Unthinkable (22 page)

“Hope?” Fenella said uncertainly. “The answer to this
one has to be metaphysical, then? It doesn’t seem as if it
could be violent.”

At least, she hoped so.
That depends on your definition of violence.
“Violence is what I just did,” Fenella snapped. Bile rose

The cat flicked his tail.
You can’t afford to wallow in misery over what you’ve done. Or be too picky over what you do
next. My advice is to get it over with.

He leaped to the top of the stone wall, turned around
three times, and then sat. This will be the hardest of all.
There’s no more getting close to your family and surprising
them.

Fenella wrapped her arms around herself. “My family
will also be speculating about a faerie reason for what I did.
They’ll be angry, as well as deep in grief. Miranda knows a
lot about Faerie. She and Lucy and Zach were already suspicious after the fire. Lucy will be relentless. Miranda will
share her suspicions. Also, Zach will tell them . . .”

That you tried to seduce him?
“Nothing happened.” Perhaps it was wrong to feel grateful for that, given that she had then done something even
more terrible. But it was all Fenella had. She said, “I wouldn’t
be surprised if they were hunting for me this minute.”
They might guess you’re in Faerie, said Ryland. But it’s the
police who will be searching for you in the human realm.
“What? Who?” For a moment Fenella was confused.
Then she remembered Lucy mentioning the police, after
the fire.
Ryland said patiently, The police are the authorities charged
with keeping the peace and controlling criminals. If we hadn’t
slipped away when we did, they would surely have taken you
away with them to be questioned. They arrived as we left.
Remember hearing the sirens? Ryland paused thoughtfully.
Maybe they took your veterinarian friend away already.
“Walker? But I was the one who hit Leo, not Walker.”
It was his vehicle. It might be his responsibility too. I’m not
sure how their laws work in a situation like this. There could
be a criminal charge against him.
“Oh,” said Fenella blankly. “Why didn’t you warn me how
complicated all of this would be, with police and everything?”
Ryland was snide. I thought you were going to kill the dog,
remember? Or seduce Zach.
Fenella scowled. She said nothing.
Anyway, here we are now. We’ll have to keep you away
from the police, or you’ll be locked up. And soon they’d find
out that you don’t exist legally, and we’d be in the soup even
more. You would never get a chance to perform the third
task.
Fenella discovered she was sitting on the ground again.
She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms
around her legs. She was a murderer. She accepted that.
But had she inadvertently destroyed Walker too? It seemed
there was no way to control the ripples of destruction.
Compulsively, she imagined Walker telling her family
how Fenella had begged to learn to drive his truck. How
she had kissed him, then spurned him, and then turned to
him again. Zach had his story to tell too. Maybe they would
all decide together that her behavior with Walker had been
part of her plan.
She was truly guilty of so much, and yet the thought of
this one injustice stabbed so deep, it felt almost like physical
pain. Her time with Walker had been the one small pleasure
she had. Now she had ruined that too.
On top of being an arsonist and a murderer.
She said to Ryland, “If I went to my family and told them
it was all Padraig’s fault, would they believe me? Would that
buy me time for the third task?”
What do you think?
Fenella didn’t believe they would listen to her for a millisecond. But she tried to convince herself. “If I told them
that hitting Leo was an accident—which it was—maybe
they’d take me in again for a short time. Long enough for
me to destroy hope.”
Do you have a plan for that? Ryland tilted his head curiously.
“No.” The truth was that Fenella couldn’t imagine ever
having another plan. Her head felt like it was full of sand.
But to encourage herself, she said, “After the third task,
when I’m mortal again and they are safe, I’ll kill myself in
the human realm. I’ll make sure they find my dead body.
It’ll be like a gift to them.”
On top of the wall, Ryland said nothing.
Fenella went on wildly. “But it would be best if I could
figure out the third task without needing to see them.” She
bit her fingers hard. “Ryland?” She hated the plea in her
voice. “Could I stay here in Faerie to figure out the third
task? Then I’d pop out and—and destroy hope. Quickly.
Somehow.”
“But you hate it in Faerie,” said a new voice.
The voice was behind Fenella.
It was a voice that made her skin shrivel and her throat
clench and her blood turn icy. Even though she had succeeded in two out of three tasks; even though she could
hear that the voice was only a thread of sound.
The Mud Creature! said Ryland, annoyed. What is my
sister thinking, to release him here now? She knows we have
work to do. Tell him to go away, Fenella.
Fenella could guess what the queen had been thinking.
That this would stiffen Fenella’s resolve to go forward. That
seeing Padraig would push her into action.
That she needed the reminder.
Padraig went on. “You hated Faerie from the first moment I brought you here. You were my guest at the ball.
Remember, my sweet? It wasn’t the night either of us had
planned. Nothing has gone as planned, since that night. But
now you want to linger here. I hope the irony doesn’t escape
you. Dare I hope that you’re changing your mind about
living here in the future? With me? Dare I hope that you
will restore everything back to the way it was?”
Fenella did not look. She breathed.
She remembered.
Why aren’t you talking? Are you still afraid of that weak
nitwit? Ryland’s voice was incredulous. Look at him! Just
look!
Padraig said, “My Fenella. Still so pretty. Yes, keep your
eyes downcast. That’s how it should be.”
Fenella? Ryland said again.
Fenella scrambled to her feet. She turned. Ryland was
also on his feet atop the wall. He was beside her as she faced
Padraig.
See? See the Mud Creature now?
Fenella’s eyes widened. This was not the same Padraig
that she had seen at the start of her tasks.
He was able, as ever, to read her expression. “It’s because
you have accomplished two tasks,” Padraig said to her.
His gaze was as of old: a storm of malicious, beautiful blue. Nothing else was the same, though. His face was
shrunken and his skin was gray. His beautiful thick hair
had gone completely lank. And his frame was skeletal, his
tattered, once-elegant clothes falling in deep folds over
sharp bones. He had not even the strength to keep himself
upright. He leaned heavily upon a cane.
“But it only looks like you’re winning,” Padraig rasped.
“You’ll fail at last. I know why, and so do you.”
Ryland yowled aloud, furiously.
Padraig directed a bow in Ryland’s direction. His tone
grew a shade more courteous. “I don’t mean that as a slur
on you, Lord Ryland. Even with your help, however, Fenella
will fail.” He smirked, his teeth yellow. “Don’t you see what
has happened? There she was, trying to destroy love for
them. But in the process, she fell in love with them. I knew
she would.”
Fenella said nothing.
“Her love will paralyze her. She won’t be able to destroy
anything else. Not to save herself, not to save them. Even
while they hate her!”
He laughed.
Ryland yowled again. This ignoramus doesn’t speak cat, he
said to Fenella contemptuously. He can’t understand me. So
tell him from me that it’s not so. You will stand firm.
Fenella said nothing.
Fenella?
“You know the truth when you hear it, Fenella.” Though
only a whisper, Padraig’s voice held the sureness of an experienced vulture winging at prey.
Fenella, Ryland said irritably. Tell him no.
But Fenella could not say a word. Padraig was not done
talking. She must not say anything before he was done, because he hated being interrupted, and if she and Lucy and
Dawn were indeed all to be returned into his power—
“When we are together this time,” Padraig said, “it will
be good. You know why, don’t you? This time, you will have
reinstated the curse yourself. All the girls will hate you.
Which means there will be nobody else for you to love
but me.”
Leaning heavily on his stick, with Fenella still silent,
Padraig limped away.

_{What was that?}
The cat spat onto the wall. Why were you
standing there like a lump?
Fenella continued to stand like a lump.
Fenella? Ryland stepped delicately closer. He put out a
paw toward Fenella. She didn’t react. He crouched, leaped,
and landed on her chest, hanging precariously by his claws
from the fabric of her T-shirt until, reflexively, she raised a
single arm to hold him.
Her other hand scrabbled in her pocket for the leaf that
wasn’t there.
The cat’s cold nose touched hers. Fenella.
Her eyes were open but saw nothing. He said her name
again. He said something else too, but Fenella couldn’t understand what it was, even though she recognized all the
individual words.

The cat butted her nose with his head, hard. The momentary pain brought Fenella back into her body.
“What?” she said.
I said, what was that? Ryland was again nose to nose with
her. The Mud Creature is a liar, he announced. He is nobody
in Faerie.
She looked at him straight on. “So am I nobody.”
The cat blinked. “Yes, but you have your tasks. And they’re
my tasks too. I’ll be humiliated if you don’t finish them.”
That was all that was on the line for Ryland, Fenella
thought. Humiliation. And whatever was going on between
him and his sister.
Was the Mud Creature correct? the cat said impatiently.
Do you love your family?
Love is nothing but a trap, Fenella thought. Again and
again in her life, she had loved, and yet the only relationship that had lasted was the one formed by hate. The irony
was that Padraig wanted her to love him. Maybe she should
have. Maybe that would have destroyed him centuries ago.
She laughed, a bitter little bark that was nothing like the
laughter she once had reveled in. “No wonder I was given
these tasks,” she said. “My existence has destroyed everyone
I ever loved.”
Do you love your family now? The cat stared at her from
two inches away.
“How can I love anybody? I’m dead. I’ve been dead
since—since Robert was murdered.”
But you loved that girl you keep talking about. The smart
one. Minnie. That wasn’t so long ago. So you’re still capable—
“I’m trying to stop,” Fenella burst out. “Don’t you see?
When I’m dead, that will stop it. I won’t love anybody, and
there won’t be any more pain.”
The cat was silent. Fenella put him back down on the
wall. She wrapped her arms around herself and thought
about what Padraig had said. Love had paralyzed her before. It was true. She had been trying to protect Robert, and
so she had not warned him.
For a flash of a second, she thought of her own baby,
Bronagh. Seeing Bronagh destroyed—no, she would not
remember it. No!
I remember when the Mud Creature brought you to the
ball, the cat announced. It was after he killed your lover,
Robert. Right?
Fenella nodded.
That was the same night he cursed your family.
“Yes.”
What happened? Tell me, in your own words.
“What does it matter?” Fenella was impatient. “It’s the
past. I have to figure out how to destroy hope. How hard
can it be? Hope makes no sense in this world anyway.” She
gave the bitter bark of a laugh again. “Probably Soledad is
feeling exactly that way too. Maybe that’s my answer, right
there. So, let’s go. I’ll figure something out. Save everybody
and then die myself.”
Not so fast. First, tell me about the ball.
Fenella tried to stare Ryland down, but the cat didn’t
blink. She felt the warm sun on her hair. Birds chirped
in the distance. Near the horizon, the leaves on the trees
moved in the light breeze. “Fine,” she said at last.
She sank onto the ground again, with her back to the
stone wall so that she could lean against it. The cat leaped
down from the wall and settled beside her, tucking his
forepaws under himself. He did not close his eyes, but she
closed hers.
“He had to drag me away from Robert,” she said tonelessly. “I screamed my throat raw. People were nearby. They
should have heard me, they should have come. But nobody
heard and nobody came. Then Padraig yanked at me from
behind—”