Blackbringer

“Since last moon, crow. Isn’t it fine? A new queen in Alabaster Palace! Spread the news when you go. Tell everyone!” cried the gent, ducking away again.

“Ach, ’Pie! Tell me ye didn’t—” Calypso began, turning back to her, but where Magpie had been there was only a human earring lying on the moss and a stir in the air from her hasty passage. Magpie had fled.

NINE

The epic of Bellatrix had been put into verse by Magpie’s father, Robin, years ago, years even before he had met Kite. In his wildest daydreams as a young poet he had never imagined that one day it would be performed all around the world. And certainly, not in his weirdest fit of whimsy had he imagined it would be performed by crows! But then, nor had he dreamt he would elope with the daughter of the West Wind but that had come to pass, and many a stranger thing too.

Besides, crows have a flair for the dramatic.

“The moon . . . ,” Calypso, as King Valerian, opened the play, “whispers o’er the waters; come north and meet thy fate. Daughter, come forth and listen well, for destiny does you await.”

When a crow hopped out onstage wearing a lady’s wig, the audience burst into laughter. Maniac shuffled his feet and glowered out at them, which only made them laugh harder. “Aye, Father,” he began, pitching his coarse voice high. “Destiny is the wind that carries me. . . .”

Hiding on a high branch by the river Wendling, Magpie could hear faint laughter coming from the Ring. Her cheeks burned. Maniac would not be pleased with her! She was ashamed of herself. With a crow as Bellatrix the epic became a comedy, and in the very shadow of Alabaster Palace, no less. Her hero deserved better, and so did Maniac. But she was still shaking from what had happened. Just thinking of that supposed . . . queen . . . brought a new surge of fury.

The vixen had insulted her crows! Magpie fidgeted with the feathers of her skirt. They did smell like cigars, she had to admit, just like the crows did themselves. They also held a hint of wood smoke from their campfires, and the tang of rainy skies, and the strong coffee they favored in the morning. The feathers smelled like her crows, her family, and she felt more comfortable in them than in her own unpredictable skin!

She watched her fingers warily. No more lights, no traceries, but something did shimmer in her peripheral vision and she squeezed her eyes shut in frustration.

When she opened them again and looked around she realized she must be near the old linden tree where as a wee babe she had been so cozy. Suddenly she wanted to see her old house very badly, and she gave herself a push with her wings and went drifting slowly along the curve of the river, looking at all the trees, wondering if she would know it when she saw it.

She did. Years were like days to such an ancient being, and it looked just the same, its massive trunk, its canopy of palest green leaves. Whoever lived here now was sure to be at the Ring with everyone else, Magpie thought, so with a quick glance around she stole in among the leaves, just to get a glimpse of the bright red door. But when she came to the spot on the trunk where it should have been she saw nothing but bark. She circled round and found no door and nary a window, and just when she was thinking she’d come to the wrong tree, a small dull glint caught her eye. She looked closer, reached out, and touched the little smooth spot protruding from the wood. It was brass.

It was a doorknob.

Magpie backed away on her wings and sank onto a branch. She understood. When a tree gives itself to be a faerie’s home it expands to make rooms and corridors that flow within its living shape. And as it opens, so can it choose to close. The linden had closed, and the only sign her house had ever been here at all was a small protrusion of brass. Magpie dropped her face into her hands. It had been those little rooms that her mind conjured up to give any meaning to the word home, and now it was as if they’d never been.

“Magpie?” inquired a soft voice.

Magpie looked up sharply. A red-haired faerie lass—a beautiful faerie lass—stood balanced on the tapered end of the branch, smiling tentatively. “Who wants to know?” Magpie asked.

“It’s me, Poppy,” said the other lass.

“Poppy?” Magpie repeated, staring.

She came closer, knelt at Magpie’s side, and tucked her huge wings behind her. “I looked for you in the play,” she said. “I thought if you were in it you’d turned into a crow, though now I see you’ve turned only halfway.” She nodded to Magpie’s skirt and smiled. “Fine feathers,” she said.

Magpie wondered whether she was being mocked. This faerie was certainly not the type to wear crow feathers! She was beautiful even beyond the usual measure of faerie beauty and as poised as a flower. She wore rose-colored silk and her hair was upswept in a spiral of braids, each one a different shining hue of copper, bronze, or crimson. Next to her Magpie felt like she was wearing a bird’s nest on her head.

“It reminds me of that time,” the beautiful lass said, “when you conjured yourself imp whiskers so you could look like Snoshti.”

Magpie looked closely at her brown eyes then. They were warm as a hug, and she knew that it was indeed Poppy and that there was no mockery in her. “Poppy!” she said, and threw her arms around her earliest friend.

“Blessings, old feather,” Snoshti said, coming up to Calypso behind the stage caravan where he awaited his next cue.

“Ah, madam, we meet again,” he said, sweeping off his crown and bowing low.

“So ye’ve kept her alive, and that’s something,” the little imp said grudgingly.

“Been the pleasure of my long life,” Calypso replied.

“Where is she?”

“Hiding.”

“Eh?”

“Stage fright,” he said with a shrug.

“We are talking of Magpie Windwitch?”

“Aye, but don’t fret, Good-imp. It’s pure the only thing that frights her.”

“So she’s coming on well?”

“Perfect, just perfect. Clever and kind and mysterious strong.”

Snoshti squinted at him. “Gifted?”

“Aye, d’ye doubt it?”

“Does she know it?”

“I haven’t told her anything, if that’s what ye mean. But someone had better do, soon. She’ll start thinking she’s tetched.”

“Eh?”

“Not an hour ago she turned the queen’s hair to worms—”

Snoshti snorted. “Worms?”

“Aye, worms. Shivered herself some, I ken. The lass has got magic in her she don’t know what to do with.”