Except the Queen (34 page)

I had already cleansed the house of Robin’s presence, burning the lint he left behind, throwing out any food he had touched, scrubbing the rooms on my hands and knees with a soap I made of rowan and bleach. Those first couple of nights my right leg had ached from buttock to bone being unused to such a position.

That said, I kept a bit of his hair I found in my good brush and used it for a new casting. The picture that spiraled out of the smoke was as clear as the first. There was something to come out of their coupling, the girl and my scare-bird, if ever they got down to it. Though there was also some strange blurring around the edges of the vision, which was worrisome.

I moved closer to it till the smoke made my eyes water. But all I made out was a single crow feather in the left corner and a bit of gingerroot in the right. And what those two things augured—well, it was anyone’s guess. I gave it a good try, though.

Crow feather.
I knew the old adage, “One crow for sadness, two for mirth . . .” Could that be what was meant? Or perhaps it was a hunter’s sign disguised? I had once seen a hoodie crow bait-fishing, and everyone knows how they use bent twigs and stalks of grass to pull out insects from hills and burrows. And a split-tongue crow can talk in any language. My dam heard one curse an UnSeelie prince in the old tongue, and did she not laugh!

As to the ginger? It could leach poisons. Make a cold man hot. Fix a bilious stomach. Help a woman newly with child. But what it meant here, I might never know. Farseeing is like that. Sometimes meaning emerges long after.

I took up the letter to Meteora and added what I had just seen, saying,

I was about to crumple the letter, thought better of it, and put it back on the mantel. I would write something fresher in the morning. Then I ran out of the house, needing air and trees and food to sustain me.

*   *   *

I
MADE MY WAY DOWN
the street to the Man of Flowers store. He saw me and smiled, waved, came over.

“Dona,” he said. “The sun has not shined here since you were gone. Is your grandson well?”

For a moment I had to think whom he meant, then remembered I had told him the scare-bird was my kin. And in a way, I suppose he is. “I have sent him off to my sister’s.”

“You have a sister?” he countered. “Here? That is good. Then you are not, as I feared, all alone in this world.” His head nodded. “A grandson, a sister.” He paused. I remembered such pauses from the life before, when men found me beautiful and asked me such questions.

“But no husband,” I said. I said it softly, so it could be read as he wanted. I do not know why I said such a thing.
Habit? Desire? Loneliness?

“Ah.” He blushed. I liked that. It made him look younger. “May I make you a present of . . .”

I raised a hand between us, surprised at how old my hand was. Always surprised. “No more presents, kind sir, for your generosity shames me. I must repay you.”

“Dona, no payment is necessary.”

“It is the custom of my people,” I said. “I must repay you, or . . .”

He nodded. “Then make me a dinner tonight and let me supply the food and wine. It has been too long since I have had a beautiful woman cook for me.”

“Beautiful?” He had never seen me beautiful. Only fat and aching and old.

He took my hand. “There is a life lived in your face, Dona, and a wisdom and laughter in your eyes. There is kindness there, too.”

I who had never melted when a lover said such things in my nest, nor lost my heart for more than a night’s dalliance, almost wept. “I have never been kind,” I whispered to him.

“I cannot believe that.”

I let him give me root vegetables, cream, long noodles, three kinds of cheeses, some berries, a sweet basil plant, a bit of thyme, three rosemary stalks, and a round orange fruit as big as his fist.

“I close the store at six.”

I told him the number of my house.

“I know.”

“Second floor.”

“I have seen the plants on the sill.”

So I smiled. “I will expect you then, sometime after the store is closed.” And I left, my heart thudding so hard, I feared it would burst through the bag of food I had from him as a gift. No—not a gift, but a promise, though I wondered with a shiver if this old body could keep the promise made by my suddenly much younger heart.

A
ll Sparrow had wanted to be was invisible on the street. She’d followed Robin’s suggestions as to how to lay her spells on Hawk’s shop, because he’d understood her need to exact revenge on the man. She showed him the tattoo on her neck, pulled up her sleeve to reveal the snake’s head coiled around her wrist, but stopped short of showing him the half-formed adders on her shoulders. He had said nothing at first, only stared. And then offered advice.

“Go slowly,” he’d said, “don’t let him feel the noose until it is too late. Circle him. Foul the air but first accustom him to the fragrance.”

“Are you sure about that . . . ?”

He’d nodded, his dark curls bouncing. “Very. That one is too powerful to challenge directly. You must use stealth.”

Sparrow believed him. He spoke with such certainty. It was as if he knew, knew that her life was nothing short of a fairy tale gone awry.

He’d asked to go with her on her next foray, but Sparrow had refused. The truth was, she didn’t entirely trust him. He was handsome—too handsome—and she’d felt the color rise in her cheeks when he gave her that slow, appraising stare. Looking down at his elegant hands had only made it worse. She thought about those hands
caressing the neck of the fiddle, or closed around the bow, lifting it over the strings. He had played for her, she knew that. But where the music was taking her, she didn’t know.
What if he’s more dangerous than Hawk?
She remembered how easily he’d deceived the tattooer, and shivered at the thought. She needed to know about him in the same way that he seemed to know her. That was only fair.

*   *   *

O
N THE FOLLOWING DAY
, S
PARROW
waited until Sophia had left the house and Robin was working with Jack in the garden. Then she sprinted upstairs. The door was unlocked so she slipped inside and looked around. The sitting room was a cluttered mess: books, scraps of paper with scribbled music, dirty plates stacked high on the table. In one corner was a pile of men’s laundry. Sparrow picked up a sweat-stained shirt, and sniffed its pungent aroma. Just then she heard men’s voices in the garden break into loud laughter.

“Don’t be stupid,” she told herself, and tossed the shirt away.

She peered into the kitchen, searching for the pile of colored envelopes she remembered seeing on the table. A letter had rested beneath the dove and Sparrow had seen the name “Robin,” written in a curling script before she knew what it meant. But the kitchen was clean, and there was no sign of the letters on the shelves or in the drawers.

Of course!
Sophia had probably hidden them from Robin. She went to the bedroom, and glanced quickly at the neatly made bed and the clothing hanging on wooden pegs. Alongside the bed was a pair of fur-trimmed slippers. The pillows were huge and plump and quite inviting. Intuitively, she slid her hand under the nearest pillow and chuckled. The sheets whispered as she pulled forth the tied stack of letters. There wasn’t much time, for she could hear Jack stomping his shoes free of mud on the back steps. They would be putting away the tools and
Robin would soon return. She opened the first letter and read a page. She refolded it and read two more. It was all she needed. She had learned enough.

Enough to know that Sophia and her sister talked about her. “A misery-girl” Sophia had called her. And he a “scare-bird.” Sparrow was angry and hurt. Sophia had not extended a hand to her because she was simply a young woman in need of friendship, but rather an oddity in a gossipy game between a pair of weird sisters who thought a good deal of themselves. And she gathered from the veiled, puzzling comments that neither were what they appeared to be either.

No, no
, she thought,
trust no one. Except perhaps Robin, for he’s one of their “projects.” Just like me. Maybe it’s time to leave here before it gets more complicated.
She knew she could always run.

But first she had a score to settle.

With Hawk.

*   *   *

F
OR TWO DAYS SHE HAD
turned her clothes inside out to hide herself from Hawk’s notice, strolling past his shop and dropping a small handful of crushed herbs on the doorjambs, front and back.

But this time, when Sparrow turned the corner, she saw a girl dressed in a plaid skirt and white blouse standing in front of Hawk’s shop. Every time the girl stepped forward, her foot touched some unseen line and she stepped back. Sparrow bent down to pet Lily, watching the girl struggle between two inducements: one to enter, the other to flee. At last, the girl turned on her heel and left.

“Good!” Sparrow said, rubbing Lily’s ears, but staring at the retreating figure of the girl. Clearly the herbs were working, though not exactly the way she had meant them to.

When she arrived home, she paused, seeing the orange envelope in Sophia’s box. Deftly, she plucked the envelope out between two fingers, glanced at the writing,
and then carried it upstairs hidden in her jacket. Those two biddies had too many secrets and she didn’t like being one of them.

Taking off Lily’s collar, she went into the kitchen, the dog padding eagerly behind her. After feeding the dog and filling her water bowl, Sparrow turned up the heat under the kettle. She held the letter over the steaming spout and waited for the glue to give. It was easy enough to remove the letter from the envelope, trickier to remove the warning at the end of the page. She folded a tight crease and slid a knife along it, knowing the rough edges would probably give it away. But not until it was too late.

Sparrow folded the scrap in her pocket. Tomorrow was Saturday, and the Farmer’s Market would be in full swing. She wouldn’t be purchasing that horrible root she had bought last time. This time she would get her hands on the right plant and then let what was to happen, happen.
That should teach those meddling sisters
, she thought.

Refolding the letter, Sparrow placed it in the envelope and held the seal closed until it mostly stuck along the edge. She went downstairs, replaced the envelope in the mailbox, and returned to her own apartment. Tonight she would stay awake as long as she could. She would listen, really listen to the tunes Robin played and make up her mind about him one way or the other before she left for work in the morning.

W
hen I returned from the Co-op, I found Serana’s letter waiting for me in the mailbox. The envelope was wrinkled as though it had become damp and then dried. The ink was washed pale and I wondered that it had found its way to me at all. When I turned it over, the back flap sighed open without help from my anxious fingers. And when I pulled out the letter, it was obvious something was amiss.

One page was too short. There was no farewell to me. No matter how angry or hurt Serana might have been at my previous letter, she would never have ended with such an enigmatic phrase: “I do know this.” I tucked the letter in the bosom of my shirt and mounted the stairs, lost in troubled thoughts.

The house was deadly quiet. The couple on the first floor worked long days. Of Sparrow I had seen little of late. Sometimes, while in the garden, I would hear her shuffling on the back porch, but when I turned, she would duck inside to avoid me. I had hoped she would come to see me, to make amends of some kind. But once Serana’s scare-bird showed up, she had become reluctant to even talk to me in passing.