Courts of the Fey Read online

  In an elm, Robin Redbreast waited for her.

  Grace paused next to his tree and pretended to stretch, until rustling told her that Mallory had arrived. Mama Nutkin rode upon the cat, her wrinkled face bleached to the color of bone with grief.

  “My condolences, Mama Nutkin, on your loss.”

  “Eh, he was a good one, he was. My family has always appreciated you for sending him here.” She rubbed her long nose, sniffing. “He was a good one.”

  “Your son is also good. He was most adamant that he was not a child and should have been allowed to come.” Grace smiled at the memory of Brownie Nutkin’s protests. “I have left him in the care of Mama Seedkin while we tend to business here.”

  The wrinkles climbed into a smile. “I bless thee for looking out for him. He’ll get a hiding when he comes home for the trouble he gave to you.”

  Grace shook her head as she slipped into the formal speech of her childhood as a changeling in the Faerie Queen’s court. “The trouble comes not from him.”

  Mama Nutkin lost her smile. “That I know.”

  “The Folk of Woodthrush House are here to aid you. The laws which prevent you from acting against a guest of your goodwife do not hinder us.”

  “’Tis no guest! A bogeyman is in our hearth and home.”

  “I know this, too well.”

  “My boy, he don’t know a bogeyman from any other angry man. But that bogey, he kept going on about how he’d track us all down, long as we were in the house. And my boy, he got it fixed in his head that we had to get out of the house.” She shook her head, ears flapping. “I raised him better than to abandon hearth and home, but losing his da shook him up fierce-like.”

  “I hope that after this morning’s work, your hearth and home will be safe.” Grace glanced once more at the house. Its facade presented a blind innocence to the street. “When you hear a hobgoblin’s crack, I pray you, lock the goodwife in the attic.”

  “Play a prank on the goodwife? But she ain’t never done nothing to the Folk. Always been wonderful, she has.”

  “I am certain of it. We want to keep the goodwife safe while we drive the bogeyman out of your hearth and home.”

  “Well then, Granny, we will do as you say.”

  “Then all will be well.” Grace pulled a small note from her hip pack and held it down so Mama Nutkin could take it. “Will you give this to the goodwife when you have her safe and sound?”

  Mama Nutkin’s eyes grew as large as copper pennies. “Give it in the broad light of day? But how without showing myself?”

  “You may have to do just that. We need her to understand what it is she brought into her home. If she does not take care, the bogeyman could return and all our effort would be for naught.”

  “Aye. I’ll do as you say. It won’t take long.”

  “With luck, the bogeyman will be gone before the hour has passed.” She rubbed Mallory on the head. “Return her safely.” The cat blinked once in agreement and sauntered into the tall grass. “Mallory.”

  He looked over his shoulder at her.

  “Remember the hound.” As if to say that he feared nothing, he yawned, then melted into the bushes, carrying Mama Nutkin with him.

  Robin Redbreast cocked his head, bright eyes shining, asking her if it were time.

  Grace waited until she thought they must be back and then signaled him. He took wing toward the house and circled it once, flying low so he passed the ground floor windows.

  A gunshot shattered the dawn stillness.

  Though she had expected the hobgoblins’ explosion, Grace flinched as the sound split the morning. She pulled her cellphone from her pocket and dialed 911. As she waited for the operator, her breath felt fevered.

  When the tinny voice answered the phone, Grace’s rehearsed response leaped from her throat. “Hello? I was jogging, and just heard a gunshot coming from a house.”

  “Where are you?”

  Grace gave the address hurriedly. Indistinct voices yelled in the house. It sounded like a man and a woman engaged in bitter argument, a sample of her sprites’ mimicry. “I can hear yelling inside.”

  Lights in the other homes flashed on and people came to stand on their front porches.

  And then a real scream, full-throated as only a human could voice.

  “A woman just screamed.” The hobgoblins must have shown themselves to the goodwife, as they chased her to the attic for safety.

  “Officers are en route, ma’am.”

  She hung up the phone. Straining, she tried to hear past the housefolk’s glamour to the true noises in the house.

  A man in a business suit approached her hesitantly. His tie was still undone. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. I was jogging and heard a gunshot.”

  “That fellow Ella has been seeing ...” He trailed off as if realizing that Grace would not know who anyone was. Another scream pulled his attention to the house. “Someone should do something.”

  “I called the police.” It would be bad if a mortal went into the house now, while the Folk were still out. “They’re on their way.”

  Her words seemed to make him relax, as if he were grateful for a reason to stay out of it. Around them, a small crowd of neighbors gathered.

  Another gunshot blasted through the morning air and Grace’s heart leaped to her throat. They had only planned one.

  Through an open window, she saw a man’s shape hurry past. A moment later, something shattered against a wall in the house. The woman screamed again. More dishes crashed; the woman was weeping now. Her sobs echoed weirdly in the morning air, bouncing off the houses and seeming to come from all around them.

  Grace thought the sounds were brownies and sprites, but she was no longer certain. They had a plan, but that extra gunshot changed everything. Grace glanced at the horizon.

  Another shot shattered a window of the house. The crowd screamed and scattered. Grace stayed rooted to the spot, panic filling her stomach; something had gone wrong.

  She scanned for Robin Redbreast or Mallory, but neither was in sight. The sun had not yet risen, which meant the bogeyman was still in his element. It didn’t matter. She had to get him out of the house, even if the police weren’t here yet.

  Grace stepped onto the soil of Briarwood House for the first time, knowing the bogey would feel her presence as the foster daughter of the Faerie Queen. Ignoring the cries behind her, she sprinted across the lawn to the front door.

  Two short steps took her up onto the porch and then she pushed the door open.

  The front hall was a chaos of shattered crockery. A dining room lay to the right, a front parlor to the left. And in front of Grace, the goodwife clutched her ankle at the bottom of a broad staircase to the second floor. A bruise was blooming under her right eye. The collar of her shirt had been ripped, exposing her shoulder. No blood though. Good.

  At the top of the stairs, a man filled the hall. His head nearly brushed the overhead light, and his shoulders crowded the walls. His eyes were so sunken in his skull as to seem almost invisible. The light careened off his face, as if it could not touch him, leaving shadows where there should have been none.

  The bogeyman saw Grace and recognition dawned. He smirked. “Couldn’t wait, Faerie Queen’s brat?”

  The goodwife lifted her head to stare. Grace grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet. Worse things waited her than a sprained ankle if they stayed.

  The bogeyman lifted a gloved hand and showed her a pistol. Even with the leather, the iron must have burned with cold. “This world makes such interesting things.”

  Outside, sirens finally sounded.

  Grace pulled the goodwife, limping toward the front door. Behind them, the bogeyman started down the stairs. The house shuddered under his weight.

  Brownies flickered in and out of sight as they raced around her.

  In a fluid arc, the bogeyman leaped down the stairs to land in front of them. He twisted with unnatural speed and pointed the pistol at
Grace. “I had thought to use this on the House vermin, but the iron will work just as well on you.”

  A frying pan bounced off his head. The bogeyman staggered as the steel slipped past his defenses to raise a welt on his mortal flesh.

  Brownie Thistlekin stood on the dining room table. He held another skillet poised to throw, his hands in oven mitts to protect him from the cold iron.

  Grace pushed past the bogeyman and threw the front door open. “Coming out!” She brought the goodwife across the threshold of the house into the dawn.

  Four police cars sat on the lawn with police officers pointing their guns at the house. They held their fire as Grace led the goodwife down the steps. In the house, a beast snarled in rage.

  Grace dragged the goodwife to the ground and shouted again. “He has a gun!”

  The bogeyman appeared in the doorway, shielding his face from the sun. His hands were by his sides. The police shouted. He stopped.

  She wanted him to threaten her. She wanted the conflict to continue so he would be stopped, so the cold steel would end his threat for all time. She rolled onto her back and met his gaze. Switching to the old language of fae, so the mortals would not understand her taunt, she said, “You’ve disappointed your masters.”

  He howled at her and raised the pistol.

  The morning echoed with shots fired. The bogeyman jerked back as his knee flashed red. Grace saw the twin realities of mortal and faerie sight—in one, the man fell to the ground and the police swarmed around him, shouting.

  In the other, the bogeyman burned as the iron passed through the mortal body and into the faerie flesh. She lay back on the ground and pressed her hands to her face for a moment. Rousing herself, she turned to the goodwife. Her face was white as milk.

  It was hard for Grace to guess human ages; every adult bore the clear signs of mortality etched on their face. The fine lines on the goodwife’s face seemed as obvious as canyons, but her hair was a dense shadow of black even in the morning sun. The goodwife’s face was drawn so tightly over her bones that it seemed as if they would poke through. Her eyes started from her head like one who had been doused with clover juice, seeing the world for the first time.

  Which, no doubt, she had. Brownie Thistlekin had volunteered to do it, if it needed doing. “Are you all right?”

  The goodwife still stared at Grace with open shock on her face. The clover juice must be showing her the touches of fae that clung to Grace. That, and the note Grace had sent in, should tell the goodwife who she was.

  “I—Did you?”

  Before Grace could answer her, Robin Redbreast flew out of the attic; he twirled and spiraled in the air.

  Mallory is coming. Be prepared.

  Grace swallowed; the Hound. Her cat streaked around the corner, a line of jet black. Mallory ran with his belly low to the ground. His paws reached out to grab the earth and hurl it past him. His eyes were wide and his ears flat against his head, listening to the sound of the beast behind him.

  The bogeyman’s hound rounded the corner. Heavy muscles rippled under its fur. Its great black feet ate the earth, each stride reaching hungrily for the cat.

  Grace got to her feet to draw the Hound away from the goodwife. She ran into its path, giving Mallory time to get free. It howled and reared up with dark jaws snapping at her. She fell under its weight. The earth rolled her back and forth as gnomes shifted the soil beneath her. Teeth hissed past, biting the grass.

  A gunshot rang out and the beast’s body thudded against her.

  Beneath the grass, a gnome’s pudgy hand reached up and patted her shoulder, questioning. “I’m fine,” she whispered.

  The hand withdrew with a sigh.

  Someone pulled the hound’s body off her. An officer knelt at her side.

  “Just lie still, ma’am.” He pressed a cloth against the bite in Grace’s arm.

  She gasped at the burning pain, and let herself begin shaking. In the midst of panic, she had not felt the Hound bite her. She sat up, wanting to get away from the bloodstained grass. The stink of the hound clung to her like smoke.

  Robin Redbreast danced on the lawn, puffing his feathers and telling his tale. His red breast shone like a shield of blood as he strutted and pranced.

  Beyond him, the police had covered the man-shape on the porch with a coat. One of them held the goodwife by the arm, steering her away from the body. The goodwife spoke to the officer escorting her and their path changed, coming to Grace.

  “Dr. Hamel?” The woman’s voice was hesitant and sounded broken. “I—My name is Ella Dennison. You—” she stopped.

  Of course she couldn’t finish her sentence, it sounded insane in the modern world. “Yes.” Grace lowered her voice. “After we finish with the police, I’d like to help you understand what happened this morning.”

  It had to be soon, while the events were still fresh in her mind. Waiting too long would give her ways to believe that it hadn’t happened, that the hobgoblins were her imagination. In Grace’s years of bringing goodwives into the fold, she had found that she had to introduce them to the Folk while their worlds were upside down. When everything seemed chaotic, one more new element fit right in and gave each woman something to hang onto as they stitched their lives back together.

  Ella laughed, breathlessly. “That would be good. Understanding would be good.”

  Ella stood in the front hall, brow furrowed as if trying to spot someone in the shadows. Grace glanced back to Brownie Thistlekin, but he was gone. She turned back to Ella. “May I offer you some tea?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Ella’s fragility seemed even more pronounced in the house than it had out on the lawn in front of Briarwood House.

  Grace showed her to the den and saw her settled in one of the wingback chairs by the fire.

  Two mugs of tea waited for her on the kitchen island. Brownie Thistlekin took care of her as though she was his own child. She grabbed the cups of tea and carried them in to Ella.

  With its leaded glass windows and fireplace, the room welcomed her into its fold. The light from the fire cast Ella’s face into sharp planes of fatigue.

  She jumped as Grace entered the room, then smiled at the sight of the cups. “Thank you. How is your arm?”

  “It’s fine. A benefit to living with faerie folk.” She set a mug on the small end table between the chairs. “I hope you like chamomile. I find it’s good for calming my nerves.”

  “Faeries? That′s... I don’t understand.”

  The events of today must already have begun to slip from Ella’s mind. Brownies seemed impossible to those who first met them. Grace sat in the other wingback chair. “Are you all right?”

  Ella shuddered, as if the bogeyman had just touched her. “What happened this morning?”

  “You had a bogeyman in your home.”

  “Ron? He was difficult, but until today—”

  “He beat you, didn’t he?”

  Ella froze. The only sign of life in her was a vein in her neck, throbbing with tension. She seemed barely to breathe. Her gaze flicked to the fire. “Yes.”

  Grace let her stare at the flames, waiting as she had with the other wild things in her home.

  “Is it ... It wasn’t human, was it?”

  “No. Bogeymen eat the souls of men and wear their forms like a mask. The man whose body the police took away has been dead for some time.”

  “Oh my God.”

  Grace sipped her chamomile to give Ella time to think. “Where did you meet him?”

  “A bar. After work, with some friends... Did I meet the man or the,” her voice slowed as she tried out the new term, “the bogeyman?”

  “Probably the bogey. They have a history of abusing women.”

  “I didn’t know what I’d invited home.”

  “That’s the bogeyman’s trick.”

  “Will he come back?”

  Grace shook her head. “Not there. We’ve made wardings for you that will keep out anything you don’t invite in.”
/>   “My mother always told me to trust the Folk.” Ella grimaced. “I thought I was humoring her.”

  “I’m sorry we had to frighten you.”

  Ella blushed. “I think that’s the first time I’ve ever really screamed.”

  “It’s one thing to hear tales of the Folk; it’s another when you see your first hobgoblin. Three might have been laying it on a bit thick, but witnesses needed to hear you scream. I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s fine. The brownies explained when they were trying to get me into the attic. Brownies! I can’t believe it.” She tilted her head. “Did you scream when you saw your first one?”

  Grace hesitated. “I was a changeling child. The Faerie Queen took me when I was fourteen months old and raised me till I was thirteen.” She laughed. “I did scream the first time my birth mother used a vacuum.”

  “That must have been hard on you.”

  “To say the least. I had never used anything from the industrial age. So some things were easier and some things were harder.”

  “I meant, not knowing your parents.” Ella tilted her head. “Weren’t you lonely?”

  “Not until I came home.” Grace put her mug down on the table. “But I invited you here to explain the Folk. Do you feel up to meeting another brownie?”

  Ella went as still as a doe in the forest. “I assume you don’t mean a little girl selling cookies . . . ?”

  They all made the same jokes at this point. “No. But I do have some Thin Mints in the freezer, if that would help.”

  With a laugh, some of Ella’s stiffness softened. “Is that what I met?”

  “Who. And yes. You met Mama Nutkin, I believe. Her son is the one that warned us about the bogeyman.” In the far corner, Brownie Thistlekin sidled into the room. He nodded once to let her know he was ready. “Brownies, indeed all of the housefolk, are naturally shy creatures. So even in a house full of them like mine, I rarely see one, but I hear them. The thumps and bumps and creaks of an old house are usually related to one of the Folk. Most people hear the heartbeat of their own homes without realizing it, but can go their whole life without seeing one of the Folk.”