Golden Girl (26 page)

Just for spite, I kicked at the pedestal of the next naked statue we passed.

Help me
, sobbed a lady’s voice.

I jerked back and whirled around.

I want to go home
, she pleaded.

My magic opened. I couldn’t help it. Now I heard all the voices. They were everywhere, crowding in on me, clamoring for attention. Dozens of whispers. Hundreds.

I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it
.

I just wanted …

I wanted …

I just wished … Please …

Help me. Somebody help me
.

I slammed myself shut. Jack was staring at me. Miss Davies was smiling brightly, patiently.

“They’re people.” I turned in a tight circle, staring at the beautiful garden with its grottoes and arbors and statues. Hundreds and hundreds of statues, faces, mosaics, and murals tucked cunningly among the vines and trees. “They’re all people.”

Miss Davies shrugged. “They made bargains they couldn’t follow through on. It was their own fault.” She waved dismissively at the garden.

My hands began to shake. Jack’s face flushed scarlet as the reality sank in. They were people, people who’d wished and wanted. They’d wanted fame and luxury and beauty, and they’d gotten it, imprisoned in these gardens. But why? I turned around again. What was it all
for
? I didn’t dare open my magic again to try to find out. The voices and their sorrow would drown me.

“What kind of bargain did you make?” I croaked at the pretty, smiling woman who led us through this beautiful prison.

“You wouldn’t understand, dear.” She shook her head and tucked one curl back behind her ear. “You’re still young. But one day you’ll get tired of being poor and dirty. You’ll remember that every woman can be a queen if she really wants to, and you’ll make your own bargain.” She
looked up at the statue reclining beside us, and the sneer on her lips was the nastiest thing I’d seen yet. But it was gone with the next breath, and she turned up that path like nothing was wrong. I didn’t move.

“Where’s my mother?”

Miss Davies sighed. “She’s with Mr. Hearst, as is your father. I told you, Callie.
Everyone
is waiting for you.”

There were more staircases after that, and more beautiful arbors and flowerbeds, but I couldn’t tell one from another anymore. Miss Davies hurried us along. Jack had come back to my side, his face still flushed. I could feel him turning plans over in his head, wondering which he could make work. But he couldn’t settle on anything any more than I could. The scale of the wrong done here, the number of prisoners trapped by twisted promises and betrayed wishes—it was too huge for either of us to wrap our brains around.

At last we reached the top of the hill and crossed into the shadow of the Spanish-style castle with its pure white walls, its towers, and its terra-cotta roofs. I thought we’d be going inside, but Miss Davies took us in the other direction, toward a kind of broad hollow. The view would have been breathtaking if it hadn’t been blotted out by the fog that churned and crawled beyond the terrace. The hollow itself was an expanse of pure white marble decorated by yet more sculptures.

A pool of turquoise water spread in the center of the marble deck. If Roman emperors had had swimming pools,
this was what they would’ve looked like. It was even bigger than the pool where we’d almost gotten killed by the lifeguard. Marble columns and temples surrounded it, and a waterfall poured down into it. A crowd of men and women were milling around the deck, and they all turned toward us as we approached. But we didn’t see a single face. The whole crowd was dressed for a masquerade, with blank-eyed masks made of feathers and sequins and dangling beads. They looked like birds. They looked like demons and insects and angels. A pair in the corner wore glittering emerald crocodile masks. I didn’t even need to open my magic to know we weren’t seeing the human guests this time. These were all fairies, come to court to watch my punishment.

When we reached the deck, the crowd parted to make an aisle for us and Miss Davies. She walked through the fairy crowd calm, smiling and nodding as she passed—like the perfect party hostess. I found myself wondering if she could really understand what she was seeing, or the kind of place she was in. Except she knew about the prisoners. She understood, all right. She just didn’t care.

Curving staircases rose on either side of the waterfall, leading to a raised terrace. On a wide marble bench sat Mr. Hearst.

I recognized him from Ivy’s photo, and from the nightmare my uncle had showed me. In real life, he was big and bluff and perfectly at ease. He had pockmarks on his face, a fleshy neck, and a potbelly under his spotless white trousers
and white shirt. Which meant he had to be human. No Seelie would look like that.

So where was the Seelie king?

Ivy Bright stood beside Mr. Hearst and grinned. She looked perfect, of course, dressed in a pink version of Miss Davies’s outfit. As we walked across the pool deck down below her, she giggled.

My parents were there too, as Miss Davies had promised. They’d been posed on the far side of the marble bench from Ivy, done up as Rags and Patches once again. My father was down on one knee holding out both hands. My mother was leaning over, ready to slap his face. Enchantment anchored them so tightly they couldn’t even draw breath.

Miss Davies skipped up the stairs, as if she hadn’t just walked through about a half mile of garden. She leaned down and kissed Mr. Hearst and patted Ivy on the head. Ivy beamed like she was seeing an angel, and Miss Davies took her seat on the bench. None of them even looked at my parents.

It was the last straw.

Jack’s anger burned under his skin, and he wished with all his might there was something he could do. I took hold of the wish and the anger behind it and aimed my magic toward my parents.

Nothing happened. My parents stayed where they were. I tried again and again, and still nothing. I didn’t feel blinded or smothered this time. It was simply that my wish
had no more effect on the world around me than a normal girl’s would have.

I’d spent months wishing I had no magic, that I wasn’t a half-breed fairy, that I could just be normal. Now my magic was out of my reach, and all I wanted was to have it back so I could touch my parents and let them know I’d finally gotten here. That I was going to get them free.

Mr. Hearst looked down on my confusion and laughed. The rest of the masked court laughed with him. The noise filled that artificial swimming-pool hollow to the brim, and the echoes bounced back and forth so many times it sounded like the mountain itself was joining in the fun.

“Oh, no,” boomed Mr. Hearst. “Not here, Miss LeRoux. You have no power here.” His voice rang against the marble and the curve of the hill at his back. It wrapped around me and over me, and it was crawling with power.

Hearing it, I understood where the Seelie king was. He was inside Mr. Hearst, the way the human beings were inside the garden statues.

Mr. Hearst not only let the Seelies move into his house and grounds whenever they wanted; he’d let their king move right into his body. Revulsion clenched my stomach. Why would anybody do that? Of course I knew the answer. The man had wished to be king of the world, and his wish had been granted—provided, of course, that he let himself and his house serve the king of that other world whenever it was required.

Mr. Hearst, or the Seelie king inside him, raised one
hand. Power stirred. It rose from the gardens all around us, and the sky overhead faded to black. At the same moment, the lamps around the pool and lining the paths lit themselves. The masked and glittering crowd applauded politely. The bells in the castle towers began to ring, long and sonorous, tolling midnight.

“Calliope deMinuit,” thundered the Seelie king, “you are called to answer for your crime of violating territorial boundaries of the Seelie kingdom. What have you to say regarding your actions?”

I clenched my fists and took one step forward. “I—” The crowd laughed. The noise tumbled down like bricks. It vibrated through the deck under our feet like the beginning of an earthquake. There was no way in the world—in any world—one voice could have been heard over all that.

Eventually the king raised his hand and the laughter died away. My ears were ringing. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to hear myself.

“Well?” demanded the king. “I ask again. What have you to say regarding your actions?”

“I—”

This time they booed. And for good measure, they hissed and whistled. It was a riot of noise that rose and fell and sounded like you’d think a whole convention of ghosts and teakettles would sound. It was as bad as laughter could ever be. Jack whirled around to face the crowd. I saw his mouth moving. I knew he was yelling, “Shut up! Shut up!”
But as close as I was to him, I couldn’t hear a thing. There was only the hissing and the booing from the Seelies.

The king raised his hand again, and the court fell silent. “I ask a third time, Calliope deMinuit. What have you to say regarding your actions?”

I took one more step forward. I felt them getting ready to drown me out again. Ivy was standing beside the throne grinning. I looked at her and clenched my teeth. I made myself think. I thought about everything I’d seen and done since coming to California. I thought about my parents and Ivy Bright, and I thought about Mr. Robeson, who was the only person I’d ever met who’d walked away from all of us free and clear. And I knew what I had to do.

“I’ll make a bet with you.”

This time the fairy court stayed silent.

Silence can be more terrible than any sound. But I was ready for this one, and I had no intention of standing still for it. I started up those marble stairs. I heard Jack’s footsteps behind me, but I didn’t look back. I kept my gaze on my parents, forced into their clown costumes and their clown poses for this masquerade. I wasn’t even sure if they could see me. Their eyes were just as frozen as their bodies.

I reached the top of the staircase, and the king and I were finally on the same level. He smiled, and I felt how he appreciated my daring and my drama. He was a connoisseur of such things, and he liked to see them well played. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t look away. His eyes were human eyes, blue and piercing, but the king stirred underneath. The king could give you anything and everything. All you had to do was be brave enough to wish.

“Oh, no,” I said. “You’re not fooling me with that one.
I’ve got no wish for you. We’re taking this round back. Me against you. If I win, my parents, Jack, and I all walk out of here safe and sound. No strings, no side deals. Nothing.”

“And if you lose?” he drawled. I could tell what he was thinking. I was funny. I was entertaining, even better than my parents. He should have brought me here before.

“I stay with you,” I said.

“No, Callie!” hissed Jack.

I ignored him. “ ‘See her now, daughter of three worlds. See her now, three roads to choose. Where she goes, where she stays, where she stands, there shall the gates be closed.’ That’s what this has always been about. You never wanted my parents, and you sure don’t want Jack.” I’d apologize to Jack later for pointing that out. “You want me, so I’m going to give you your chance.”

The king leaned back and ran one stout finger over Mr. Hearst’s mustache. He was intrigued, and more than a tiny bit amused. I was an audacious little thing. I wondered if he could tell how badly I wanted to smack that face he wore like a carnival mask. Probably. I was just so funny that way.

I opened my mouth, planning to let him in on a few of Jack’s more entertaining cuss words, but Ivy Bright spoke up first.

“Let me do it,” she said. “Let me fight her.”

“Be quiet, Ivy,” snapped Miss Davies. “This has nothing to do with you.”

Ivy clearly did not agree. She faced the king. I’d seen the baby-doll Ivy and the wounded and confused little girl, and
I’d even seen the savvy actress, but this was something new. This Ivy was tall, proud, and fearless—and, I realized as a tremor of nerves flickered through me, more than a little bit dangerous.

“I claim my rights, Your Majesty,” she said. “She’s insulted me and raised her hand against me!”

“Ivy,” breathed Jack, “you don’t have to do this.”

The look she turned on him then should have been pure poison, and it was, mostly, but there was something else too: regret. Jack saw it, and his hand moved, like he was going to reach out. But at the last moment he curled his fingers in.

Whatever the king thought of all this, he was keeping it to himself. He just leaned over to Miss Davies and whispered into her ear. I looked at her as hard as I could manage. She had no fairy light in her. There was nothing under that skin but a human heart and a human brain. She’d been telling the truth. She’d made a bargain to become queen of this hill and its castle, whether it was playing hostess for Mr. Hearst or for the Seelie king. I would have bet my last dime that her bargain included giving birth to a half-Seelie daughter who might just grow up to fulfill a prophecy. These were Ivy’s parents, right in front of me, and I knew it and Ivy knew it. The one thing she wanted most in the world was to come live with them forever. And I had no doubt they knew that too.

I really wished I had the time to crawl away somewhere and be sick.

The king straightened up and inclined his head toward
Ivy. “Your petition is denied,” he said to his daughter. “You are not strong enough to take this challenge.”

Ivy gaped at him. “I am! I’m every bit as strong as she is! Stronger! I can prove it!”

“Ivy,” said Jack urgently. “Ivy, come on. This isn’t a game anymore.”

She didn’t look at him. “I have the right,” she said through gritted teeth. “Please, Your Majesty, let me prove myself.”

The Seelie king smiled down at Miss Davies. She looked adoringly and approvingly up at him, barely glancing at her daughter.

“Very well,” said the king. “You shall have your wish, Ivy Bright. You will be our champion for this challenge.”

I wasn’t the only one who knew there was way more going on here than I could see. “Don’t do this,” Jack muttered. “You don’t know what rules they’re playing by.”