Hope Read online

  I don’t really know what to say.

  My mom isn’t my real mother, but she’s still my mom.

  And now she knows who I really am.

  “Please come inside,” she says. “Just for a second. Do you have time?”

  I glance at Lucy.

  “I think so,” I say. “Just a minute.”

  Inside, my house seems smaller than it used to. Than it did even a few days ago.

  And it seems more worn. The couch sags in each seat. The dining room table is scratched and scarred. The carpet shows paths that we’ve worn from room to room, the paths we’ve walked every day.

  But it feels comfortable, and warm, and perfect.

  And I don’t want to leave it, even though I know I have to.

  My mom looks at me.

  “Do you know what you’ll have to do . . . there?” she asks.

  I shrug. “Not really,” I say. “I’m still figuring it out. I don’t really know who I am supposed to be there.”

  She sighs. “I know you’re still my daughter,” she says. “I’ll always know that.”

  “I know, Mom,” I say.

  “I hope so,” she says.

  “I do,” I say. “I promise.”

  She smiles, and a tear slips from her eye.

  “Andria said you wished for me,” I tell her. “Did you?”

  She nods. “For my whole life,” she says. She hugs me—a quick, tight embrace. “Now go, and be safe,” she says. “And if—”

  Another tear falls down her face.

  “If you can come back,” she says, “this will always be your home.”

  “I know,” I say. “And you’ll always be my mom.”

  I pull away and start to walk toward the door, but she stops me.

  “Wait,” she says. “Don’t go yet.”

  And she runs into her room.

  While she’s gone, I look around my house, the place where I grew up.

  Will I ever come back here?

  My room.

  Will I ever sleep there again?

  Will I live long enough to have the chance?

  Will I see my brother again, my dad?

  Mom comes back from her room with an envelope. “I wrote this to you the day you came to me,” she says. “I planned to give it to you on your wedding day.”

  She smiles, a brave, sad smile.

  “I never thought I would give it to you when you were thirteen,” she says.

  Then she glances at the clock on the wall.

  “You don’t have time to read it now. But please, if you have time, please read it. Maybe you could read it at a time when you need strength and you wish I was with you.”

  “I will,” I promise. “I love you, Mom.”

  “I love you too,” she says.

  She kisses my cheek, and then I run out the door and can’t look back.

  Lucy

  Kheelan waits for us at the edge of the woods.

  “What are you doing here?” Soli asks. “I thought you couldn’t cross over.”

  “I can cross over, but it’s dangerous. We don’t do it unless there’s a really good reason.”

  “So what’s the good reason?” I ask. “This must be important.”

  “Yeah, it’s important,” he says. He looks up at the sky, and then back at Soli. “I had to make sure you were returning. Something has happened.”

  “Why wouldn’t we return?” I ask, confused.

  He takes Soli’s hand and we hurry through the forest. I try to keep up with them. Kheelan calls back over his shoulder, “I thought someone would try to keep her here.”

  Of course. It wouldn’t matter if I didn’t return.

  “What happened?” Soli asks Kheelan.

  “The Crows have sent a messenger,” he says. “They want Calandra back. Before she can tell us anything.”

  “Who are the Crows?” I ask, but no one listens to me.

  “Why would she tell us anything?” Soli asks. “Why would she suddenly change sides?”

  Kheelan shakes his head. “Because she still wants you,” he says.

  Soli doesn’t say much after that. We walk quickly through the woods, down the secret path Soli and I have traveled so many times. And soon we are at the willow tree that marks the entrance to the faerieground.

  “Do I have to make a wish again?” Soli asks. “How do we get back?”

  Kheelan smiles. “No, of course not. It’s your land to enter now. It will be different for the human, but if we both take her hand, she’ll be allowed through.”

  The human? “I have a name,” I mutter.

  Soli doesn’t hear me. “I thought it was sort of always my land to enter,” she says, running a hand along the side of the tree’s trunk. “I mean, if I’ve been the princess all along.”

  “Yes, it was,” Kheelan says. “I don’t know the whole story. From what I’ve figured out, mostly from talking to my dad, I think the Ladybirds kept you protected, somehow, until you needed to rescue Lucy. As a kid, I mean. They had some kind of spell keeping you from coming back into the faerieground, where Calandra would have found you right away. But then Lucy needed your help, and then your need was greater.”

  “So my need overruled their spell,” Soli says.

  “Right. In a way, that’s how Calandra ended up tricking you into coming back to the kingdom. It’s actually kind of interesting, if you think about—”

  “Don’t we need to hurry?” I say.

  Kheelan glances me. “Oh, yes. Of course. Let’s go.”

  They take my hands and we leave our woods and find ourselves back in faerieground.

  Soli

  The Crows live in the darkest part of the forest.

  It’s almost as if I don’t need to be told who these people are, but Kheelan tells me anyway as we find our way to the castle.

  The Crows.

  They are my people’s enemies.

  They’re awful, horrible faeries. Dangerous ones. They’re the ones who sent my mother—Calandra—to the kingdom.

  She had one task: make the king fall in love with her.

  Well, maybe two tasks, I suppose.

  The first was to fool the king. The second was to kill him.

  “I don’t understand why,” I say. “Why couldn’t they just kill him themselves? And why did they want to kill him, anyway?”

  We are within sight of the palace now.

  Kheelan shrugs. “To take control, I suppose. The ruler of our kingdom harnesses strong magic. I don’t know much about everything Calandra has controlled. I just know it’s a lot.”

  He smiles at me and adds, “And now you control it.”

  “But why not just kill the king themselves?”

  “I suppose it would go against the code,” he says. “They could cause someone to die, but they didn’t want to kill anyone themselves. That was the old days, though.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “The Crows will kill anyone these days,” Kheelan tells me.

  Then he pulls my crown out of his satchel. “I almost forgot,” he says, and places it on my head.

  I feel the burn of the wings rippling from my back.

  A princess, again.

  But then I hear Lucy moan.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, turning.

  I’ve been too busy listening to Kheelan. I haven’t checked to see if we were walking too fast for Lucy, or if she was tired or hungry.

  We have just been hurrying through the forest, staying quiet.

  I haven’t been paying attention, and I promised that I’d take care of her.

  “I just have a headache,” she says, wiping a little tear from her eye. “I’m sorry.”

  Kheelan seems to ignore her. “We can’t stop now,” he
says. “The messenger is in the prison. They’re waiting for you to talk to him.”

  “The same prison I was in?” Lucy asks.

  I shudder, thinking of my best friend trapped in a dungeon cell. “We have to find somewhere else for prisoners to stay,” I say. “If we have to have prisoners at all, I mean.”

  Kheelan shoots me a glance. “Of course we have to have prisoners, Soli, ” he says. “We’re fighting a war, aren’t we?”

  “My head hurts so much,” Lucy whispers.

  This time I barely hear her.

  A war?

  What have I gotten myself into?

  Lucy

  My head is throbbing. It’s all I can think about.

  “I need to lie down,” I say. “Now.” My words sound far away.

  “I guess I didn’t know that this was really a war,” Soli says.

  “What did you think it was?” asks Kheelan. “Why did you think the palace was falling apart?”

  We are walking through the gates, and he gestures to the giant stone building.

  Some of the stones are cracked. Many of the windows have broken or missing glass. And I know that inside, cobwebs and dirt float in the air.

  “I don’t know,” Soli says quietly. “I thought she was just a bad queen.”

  Finally, we are inside the castle. No one is around. No guards, no one.

  Again, louder, I say, “Please, you guys, I really need to lie down.”

  “Oh, Lucy!” Soli says, rushing to my side. “Your face is so white!”

  Kheelan finally looks at me. “She looks awful,” he says. “When did your headache start?”

  “Right when we got to the faerieground,” I say.

  “The sickness,” Kheelan mutters.

  Soli brushes my hair out of my eyes. “What’s the sickness?” she asks.

  He shrugs. “I’ve never really seen it before,” he says. “Just heard the stories. But then again, Lucy is the first human I’ve met here.”

  “So it only affects humans?” Soli asks.

  “That’s what they say,” Kheelan says. “That after a certain amount of time in the faerieground, a human becomes sick and dies.”

  My head feels like there’s a drum pounding inside. “What about . . . the queen?” I ask slowly.

  “She was under a spell,” Kheelan says.

  “Why does this happen?” Soli asks.

  Kheelan sighs. “The stories say that the sickness protects us from humans.”

  He looks down the hall. “Come on. Let’s find her somewhere to rest.”

  “Why didn’t it happen before?” I ask. “I was here for days.”

  “Because of the spell, I guess,” says Kheelan. “A faerie wished you here.” He looks at Soli and smiles. “A half-faerie, anyway.”

  They lead me down the corridor toward the rooms where Calandra lived.

  Inside her room, the air still smells like her.

  My head hurts so badly that the candlelight is too bright to look at.

  “Will this go away?” I ask, lying down on the sofa, covering my eyes. “Is there a cure?”

  Soli reaches up and touches the painting. Calandra holding a baby.

  Then, from the bedroom, we hear a low moan.

  “That’s my mother,” Soli whispers.

  Soli

  A girl rushes out of the queen’s bedroom.

  “Who are you?” I ask.

  But Lucy is smiling. “Caro?” she says happily. “What are you doing here?” She looks at me and explains, “We were in the cell together. She told me all about your—all about Calandra.”

  “You’re Hope,” Caro says, looking at me.

  “I’m Soli,” I say.

  “As soon as you left, they put Calandra in with me,” the girl says. She sits down next to Lucy, and I have to make room. “And right away, I could tell she had the sickness. It was awful. She couldn’t even open her eyes, and she’s hot as fire.”

  “So you brought her here?” Kheelan asks. “How? Why?”

  Caro shrugs. “The princess was gone,” she says, smoothing Lucy’s hair. “The queen wasn’t the queen anymore. And she was sick. Only under Queen Calandra would someone sick have spent the night in a cell.” She looks directly at me and adds, “I was under the impression that things had changed.”

  “You did the right thing,” I say, straightening my back. “She’s in there?”

  “Yes,” Caro says. “But I don’t think she’ll last much longer. She needs the Ladybirds.” She looks back to Lucy and adds, “And by the looks of it, so does she.”

  Kheelan frowns. “We don’t have time to go all the way to the Ladybirds,” he says. “The messenger from the Crows is here. Remember? They need an answer.”

  Everyone stares at me.

  I square my shoulders and stand up.

  “Then,” I say, “I guess I’ll go and talk to him.”

  I look at Kheelan. “You’ll have to take them to the Ladybirds. Can you do it?”

  He sighs.

  But then he nods.

  I leave and walk down the hall toward the prison cells.

  Soli

  I’m afraid.

  I put my hand in my pocket, feel the rough paper of the letter my mother wrote to me. I can’t read it yet, and I don’t know what it says.

  But it comforts me. To know she wrote it to me, and now it’s here with me.

  It isn’t enough, though, to stop the fear completely.

  I should have asked Kheelan to wait, to come with me.

  But he needs to take Calandra—my mother—and Lucy to the Ladybirds. I can’t let anything happen to Lucy. And I don’t want my mother to die, either, even though she seems awful.

  Even if she’s awful, she loves me, somehow.

  My sneakers scuff along the stone floor.

  Then I hear a sound.

  Footsteps hurrying toward me.

  “Wait,” says a man’s voice.

  My heart turns cold.

  I’m afraid to wait, but I know I can’t outrun anyone. Especially these people, here, with all their unknown powers.

  So I stop, and I turn.

  It’s one of the guards. “Wait, princess,” he says, rushing down the hall.

  He reaches me, out of breath. “Are you going to speak with the Crow?” he asks.

  “It is none of your business where I’m going,” I say.

  Trying to make myself as tall as possible.

  Trying to speak clearly without letting my voice shake.

  Trying not to let him see how frightened I am.

  “You can’t go alone,” he says. “I’ll come with you. I am Jonn.”

  “No,” I say. “You must leave this palace.”

  The guard—Jonn—frowns. “You don’t understand, princess,” he says. “That messenger is dangerous. The Crows are dangerous, far worse than you can imagine. You need protection.”

  “Calandra isn’t the queen anymore,” I say. “That means you don’t work here anymore, either.”

  I turn to leave, but he grabs my arm. His touch is gentle.

  The guard smiles.

  “You don’t understand,” he says. “I work for the queen. I worked for the last queen, and the one before that. I don’t work for Calandra. I work for the queen.”

  He bows deeply. And then he says, “Now I work for you.”

  Lucy

  We go to the Ladybirds by the edge of the woods.

  Kheelan leads me, and Caro leads Calandra.

  She’s near enough that I can see her face, even though my sight is fading quickly.

  It’s amazing how fast she has aged. A day ago, she used to seem like a timeless queen. Now she seems like a middle-aged lady. One who’s in a lot of pain. One who can’t handle how much pain she’s
in.

  I remember one summer when my mother was sick. She spent the whole summer inside. I must have been only five or six.

  That entire summer, the house was shut. It was a dusty, dark summer. I tried to play outside when I could. I stayed at Soli’s whenever I could.

  I remember how she looked that summer, my mother.

  She looked dried-out and limp. Her lips were cracked. Her hair was straw. She wasn’t my mother.

  I don’t know what happened that summer, but whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

  I haven’t thought about it since then. How I was almost scared of my mom. She didn’t look like my mom. She looked horrible.

  That’s what Calandra looks like. And that’s exactly how I feel. Horrible. Dried-out. Limp.

  Dying.

  Calandra feels me looking at her, and she looks at me. “Lucy,” she whispers. “The light one.”

  I try to ignore her, but I don’t move my eyes away from her face.

  “Leave me alone,” I whisper.

  “You look just like your mother, Lucy,” she says. “You’re beautiful, just like her.”

  “You don’t know anything about me or my mother,” I whisper. And I turn my head.

  Soon I give up and close my eyes. The walk through the woods is pure torture. Every step makes my head throb, even though the moss and dirt we walk on is soft under our feet.

  “Why is this happening?” Calandra moans. “What kind of curse is this?”

  Kheelan laughs, a short, mean laugh. “You deserve worse,” he says.

  “That’s not fair,” Caro mutters. “She might not be the queen, but you don’t need to treat her like she’s some kind of animal.”

  Kheelan stops and releases my arm. “Why not?” he says angrily. “She’s worse than an animal, the things she’s done to us. Have you forgotten? She killed our king. She sent the kingdom into ruin. Hundreds of us have died. Our people have starved.” He stares at Calandra. “She’s a monster.”

  Calandra stands up as straight as her pain will let her. “I loved him,” she says. “No one ever believed me, but I loved him. And he knew.”