Justin Cronin - The Twelve

A noise behind him: Sara stepped through the door, toting Kate on her hip. The girl’s eyes were open and looking about. Sara moved beside Peter, her boots crunching on the snow.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked.

She made a face of exasperation. “Believe me, I could. It’s my fault, I let her nap too long in the truck.”

“Hi, Peter,” the little girl said.

“Hi, sweetheart. Shouldn’t you be in bed? We’ve got another long day tomorrow, you know.”

She pressed her lips together. “Mm-mm.”

“See?” Sara said.

“Want me to take her for a while? I can, you know.”

“What, out here, you mean?”

Peter shrugged. “A little fresh air should fix her right up. And I could use the company.” When Sara didn’t answer, Peter said, “Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye. What do you say, Kate?”

“You’re sure about this?” Sara pressed.

“Sure I’m sure. What else am I going to do? The minute she gets sleepy, I’ll bring her inside.” He propped his rifle against the building and held out his arms. “Come on now, hand her over. I’m not taking no for an answer.”

Sara acquiesced, shifting Kate from her waist to Peter’s. The little girl wrapped her legs around him, gripping the lapel of his parka to balance her weight.

Sara stood back a bit to regard the two of them. “I’ve got to say, this isn’t a version of you I’ve seen before.”

He felt himself smile. “Five years. A lot can change.”

“Well, it suits you.” A sudden yawn seized her. “Seriously, if she gets to be a bother …”

“She won’t. Now, will you go? Get some sleep.”

Sara left them alone. Peter lowered himself into the chair, shifted Kate to his lap, and turned her body toward the winter sky. “So what do you want to talk about?”

“I dunno.”

“Not tired at all?”

“Nope.”

“How about we count some stars?”

“That’s boring.” She shifted, making herself comfortable, then commanded: “Tell me a story.”

“A story. What kind?”

“A once-upon-a-time story.”

He wasn’t sure how, having never done this before. Yet as he considered the girl’s request, a rush of memories flowed through him: his days as a Little in the Sanctuary, sitting in circle with the other children, their legs folded under them; Teacher, her pale, moonlike face and the stories she told, of talking animals in waistcoats and skirts and kings in their castles and ships crossing the sea in search of treasure; the drowsy sensation of the words passing through him, carrying him away into distant worlds and times, as if he were leaving his own body. They were recollections of another life; they were so distant as to feel historical; yet sitting in the winter cold with Sara’s daughter on his lap, they did not seem apart from him. He felt a mantle pass and, with it, a twinge of regret: he’d never told Caleb a story.

“So.” He cleared his throat, stalling to assemble his thoughts. But the truth was, he had nothing; every story from his childhood had suddenly fled his mind. He’d simply have to wing it. “Let’s see—”

“It needs a girl in it,” Kate said, helpfully.

“So it does. I was just getting to that. So, once upon a time there was a little girl—”

“What did she look like?”

“Hmm. Well, she was very pretty. A lot like you, actually.”

“Was she a princess?”

“Are you going to let me tell this or not? But now that you mention it, she was. The most beautiful princess who ever lived. But the thing is, she didn’t know she was a princess. That’s the interesting part.”

Kate frowned bossily. “Why didn’t she know?”

Something clicked then; he felt the contours of a story emerging in his mind.

“That is a very excellent question. What happened was this. When she was very young, not much more than a baby, her parents, the king and queen, took her on a picnic in the royal forest. It was a sunny day, and the little girl, whose name was Princess …”

“Elizabeth.”

“Princess Elizabeth, saw a butterfly. An amazing butterfly. Her parents weren’t paying attention, and she followed the butterfly into the woods, trying to catch it. But the thing is, it wasn’t a butterfly. It was… a fairy queen.”

“Really?”

“It’s true. Now, the thing about fairies is, they don’t trust people. They pretty much keep to themselves, and that’s the way they like it. But the fairy queen was different. She’d always wanted a daughter. Fairies don’t have children of their own. It made her very sad not to have a little girl to take care of, and when she saw Princess Elizabeth, she was so moved by her beauty that she couldn’t help herself. She led the child away, deeper and deeper into the woods. Soon the little girl was lost and began to cry. The fairy queen landed on her nose, and brushed her tears away with her delicate wings, and said, ‘Don’t be sad. I’ll take care of you. You will be my little girl now.’ And she took her to the big hollow tree where she lived with all her fairy subjects, and gave her food to eat and a table to sit at and a little bed to sleep in, and before too long Princess Elizabeth had no memory of any other life, except her life among the fairies of the forest.”

Kate was nodding along. “What happened then?”

“Well, nothing. Not right away. For a while they were very happy together, the fairy queen especially. How wonderful it felt for her to have a little girl of her own. But as Elizabeth grew, she began to feel that something wasn’t right. Do you know what that was?”

“She wasn’t a fairy?”

“Exactly. Good for you, for figuring that out. She wasn’t a fairy, she was a little girl, and not so little anymore. Why am I so different? she wondered. And the taller she grew, the harder this was for the fairy queen to conceal. Why do my feet stick out from my bed, Elizabeth would ask her, and the fairy queen would say, Because beds are always small, that’s just how they are. Why is my table so tiny, Elizabeth asked, and the fairy queen said, I’m sorry, it’s not the table’s fault, you’ll just have to stop growing. Which, of course, she couldn’t do. She grew and grew, and soon she barely fit inside the tree anymore. All the other fairies complained. They were afraid she’d eat all their food and there’d be nothing left. They were afraid she’d accidentally squash them. Something had to be done, but the fairy queen refused. With me so far?”

Kate nodded, enthralled.

“Now, the king and queen, Elizabeth’s parents, had never stopped looking for her. They’d combed every inch of the forest, and all the lands of the kingdom besides. But the tree was very well hidden. Then one day they heard a rumor about a little girl living in the forest with the fairies. Could that be our daughter? they wondered. And they did the only thing they could think of. They ordered the royal woodsmen to cut down all the trees until they found the one with Elizabeth inside it.”

“ All of them?”

Peter nodded. “Every last one. Which was not a good idea. The woods were home not only to the fairies but to all kinds of animals and birds. But Elizabeth’s parents were so desperate, they would have done anything to get their daughter back. So the woodsmen got to work, chopping down the forest, while the king and queen rode out on their horses, calling her name. ‘Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Where are you?’ And you know what happened?”

“She heard them?”

“Yes, she did. Only the name Elizabeth didn’t mean anything to her anymore. She had a fairy name now, and had forgotten everything about her life. But the fairy queen knew what she was hearing, and she felt pretty awful about it. How could I have done this terrible thing? she thought. How could I have taken Elizabeth away? But still she couldn’t make herself fly out of the tree to tell Elizabeth’s parents where she was. She loved the girl too much, you see, to let her go. ‘Be very still,’ she said to Elizabeth. ‘Don’t make a sound.’ The woodsmen were coming closer and closer. Trees were falling everywhere. All the fairies were afraid. ‘Give her back,’ they said to the fairy queen, ‘please, give her back before they destroy the entire forest.’ ”