The Hidden Princess (21 page)

“Mum had to choose between us?” The horror of it washed over me. No wonder she hated me.

“Your parents had no choice. You were cursed with a Hidden sickness as a reminder to her not to try and cheat her way out of the bargain, and if it wasn’t for Larkspur, you would have died in that hospital, Connie, six years ago. There is no mortal medicine that could have saved you.”

“So the Hidden cheated, in the end. They were going to kill me anyway.” I shivered thinking of the tall and beautiful red-headed boy, Lissy’s brother: Larkspur. He’d saved my life. “I don’t understand what this has to do with why I kept seeing the Swan King in my Dream – it was like he’d got through to me somehow, like we were really communicating. I used to dream about Lissy all the time, too. Like just now.”

Nicolas glanced out of the window. “When Larkspur healed you, you became Tainted – joined to the Hidden world. That’s why you dream about your sister, and it’s how the Swan King was able to reach you. The barrier between the Halls of the Hidden and the mortal world is thin here, so close to the Gateway. You saw through it, Connie. You still could now, if you chose. You’re bound to the Hidden, like it or not.” He smiled. “Think of it as a unique ability. You can travel between two worlds in your dreams. How many people can say that?”

I stared at him. “But what if I don’t want to be Tainted? I don’t want to be part of this at all, and I definitely don’t want anything to do with those things – those creatures. They’re evil. You saw what he was trying to do to me, that thing in the woods.” I knew I’d wake up years from now still feeling the chill of Briar’s hands groping my flesh, still remembering my dad lying with his eyes wide open and his head at that horrible, wrong angle like he was just a broken doll.

“Not all of the Hidden would have done the same – Larkspur for one. Think about it: are all mortals tyrants? The Hidden had been trapped for so long, Connie. The Gateway has been opened before, but none would have risked conduct like that whilst the Swan King still lived.”

I stared down into my empty mug, fixing my eyes on the ring of tea stains. I couldn’t help thinking about the pattern of silver scars running the length of Nicolas’s back. Clearly I wasn’t the only person in the room with a screwed-up family. “How did you get away from your stepfather, then? Didn’t he try to find you?” Would Mum make any effort to look for me if one day I just never came home? She wouldn’t even notice I’d gone. “You must have left at some point. How?”

Nicolas leaned forwards, his forehead resting on the window, facing away from me. “I was lucky. I had help.” He was completely still again, and for a moment it was like he’d forgotten I was there: he’d just gone back to some other time, some other place. He pushed away from the window, turning to face me again. “Anyway. That’s not important, not any more. What’s the use in going over what has passed? Listen, the Swan King is dead, but who is the most powerful amongst all the Hidden now? Who can call them to order?” Nicolas asked, leaning back against the window frame, watching me with his dark eyes. Eight hundred years. He must have seen so much. “Your sister, Connie. You need Lissy. You need her now. Call her. Only she can help you to end this before any more harm is done.”

“I can’t—”

“You’ve already released the Hidden – you opened the Gateway. You saw what was happening in the woods. Your father is dead, and the Hidden are hungry for mortals – their warmth, for the children they can’t bear. They can’t help themselves. The mortals will destroy them in revenge. All it takes is an iron weapon – a whole race could be destroyed in the space of a few hours with just a couple of rounds of ammunition. Haven’t you done enough damage?”

“I know it’s my fault that thing killed my dad, OK? You don’t need to keep reminding me. I don’t care what happens to the Hidden, though. I wish they would all be destroyed with whatever weapon will do it.” I squeezed my eyes shut, desperate to push away the memory of that Hidden boy pressing me down, soil and dead leaves in my mouth; trying to forget that I’d left my own father’s dead body lying by a tree in the woods.

Nicolas stared at me. “Then you’re as good as a murderer, Connie. Most of the Hidden have done nothing wrong. All they want is their freedom. If you refuse to call your sister, you may as well kill them all with your own hands.”

“I can’t call Lissy. I don’t know how.”

“Then try.” Nicolas shoved himself away from the window and came to lean against the arm of the sofa, looking down at me. “Pretend that I’m Lissy: talk to me, Connie. Try. Do you want to let it all get worse and worse till everyone’s dead? Are you some kind of coward, or are you going to take control? You’re Tainted – use the power you have been given.”

Nicolas was right. So much of this was my fault. If Lissy could put a stop to it, and I had the ability to call her, then I had to try. I fixed my eyes on him, and I thought of Lissy. I thought of my sister, I held her picture in my mind – that endless red hair, her smile, that cloak of golden feathers – and I called her to me. And all the time Nicolas was smiling.

We huddle in the shelter of the churchyard yews – hundreds of Hidden, all pressed together, clutching at one another’s ragged finery as we listen to rain splashing from the branches into the puddles forming at our feet, and the heavy, repetitive thud of mortal footfalls. Someone is coming, and all I can do is hope that Larkspur was right, and that the ancient trees really will offer us a measure of concealment.

What must we do, O Queen?
The Hidden are silent, their eyes wide with fear, their bone-white faces streaming with rain, but their thoughts drift across my mind like strands of cloud across a darkening sky.
O Queen, we are afraid, afraid of their mortal rage, their mortal iron. They could destroy all of us so easily with their weapons of iron
—

Wait
. I tell them.
We are concealed, therefore do not be afraid
.

And even as I send the thought into the minds of my terrified people, a mortal boy bursts out of the trees and hurls himself over the stile into the churchyard. I recognize him immediately – that ragged hair swept back from his face. Joe. He stops, skidding in wet grass, and a fine spray of mud hits the Hidden closest to him. They shrink away, drawing their drenched and ragged silken cloaks closer about their shoulders.

Don’t move!
I order.
Silence
. I can’t see how this is going to work. It’s never going to work.

Joe stops, staring around the churchyard with wide, terrified eyes, pausing to wipe the rain from his face, but his gaze passes over us – a crowd of hundreds. Larkspur was right. Our father was right. The yews have saved us, the ancient, powerful yews, and Joe just runs on towards the village, his shoulders hunched against the rain.

Oh, Joe
. I long to stop him, to ask what he is so afraid of, but my duty is to protect the Hidden, to hide them even from the one mortal I would trust with my sister’s life. And as I look down at the puddle gathering at my feet in the pitted, rough grass of the churchyard, I see that it no longer reflects the furious grey sky above.

Lissy?
I hear Connie’s voice, just as loud as if she were standing right beside me.

I see her face in the water…

Adam was dead in the woods, his eyes just staring at nothing but Connie’s torn-up clothes. He was dead, and I was on my own. How long would it be before the Fontevrault turned up in Hopesay? I sprinted down the high street past the butcher, trying to shake off that creepy feeling that I’d been watched, that someone other than me had been in the churchyard.
Watching
. I had to find Connie. I couldn’t shake off the memory of finding the tattered rags of her skirt.

Don’t be a bloody idiot, jumping at bloody shadows just because you’ve seen a dead body. Just find her
.

Hopesay Edge was quiet, creepy: the usual row of dusty pick-up trucks and knackered Land Rovers parked up on the pavement just wasn’t there.
They’ve found out about the party. Everyone’s up at the Reach, looking for their kids
. I turned off the high street, tearing down the lane towards that cottage where me and Dad had once dropped off Connie, praying I’d got the right place because it’d been years and years since I was last in the village – the lane was just a rutted track, mud laced together with tufts of long dry grass. Finally, I recognized the black-and-white timbered cottage at the end and threw myself at the front door, banging on the glossy blue paint with both fists.

There was no reply, and I paced around to the kitchen window, peering in. I could hear a TV turned down low. “Connie!” I yelled. “Are you in there?” There was definitely someone at home. I thumped the door again and this time it opened, on a chain.

“She’s not here. What do you want?” The kid looked like he hadn’t slept. What was his name? Something weird and hippyish?
Blue
. And he looked very, very scared, his eyes darting around, trying to see if there was someone behind me. “Mum told me not to let anyone in.”

She’s not here
. All that could mean was that Connie was either at the Reach – or still up in the woods. With the Hidden.
Nice work, Joe. Once again, you’ve run in the wrong bloody direction at the wrong time
. Despair washed over me. “I’m Joe, Connie’s stepbrother. I thought Connie might be with you – I was hoping she might be with you.”

Blue shook his head, lifting the chain and stepping back to let me in. He closed the door behind us, and the house smelled of spices and washing powder, homely and safe. “Listen, OK? There were these weird, strange people just everywhere, up in the woods, all over our party, and they weren’t
right
. Connie knew. She made me promise to leave, but I shouldn’t’ve let her go on her own. She said she was looking for you—” He broke off, obviously on the edge of complete panic. I remembered that feeling – that slow and terrifying realization that those things he’d seen were inhuman. That they were something else. And Connie wasn’t with him.

“I haven’t seen her. She didn’t find me.” I wasn’t about to tell him I’d found Connie’s dad dead, her ripped clothes scattered all over the clearing and no sign of her.
You idiot!
I wanted to shriek in his face.
Why the bloody hell did you let her go off on her own?

Blue shook his head, as if I’d asked the question out loud. “I didn’t know what she was on about. I thought she was going crazy – I hadn’t seen them then. Those things. I hadn’t— Look, you really don’t know what’s going on, do you?” He looked haunted, massive dark circles beneath his eyes.

Fear clenched my gut. “What?”

“Mika,” Blue said, and his voice shook. “My sister’s baby. They woke up this morning and he wasn’t there. Everyone’s out looking for him. I mean, Mika’s just this tiny little baby – he can’t survive without Amy.” Blue paused, staring at me. “You know what the weirdest thing was? She came running in from the caravan first thing this morning; she was screaming, with all these leaves in her hands – dead leaves, everywhere. She said his cot was just full of dead leaves. So now Mika’s gone as well as Connie.”

I opened my mouth to speak but I couldn’t. The police wouldn’t find him. No one would find that baby now. He was with the Hidden. It was all starting again, the same story, all over again – a mortal child, stolen. On and on it would go, this nightmare, without end, till there was nothing left.

I turned and walked down the lane, listening to the dull click as Blue closed the front door behind me, the tiny metallic jingle as he hung the chain, as if that could possibly keep out the Hidden. And then, as I watched, a black SUV pulled up across the end of the lane, right onto the pavement, blocking my way back to the deserted high street of Hopesay Edge. I stood, waiting, as the engine died. The windows were darkened; the driver and any passengers all concealed.

Fontevrault
. For a second, I closed my eyes in the mad hope the SUV would just disappear – it didn’t.
It’s just another dream. A waking dream. Get a grip, Joe
. When I opened them, the SUV was still there, real and black and shining like a seal on a rock, blocking the end of the lane. A huge, crushing weight settled on my shoulders, and I felt like I was being forced downwards into the earth at my feet.

“Good morning, Joe.” An unfamiliar adult voice:
Fontevrault
. The speaker was behind me. They must’ve come down the tiny, rutted pathway that led around to the back of the Creeds’ cottage at the end of the lane.

Without turning to look, I let the truth sink in. There were rows of terraced cottages on either side, with no way past. The Fontevrault had returned to Hopesay Edge as I’d always known they would, and this time, they’d found me.

Connie backs away, staring at me, her face white with shock. Her hands shake as if she has the palsy. “I did it. I saw Lissy, but I’m awake.”

I smile, so very encouraging, trying not to let her see how impressed I am. I’m going to make Lissy Harker pay. “You’ve done well. You’re Tainted and you’re learning to control your power.”

She glances at me with her green-glass eyes. So scornful. “Power? Like in a fairy tale?”

“Isn’t this a fairy tale?” I can’t help wanting to laugh – she’s so tough and so ridiculously young and stupid. It’s going to be a lot harder to kill her than I thought. “Come on. You’ll need to eat, you need to stay strong and try again later. It’s quieter out there now. I’m going to bring you a rabbit.”

Connie makes a face. “I don’t want to eat a rabbit.” She stands up, and I can’t help but notice how her fingers are still shaking and how she grabs hold of the chaise to stop them. “I’m coming with you.”

“Do you really want to run into more of the Hidden?”

She stands, tilting her head up to look at me, and her green eyes catch the light coming in through the window and look gold. “Right. And do you really think I want to stay here by myself?”

“Do it anyway.” I need Connie Harker where I can find her. And I’m ashamed to say it but there’s a part of me that doesn’t want her to cross paths with the Hidden again now that they are hungry, now that they are hunting – just that very tiny little voice that had spoken the word
Stop
when I had Connie within sight of my arrow. Because she was so young, and so amusingly brave, and because none of this was her fault. Even though I was going to kill her.