Prologue
When I had
real friends, I was the long-lost queen of the elves.
A warrior
queen who hitched up her skirt and wielded a blade. Who held her retainers in
thrall. Until they left me for their goddesses.
Love. A
curse that snatches friends away.
One day,
when only two of my retainers remained, the old crone who lived on the northern
outskirts of the village was our prey. It was twenty points if you spotted her.
Fifty points if you got her to look at you. A hundred points if she started
screaming at you.
You won
for life if you got close enough to touch her.
“Noll,
please don’t do this,” whispered Jurij from behind the wooden kitten mask
covering his face. Really, his mother still put him in kitten masks, even
though eleven was too old for a boy to be wearing kittens and bunnies.
Especially ones that looked likely to get eaten for breakfast by as much as a
weasel.
“Shut up,
I want to see this!” cried Darwyn. Never a kitten, Darwyn always wore a wolf
mask. Yet behind the nasty tooth-bearing wolf grin—one of my father’s better
masks—he was very much a fraidycat.
Darwyn
shoved Jurij aside so he could crouch behind the bush that was our threadbare
cover. Jurij nearly toppled over, but I caught him and set him gently upright.
Sometimes I didn’t know if Jurij realized who was supposed to be serving whom. Queens shouldn’t have to keep retainers from falling.
“Quiet,
both of you.” I scanned the horizon. Nothing. All was still against the northern
mountains save for the old crone’s musty shack with its weakly smoking chimney.
The edges of my skirt had grazed the dusty road behind us, and I hitched it up
some more so my mother wouldn’t notice later. If she didn’t want me to get the
blasted thing dirty, she should have let me wear Jurij’s trousers, like I had
been that morning. That got me a rap on the back of the head with a wooden
spoon, a common occurrence when I was queen. It made me look too much like a
boy, she scolded, and that would cause a panic.
“Are you
going or not?” Darwyn was not one for patience.
“If you’re
so eager, why don’t you go?” I snapped back.
Darwyn
shook his wolf-head. “Oh, no, not me.”
I grinned.
“That’s because you’re scared.”
Darwyn’s
muffled voice grew louder. He stood beside me and puffed out his chest. “I am
not! I’ve been in the commune.”
I poked
toward his chest with Elgar, my trusty elf-blade. “Liar! You have not.”
Darwyn
jumped back, evading my blow. “I have too! My uncle lives there!” He swatted
his hand at Elgar. “Get that stick away from me.”
“It’s not
a stick!” Darwyn never believed me when I said that Elgar was the blade of a
warrior. It just happened to resemble a tree branch.
Jurij’s
quiet voice entered the fray. “Your uncle lives there? That’s awful.” I was
afraid he might cry and the tears would get caught up in the black material
that covered his eyes. I didn’t want him to drown behind the wooden kitty face.
He’d vanish into thin air like everyone else did when they died, and then we’d
be staring down at Jurij’s clothes and the little kitten mask on the ground,
and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from giggling. Some death
for a warrior.
Darwyn
shrugged and ran a hand over his elbow. “He moved in there before I was born. I
think a weaver lady was his goddess. It’s not so strange. Didn’t your aunt send
her man there, Jurij?”
Jurij was
sniffling. Sniffling. He tried to rub at his nose, but every time he moved the
back of his hand up to his face, it just clunked against the button that
represented the kitten’s nose.
I sighed
and patted Jurij on the back. “A queen’s retainer must never cry, Jurij.”
Darwyn
laughed. “Are you still playing that? You’re no queen, Noll!”
I stopped
patting Jurij and balled my hands into fists. “Be quiet, Darwyn! You used to
play it, too!”
Darwyn put
two fingers over his wolf-mask mouth, a gesture we had long ago decided would
stand for the boys sticking out their tongues. Although Darwyn was the only one
who ever did it as of late. “Like I’d want to do what some girl tells me! Girls
aren’t even blessed by love!”
“Of course
they are!” It was my turn to put the two fingers over my mouth. I had a tongue,
but a traitorous retainer like Darwyn wasn’t worthy of the effort it took to
stick it out. “Just wait until you find your goddess, and then we’ll see! If
she turns out to be me, I’ll make sure you rot away in the commune with the
rest of the unloved men.”
Darwyn
lunged forward and tackled me. My head dragged against the bush before it hit
the ground, but it still hurt; I could feel the swelling underneath the tangled
knots in my hair. Elgar snapped as I tried to get a grip on my attacker. I
kicked and shoved him, and for a moment, I won the upper hand and rolled on top
of him, almost punching him in the face. Remembering the mask, I settled for
giving him a good smack in the side, but then he kicked upward and caught me in
the chest, sending me backward.
“Stop!”
pleaded Jurij. He was standing between us now, the little timid kitten watching
first one friend and then the other, like we were a dangling string in motion.
“Stay out
of this!” Darwyn jumped to his feet and pointed at me. “She thinks she’s so
high and mighty, and she’s not even someone’s goddess yet!”
“I’m only
twelve, idiot! How many goddesses are younger than thirteen?” A few, but not
many. I scrambled to my feet and sent my tongue out at him. It felt good
knowing he couldn’t do the same to me, after all. My head ached. I didn’t want
him to see the tears forming in my eyes, though, so I ground my teeth once I
drew my tongue inward.
“Yeah,
well, it’ll be horrible for whoever finds the goddess in you!” Darwyn made to
lunge at me again, but this time Jurij shoved both his hands at Darwyn’s chest
to stop him.
“Just
stop,” commanded Jurij. Finally. That was a good retainer.
My eyes
wandered to the old crone’s cottage. No sign of her. How could she fail to hear
the epic struggle outside her door? Maybe she wasn’t real. Maybe just seeing
her was worth twenty points after all.
“Get out
of my way, you baby!” shouted Darwyn. “So what happens if I pull off your mask
when your queen is looking, huh? Will you die?”
His greedy
fingers reached toward Jurij’s wooden animal face. Even from behind, I could
see the mask tip dangerously to one side, the strap holding it tightly against
Jurij’s dark curls shifting. The strap broke free, flying up over his head.
My mouth
opened to scream. My hands reached up to cover my eyes. My eyelids strained to
close, but it felt as if the moment had slowed and I could never save him in
time. Such simple things. Close your eyes. Cover your eyes. Scream.
“DO NOT
FOOL WITH SUCH THINGS, CHILD!”
A dark,
dirty shawl went flying onto the bush that we had ruined during our fight.
I came
back to life. My head and Darwyn’s wolf mask spun toward the source of the
sound. As my head turned, I saw—even though I knew better than to look—Jurij
crumple to the ground, clinging both arms across his face desperately because
his life depended on it.
“Your eyes
better be closed, girl!” The old crone bellowed. Her own eyes were squeezed
together.
I jumped
and shut my eyes tightly.
“Hold that
shawl tightly over your face, boy, until you can wear your mask properly!”
screamed the old crone. “Off with you both, boys! Now! Off with you!”
I heard
Jurij and Darwyn scrambling, the rustle of the bush and the stomps of their
boots as they fled, panting. I thought I heard a scream—not from Jurij, but
from Darwyn. He was the real fraidycat. An old crone was no match for the elf
queen’s retainers. But the queen herself was far braver. So I told myself over
and over in my head.
When the
last of their footsteps faded away, and I was sure that Jurij was safe from my
stare, I looked.
Eyes.
Huge, bulbous, dark brown eyes. Staring directly into mine.
The
crone’s face was so close I could smell the shriveled decay from her mouth. She
grabbed me by the shoulders, shaking me. “What were you thinking? You held that
boy’s life in your hands! Yet you stood there like a fool, just starin’ as his
mask came off.”
My heart
beat faster, and I gasped for more air, but I wanted to avoid inhaling her
stench. “I’m sorry, Ingrith,” I mumbled. I thought if I used her real name, if
I let her lecture me like all the other adults, it would help me break free
from her grasp. I twisted and pulled, but I couldn’t bring myself to touch her.
I had this notion that if I touched her, my fingers would decay.
“Sorry is
just a word. Sorry changes nothing.”
“Let me
go.” I could still feel her dirty nails on my skin.
“You watch
yourself, girl.”
“Let me
go!”
The
crone’s lips grew tight and puckered. Her fingers relaxed ever so slightly.
“You children don’t realize. The lord is watching. Always watching—”
I knew
what she was going to say, the words so familiar to me that I knew them as well
as if they were my own. “And he will not abide villagers who forget the first
goddess’s teachings.” The sentence seemed to loosen the crone’s fingers. She
opened her mouth to speak, but I broke free and ran.
My eyes
fell to the grass below my feet as I cut across the fields to get away from the
monster. On the borders of the eastern woods was a lone cottage, home of Gideon
the woodcarver, a warm and comfortable place so much fuller of life than the
shack I left behind me. When I was near the woods, I could look up freely since
the trees blocked the eastern mountains from view. But until I got closer …
“Noll!
Wait up!”
My eyes
snapped upward on instinct. I saw the upper boughs of the trees and almost
screamed, my gaze falling back to the grass beneath my feet. I stopped running
and let the gentle rustlings of footsteps behind me catch up.
“Jurij,
please.” I sighed and turned around to face him, my eyes still on the grass and
the pair of small dark boots that covered his feet. Somehow he managed to step
delicately through the grass, not disturbing a single one of the lilies that
covered the hilltops. “Don’t scare me like that. I almost looked at the
castle.”
The toe of
Jurij’s boot dug a little into the dirt. “Oh. Sorry.”
“Is your
mask on?”
The boot
stopped moving, and the tip of a black shawl dropped into my view. “Oh. Yeah.”
I shook my
head and raised my eyes. There was no need to fear looking up to the west. In
the distance, the mountains that encircled our village soared far beyond the
western fields of crops. I liked the mountains. From the north, the south, and
the west, they embraced our village with their jagged peaks. In the south, they
watched over our fields of livestock. In the north, they towered above a quarry
for copper and stone. And in the east, they led home and to the woods. But no
girl or woman could ever look up when facing the east. Like the faces of men
and boys before their Returnings, just a glance at the castle that lay beyond
the woods against the eastern mountains spelled doom. The earth would shake and
threaten to consume whoever broke the commandment not to look.
It made
walking home a bit of a pain, to say the least.
“Tell me
something important like that before you sneak up on me.”
Jurij’s
kitten mask was once again tight against his face, if askew. The strap was a
bit tangled in his dark curls and the pointed tip of one of his ears. “Right.
Sorry.”
He held
out the broken pieces of Elgar wrapped in the dirty black shawl. He seemed very
retainer-like. I liked that. “I went to give this back to the—the lady. She
wasn’t there, but you left Elgar.”
I snatched
the pieces from Jurij’s hands. “You went back to the shack? What were you going
to say? ‘Sorry we were spying on you pretending you were a monster, thanks for
the dirty old rag?’”
“No.”
Jurij crumpled up the shawl and tucked it under his belt. A long trail of black
cloth tumbled out immediately, making Jurij look like he had on half a skirt.
I laughed.
“Where’s Darwyn?”
“Home.”
Of course.
I found out later that Darwyn had whined straight to his mother that “nasty old
Noll” almost knocked his mask off. It was a great way to get noticed when you
had countless brothers and a smitten mother and father standing between you and
any form of attention. But it didn’t have the intended effect on me. I was used
to lectures, and besides, there was something more important bothering me by
then.
I picked
up my feet to carry me back home.
Jurij
skipped forward to join me. One of his boots stumbled as we left the grasses
behind and hit the dirt path. “What happened with you and the crone?”
I gripped
the pieces of Elgar tighter in my fist. “Nothing.” I stopped, relieved that
we’d finally gotten close enough to the woods that I could face forward. I put
an arm on Jurij’s shoulder to stop him. “But I touched her.” Or she touched me.
“That means I win forever.”
The kitten
face cocked a little sideways. “You always win.”
“Of
course. I’m the queen.” I tucked the broken pieces of Elgar into my apron sash.
Elgar was more of a title, bestowed on an endless number of worthy sticks, but
in those days I wouldn’t have admitted that to Jurij. “Come on. I’ll give you a
head start. Race you to the cavern!”
“The
cavern? But it’s—”
“Too late!
Your head start’s over!” I kicked my feet up and ran as if that was all my legs
knew how to do. The cool breeze slapping across my face felt lovely as it flew
inside my nostrils and mouth. I rushed past my home, not bothering to look
inside the open door.
“Stop!
Stop! Noll, you stop this instant!”
The words
were something that could easily come out of a mother’s mouth, but Mother had a
little more patience than that. And her voice didn’t sound like a fragile
little bird chirping at the sun’s rising. “Noll!”
I was just
an arm’s length from the start of the trees, but I stopped, clutching the sharp
pain that kicked me in the side.
“Oh dear!”
Elfriede walked out of our house, the needle and thread she was no doubt using
to embroider some useless pattern on one of the aprons still pinched between
two fingers. My sister was a little less than a year older than me, but to my
parents’ delight (and disappointment with me), she was a hundred times more
responsible.
“Boy, your
mask!” Elfriede never did learn any of my friends’ names. Not that I could tell
her Roslyn from her Marden, either. One giggling, delicate bird was much like
another.
She walked
up to Jurij, who had just caught up behind me. She covered her eyes with her
needle-less hand, but I could see her peeking between her fingers. I didn’t
think that would actually protect him if the situation were as dire as she
seemed to think.
“It’s
crooked.” Elfriede’s voice was hoarse, almost trembling. I rolled my eyes.
Jurij
patted his head with both hands until he found the bit of the strap stuck on
one of his ears. He pulled it down and twisted the mask until it lined up
evenly.
I could
hear Elfriede’s sigh of relief from where I was standing. She let her fingers
fall from her face. “Thank the goddess.” She considered Jurij for a moment.
“There’s a little tear in your strap.”
Without
asking, she closed the distance between them and began sewing the small tear
even as the mask sat on his head. From how tall she stood above him, she might
have been ten years older instead of only two.
I walked
back toward them, letting my hands fall. “Don’t you think that’s a little
stupid? What if the mask slips while you’re doing that?”
Elfriede’s
cheeks darkened and she yanked the needle up, pulling her instrument free of
the thread and tucking the extra bit into the mask strap. She stood back and glared
at me. “Don’t you talk to me about being stupid, Noll. All that running isn’t
safe when you’re with boys. Look how his mask was moving.”
His mask
had moved for even more dangerous reasons than a little run, but I knew better
than to tell tattletale Elfriede that. “How would you know what’s safe when
you’re with boys? You’re already thirteen, and no one has found the goddess in
you!” Darwyn’s taunt was worth reusing, especially since I knew my sister would
be more upset about it than I ever was.
Elfriede
bit her lip. “Go ahead and kill your friends, then, for all I care!” The bird
wasn’t so beautiful and fragile where I was concerned.
She
retreated into the house and slammed the door behind her. I wrapped my hand
around Jurij’s arm, pulling him eastward. “Come on. Let’s go. There’re bound to
be more monsters in the cavern.”
Jurij
didn’t give beneath my pull. He wouldn’t move.
“Jurij?”
I knew
right then, somewhere in my mind, what had happened. But I was twelve. And
Jurij was my last real friend. I knew he’d leave me one day like the others,
but on some level, I didn’t really believe it yet.
Jurij
stood stock still, even as I wrenched my arm harder and harder to get him to
move.
“Oh
for—Jurij!” I yelled, dropping my hands from his arm in frustration. “Ugh. I
wish I was your goddess just so I could get you to obey me. Even if that means
I’d have to put up with all that—yuck—smooching.” I shivered at the thought.
At last
Jurij moved, if only to lift his other arm, to run his fingers across the strap
that Elfriede had mended. She was gone from my sight, but Jurij would never see
another.
It struck
them all. Sometime around Jurij’s age, the boys’ voices cracked, shifting from
high to deep and back again in a matter of a few words. They went from little
wooden-faced animals always shorter than you to young men on their way to
towering over you. And one day, at one moment, at some age, earlier for some
and later for others, they looked at a girl they’d probably seen thousands of
times before and simply ceased to be. At least, they weren’t who I knew them to
be ever again.
And as
with so many of my friends before Jurij, in that moment all other girls ceased
to matter. I was nothing to him now, an afterthought, a shadow, a memory.
No.
Not him.
My
dearest, my most special friend of all, now doomed to live or die by the choice
of the fragile little bird who’d stopped to mend his strap.
