Misrule

I never thought of forgetting as something you could see, but I see Disey forget.

It’s like a windscreen wiper going over her face. One moment, she’s furious with me, and then …

‘Ugh, come on,’ she says. ‘We can’t hide in the bathroom forever. Shad’s having a breakdown over Helena leaving, and we need to put him back together.’

Oyster, gone. Fairies, gone. My plan to break open the universe and save everyone, gone.

Just like that.

I was so angry when Finn tried to make me forget, to leave him in fairyland and go on and live my life. I was furious. I planned out hundreds of speeches in my mind about the things I would say to him when I finally got him back, about the things I would do to him if he ever, ever tried anything like it again, about how wrong it was, on so many levels.

But I did it to my own sister, and I was better at it than he was, because it worked.

Don’t panic, Linford. Not now. Box it up. Shove it away.

How could you do that to your own sister?

Not now not now not now. The prince is coming to visit you at midnight! You have to prepare for that! You can’t worry about this now! You can’t panic! You can’t let Disey see that –

‘Are you coming, Pearlie?’ Disey asks.

‘Ah … I might stay here, actually,’ I say. ‘In the hospital, I mean, not this bathroom specifically, but … Phil’s family is furious with her, but she won’t leave until Marcos wakes up. She could use someone in her corner.’

‘All right then,’ she says. ‘Call if you need a ride home at any point. Me, not Shad, even if it’s late. I think he’s going to take this one pretty hard.’

I taste bile in the back of my throat.

‘I can’t believe she just up and left like that,’ Disey says. ‘They’ve been together for four years, and she didn’t even say goodbye.’

‘You better go home to him,’ I say. ‘Give him a hug from me, okay?’

‘Okay.’

Half a second after the door swings shut behind her, I throw up in the sink.

In the long hours I spend in the hospital waiting room with Phil, I try and convince myself that things aren’t so bad.

Helena is dead. This is objectively awful, but:
1. That confession the prince shook out of her sure as hell made it sound like she killed Matilda.

You used those magic mind control powers to seriously screw with your sister’s brain. This is objectively awful, but:

It worked, which means you probably didn’t accident ally murder dozens of people by playing fairy music in front of them – you can tell them to forget, and it will work.
Disey won’t put herself between you and the fairies and get herself killed.

The prince is murderous and bloodthirsty and has proven he’ll do some really terrible things to get you to do what he wants, and he’s coming to confront you at midnight. This is objectively awful, but:
1. What if what you did to Disey somehow makes her vulnerable? What if he reaches out from fairyland and sinks his fairy fingers into her brain, and –

‘Pearl?’ Phil says. ‘Are you okay?’

‘No,’ I reply. My lips feel numb and cold. ‘I think we’re going to have to take the iron off Julian.’

‘What?!’

‘The prince,’ I say. ‘If he can’t use Julian, how’s he going to talk to me at midnight?’

‘Julian’s not his only body option,’ Phil says. ‘Isn’t that why you’re still here?’

It takes me a few moments to put the pieces together. ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Of course.’

‘Hey,’ she says. ‘You didn’t answer the question. Are you okay?’

I shake my head.

‘I know today has been a massive pile of shit,’ she says, ‘but I want you to remember something, okay?’

I look over at her.

‘You saved my life,’ she says. ‘That thing – Kel was going to kill me, and you saved my life.’

‘I didn’t save everyone.’

‘But you saved someone,’ she says. ‘You saved me. Again. And that makes you a hero, Pearl.’

A hero wouldn’t do what I did to Disey, I want to say.

‘Can you do something for me?’ I ask her.

‘Of course.’

‘Think of the music I played today,’ I say. ‘Hold it in your mind. Think about it as hard as you can – only it. Nothing else.’

‘Okay.’

‘Now look at me.’

She does.

‘Forget,’ I say.

Her shoulders slump. Her eyes flutter closed. ‘Oh my God.’

‘Phil?’ I say, putting my hand on her arm. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Better than,’ she says. ‘I didn’t realise what a weight that was until it was gone. It’s like when you’ve had your hair up all day and you didn’t notice it was painful but then you take it down and it feels …’

‘So good it almost hurts,’ I say. ‘I remember.’

Together, we track down all of Phil’s family members still in the hospital, and I take the beautiful, terrible music away from them. ‘Forget,’ I say, over and over again. ‘Forget.’

I see the relief wash over their faces, and I wish like hell that there was someone who could say that to me. Forget, they’d say. Forget what you did to Disey. Forget about all the deaths that are your fault. Forget everything you’ve done wrong.

But Phil’s right. I saved her life today. I’ve done things right too.

‘Do you want me to come with you?’ she asks me. ‘To face the prince?’

‘No,’ I say.

‘You’re not alone, Pearl.’

‘I know,’ I say. ‘That’s why I can’t risk him doing anything to you.’

The fact that she listens – that she takes it on board – that she nods – just makes me love her more.

So at 11.50 p.m., I walk alone through the corridors.

Given the time, and given the gravity of the circumstances, I feel like the hospital should be quiet, but it’s not. It’s subdued, but there are still nurses walking by, things beeping, the buzz of fluorescent lights.

It’s kind of familiar. When I first woke up from the coma – when I was blissfully unaware that I’d been in it in the first place because something wanted to kill me – I used to wander around the corridors. I pinpointed the location of every vending machine, and identified which nurses would let me wander and which would order me straight back to bed without my sugar hit.

It might feel like time-travel, if it wasn’t for the cop.

‘Miss Linford,’ she says, as I walk by her.

‘Oh, hi,’ I reply.

I’m hoping I can get away with just that pleasantry, but no such luck. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Just stretching my legs,’ I say, smiling politely. ‘I thought I might get a coffee from the machine. Do you want one? My treat.’

‘No.’

‘Okay. Have a nice night.’

She follows me.

There’s a clock above the nurse’s station. 11:53.

Shit. I can’t meet a fairy prince with a cop on my tail. Either he’ll kill her or she’ll arrest me.

Which is probably exactly what he wants. I bet he killed himself laughing when he thought up this little stunt.

‘Decided to have a coffee after all?’ I say.

‘I’m just doing what you’re doing,’ she says. ‘Stretching my legs.’

Ugggggggghhhhhh.

So I don’t look like a huge lying liar who lies, I really do have to get a crappy coffee. 11:54. 11:55.

‘Sure you don’t want one?’ I offer.

‘No.’

I walk away. She follows again.

I turn around. ‘Look, I don’t want to be rude, but are you following me?’

‘I’m doing my job,’ she replies.

‘I’m just wandering around. I’m not planning to try and sneak in and see Mr Hunter, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

I take a sip of my coffee. It’s way too hot, and it burns my mouth.

‘How did you delete your phone records?’ the cop asks.

The coffee turns to glacier water in my throat.

‘… what?’ I ask faintly.

‘We tried to look at your phone records for the night Eleni Kostakidis was murdered,’ she says. ‘But there was nothing there. No records for your phone at all. But I know you have one. I saw you texting before.’

‘I –’

‘Your ISP couldn’t give us anything about your internet history either,’ she says. ‘Not one thing.’

11:56.

‘So how did you do it?’ the cop asks again. ‘Did your brother help you? The tech genius?’

How did I ever think this coffee was hot? It’s ice cold in my stomach, like someone’s filled me with liquid nitrogen.

‘I didn’t do anything to my phone records or my internet history,’ I say. ‘It’s not my fault that your system is glitching. And I’m not comfortable answering your questions without one of my siblings here.’

‘You’re going to be eighteen in six weeks, Pearl,’ the cop says. ‘This isn’t a card you’re going to be able to play for much longer.’

11:57.

‘Do you like music?’ I say abruptly.

‘Excuse me?’

I look around. There’re some nurses at the end of the corridor, but none in our immediate vicinity, and the doors to the patient rooms are closed.

‘Do you know this song?’ I ask.

I clear my throat. I open my mouth. I breathe into the bottom of my lungs the way Mr Hunter is always lecturing me to do, and softly, on an open-mouthed aaaahhhh sound, I sing the fairy music.

I sing for exactly a minute. My eyes are fixed on the clock above the nurse’s station, but I can still see the cop out of the corner of my eye.

Forgetting is something you can see. Turns out you can also see the moment when fairy music twists someone inside out.

‘That’s beautiful,’ the cop breathes.

‘Listen to me,’ I say, as the clock ticks to 11.59. ‘I’m just a girl who’s got caught up in a mess too big for me. I’m not guilty of anything. Neither is my friend Phil. That thing with my phone records and my internet history was a glitch in your system. Nothing to do with my brother, nothing to do with me. Not my fault.’

‘Not your fault,’ she repeats.

‘And that’s what you’re going to tell anyone who asks, right?’ I say. ‘Over and over again. You’re going to tell them that none of this has anything to do with me. Will you do that for me?’

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Will you sing some more?’

‘If you do that for me, sure, I’ll sing for you again,’ I say. ‘But for now, I need you to walk away from me.’

She does.

I want to sit down, put my head between my knees, and scream into my hands, but I don’t have time. I allow myself one deep breath, box the whole incident up and shove it away to deal with later, and then I’m running.

I make it to Dave’s room with about ten seconds to spare.

He’s asleep. The light is off in his room, and it’s pretty dark when I close the door behind me, but there’s enough reflected light from outside that I can still see him, a dark smudge in the white bed.

When I first met Dave, I loved how big he was. I was fifteen and he was seventeen, but he had these broad swimmer’s shoulders, and he felt like a man, not a boy. Him showing interest in me made me feel older, cooler, more mature.

Of course, it turned out that Dave and I lasted for all of a very awkward three weeks – I made the classic error of thinking that ‘being flattered that someone is into you’ and ‘being into someone’ were the same things – but I still have a soft spot for him. He’s not the boy for me, but he’s a nice person.

And the fairies have reduced him to this.

I jump when the explosions start. It’s not till I see the pink and blue and golden starbursts outside the window that I realise it’s New Year’s Day.

‘Hello, kitten,’ Dave croaks. ‘You found me. Aren’t you clever?’

‘I’m not that clever,’ I say. ‘You only have one other body to work with.’

He smiles. I think. It’s hard to tell under the oxygen mask.

‘You’re not very original,’ I add. ‘You should work on that.’

‘It is a shame what has become of this poor boy.’ He sits up, motion as fluid as a wave crashing at the beach. He pulls the mask over his head, and then suddenly he’s standing in front of me, somehow still graceful and elegant and poised even though Dave’s arse is hanging out the back of his hospital gown. ‘If only I had someone with healing hands I could trust, poor David’s life would be so much easier.’

He wants me to get angry. He wants me to rise to the challenge and take the bait. He likes it when I do that.

‘If you want me to move to fairyland and get Finn on side for you, you’re not doing a great job,’ I say. ‘If this is how you treat your human servants, then you’re not exactly making it a very attractive offer for me.’

‘Do you fear that my brother would do these things to you?’ he asks, reaching over and stroking a non-existent strand of hair behind my ear. ‘Perhaps I am not the only one who cannot trust him.’

I shove his hand away. More fireworks explode outside the window.

‘I see you have come to tell me no, kitten,’ he says. ‘You have not brought the Silver Lady with you.’

‘I was a bit too busy to think about taking up your offer today,’ I reply. ‘I had kind of a lot to deal with. You murdering my sister-in-law, for instance.’

‘You are under the protection of the Seelie,’ he says. ‘My brother saw to that, when he bargained with us for your life when Jenny Greenteeth and her kelpie sank their teeth into you. And there are none left to protect you on this side of the door but I. The Unseelie must know that you are not to be touched.’

‘Is this why you’re so desperate to get me to move to fairyland? You made a promise to protect me but you want to close your borders and you can’t do it if I’m out here and you’re all shut away in there?’

‘What a cunning little thing you can be,’ he says, running the backs of Dave’s fingers down one of my arms.

I slap his hand away again. ‘Stop sexually harassing me and answer the question. Why do you want to lock all the doors to your country?’

‘That is not your concern, kitten.’

‘It is if you seriously want me to consider moving there. You just said I was cunning. Why would a cunning person blow up their entire life and their entire future if they didn’t know all the facts?’

‘Our world and yours are not the only worlds that there are doors between,’ he says. ‘There are doors also between the Summerland and the Lands of Winter. Doors through which their icy fingers can penetrate.’

‘So lock those doors,’ I say. ‘Leave the door here unlocked, let Finn … I don’t know, commute, problem solved. Your people get their lost prince, he gets the human life he wants, and then in seventy years or whatever when everyone he loves is dead, he can retire to your world full-time.’

‘Oh, kitten, this is so much larger than my rebellious brother,’ he says. ‘But as that is all you seem to care about, let me explain it in the terms you will understand. If I did what you ask and left the Summer Door ajar, there would still be nothing to stop the Unseelie from reaching the Valentine in the human world, and using the last open door to the Summerland – the door here, in your town – to reach my lands. Would I be a good prince to endanger my people so? And would it be wise for yours, do you think, to make your town a highway for the Unseelie?’

Is ‘princesplaining’ a word? Because I feel pretty damn princesplained to right now.

‘The doors between your land and the Unseelie land have been unlocked since, like, the beginning of time, right?’ I say. ‘So why the big rush? What’s so urgent about slamming them shut on their icy fingers right this minute?’

‘I rule the Seelie now,’ the prince says. ‘My father before me … had a different approach to monarchy, and now he, who never should have died, is dead. I will not make his mistakes.’

‘Your dad’s dead because the Unseelie let the Riders out. I made sure that isn’t a problem for you. Weren’t you rubbing it in my face what a big favour I did you? “Oooh, kitten, you made sure I can ride through your pathetic human lands whenever I like”?’

‘You are just like your sister,’ he says.

A-ha. Subject change. I know a U-turn around the truth when I see one.

‘Such a pity, that you are not with her now,’ he goes on, cupping the right side of my face in one of his hands and tracing his thumb along my cheekbone. ‘I am sure she would like to see you again.’

‘Tam told me what you did to her,’ I say, shoving him away roughly with a hand to the solar plexus. He steps back, but he doesn’t stumble, even though Dave’s legs look like the wobbly legs of a newborn deer. ‘How you hurt her when she tried to escape. How you put her to sleep. So yeah, it’s extremely hilarious to me when you tell me Sleeping Beauty would like to see me again. Cool joke.’

‘You have told me no once, kitten,’ he says. ‘I will only ask you to return the Silver Lady to me and come to the Summerland twice more. But I see you are fixed and determined in your ways, and – what did you tell me you were? Distracted.’

I fold my arms. More fireworks explode, bigger, faster. They’re building up to the crescendo of the display.

‘So I will sweeten this deal for you, because I can be generous when needs must,’ he says. ‘I will keep you and yours safe from harm from the Unseelie, so that you may have time to think.’

‘Aren’t you supposed to be doing that anyway? Finn made the Seelie promise –’

‘– to protect you, kitten, not your family, not your friends,’ he says. ‘I returned the ironheart to you, but there are no rules that say I must do anything other than stand idly by while the Unseelie rip her apart. I am not bound to protect your sister, or your brother, or any of your friends. Indeed, I am well within my rights to punish Jenny Greenteeth’s plaything, for what he did to me.’

‘Within your rights?’ I explode. ‘Cardy did nothing wrong. Not one thing.’

‘Is it usual, then, for a human to throw a stone at another in this world and go unpunished for it?’ the prince asks, in a tone so polite it’s come around full circle and become incredibly rude. ‘He flung iron at me, kitten. I am a creature of rules, and that is a debt which must be paid. I had considered doing the same thing to the child my father stole in his stead, who lives in my land and serves the Green Man. And I can throw a much bigger stone than your friend.’

I swallow. If something happened to Rhymer, Cardy would be crushed.

And so would Rhymer, it sounds like. Literally.

‘But I will let both boy and fetch go unpunished,’ the prince says. ‘I will not lay a hand on either of them. I will protect you and yours from the Unseelie, so that you may make your choice in peace. And I will promise you this, kitten.’

He leans close. The last time I was this close to Dave’s face was the last time we kissed, approximately four seconds before I pulled away and was like, ‘Look, Dave, I’m sorry, you’re really nice, but I can’t do this any more. It doesn’t feel right.’

I want to pull away this time. Everything about the prince makes me want to take a step back. And then several thousand more.

But I don’t. Because I’m not backing down. Because I won’t be ruled by fear.

Because I will not cower. I will not shrink back. I will not kneel.

‘If you return to the Summerland when I ask you, kitten,’ the prince says, the last of the fireworks display reflected in Dave’s eyes, ‘I will forgive your sister, and wake her from her slumber.’