CHAPTER NINETEEN

Ruth and Grace

he worst thing, Grace thought, about having bees all over your face and arms was how they tickled. But you didn’t dare do a thing about it. All you could do was feel the way your skin squirmed under all those fuzzy little bee feet and try not to sneeze or swat at them and their tiny riders. It was horrible.

Even when the cloud of bees finally lifted from her and Ruth, she could still sense thousands of little feet carpeting her skin. It was like how you still feel cobwebs clinging to you after you’ve brushed them away. You know they’re gone, but a ghostly veil of them still clings to your skin.

“Grace…?” Ruth said at her side.

Instead of rubbing at her face and arms the way Grace was, Ruth was staring past Grace, farther up the slope, her face pale. Grace slowly turned to see what had caught her sister’s attention.

She almost wished she hadn’t.

Bee fairies, it seemed, could come in any size. From the tiny ones that had covered them on the journey to get here and the fat bumblebee man who’d captured them, to these terrifying lords and the lady with their grim faces, sitting tall and straight-backed on horses that didn’t seem quite right. But then the riders weren’t quite right, either. They were almost people, but their features were all too sharp and they had a cold light in their eyes like no normal person Grace had ever seen. There were footmen, too. A lot of them, all armed with bows and arrows, rapiers, and slender spears with barbed tips.

Her own heart sank.

“So,” she said in a small voice, her hand reaching for and finding Ruth’s. “Tell me again why we left the house today, when we could have been safely doing housework, which, I have to tell you now, I would just love to be doing because it’d sure beat being here.”

“Anything would beat being here,” Ruth said.

“You wouldn’t happen to have any firecrackers in your pocket, would you? Or a pistol, say?”

“No, but… but would a can of Raid do?”

Grace squeezed her hand and found a weak smile. Never let them see you’re scared, she remembered Adie telling them once, when she and Ruth were being picked on by some kids at school. Fear only eggs them on like a pack of dogs. Just stand up and take the licking, and try to give back as good as you get. You might get hurt, but they’re going to know you’re not easy targets and next time they’ll think twice before they come after you.

And it had worked, too—a couple of black eyes and a few dozen scrapes and bruises later. They’d only ever had to fight twice, standing back-to-back as the bullies ganged up on them. After that, even the older kids left them alone.

“A can of Raid would be perfect,” she told Ruth now.

“If only.”

“And it would have to be humongous. How big a pocket do you have, anyway?”

“Be still!” the only woman in the group told them.

She looked to be their leader—the queen bee, Grace supposed. They all had a hardness—a mean, savage air about them, but from the look of her, she could have invented the very idea of meanness. Which was awful for a whole bunch of reasons, but one was that she could have been so pretty if she hadn’t let that cruelty twist her features.

Grace swallowed hard. No fear, she reminded herself. Or at least don’t show it.

“Oh, shut up, yourself,” she said. “Who do you think you are—our mother?”

Ruth tugged at her sleeve with her free hand. “You know, maybe we shouldn’t be quite so—”

“I am hardly your mother,” the woman interrupted, her voice like ice. “I am no one’s mother. Not any longer.”

“Big surprise there,” Grace said. “No boyfriend, either, I’m guessing. Not with that personality.”

“May-maybe you should think about a makeover,” Ruth said.

That was the spirit, Grace thought.

“Oh sure,” she added. “Mama says they can make you feel like a whole new woman, which, with you, would be a big improvement.”

The woman’s lips twisted into a gruesome smile, which made her even scarier than when she was just looking mean.

If she could have, Grace would have taken off right then. Just run off with Ruth, as fast and far away from here as they could. But they couldn’t outrun horses. Or those strange dogs she now spied, six or seven of them crouched in a half circle. She blinked, realizing that the dogs had Root penned up against the trunk of some old apple tree, though Root didn’t appear to be taking much notice of them.

Turning back to the woman, she caught a glimpse of red hair farther up the slope. Staring harder, she realized it was Elsie, sitting on the ground under a big beech tree, her hands tied in front of her.

Did that mean they had Adie, too? And Janey?

“I don’t know if you’re brave or simply half-witted,” the woman said, “and frankly, I don’t care. But you are an annoyance.”

“Shall we bind them and put them with the others?” one of the footmen standing by her horse asked.

“Well, now,” the queen said. “We certainly don’t need all four of these wretched girls to bargain with. All we need is one more than the dirt-eaters have.”

“Should I take the other back to their world?” the fat little man who’d captured them asked.

“Why bother? Just kill one of them”—she gestured with her chin—“this rude one who talks too much—and put the other with her sisters.”

“But, madam,” the little man began, obviously as shocked as Grace was by the queen’s offhand order for her execution. “They are red-haired.…”

The queen gave him a long, cold look. “Are you arguing with me?”

“No, but… the Father of Cats says such mortals are sacred.”

The queen made a sharp motion with her hand and one of the footmen stepped forward, notched an arrow and let it fly.

All of Grace’s bravery fled. She winced, but the arrow wasn’t meant for her. The little man went down, knees buckling under him. He gasped, tearing at the arrow with his fingers. Blood streamed over his hands and down his chest before he toppled over onto the ground.

Grace thought she was going to throw up. Ruth’s sudden tight grip on her hand would have hurt if she weren’t already gripping Ruth’s hand just as fiercely.

“Well done,” the queen told the archer. She turned to regard her court. “Does anyone else wish to question my orders?”

It had been quiet in the meadow before this. Now the silence was profound. Not even the horses moved.

The queen returned her gaze to the twins, that terrible smile twitching the corners of her mouth.

“That’s better,” she said. “Now if someone would deal with these little wretches…?”

The bowman notched another arrow.