Vinnie cackled as she bullied me up the stairs. “Gotta find a way wherever you can. The old paths don’t disappear so easily, even when the mortal realm changes. They lurk behind the factory, ghetto, suburban mall. You may choose not to use them. But some do. That’s why I’m here. To watch what comes over the bridge.”
We were standing suddenly on the bridge, a wide-open expanse that stretched like a road between the banks. Though I could feel the threaded bones of iron buried in the concrete flesh, I could stand. Suddenly the worst of the pain and illness subsided. On the far banks hung a sheer curtain of golden lights reflected in the shimmering surface of the river below. Along the edges of the concrete and metal bridge I could see the faint outline of trees, smell the pungent pine.
It was the way to the Greenwood, to Under the Hill and Elfland. For a moment, I thought of abandoning my friends and throwing myself at the lights of home just to be living again in my woods. For just a moment.
Behind me, I heard Sparrow sob and I turned, realizing that I was not the only one entranced by the sight. Robin had his arm around her, consoling, pulling her toward the middle of the bridge. On his face was a mixture of pain and hope. Faerie had always meant the dark halls of the UnSeelie to him. Now—for the first time in his life—he craved the light of the summer courts.
Awxes and the crows traced slow circles in the air above us. Even Jack had lowered his cudgel to stare in wonder at the undulating lights.
Standing beside me, Vinnie’s ancient face softened until I saw the remainder of the young woman I had once known. Is that true of my face, I wondered, here in the glimmering reflection of the Greenwood? I laid a hand to my cheek as if I might find it young and firm again.
“Every time I come up here I can almost touch it,” Vinnie said. “I can’t cross anymore, only get close enough to remember those years ago, the infants put to my breast. But alas . . .” She laughed sharply. “No insurance or job security with the fey.” She seized my shoulder, her grip strong. “Will you open it for us?”
“Open it?”
“Yeah. Only you can open the way. You’re one of them.”
And then I tasted bitter gall. I was here, but by my banishment the way would not open to me. Vinnie had miscalculated. She had thought I could save us all and so brought us here, to this bridge before a door that would never open to me.
“I cannot,” I stammered, spinning away from her grip. I turned my back to the door.
Vinnie glared at me. “Or maybe you’re as hard-hearted as the rest of the fey. Haven’t I done enough? Don’t I deserve this? Don’t they?” Her chin jutted toward Robin and Sparrow.
Miserable, I looked down at my feet and whispered, “I have been banished, too. By the Queen’s own decree I can never return. There is nothing I can do here. Nothing.”
“You can try,” Jack whispered in my ear.
I turned, looked at him. Really looked. His honest face stared back at me. For him, I thought, I could try and fail. But I could try.
Just then Vinnie spoke again. “Trying won’t cut it now.” She spun me around and there on the streets leading to the far side of the bridge was the Dark Lord’s Hunt riding toward us. The Highborn ranks were marked by the silver tines of horns rising above the carved death masks. The Hunt flowed across the paving, the silver shoes of their mounts leaving trails of sparks. By their sides, the hellhounds bayed, running hard. And behind them loped boogans, ogres, even snarling knucklebones, their rock-hard knuckles striking sparks on the surface of the road.
Overhead bananachs flew, their great tattered wings blocking all sight of the stars.
And we—a small band of misfits, two humans, two halflings, one banished fairy, and a murder of ragged crows—were alone on the bridge to face them.
And it was my fault. My fault for meddling. The guilt of it began to eat at me again till I suddenly remembered that I had been sent here to meddle. Sent here to protect Sparrow.
Protect Sparrow.
“Get behind me,” I cried and thrust myself in front of them. “I may be banished but the law of the courts still applies. They dare not harm me, lest I have done them harm.”
“But you have offered offense,” Robin said quickly, “for there rides Lankin and you struck him.”
“The offense was his when he entered the Great Witch’s house,” I said with more confidence than I felt.
“You still need us at your side,” Jack argued and stood to the left of my shoulder, his ash cudgel held high. Vinnie flanked me on the right. Behind me, I felt the children, imagining them still holding hands and making one another strong. Awxes and the crows drifted back and forth above us, wings brushing against the wall of light and making it ripple with the sound of chimes.
The Hunt approached, and the huntsman blew his horn, calling the slavering pack to heel. The Dark Lord turned to the rider beside him and silently commanded him to go forth. As he approached, I saw him clearly in the glowing lamplight, his silver mask shaped like a half skull, the human side beautiful, the other twisted in pain. Around his shoulders he wore a cloak of burgundy wool, dyed with the blood of innocents: Red Cap, soul drinker, blood eater, bone cruncher, hater of life.
“Stay,” I said. “I must meet him alone.”
“No,” Jack argued.
“It is the only way.”
And I walked away from them toward the center of the bridge, toward Red Cap and the UnSeelie horde.
Oh, sister, I thought—glad she, at least, was not here—Sister, remember me. For well I knew that Red Cap’s swords and arrows could do what mortal weapons could not. Knew that only the eternal law that binds us both held in check his murdering hand.
“You have no right to hunt those under my protection.”
The Highborns and Red Cap broke into raucous laughter, slapping their thighs, rattling their spears and quivers of arrows. An ogre lumbered to the front, turned, displayed his huge, bare arse, and farted, loud as a trumpet.
Removing his mask, Red Cap handed it to a rat-faced page that had scurried up on clawed feet to take it from his master’s hands. Red Cap shifted his weight on the back of his horse. Clearly he was more used to skulking than riding.
“You! You have no power to fight me, Meteora. There be nothing you can do to stop me. Capuchon be my name. Use it if you dare!”
That he knew my true name and spoke it aloud was frightening enough. But I did not dare show my fear. Nor did I speak his name aloud, for I knew there would be a trick in it, else he would never have given it to me so readily.
“No power, you say?” I called back. “Ask your servant, and see where I marked him when he violated the treaty and came uninvited to the home of the Great Witch.” I pointed to the Highborn in a wraith’s hollow-eyed mask in the line of horsemen behind him.
Red Cap turned in the saddle to look at them.
“Hah! Show your face,” he commanded and then cursed loudly when Long Lankin ripped the mask from his face with a jerk, revealing an angry gash marring the plane of his cheek. It had festered into a ragged furrow as all ill-gotten wounds must. Obviously he had not told anyone, shamed to have been bested by an old woman. So far it was the only glimmer of hope we had. Could I bluff my way a little longer?
Red Cap stood up in his stirrups, his eyes slitted into twin daggers. “And who, little bag of pus, gave you such power?”
“The same goddess who awarded it to you.” The words came to me suddenly, like a gift. “Before we existed, power flowed in the heart of earth, shaping rock and soil, water and air. I have learned that even trapped in this mortal body I can find that power without the leave of Elfland. It is mine by the right of She-Who-Birthed-All.” I knew as I spoke these brave words that they were true. In part. Though aged and weakened, I was not wholly without magic. I held it in my mouth like a wintered berry, withered, but still sweet and nourishing. And I had seen that the mortals here had power, too, though we of the Greenwood scarce acknowledge it. Lavinia’s milk had had the power to suckle and sustain our infants. Clearly the gifts flowed both ways. Faerie to mortals, mortals to the fey. So when would we honor that truth?
“What gives you the right to claim these mortals as your own?” Red Cap asked.
“The law.”
And then he laughed again, the Hunt following suit. The sound echoed over the water of the river.
Red Cap broke through that laughter. “The law was broken when we were denied a tithe in blood. I have come to claim it.”
I whirled about and stared behind me, at Sparrow, at Robin, looking small and lost in the bridge’s wide-open arms. Jack and Vinnie held their feeble weapons before them, ready to fight. For a moment, doubt troubled me, and then no more. The Highborn could kill us but they could not defeat us. Slowly I turned back.
“Those are mine now,” I said.
“There is no one with the power to grant such rights to you.”
“The Queen—”
“Especially the Queen!” Red Cap shouted. “She played her game and lost. She has no cause to tread these roads, no claim to the blood marked by my servant to be my sacrifice. That tithe be mine and I be seeing you threshed as barley beneath my heel lest you vow to serve me.”
There was a sudden hush. The bridge seemed to ring out with the silence. Even the crows had stopped cawing. The hellhounds lay down at the feet of the horses. Everything was still.
Once again Doubt, my old familiar, sat on my shoulder, whispering in my ear: “What have you accomplished with your meddling? Had you not always left politics to the Highborn? Did your sister not warn you to leave these children alone?” Wise words to sing in the ear of a small, insignificant fey who liked only her pleasures. But I was not that creature now. I had changed, my sister had changed, as our world had changed. All of us had changed.
Except the Queen.
And then it occurred to me. The Queen. Searching the streets of that iron city where Serana lived. Mandrake roots twisted like strangled lovers. A girl marked with the sign of trouble. And us, sisters of the Greenwood sent forth to meddle. Why had it taken me so long to understand what it all was for?
“What mark?” I shouted back defiantly. I searched the skies for Serana, praying now that Serana would appear. Surely the two of us changed creatures could stand against Red Cap. But even without her, I had to try. Squaring my shoulders, I shook old Doubt off. “What mark proves your claim, you old bogie?”
“Ho! Bring me the girl!” Red Cap demanded.
Two of his ogre pets lumbered toward us, but before they could reach us Sparrow shoved past Jack and Vinnie and came to stand beside me.
“Fuck you,” she shouted. “You don’t own me, asshole.” She tore off her shirt, and in the stark light of the streetlamps her pale torso gleamed, revealing the bare and flawless skin of her shoulders. She turned and showed her neck, curved like the white arch of the swan. Even the twisted knot of trouble was gone.
Only then did Red Cap frown. The mount beneath him stumbled, quivering with the heat of its rider’s rage. “How is this possible?” he asked, turning in the saddle to glare at Lankin.
Even I wondered. I knew the spells of unbinding. I had worked them a little. Goodywife spells. And I knew that all but this last one, the one on her neck, had faded. But how had this one been so completely removed that the Red Cap’s glare, like yeast to dough, had not raised it up again? Surely not just the fiddle, not just the stay at Vinnie’s. Surely there was something I was missing.
“I come to claim what is mine,” Sparrow called. “I woke Robin and his blood is bound to me as mine is to him.”
Robin came quietly to stand beside Sparrow. He was changed too. His eyes gleamed green and gold. There was no longer a hound’s shadow beneath his skin. Horns budded on his high forehead and along his neck scrolled a tattoo of briar and rose together.
“Cast-off whelp, spittle of a mudwife’s lips,” Red Cap hissed in frustration.
“But yours nonetheless,” Robin cried out, “and so I have made a pact already. The tithe is paid, Father. You cannot amend it.”
Father! And then I saw what I had not before, how like they were around the jawline, around the eyes, though there was no cruelty in Robin’s face.
“Then you own her,” Red Cap roared, “what good it be to you.” His mouth was a thin line, a frown that could bring down bridges. Then he suddenly smiled, which was infinitely worse than his frown, opening his arms, though even I could read those arms as the bars of a jail. “Come and be welcomed back into our house again. All will be forgiven. Rule with me.” Almost carelessly, he put his fingers to his lips, and suddenly he whistled, though it was so high, only the dogs actually heard it and they stood by the feet of the horses, threw back their awful heads and howled. One even shat down a black steed’s leg, and was kicked in the head for his misdeed, dying in a puddle of blood, which only excited the other dogs.
Robin shook his head. “You mistake my meaning, Father. For there is human blood in me, no matter how hard you have tried to erase it with your iron rod. I have surrendered unto Sparrow the gift of that blood.” He held up his hand, palm toward Red Cap. “See here where the line of our bloodletting still heals. And on her the same.”
Sparrow held her hand up, too, palm forward, but with her middle finger raised in defiance.
“No! No!” Red Cap’s voice was a shriek now, like the wind in a storm, as high as his whistle had been, but no longer cruel. “It be not happening thus. This bitch, this knot of grass does not command you in my place. I have no fear of her or you. For there be no law without the Faerie courts, and here on this bridge, I alone decide the outcome. There be blood yet spilled and my hat will be red with it. Ho!”
His sword left its scabbard, and swift as lightning it flashed toward Sparrow. I gave no thought but flung myself between her and its point. Sparrow fell beneath me, screaming as I screamed and the sword exploded in my flesh. The blade bit deep below my heart, scraping against the bones of my ribs. Hot blood cascaded across my chest. Dazed, I wanted to rise, but could not find the strength. Deafened by the sound of my heart’s slow beating, I could only watch what happened around me.
Robin, Jack, and Vinnie stood over Sparrow and me as we lay huddled within the protective cage of their legs. Jack swung his bat and the crack of the ash caved in an ogre’s skull. Then he lifted the bat once again, its light tip stained with the ogre’s green blood and took aim at the next UnSeelie creature.
Meanwhile, Vinnie struck her iron club against the hounds that leapt at us. One and two fell, and a third raked her arm with its teeth before she shoved the club down its throat and it died a shuddering death.
Elf darts flew like swift birds through the air and were stopped by the wailing of Robin’s fiddle. Rosin puffed in the air and the crash of the bow buckled the concrete, hurling chunks of broken road and exposing the staves of iron beneath.
Yet I despaired, for no matter how valiant my mates were, I knew it would not be enough. Not nearly enough.
Then through the howling and wailing, I heard a booming pair of voices calling across the river. The booming was really a strange low keening sound, almost like a banshee’s voice, though I realized that it came from two black crones afloat in the sky. They were holding hands and singing down lightning from the heavens. “Hi-de-ho,” they chanted, a sound that struck me as deeply as the sword. The lightning struck the bridge, making the hanging wires spark and those sparks hit the buckled paving and jumped to the bridles of the horses who screamed and tried to throw their riders.
“Hi-de-ho!” the two sang until all but Red Cap and Lankin were unmounted.
Near them, but now falling slowly from the sky, her wings scattering in a cloud of feathers, was a bulky woman, pale as a milkweed. She touched down softly onto the bridge, then came racing toward me, faster than such a woman had any right to run.
“Paddle Foot!” It was Serana, in the ugliest dress I have ever seen. But ugly dress, fleshy body, she was my sister and I felt her pulse as though it were my own.
“Sister,” I cried. And then I fainted.
When I came to, I thought it was Serana’s hands pressing against my chest, trying to stop the flow of blood. But it was Sparrow who stanched the wound, weeping and calling to me to have courage, to stay with her as the fight roared over our heads. Parts of the bridge, bits of iron, were falling all about us, as thick as summer rains. Though surprisingly, none struck us, for Sparrow held me in the protection of her arms. And it was then I knew for certain why Red Cap had sought to claim the girl and why the Queen had banished us here to be her hope for return.
I could feel in her touch the royal richness of her fey blood, blood that thickened with the summer sun, blood like the green healing sap of the trees bringing resurrection from their winter’s death. But she was also something new. Not just the Queen’s child. She had a magic made greater by her human side and all the sorrows she had borne.
Sparrow poured her light into me and had I not stopped her, she would have emptied herself of the gift to see me healed. This I could not let her do. Weak, but alive, I roused myself and held her face between my hands. “Enough, child,” I said. “You have done enough.”
“Will you look at that,” shouted Vinnie, swinging her cudgel against a kucklebones’ legs, knocking it flat against the ground. A second strike pummeled its ugly face.
Sparrow and I turned and there was Serana, my brave sister, crouched like a tiger on Red Cap’s back, a fat, aging tiger but one whose claws still could make a mark. She raked at his face and he flailed on the back of his horse, both astonished and furious to be caught so short, and by an aged dam. And while she fought him, the iron parts of the bridge rained down so hard I feared for her life.
Meanwhile, the black crones slid and leapt beneath the bellies of the horses, calling back and forth to each other. And the faerie horses, their eyes rolling with terror, once again bucked their riders to the ground.
Almost, I thought. Perhaps, I prayed. Hope beat in my breast like a caged bird. And then I wailed, holding out a hand useless to help, as I watched Red Cap reach his long arms behind him, grasp Serana, and fling her to the ground. She hit the concrete, and bounced, hard. Curling in agony, she tried desperately to stay clear of the trampling hooves.
I could not stop screaming her name, trying to rise and the blood erupting anew from my wounds when I saw him sword in hand, searching for her amid the agitated horses.
That was the moment of my greatest despair. I could think of no greater loss, no greater horror, than to lose Serana, twin beat to my heart. There on the bridge, that span between the mortal world and that of our realm, I thought to die with her, the crones, Vinnie, the children of our blood, and my Jack, still fighting to protect me. I struggled to my feet to meet this death with honor. And wavering as I stood, I heard a sound I thought never to hear again.
The bright thrilling cry of the Seelie horns.
I turned and saw the wall of golden light flare, for a moment blinding all on the bridge. The flock of crows scattered, their wild caws heralding the arrival of the Queen’s court, riding through the shower of light to join us on the bridge. They came swiftly, the bells of their bridles ringing madly, the arrows of our archers nocked in the great ash bows. As they came, the UnSeelie withdrew from us in haste to the far side of the bridge, scrambling up onto their twice-addled mounts and dragging with them their wounded. Their dead they left unceremoniously behind.
And just as suddenly Serana was there, her arms wrapped around me. Blood calls to blood and so did ours, mingling from the wounds we carried along with the tears. We touched one another’s faces with wonder and then we laughed, for I think we had not really understood how aged we were until we saw our reflection in the other’s eyes.
When the Queen arrived at the midway point of the bridge, there was another stillness in the air, though no menace in this one. She sat straight-backed on the snowy mare, holding a torch high, the gold corona of her hair like the sun. In its light, her eyes blazed with fury. She called out to Red Cap, “You are forbidden to hunt a child of the royal blood.”
“Hah! Old Queen, the girl stinks of human meat. No glamour can hide that. Ho!” He snarled, but defeat was written on his face.
“And yet she is both. Blood of my blood and blood of the mortal that sired her. There is no shame there.”
“Ho! No shame? Then why hide her so long? This mongrel whelp—”
“This Highborn Queen has the right to command you who are nothing more than a servant.” She smiled at him, and I felt my bowels curdle at that smile. “I hid her so you could not do what you have tried.”
“Monstrous!”
“But true,” cackled a voice from behind the horses. A path was made and Baba Yaga as I remembered her—naked and coarse—a satchel slung over one shoulder, strolled to Red Cap, who was still seething in pent-up rage. “I have not forgotten you,” she said, wagging a bony finger in his direction. “You offered no sacrifice to me, no gesture of respect which I am owed. Your creatures desecrated my house and gardens. And the house of my friend, the Jack. Very bad manners. By right of law, I could eat you, but I doubt I would like the taste.”
Red Cap looked down, like a boy chastised.
Lankin kicked his mount, forcing it through the throng of boogans and nightstalkers until he was close enough to look down from atop his horse at Baba Yaga. “We owe no allegiance to you, old hag. The Dark rises and you are history.” His lips pulled into a sneer. “Red Cap, forget that bastard child, we have no need of her blood, for I have found another way.” He held up a crystal flask and when he opened it, the ripe scent of mortal blood filled the air, thick and cloying as almond paste. The still-living hounds bayed and their jaws snapped hungrily.
Without warning, Baba Yaga reached out a clawed hand and with a powerful swipe tore open the neck of Lankin’s mount. The terrified horse reared up, and wild with pain, splattered hot blood over the concrete.
Bellowing commands, Lankin struggled to control his panicked horse but he was thrown to the ground as the horse collapsed on its side, and the flask of human blood shattered next to him.
The boogans, ignoring the thrashing legs of the dying horse, threw themselves down on all fours and lapped at the slick puddles of the mingled blood. Lankin was left to grovel beside his slain horse, desperately trying to gather up the broken shards of glass and save some of the contents.
Ignoring the frenzied bodies feeding at her feet, Baba Yaga tore handfuls of flesh from the dying horse and consumed it in huge mouthfuls, her jaws cracking with pleasure. We all watched silently as she ate her fill. Even Red Cap withdrew, reminded I am sure that the Great Witch could never be claimed by either side. She was her own universe.
Finally, having finished her meal, and licking her fingers, Baba Yaga looked down at Lankin, and sniffed. “That’s for killing my dog. You should have kept the fuck out of my house.”
She walked over to where Sparrow and I waited, still clinging to one another. She removed a cloth bag from her satchel and handed it to Sparrow.
“Your journals. You left them behind.”
Sparrow took the bag in both hands and the tears formed in her eyes. “Lily,” she said. “I couldn’t save Lily. I’m sorry. I loved that little dog.”
Baba Yaga smiled, a not entirely pleasing sight as bits of Lankin’s horse were still visible in her iron-capped teeth. She patted the satchel. “Her bones are here. The Hands saved them for me. I will make another Lily. That little shit Red Cap has no power over those under my protection. Including you.” She leaned down and gave Sparrow an unexpected kiss on the forehead. “See,” she whispered to Sparrow, though I was close enough to hear, “now both sides will think very hard before giving trouble for you.”
Then she turned and tapped me lightly on the cheek. “You’ve done well, little one. My garden looked good and will look good again. As for those very bad boys of the first floor, they are now keeping the rusalki company in the lake. It’s time for me to go home again for a while.” The burning embers of her eyes flared to life. “The fall semester is about to begin. And the little chicks will be looking for a place to live.”
She strolled to the Queen who slid from her horse to greet the Witch. How odd it was to see them standing there, youth and beauty bowing her head before Baba Yaga’s aged body. Baba Yaga spoke to her softly, and the Queen’s gaze followed to where Sparrow and I still huddled together on the ground. I saw her smile weakly, and then nod. Baba Yaga stepped away and the Seelie court parted to let her pass. She walked away down the bridge with her vigorous stride, and then she was gone, swallowed up by the darkness long before she reached the veil of lights that hid the Greenwood and Faerie.