The Queen's Choice

Over the next few days, I joined in more of the family’s activities, helping with meals, playing with the younger girls, and assisting Marissa with her reading and letters. While I had never before spent such intimate time among a human family, I couldn’t help but think their lifestyle peculiar, even for their species. They lived far away from any human settlement, from any neighbors, ostensibly preferring to keep their own company. Thatcher, in particular, continued to make me nervous. From what I could tell, he hunted, cleaned, and repaired his weapons, chopped firewood and prowled the area around the cabin as though on alert for intruders. He appeared to have no livelihood, and even when he relaxed in his armchair with his pipe in the evening, his gun was never out of reach.

My initial assessment of Elyse as timid was a gross understatement, though the reason for her meekness remained unclear. I had assumed she was afraid of her husband, but he never raised his voice or hand to her. Instead, it seemed she was afraid of life itself.

Even though I was on the road to recovery, my body felt heavy and sluggish. I probably weighed less without my wings, but my inability to hover made me feel rooted in a way I never had before. It felt like the earth was working against me, like it was trying to prevent every step I took. This sense of discontinuity with the natural world was demoralizing, and never more apparent than when I bathed and was surrounded by water—water that, when I’d been in possession of my elemental connection, had hugged my skin gently and kept me warm like a silken coat. Now it pressed on me, pulling at me and making it hard to breathe. Before long, I dreaded submerging myself in the treacherous substance. With no ability to communicate with it, the water’s raw power was evident, and I feared the element that had once been my closest ally.

* * *

I was outside one afternoon with Shea, fetching firewood, when three sharp cracks punched through the air, startling us both.

“What’s going on?” I asked, clutching the Anlace that was sheathed at my hip. I scanned the trees, which hugged the More house almost constrictively, on alert for a threat.

“Gunshots,” Shea said shortly. “But not from my father. He doesn’t hunt this close to home. Something’s wrong.”

She patted the pocket of her coat as though to check its contents, then rushed into the trees. I sprinted after her, suspecting I would be more effective in a conflict than she would be—I wasn’t wearing a dress, and would be calmer if Thatcher was injured. Besides, she’d saved my life when I’d run off.

Shea was faster than I expected, or else I was slower, and again I bemoaned the loss of my wings for handicapping me. I caught up to her when she halted, confused about which way to go, for snow was falling and the footprints Thatcher had left on departure were gone.

“Follow me,” I said, mentally re-creating the gunfire in my head. The shots had so abruptly broken the quietude that I could still hear them ringing in my ears, and I thought I could guide us closer to their point of origin. Eventually the sound of a male voice reached us, and we jogged toward it, taking care in case there was peril ahead. We broke into a ring of trees, but heard no sounds other than the dull rustling of an animal in the distance.

“Dad!” Shea screamed, forgetting caution, and I rushed to quiet her, pressing my palm across her mouth. I’d already been attacked once in this forest. What if the voice we’d heard belonged to one of the contract hunters about whom Thatcher had told me? She tore my hand away, her eyes darting frantically about.

“What are you doing out here?”

Thatcher pushed his way through the underbrush and into the small clearing, dragging a dead buck. Close on his heels was a burly, bearded man with blank eyes and a hunting gun resting against his shoulder.

Shea pressed her hands against her cheeks. “I heard the gunfire. I thought something bad had happened.”

Thatcher’s heavy brows dove toward his nose. “And if something had happened, what were you planning to do about it?”

Her jaw clenched tightly, Shea withdrew a silver pistol from her coat pocket. “I came armed.”

Though I instinctively shied away from the weapon, I looked at her with new respect. I did not know how much skill she had with the gun, but at the very least she was willing to defend herself. Thatcher glanced at the burly hunter, who was stroking his beard as though he was bored or hard of hearing. Somewhat more relaxed, he then shook his head at Shea, although he did not otherwise address his daughter’s readiness to do battle. Instead, he motioned to his companion.

“I ran into Gray here. He was tracking this buck and I helped him. We’re going to split the meat back at our place. Let’s get going.”

Thatcher and the hunter headed off, Shea trailing without objection, but I hesitated. Our flight from the cabin had taken us in a direction opposite the Bloody Road, into a part of the forest with which I was not familiar, and a strong sense of apprehension stole over me.

I stood still, barely breathing, the hair on my arms and the back of my neck prickling. Glancing around, I soon found the reason for the feeling. Every tree in the ring that surrounded the clearing was scratched, as though marked by a wild animal. I pressed my memory, but couldn’t recall the markings being there when Shea and I had arrived, though my senses, lacking magical enhancement, didn’t pick up peripheral detail in the same way they once had. Even more disconcerting, each set of scratches was level with my head. Shea was shorter than me, Thatcher and Gray taller, and no scratches announced their heights. It was as if some creature had made me a crown.

A drop of icy water landed between my shoulders and slipped down my spine, and I jumped, breaking free of the trees’ bewitchment. Trying to will away my misgivings, I followed the trail of deer’s blood until I caught up with the others.

Once back at the More residence, Thatcher and Gray took their kill to the shack that stood behind the house. Shea and I went inside and sat before the fireplace in the main room, warming ourselves in silence, and I tried to assess the damage I might have done to my back with today’s exercise. While I couldn’t be sure, it felt like I was bleeding, and I wanted to scream in frustration at the sluggish rate of my recovery. Behind us, Elyse busied herself with dinner preparations.

“You two are quiet,” she said, and I jumped at the sound of her voice. She was so meek that I never really expected her to have one. With a huge sigh, Shea came to her feet, leaving her coat and pistol on the chair.

“It’s nothing. Just Dad. He wouldn’t take me hunting with him and now he’s angry because I followed him.”

Elyse nodded, curling her body around the stove as if she wanted to become part of it, to disappear entirely. What was it about this family? Shea was brash and defiant. Elyse acted like a horrible fate awaited her every time she spoke. Thatcher continually scrutinized me, presumably thinking I had an ulterior motive for being there, when he was the one who had saved my life. If all humans lived like this, they were a stranger species than even Illumina or anyone in the Anti-Unification League realized.

We washed and changed into dinner dresses, then ate without Thatcher, who was still helping Gray divide the meat. The younger girls had already been sent to bed by the time he entered, and Elyse hastened to prepare him a plate of food. But it wasn’t food that interested him. Waving his wife away like she was a buzzing fly, he called for his eldest daughter.

“Shea, grab your coat and meet me by the shack.”

Shea’s head jerked in her father’s direction as he once more left the house, and she quickly obeyed his bidding. Elyse, looking uncomfortable, went to check on the younger girls, while I retreated to the bedroom, leaving the door partway open in case father and daughter returned. I was determined to find out what was happening, and didn’t trust that Shea would tell me. Crossing the room, I carefully opened the window in the hope that my sharp Fae hearing would enable me to catch their conversation. I knew Shea was in trouble, but I wasn’t sure why.

At first, all I detected were rumblings; then Shea’s voice became strident.

“I want out of here! You can’t keep us locked up forever.”

“Locked up?” Thatcher’s voice rose ominously. “You think this is a prison? Try hard labor, Shea. Try servitude. Try paying back a debt to society.”

“A debt to society? No, you owe a debt to that government man. And I could respect you for fighting that debt. But you’re not fighting. You’re running, and you’re dragging your family down with you.”

“I will not have you speak to me like that! I have done everything to keep you safe—”

“Everything except own up to what you did.”

A long silence followed Shea’s acidic response, then I heard the cabin door open and Thatcher’s thunderous footsteps upon the floor. The door closed, telling me that his daughter had likewise come inside. I hastened to the other side of the bedroom, intent on continuing to eavesdrop, this time watching, as well, through the crack in the door.

Thatcher saw his daughter’s gun out of the corner of his eye, still lying on the chair. The fire at his back was feeble, and I could hardly see what he was doing as he strode across the room. Then he handed the silver pistol to Shea, the bullets clutched in his fist.

“You don’t need these,” he growled. “I’m letting you keep that gun because it was your grandfather’s, but don’t push me, Shea.”

“Take the bullets. Take whatever you want. That doesn’t change a thing.” Shea tore off her overcoat and flung the gun on top of it. “You’re not listening to me. I told you—I want out of here. Stop being a coward.”

Thatcher stared, openmouthed, and I tensed, thinking he might strike her.

Shea hoped he would hit her. I knew it the moment Thatcher chose to admit defeat, stumbling away from her, and her posture shrank with telltale guilt. Still caught up in her anger, she looked to be on the verge of tears, but managed to whisper an apology. Turning from her father, she strode into our room, opening the door so forcefully she nearly knocked me over, then closing it with purpose.

“Why doesn’t telling the truth feel better than this?” she demanded, gripping the handle with a white-knuckled fist, the slam of the front door in the background telling us Thatcher had left once more for the shed.

“What is the truth, Shea?” I thought I needed to know—both for my protection and for her sanity.

She bit her thumbnail, deliberating, then words poured from her mouth like a dam had broken.

“My father crossed someone in Ivanova’s pocket. It was a while ago, over two years now. When he ran, he made his family collateral—any of us can serve his sentence, seven years in the Governor’s service if we’re caught. My father sold our freedom to keep his own.”

“What did he do?” I asked, struggling to grasp the situation. What could anyone do to earn seven years of servitude? This explained why Shea had been eager to be friends with me—a family on the run had no chance to form bonds.

“It’s no secret that Ivanova is a narcissist. There are three social classes in Warckum—the Governor’s friends, the surviving, and the slowly dying. His friends sleep on feather beds and eat imported delicacies, while the lower classes waste away. We thought fortune was at last smiling on us when one of the feather beds commissioned work from my father. He was a woodworker in Tairmor, and all it takes is a smile from one of Governor Ivanova’s men to change your entire existence in that city. But then Dad objected to some part of the project and didn’t deliver. I’ve never known exactly what went wrong, but it’s obvious he didn’t make a wise decision.”

I remembered Illumina’s rants against humanity, and was filled with a new appreciation for my aunt. Ubiqua had never punished my cousin for disagreeing with her. She could have. Certainly Illumina’s words had never been welcome, and her father’s ties to the AUL had always been of concern. The Queen could have silenced my cousin’s opinions and objections, just like Thatcher More’s had been silenced.

“So your father was convicted of some offense against the government?”

“Not convicted, just sentenced,” Shea scoffed. “When we heard a warrant had been issued for his arrest, we fled to Sheness. We hoped to bribe our way onto a ship and leave the continent and the Warckum Territory for good, but the port city was handling an influx of armed forces. So we headed inland, all the way east to the Balsam Forest, where people worry more about crossing the Fae than the Governor’s laws. Here there are no patrols. But here there is also no life, at least on this side of the Road.”

She slumped to the floor on her makeshift bed, tossing one arm across her forehead.