nodded. “You are better at hunting.”

  “I am.”

  “How will you do it?” she asked.

  “I don’t know yet. But I’ll find a way.”

  The door opened with a bang as the wind shook it and Goodie Chanter bustled into the room with her husband whistling behind her.

  “Oh, Allie, you’re a wreck! Twigs in your hair and clothes rumpled! There’s to be a wedding today! Go fix yourself, girl.”

  “Thanks, Goodie Chanter,” I said with a false smile.

  Best to try to be grateful. After all, she’d taken my mother in when the town was against us. And now she’d taken my father in, too. That had to be hard on her – two women who were basically widows tending madmen while trying to manage their cottage and livestock together. I should feel guilty that I wasn’t planning to stay and help. I rubbed my arm with my hand, feeling the claws of guilt sneak up and pierce me – but not enough to change my course.

  “Your mother found a dress for you. You should put it on quickly. We’ve only an hour before the wedding. Look at yourself!”

  She shoved a small mirror – carefully polished silver and the size of my palm – into my hand. I glanced down and nearly dropped it. In the mirror, I saw Scouvrel’s face staring back.

  He gasped.

  “Haunt me, Nightmare,” he pled. “Haunt me until I beg you to stop.”

  There was snickering from the cage.

  I looked around, ter
rified that my mother and Goodie Chanter had heard, but all Goodie Chanter did was take the mirror from my hand gently.

  “See? Even you are surprised at your own reflection!”

  I was going as insane as my father. I was seeing Scouvrel everywhere. I shook my head.

  Get a hold of yourself, Allie! Do normal things.

  Which was how I found myself an hour later with my wild red hair tamed back into a long braid and my bow and quiver slung over a simple homespun dress with a carefully stitched corset and fur-lined cloak.

  Where my mother had found them was beyond me but she’d outdone herself with adapting them to fit me – though she’d leaned in when she gave them to me whispering that I should be careful to hide those “Fae marks” on my body or people would grow anxious. Kind as that was, I couldn’t help the ache that formed in my chest as I slipped the clothing on.

  I missed Scouvrel’s elaborate clothing made of feathers and arrogance. Everything in the mortal world felt dull in comparison. Clean. Pure. But dull. Perhaps even a few days in the Faewald had been enough to taint me forever.

  “You’re not taking that cage with you, Allie?” Goodie Chanter had asked me, shocked to see it hanging from my belt again. “What on earth would you need that for?”

  “Maybe I’ll catch butterflies,” I suggested. “I can’t do that without it.”

  “You’ll certainly never catch a man with it,” she’d replied.

  As if I wanted to catch a man. Even if I wasn’t accidentally married, I was pretty sure I had more interesting things to catch. Like the laughing Lieutenant in the cage. Now, if I could only make her talk ...

  The bride and groom – Aiden and Jenne – stood at the front of the assembly as the town elders wrapped a green ribbon around their hands and led them through their vows, but my mind was not on their sweet exchange. My eyes were roving over the people assembled here. Even with all the new additions to the town, there were barely more than five hundred people in Skundton and at least half of those were children. I swallowed to clear my dry throat as I watched children and more children huddling against the skirts of mothers or leaning out of the high windows of the new houses lining the town square. If violence came here it would be that laughing little boy in the window who was hurt – or those two sisters holding hands and swaying back and forth with flowers in their hair.

  Something had to be done about this. I couldn’t let these innocent people suffer because of my family’s mistakes.

  But the last time I’d tangled with my sister she had guessed my every move before I’d made it. She’d bested me every single time. I couldn’t let that happen this time. This time, I had to lure her out of the place where she was powerful and trap her instead of the other way around.

  The first thing was to determine what she wanted.

  The second was to gather weapons to fight.

  The third was to make her nervous.

  The fourth was to set an irresistible trap.

  The fifth was to spring it and catch her.

  If Scouvrel was here, he would know how to do that. He’d know what she wanted. I felt an itch between my shoulder blades at the thought of him. If I hadn’t accidentally bargained him away, he would be here now with all that knowledge of his. And what would he say?

  He’d say she wanted the mortal world for herself, so setting a trap meant setting it here. I’d need to find the right place here to lure her to and I needed a trap ready for when she got here.

  He’d say that I needed to follow the other trails to see if there were any other weapons I could use against her. And that made sense. Maybe I’d get lucky and one of them would have a pipe for calling in errant sisters. I already had the trap. If this cage could hold Scouvrel, a unicorn, and the Lieutenant, it could hold Hulanna.

  Around me, the town broke out in a whoop of celebration, throwing the last goldenrod of autumn up into the air and letting the icy winds blast it in swirls of golden flowers around us. The wedding was over. The feast was beginning.

  Roast goose and apples were brought out, their fragrant scents making my mouth water as the pastries and mead followed.

  I snatched two pastries from a waiting tray, shoving one between the cage bars – I wasn’t heartless.

  But as I looked around at the people I’d known all my life, they seemed like strangers to me. Who was that flushed teenage girl laughing over mulled wine with the boy a head taller than her stammering an apology? Who was that old woman cheering the bride and groom or the man beside her juggling a toddler on his knee and a huge tankard in his other hand? These people were just regular people and they lived right beside a magical circle that was going to open soon and swallow them whole.

  I shivered.

  Unease swirled in my belly and, frustrated, I stormed out of the town and into the forest beyond, gratified when a partridge flew up at the sound of my boots on the ground. At least in the forest, everything understood what was real – that we were all predators or prey, or both. That eating in peace and marrying in a shower of flowers was horrifically foolish. All of this could be snatched in a moment – would be snatched if someone didn’t do something about it.

  I ripped off my blindfold.

  “Tell me what my sister is going to do, Lieutenant. Make a bargain with me for your freedom.”

  She smirked at me but chose to stay silent.

  I growled between my teeth and chased down the first glowing path that I saw. There had to be an advantage out here somewhere, and I was going to find it, with or without the Lieutenant’s help.

  Chapter Six

  It was well past dark by the time I found the end of the path. My dress was ripped and dirty and I was freezing cold. I should have stopped to change and grab my things before I went charging out in the night. I should have stopped to think, but oh no, of course I just went haring off into the woods like the blind fool I was.

  Strange sounds filled the nights – not just the howl of ghouls but the hoots of the owl-griffins and the chatter of some other Faerie creature that glowed a slight magenta and flitted from tree to tree in little swarms that liked to follow me through the woods. I didn’t like this haunted wood. It was not my home.

  And I was blind out here. In order to follow the path, I’d had to keep the blindfold off. And that meant a lot of stumbles, a lot of scraped knees and cut hands. I’d moved from frustration to anger to despair. And here I was at the end of the glowing red path that led to a hollow tree.

  “You’ve spent a lot of time falling today, Mortal,” the Fae in the cage said, finally breaking her silence.

  I held it up so I could look at her. “I think we should strike a bargain, Lieutenant.”

  “You have nothing that I want.”

  “Not even your freedom?”

  “You won’t free me here.”

  “And what if I free you in the Faewald? What then? Would you bargain with me? Would you tell me something of my sister’s plans to invade this world?”

  “I can tell you that you’re a fool,” she said, baring her teeth at me in a snarl. “That’s free. You don’t even need to bargain for it.”

  “I’m unaccustomed to Fae who won’t bargain,” I said, frustrated.

  “That’s because you’ve been dealing with the Knave and with the Court of Cups. In the Court of Twilight, we bargain more rarely. We have no need of others or anything they might offer us.”

  “Keep telling yourself that,” I muttered. Eventually, she would wear down in that cage and then she would bargain. I had.

  I dropped the cage and shoved my head in the tree and looked around with my spirit eyes. Cobwebs brushed my face and I shuddered. That had better not be little legs I felt running down my neck. Oh, sweet stars, it was! Yeck!

  I shook like a dog and forced my eyes to stay open. Okay. Forget the spiders. Erg. Try to focus. Was anything glowing? There was something long like an axe handle above me. It glowed a faint red. I grabbed the bottom of it, but it didn’t want to budge.


  Gritting my teeth, I yanked it back and forth, trying to loosen it from the crumbling worm-eaten wood of the hollow tree. I blinked and cursed as rotten wood fell into my open eyes. Great.

  I gave the handle one final tug and with a loud creak, the handle pulled from the tree. Hastily, I scrambled out from the hollow, but something smacked me in the jaw sending me flying backward, hitting a rough stump on my way down and sprawling in the frosty grass. The sounds of three distinct thumps masked anything else.

  I yanked my blindfold up, trying to see what happened in the moonlight.

  The tree had fallen in three crumbling pieces. One of them must have knocked me back. I should just be glad I wasn’t crushed.

  “Incompetence,” the Lieutenant hissed.

  “You can just be quiet if you have nothing productive to contribute,” I said, but I was rattled.

  Trembling, I lifted the piece of wood. It was the length of my arm and though it was carved to easily fit a hand and smoothed by wear, it didn’t seem to have anything special about it. Maybe in better light, I’d see something.

  Frustrated, I jammed it in my belt and made the long, cold trek home. I was too discouraged to be excited by the hoots of local owls. Too miserable to enjoy the crisp scent of a world that would soon be decked in snow or to enjoy the pleasant way the tree branches danced like the skirts of a swaying singer.

  If this was the best I had, then I was in trouble. One trapped Fae and a length of wood. Amazing work, Allie. You’ll be ahead of your sister in no time.

  After an hour a pair of ghouls started following me. I let them. I could always scare them off later and they suited my foul mood. It was too dark to see well with the blindfold on and there was no more path with it off. It had disappeared the moment I took the axe handle from the tree. My trek back to the Chanters’ house was taking twice the time it should and with nothing to show for it but a long smooth handle.

  Honestly, if my ancestors couldn’t be bothered to write down what they’d hidden all over the countryside and note what it did then why should I bother going hunting for it all? But I knew the answer. I did it because I didn’t have any other clues. This was my only chance to find some way to return to the Faewald for the children there.