June 13, 1505Lancaut, England
Beatrix knows something is wrong. She can tell by the way Isabella is looking at her and by the way Alice won’t.
“The baby?” she asks weakly from her bed. She thought she’d never bring her into the world.
“She’s perfect,” Isabella whispers, pushing a strand of sweat-tangled hair away from Beatrix’s face. “Don’t worry.”
“I want to see her,” Beatrix murmurs. She can’t keep her eyes open. She is so tired, and her eyelids are so heavy. She shivers under her blanket. Isabella pulls it to her chin.
“She’s with William,” Isabella says, “so you can rest.”
“Please,” Beatrix begs. Her eyes drift closed again.
“Rest now.” Isabella’s voice sounds strange: choked and distant, and not at all like hers.
Alice’s whispers reach her ears as the darkness closes in around her. “I’ll fetch the priest.”
What to do with Beatrix?
She stands in her clearing. The sound of her name fades into the sounds of the ancient wood around her, the forest come to life as night takes hold. She is not alone.
A woman sits on a low bough of an oak, her bare feet dangling over one side. Beatrix has seen William sit this way a thousand times, free of the weight of the world when his feet no longer touch the ground. This woman doing it puts her on edge.
Her hair hangs loose to her waist, the deep red shade of autumn leaves just before they fall. Her dress flows around her like the river water, shimmering silver in the darkness, as if made from the starlight itself. But it is her eyes that steal Beatrix’s breath away: one shining with the fire of a golden sunrise, the other glowing with the cool light of a full moon.
“Are you a faerie?” Beatrix asks the ethereal woman. She has no wings, but what else could she be?
“If that’s what you wish to name me,” she says. “I’ve been called far worse.”
“What do you want?”
The woman smiles. There is no joy in it, no happiness, as if she doesn’t know what it is to smile. Not a woman, then, only something pretending to be one. “I believe it is whatyouwant that has brought us here, Beatrix.”
A shiver runs down her spine. “You know my name?”
“I know a lot of things,” the faerie says. “I know you feel safe in the forest because the rest of the village doesn’t. I know you’ve cried enough tears under its canopy to flood the banks of the Wye. And I know you didn’t get your scars by falling from one of its trees.”
Beatrix brushes her fingers against the thin, faded scar above her eye. “I fell,” she says. “My boots got tangled in the hem of my skirt.” Not a lie, just not the whole truth.
“I’ve seen the way those people treat you.”People. The faerie spits the word, as if it tastes foul on her tongue. “I’ve heard their whispers. Even your own mother.”
A cold pit of dread opens in Beatrix’s guts. “You’ve been watching me?”
The faerie considers her. “It was raining the day you were born. Did you know?”
Beatrix shakes her head, stunned speechless.
“It had been raining for days. The Wye was swollen to its banks, the path through the trees a sea of mud. Your father walked so carefully for such a large man, afraid he’d slip with you in his arms.”
“What?” Beatrix’s heart pounds against her ribs. The faerie ignores her.
“I could never understand why. What did it matter if he was going to throw you in the river anyway?”
Tears spring to Beatrix’s eyes. “You’re lying.”
The faerie treads a slow circle around her, a wolf stalking her prey. “He came to the edge. Just there. Took a step forward. The water ran over the tops of his boots. The river was rushing. All he had to do was let go, and the Wye would have taken you away.”
Beatrix shakes her head. Her throat aches. “It’s not true.”It can’t be true.
