The Unready Queen Page 7

  Kull waved his hand. “Bah,” he said. “Ya know what they say. Never learn nothin’ iffin ya dinna gnaw on a few live wires.”

  “That is definitely not a thing that anybody says. That’s a terrible idea, and it is probably going to kill you. I mean, point taken and all, but maybe don’t do that.”

  Kull chuckled. “Shall we get to it, then? Straight ta transformation again, or maybe shanties first this time?”

  Tinn took a deep breath. “Transformation,” he said. “I’m ready to try some fine-tuning.”

  Eleven

  Fable hugged the tree trunk with one arm and let her feet dangle down from the high branch, feeling the tree sway lazily beneath her. The air was crisp, and leafy treetops rippled in the morning breeze. The sky was just waking up, still rimmed with gentle pinks, but it was growing brighter by the minute. From her pine tree vantage point, Fable could not yet see the rising sun over the tops of the forested hills, but she could see the house. She watched the house.

  Her mother had been very clear about Fable not leaving the forest, so she hadn’t. Endsborough was absolutely, positively out of bounds. Fable had become an expert in bending her mother’s rules, finding loopholes and cutting the corners ever so slightly—but she knew better than to actually break any of them. Her mother had been grumpy about something all yesterday afternoon, but for once she did not seem to be grumpy about Fable—and Fable was happy to keep it that way for as long as possible.

  There was movement behind one of the windows. Fable straightened. It might be nothing more than the Burtons’ chubby cat again. Fable could see infuriatingly little from so far away. A distant click. Had that been the front door? Annie stepped into view, walking down the road toward town, wearing that pretty coat that came down to her knees, the one with the bright, shiny buttons. Apparently, dresses needed to hide their buttons in the back, but it was fine for coats to have them in the front.

  “Good morning, Annie Burton!” Fable yelled. “Hello!” She waved broadly, and the tree swayed wildly with her movements.

  Annie could not hear her. She continued to march on down the road until she vanished around the bend. Fable sagged. She had a clear view of the boys’ window from where she perched—if only she could get their attention. She snapped a tiny pinecone from one of the scrawny branches above her, leaned as far back as she dared, and hurled it toward the house. It spun in the wind and came to land in a bush far below. It had not even reached the Burtons’ back garden. Fable needed a better plan.

  Five minutes later, she climbed back up to the top of the swaying pine tree with a pocketful of rocks. The first one she threw in a similar fashion, and it failed in a similar fashion. The next she held carefully in one hand. She cupped her palm loosely around it. She hooked a foot snugly around the branch below her, lifted her empty hand, and slapped it hard down atop the stone. A shower of sparks burst from between her fingers and the stone shot out from her hands like it had been fired from a miniature cannon. Fable flew backward. She would have fallen a very long way if not for her foothold. She hung upside down for a moment and grinned, then quickly righted herself. She had not seen exactly where the rock had landed, but she suspected it was somewhere near the vegetable patch. This could work.

  She tried a second rock, and this one skipped off into the gravel on the side of the house. Closer! Sparks flew as a third shot assaulted the rosebushes, a fourth flew wide, and then the fifth finally made contact with the house.

  It clattered along the rooftop and came to rest near the chimney. Fable let out a whoop and waited. Nothing happened.

  She frowned. Another clap and another burst of sparks as Fable tried a sixth rock and then a seventh, really getting the hang of it by the eighth. The ninth might have had a bit more force than she really needed—it lodged itself with a solid crack in the wood of the back door—but still no Burton boys emerged.

  That was when Fable smelled smoke. She glanced down. Oh, she thought. Right. That’s why Mama hates slappy sparks.

  By the time Cole made his way into the forest, the fire was already out. “Hey, Fable,” he said, sliding over a mossy log. “Did you shoot my house?”

  “You came!” Fable bounded across the slightly smoky forest floor and launched herself at Cole. She squinted at him for a second. “Just one of you?”

  “Tinn’s spending the day with his, um, other family,” said Cole. “Did you light a signal fire just to get my attention?”

  “Oh,” said Fable. “That . . . is exactly what happened. Yes. I did that. On purpose. And you came!”

  “Well, what do you need?”

  Fable shrugged. “I dunno. What do you need?”

  Cole shook his head. “Well. A friend to hang out with would be nice, I suppose,” he said. “Wanna go exploring?”

  Fable’s eyes doubled in size and her fists shook. “SO MUCH!”

  Cole laughed. “Okay, then. You’ve got soot on your cheek, you know.”

  “I know!” Fable said. “It’s from all the stuff I lit on fire! I tried to put it out with my brain-hand, but that never works, so I had to use my hand-hands and a buncha wet dirt. Hey! Wanna go see if we can find any morning dew sprites before they’re all gone?”

  The two of them trooped along the grassy gully, up over clover-blanketed hills, and down along the shores of the Oddmire as the sun crawled its way over the eastern treetops.

  “You have no idea how boring it is,” Fable said, hopping up on a mossy stump, “practicing proper magic all the dang time. Hours.”

  “Are you kidding?” said Cole. “I would give anything to have magic like yours.”

  “Well, apparently it’s not enough unless it’s magic like hers. A good Witch of the Wood is supposed to be so perfect.”

  “At least you can do magic. Between all the stuff you can do and all the stuff Tinn can do, I’m starting to feel like I can’t do anything at all.”

  “How’s it going with Tinn, anyway?” asked Fable.

  “It’s—” Cole paused. “It’s weird.”

  “Weird how?”

  “Weird that Tinn has a whole long-lost family that isn’t mine.” They picked their way up an old, dry creek bed. “I mean—I’m happy for him. Really, I am. It’s good that he’s getting to know them. It’s just . . .”

  “Lonely?” said Fable. “Scary?”

  Cole plopped down on a dusty boulder to catch his breath. “We both spent our whole lives being afraid to be the changeling. Now that I know it’s him and not me—I mean . . . I never imagined I would feel . . . It’s stupid.”

  “Feel what?”

  “Jealous, I guess.”

  “You want to be a goblin?” Fable sat down on the bank across from him.

  “No. It’s not that.” Cole rubbed his neck. “You know Kull? The one that’s been taking care of Tinn when he visits the horde?”

  “Yeah. My mama hates that guy pretty hard.”

  “Yeah. Well, I don’t know exactly how parenting works for goblins—Tinn says there’s something about an egg and a brood ceremony—but however it works, Kull has been acting kinda like, well, like a dad to Tinn. Kull’s been able to answer a lot of questions for him.” Cole shuffled his feet along the dry, cracked dirt. “With Mom starting up work now and Tinn gone all the time, it’s just left me thinking more and more about . . .” Cole let the words trail off.

  Fable nodded. She knew about Cole’s father and about his disappearance back when the boys were still babies.

  “You might find him someday,” said Fable. “Mama says my dad died in a fairy war.”

  “Sorry,” said Cole. “That’s rough.”

  “Tell you what. I’ll be your dad if you be mine,” Fable offered, jumping to her feet.

  Cole laughed.

  “I bet I’d be a super good dad,” said Fable. “What’s something dads say?”

  “I wou
ldn’t know.” Cole pushed himself up and rejoined Fable as she pressed on up the next hill.

  “Me, neither,” said Fable.

  “How about advice?” suggested Cole. “Dads are supposed to teach you life lessons, right?” He cleared his throat. “Ahem. A penny saved is a penny earned, young lady.”

  “Nice!” said Fable. “I will treasure that advice forever, Father. What’s a penny?”

  “Now you do one,” said Cole.

  “Hm. Okay. Never offend a spriggan, young man, for their tempers are short and their grudges are long.”

  “That’s good!” said Cole. “You’re right, you do make a good dad. What’s a spriggan?”

  “What’s a spriggan? How do you not know what a spriggan is? Jeez, no wonder your mom doesn’t want you to wander around the woods on your own.” They crested the next rise and Fable pointed toward a shimmering pond in a copse of trees just ahead. “Thirsty?” she asked.

  Cole followed her. The forest buzzed with life, but the pool was calm and quiet.

  “There’s a freshwater spring under the surface,” said Fable. “It comes up here, and then goes back underground again. It surfaces as a little stream down the hill a ways.” She cupped her hands and took a big sip from the pond.

  “Is it really okay to drink that water? Isn’t it dirty?”

  “Who do you think you’re talking to? I know what I’m doing. This is only the cleanest water in the whole forest. Maybe the whole world.”

  “There’s a frog swimming in it.”

  “What, her? That’s just Kallra. She won’t bother you. She’s a girl sometimes. Besides, frogs swimming in a pond is the best way to know that the water is good. Don’t you know anything?”

  “Hold on. Back up. That’s who?”

  The bullfrog surfaced and clambered onto a damp rock to regard the children with keen, glistening eyes.

  Fable laughed. “Don’t worry. Kallra isn’t mean—even though she never plays with me, not even when she’s being a girl. Whenever I try to go swimming with her, she turns back into a frog and hides, but I think she’s just shy. She shares her spring, though, so that’s nice of her. Hi, Kallra!” Fable waved at the bullfrog, who croaked politely.

  “So Kallra is some sort of a nymph?”

  “Kinda. Mama calls her a nature spirit. There’s lots of different nature spirits in the Wild Wood.”

  Cole stared at the frog. “Um. Hello,” he said.

  The bullfrog’s eyes shone brightly. She studied Cole for a few more seconds, and then dove back into the clear water. For just a moment, beyond the reflected image of the treetops bouncing in the ripples, Cole saw a pretty, blue-green face peering up at him intensely from underwater. The figure spun, and then the girl was gone.

  “I think she likes you,” said Fable. “Ooh—watch the reflections!”

  “The reflections?” said Cole.

  “That’s Kallra’s special thing,” Fable explained. “If she wants to, she can show you hints about your future in the reflections in her pool.”

  They stared at the pond’s surface as the ripples gradually faded. Cole could see the sky above them, the bright canopy of green leaves, and the dark outlines of the tree trunks. He leaned over the edge for a better look. His own face peered back at him. He glanced toward Fable. She was uncharacteristically focused, her brow crinkled and her lips tight as she watched the surface. Cole turned back to the pool.

  His own face in the water had changed. He blinked. The face staring back at him still looked like his—it had the same nose, the same eyes—but it had become somehow harder, older. Cole squinted and leaned his head this way and that. Maybe it was just the soil beneath the surface, but he could have sworn that the shadow of a beard now colored his chin. The man in Cole’s reflection—it was definitely a man now and not a boy—had heavy bags beneath his eyes and wore a ragged gray cloak that Cole had never seen before. Cole raised a hand to touch his cheek, and the man’s hand rose to his own. The man wore a simple silver band on his ring finger. A tingle scurried up Cole’s spine. His chest felt tight.

  “D-Dad?” he breathed.

  Without warning, the earth shook.

  The pond’s surface rippled into a million fractured images of Cole, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open. He fell back onto the grass, his head reeling, as if waking abruptly from a dream. “Wh-what’s going on?”

  “Earthquake,” Fable said. “They keep happening lately. I don’t know why. It’ll be over soon, though. There we go.”

  The tremor eased and stopped. Cole turned back to the pond, but its surface was a mosaic of repeating forests in miniature.

  “Did you see him?” Cole asked.

  “Him?” said Fable.

  Cole bit his lower lip and leaned over the water while the surface slowly cleared again. The scores of images melted into dozens, and then gradually into one. Cole stared at his reflection, holding his breath. Nothing happened. There was no world-weary man staring back at him, just a dusty boy.

  “I think it’s over,” said Fable. “Kallra only ever gives you a tiny peek. She actually talks to my mama, sometimes. It’s not fair. What did you see?”

  Cole didn’t answer right away. He was still peering into the water. A flicker of movement caught his eye, and he found himself looking past his own face into the darkness below it. On the muddy bottom of the pool, two glimmering green eyes stared up at him. The bullfrog spun and vanished into a muddy cloud. Where it had been, a perfectly round rock was visible for just a moment before the silt settled on top of it.

  “Come on,” said Fable. “I’ll show you some other stuff.”

  “Wait a second,” said Cole. He rolled up his sleeve and reached into the pool. His fingers brushed the loose mud, finding nothing at first, so he leaned in farther. The cold water soaked through his shirt and chilled his chest and shoulders until his hand finally closed around a hard, smooth disc. He pulled it up, shaking the wet dirt and droplets from it.

  Fable peered over Cole’s shoulder as he turned the rock around in his hand. It fit easily in his palm, only a little wider and thicker than a silver dollar. It had a hole at one end, as though perhaps it had once been hung from a string. Its surface was carved with an intricate design.

  “Is that a tree?” said Cole.

  “Maybe,” said Fable. “Lucky. Kallra never gives me anything.”

  “What does it mean?”

  Fable shrugged.

  “Do you think I can keep it?” said Cole. “Would that be okay?”

  “Duh,” said Fable. “A lady in a lake just gave you a present. It’d be rude not to. Didn’t your mama ever teach you basic manners?”

  “I don’t think someone who pees behind a bush is allowed to lecture me about manners.”

  “I only peed behind the bush because you got all weird when I started to pee in front of the bush. Jeesh. Everybody pees, Cole. It’s not like I peed on a pixie ring. I’m not about to make that mistake twice. Hey, you wanna see a pixie ring?”

  Cole turned the disc over and over in his hand as Fable led him onward through the Wild Wood. His feet stumbled, but his mind was racing. If the nature spirit had really wanted him to have this, then it had to be related to his vision, right? Did this mean his father was definitely still out there? Would the stone somehow help them find him? This could be the first clue in thirteen years that might connect Cole to his own long-lost family.

  “What the snot happened here!”

  Cole looked up to follow Fable’s horrified gaze.

  All around them, the ferns and grasses had been trampled down, and several limbs had been lopped off the trees nearby. A little way ahead, the tree trunks thinned out and rolling grassy hills began.

  “Looks like somebody else came exploring through here first,” said Cole. “Where are we?”

  “Not a place that people are sup
posed to go exploring! This part of the forest is extra special. There’s a sacred Grandmother Tree right over—” Fable stopped. “Wait. It should be right up ahead. We should be able to see it from here.”

  “Maybe you got turned around,” suggested Cole. “Let’s—whoa!”

  Cole pitched forward abruptly, slamming hard onto the forest floor, one leg jammed deep into a hole in the earth.

  “Ow!” he managed.

  “And what is THAT?” Fable demanded.

  Cole pulled himself out of the hole. His hip was sore from the landing, but miraculously he did not appear to have turned an ankle or broken anything. The hole into which he had stumbled was perfectly circular and only a bit wider than a dinner plate. It went straight down, deeper than he could see. His foot had not felt a bottom. “You know any giant gophers?” he said.

  “This was not gophers.” Fable narrowed her eyes. She reached a hand up to feel the fresh sap dripping from the severed tree branch. “Mama is not going to be happy about this.”

  The stone Cole had gotten from Kallra had been knocked out of his grasp by the fall, but it had only bounced a few feet away and come to rest in a pile of pine needles. Cole bent down to retrieve it, but as he rose, he felt a crawling, prickling sensation on the back of his hand. He swiped at his wrist instinctively, and connected with something that felt decidedly heavier than an insect. It gave a screechy squawk as it flew through the air, and then landed with a plop next to the hole.

  “Sorry!” Cole stepped toward it and stood over the crumpled creature. It was a miniature person, no more than five or six inches tall, built like a sturdy tree branch. Its legs and arms looked as though they had been woven out of flexible twigs. Cole could not tell if the figure was wearing tiny wooden armor or if it simply had a chest that resembled tree bark. One of its sticklike legs was bent and badly splintered. It breathed heavily as it attempted to right itself.

  “Oh, jeez. Sorry, little guy,” said Cole. “Or girl? Wood-person? I didn’t mean to—um. You were just on my hand, and I . . . Sorry.”

  The creature turned, its face a tiny mask of indignant rage.