Caitlin Kittredge - The Nightmare Garden

I searched the drawers and found a mechanical pencil. It would have to do. I flipped open my battered notebook and sketched out the symbols I’d seen from memory. Underneath I scribbled Erlkin symbols as seen at Windhaven .

My father had never run into the Erlkin, except once. They’d taken him into the Mists, like they had Conrad, before the Fae could get to him.

But were they the same smugglers who had gotten Conrad into trouble? Or had it been someone else, someone who had allowed my father to escape the Fae? I didn’t know, nor did I know where my father was now.

I started an entry on the next page. Writing at least gave me something to occupy my mind, rather than fretting over what would happen when the door opened again. Fretting rarely did anyone any good.

Third entry:

The Erlkin seem hostile at best, but they helped my father escape so the Fae couldn’t force him to do what they eventually made me do—break the Gates, allowing the Fae and their nightmare creatures to flow freely through the Iron Land and attempt to eradicate the iron, then annex the land to the Thorn. And they helped Conrad, or at least a certain group of them did .

They don’t love the Fae any more than they love humans or other trespassers, that much Dean told me. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Straight out of Proctor propaganda, when it encouraged us to inform on each other, to collude to send heretics to the castigator for punishment .

Who’s worse? The Proctors or me? They fought the power beyond their understanding with lies and terror. On the other hand, I’ve read enough from my father’s books about the Brotherhood of Iron to realize that at least I’m not entirely alone in my struggle. The Brotherhood was my grandfather’s cadre of scientists, magic users and scholars. They fought that same power by keeping their society absolutely secret, accepting the occasional casualty and adhering to ancient rules that neither the Fae nor the Proctors are playing by any longer. My father himself fought it … or did he? I still don’t know why he broke with the Brotherhood, only that Draven has a score to settle with him .

And then there’s me. I didn’t even try to fight the power. I set it free, and in the process I shattered the world .

Not shattered—cracked. I’ve cracked the mask, and the true face is showing from underneath, and it is horrible, ugly and crawling with maggots, something no human eye should be forced to look at .

Where is my father? He got me out of Lovecraft, but he could be dead now, for all I know. If he didn’t get out before the blast, before the cataclysm, he could be gone, like all the other poor souls .

Gone. My mother can’t be gone. I can’t have unwound things that badly. I’ll get out of Windhaven and go back and find her, no matter what Conrad says. I’ll do what I have to .

Somehow .

The sound of the hatch wheel spinning alerted me, and I jammed the pencil back into the drawer and my notebook back into my bag. When the hatch opened, I was sitting primly, my ankles crossed and my hands folded, like the star of any comportment class.

A single Erlkin entered, and I tried not to stare. She was nearly as tall as Skip, with twin braids running from her temples down her back, thin and tight as bullwhips. Her clothes were a simple olive drab jacket with a double row of silver buttons and tight military pants tucked into steam ventor’s boots like the ones Dean wore, steel toes gleaming and the leather spit-polished.

“Aoife Grayson, I gather,” she said. She gestured at me with a long-fingered hand. “Stand up.”

I raised an eyebrow at her, more in surprise that she was being so businesslike about taking me prisoner than anything else. “Why?”

Her lip twitched, and I could tell she wasn’t used to being questioned when she gave an order. “Get up, you wretched girl,” she said, and grabbed my arm, hefting me easily out of the chair. I wasn’t big, and she was, and strong besides. “I just want to get a look at you.” She took my chin between her thumb and forefinger and turned my head from side to side. “Skinny,” she said, “but not too skinny. Not a pale-faced wreck, either. That hair—that hair is most definitely human.”

I flushed, even though my grooming or lack thereof should have been the furthest thing from my mind. My black curls had been a gift from my father—my mother had hair as sleek and golden as a lion’s pelt. Back at the Academy, my hair had been one of my primary worries. Things sure did change. “I’ve been in the wind.”

“And a sense of humor,” the Erlkin marveled. “You pass very well. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were a sweet little human.” Her grip on my chin tightened, and I felt her fingernails dig into my skin. “But you’re not, are you? You’re a filthy quicksilver-blood changeling.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I caught your name.” My voice rose on the last word, but I tried to keep the fear there and not let it creep into my face. She knew what I was. Who I was. And I had no idea what the Erlkin did to people like me.

The woman smiled. It was cold, like watching the steel of a switchblade pop out. “I’m Shard. Dean’s mother.”

I stayed frozen, not making eye contact. After a time, Shard tilted her head. “Got anything to say for yourself, Aoife?”

The first thing that came to mind made my stomach drop out, as if Windhaven had begun to plummet from the sky. It was a horrifying thought, but it was entirely possible, seeing as Dean shared half his blood with the Erlkin, just as I shared mine with the Fae. “Dean told you about me. What I am.”

“Hmm?” Shard shook her head, her smile softening a degree so that she no longer looked like she was about to eat me. “He didn’t tell me a thing, dear. I smell it on you, like sewer filth.”

I twitched back a step from Shard. She could have passed for human. Though her features were sharp and ethereal, she didn’t have the predatory quality shared by most of the Erlkin I’d seen, with bones jutting from their faces like they’d been specially made to frighten anyone who looked at them. But she was more terrifying than Skip and his cronies by an order of ten. “I … smell? Strange?”

“I was a tracker, dear,” Shard said. “I spent my days chasing down fugitives and slipstreamers. You stink like a Fae, but you don’t look like one. You’re a changeling. Half-breed is probably the right word.”

“I don’t like that word,” I told her angrily. How dare Shard pass judgment on my family? She didn’t even know us. I was guilty of being gullible and trusting, it was true, but I wasn’t the enemy. Shard let go of my face, giving my cheek a pat that stopped just shy of being a slap. I flinched, and felt like the worst sort of frightened, shrinking girl.

“I don’t give a damn what you like, dear. You brought the shadow of the Fae here. You and that brother of yours.” She folded her arms and regarded me. “You’re lucky Nails is taken with you. Otherwise, you’d be over the side of Windhaven without a second thought.”

With that, she opened the door and gestured me out of the makeshift cell. “Come on,” she snapped, when I hesitated. “We’re not barbarians. Get moving and clean yourself up. That Fae stench is bad enough without your generally unwashed state on top of it.”

Shard led me up another ladder, down another set of halls and to a hatch that was less rusted, and painted with a number rather than one of the cryptic symbols. “You should be comfortable here.” She appraised me. “You’re the size of one of my lieutenants. I’ll have some clothes sent over for you.”