La Nocturne

Elaine slowly became aware of a distant green light. In phases the stone room came back to her, through the blue film of seawater punctuated by the yellow lights of the wooden chandelier above. At first she didn’t know where she was; then it occurred to her and her heart locked in her chest.

“Hello, now you’re up,” said Spira, drifting into Elaine’s view. “Awake and alive. She hadn’t a thing to worry about, did she?”

The human girl squinted at the Faerie’s sharp green features. “Who didn’t worry about what?” she asked slowly.

Spira sighed. “Your sister, on her way out, attached herself to your side and raised dramatics over what could be the matter with you. A bit of a tussle happened in trying to get her to leave…But she’s back with the humans now.”

Elaine gasped and bolted upright, incurring the dizziness to pounce again. “Aria!” she said weakly, reverently. “She was here?”

“Of course – you’re the one taking her place, after all.”

Tears began to slip from Elaine’s eyes, blurring the room and the Undine in front of her. She knew she would do anything for her sister, that she would gladly stay at the bottom of the ocean in servitude to a race of supposedly mythical creatures – and yet, it was terrible to be so far from home. Everything she had ever known was gone permanently. She’d never said goodbye to her mother and father, her worried brow and soft hands, his crooked grin and merry whistling. She’d never said goodbye to Joseph or any of the girls she took tea with – she felt a pang upon remembering that the last time Joseph and her saw each other, they’d fought bitterly. Lastly, Elaine had forgotten to bid farewell to her horses. The thought of them abandoned and hungry at the fair made her hate herself. Elaine hoped against hope that someone had taken them to a nice home and would raise them with as much love as she had, rather than that they’d been snatched by rough bandits with spiked whips or gypsies that would force them into doing cheap tricks for a few coins. It was terrible to be so impossibly far from all of them. Even though Elaine for the most part did not regret her decision, the choice still hurt like amputation would hurt.

Through the fog of her despair, Elaine registered a ceramic clink in front of her – a stone bowl of a pale liquid with green seaweed-like clumps assembled itself through her tears. Spira’s long-fingered, slightly webbed hands retracted from the side of the bowl she’d set down, and she left. Resignedly, Elaine sipped at the briny soup, feeling as if she were drinking her own tears. Her hunger slowly came back to her, and she realized she hadn’t eaten since the tea and apples at yesterday’s breakfast, a world away. She hadn’t slept since then, either. Small wonder she’d fainted.

The seaweed had a tough, rubbery quality to it and tasted bitter and medicinal. Given no spoon, Elaine had to slurp it up to eat it, which embarrassed her, but food was food and hunger, hunger. After the bowl was empty, she faded back into sleep and vague watery dreams.

In the days afterward, Elaine was introduced to her tasks. Some were easy, such as dusting the Undines’ collection of shipwreck finds and fish skeletons. Some were difficult, such as maintaining their malicious pet eels. And some were outright strange, such as going into an unused, unlit chamber to sing into the darkness, because the blood of a Urmora (sea serpent) was supposedly once spilled there, and the sound of a singing voice was said to make it harder for it to return and avenge itself. No matter what chore she did, however, it was always tinged with a demeaning feel, her inferiority oppressed on her constantly by the Faeries. The Undines grew colder, more distant, crueler, now that they knew they had the girl forever.

Elaine slept on a bed of seaweed in the kitchen. When her clothes fell apart, they gave her a dress, a filmy brown shift that felt vaguely slimy and left her feeling exposed. She’d resigned herself to a life of this forever until the day the envoy from the Queen’s court came and everything changed.

She’d been scrubbing the floor of the main room on hands and knees when the door burst open with no announcement and she looked up to see a tall, lithe Faerie dressed in a tunic of red bark with a wreath of spiky branches on his brow. Elaine could only stare, having never seen a Faerie other than an Undine. The mysterious, out-of-place Faerie narrowed his nut-brown eyes at her, making her feel tiny and disgraceful, and parted his pale lips to speak. At that moment, Potamia entered the room. Upon sight of him, she collapsed into a deep curtsy that proved nearly concussive, as her forehead ended up mere inches from the ground.

“Lord Lrcyk,” she murmured. “First of all, I must apologize again for that unfortunate occurrence at Queen Reyrie’s ball. I – I wasn’t in my right mind and there’s no excuse for my egregious behavior toward you – or the changeling for that matter.”

“That will be enough,” said Lrcyk with a mild amount of disgust. “You’re every bit as gauche as I remember. An accomplishment, seeing as how everything you tadpoles say or do slips from my mind the minute you’re out of my sight.”

Potamia stared at the ground, biting her lip in shame. Elaine, meanwhile, was still kneeling on the floor, a scrubber made from a sea urchin’s quills in her hand and a bucket of grimy washwater nearby. She tried to keep a position that reflected respect and unobtrusiveness – eyes downcast, hands folded – while secretly studying the Faerie through her eyelashes. He was slightly built, yet subtly muscular, strength coiled like a whip under lightly browned skin. A pepper of freckles across his nose and cheeks gave him a child-like appearance, but Lrcyk’s eyes were like muddy stones that would cut sharply if you dared touched them. His dark hair was slicked back in combed lines.

“Who’s this?” Lrcyk asked, gesturing with his chin toward Elaine.

“Our human slave,” Potamia said uneasily. “Elaine.” Elaine noted how her name was pronounced with a mild degree of dislike.

“There’s something very strange about her,” he muttered. “Something I don’t like.” The Faerie Lord took an ominous step toward her, but Potamia entreated, “My Lord, please don’t trouble yourself over a mere piddling human. She is biddable and silent, no more, no less. Begging my pardon, your Lordship, but you never did say the purpose of your visit.”

“Right.” Lrcyk turned toward the Undine but Elaine still felt as if he were watching her with one eye. “Her Majesty the Queen Reyrie has requested the presence of you, Potamia, and your lodging-sisters Spira and Rhodesia at her court at precisely daybreak tomorrow morning.” He cast both cold eyes on the human girl now. “And as an afterthought…bring the human. You’re to have bartering material.”

At this Potamia looked visibly upset but remained quiet.

“Another envoy will be sent to take you to the Court. Do not – “ he paused threateningly here, “be late, Undine.” The Faerie Lord left as he came, with no announcement.

“This floor is still filthy,” Potamia griped after a long and discomfiting silence. “I told you to keep replacing the washwater so you’re not rubbing dirty water into the floor, Elaine.” She spoke to her as if she were a child. Elaine bit the inside of her cheek to keep from snapping back but she was mostly used to the treatment by now. It had been roughly three weeks since the exchange. There was no point in recording the passing of time since she would be there the rest of her days, but somehow she knew, somehow something made three weeks stick true in her mind.

The envoy the next morning was tacit and dark-skinned, announcing who he was and urging the Undines and Elaine out to the boat in a murmuring voice. They sped through the water until they broke the surface; in the east the sky had grown a drowsy gray that was lightening in barely perceptible breathings. An ornately carved wooden boat with a figurehead of a winged horse waited for them, the horse nodding to the motion of the waves. The guide motioned for the four of them to climb in, then pulled himself in. Without a word, the boat began to move northward and slightly in the direction of the approaching dawn.

Pink flushed the sky when the boat finally touched land. For a moment Elaine thought they were back in England, but a scan of the landscape proved not a hint of familiarity. It had to be England, yet it wasn’t the same England. Tall, narrow, close-set trees formed a wall mere meters from the shoreline and a stark chiaroscuric canopy above the minute they entered. Light that filtered through the tops of the branches seemed bright white, making the branches themselves charcoal-black by contrast. The forest was alive with sounds, chirrings and rumblings and whispers and snatches of distant song. Dappled shadows and a collage of leaf and bark spun kaleidoscopically through Elaine’s vision as she gazed all around. Colors seemed more nuanced here, shadows almost alive. Though they encountered nary a fly on their trek, the girl felt all the while in the company of a thousand hidden, impossible creatures.

Eventually, the three Undines, the human girl, and the guide struggled through a thorn-ridden thicket and found themselves in a great towering hall, tree trunks rising on both sides like columns. Lean branches interlaced high overhead in a perfectly even Gothic arch and at the end of the hall stood a tall wooden dais on which sat the Queen, Lord Lrcyk, and a third Faerie man unidentifiable at that distance. Off to the side on a shorter dais sat two rows of what looked like Faerie nobility, based on their clothing. On either side of the main aisle stood the gallery.

In that moment, a ray of sunlight like melted gold penetrated the dark treetops and shone through the Court, as if consecrating it. The Queen stood. The two Faeries on her sides stood after her. As Elaine drew closer to the platform, she noticed a blond, dreaming-eyed young man sitting at the left foot of the Queen’s throne; he seemed about Joseph’s age. The group had now stopped approaching and were curtsying or bowing before Queen Reyrie. She was lissome yet full-figured, with a widow’s-peaked face and copper hair piled high on her head. Her feet were pointed slightly outward while she stood, like a dancer’s. Elaine found herself comparing her to the picture of Marie Antoinette in her history textbook – the Queen had the same frivolous line in her lips, the same quick-flashing temper in her citrine-coloured eyes.

Finally Elaine studied the Faerie standing to Reyrie’s left. Tawny brown hair, tumbling in curls nearly to his shoulders, short horns coiling just behind his temples, sun-browned skin on his bare torso leading to the furred hips and legs and cloven feet of a goat. She started, staring into the faun’s face.

“Bramble.” Her lips mutely formed the name.

Looking back at her, the faun’s mouth curled conspiratorially upwards on one side and Elaine could swear he’d just winked at her.