I am the Fey Queen, and Edward is at my command. When I tell him to go, fetch, stay, he does. I have complete power over his hands, his body, his soul.
But I would not command him to do evil, Jane thinks, I would command delightful things. Draw me a picture, I say. Paint a portrait of you, me, Dorie all together on the back lawn, with gold sunlight glinting from our clothes and hair. You swing her around till she is nothing but laughter. Show us how happy we are.
Dream further back. Go to somewhere in the middle of the Great War.
I am the Fey Queen, and I have lost Edward, I have let him go, he has won his freedom in a game of wits. (I did not pay enough attention to him; I was planning battles.) I am angry, but I do not show it. Instead I smile with blinding beauty and I grant him a gift. A special gift, the use of his hands, those sensitive artistic hands. And I tell him his hands will do grand things, and I will come to him and show him how.
No, thinks Jane. I will not be a part of this, of your plan to force Edward to give you the world. Did I coerce Edward to give me that face? Did I command? Then I was wrong. I reject this side of me, of what I could be, of what I might have been.
Are you certain? Look what you could be, with me.
Yes, says Jane. I am certain.…
Show me more?
Dream further back. Twenty, forty—sixty years.
I am the Fey Queen and I am listening. My people tell me that human factories are polluting our woods, destroying our homes. But another fey has an idea. We will distract the humans by solving their problems before them. Fey will run their mechanical horses, heat their habitat, power their nighttime suns. They will have no need to invent, to destroy us.
Yes, it is clever and it will work for now. But it will not work forever. The humans will go back to their factories eventually, and then … there may well be war in our future. Within the next century, I suspect.
Oh, it depresses me, and I need distraction. A small child wanders through the woods, red-faced from another fight with his father. I have watched him often. He cheers me with his drawings; he is the cleverest, sweetest, brightest boy. He will be gifted by my presence, for humans age more slowly in our company; three years seem as one. (A gift for us, too, or he would be over in a blink.)
Yes, here he comes, see him smile at the face I create for him, see him shyly extend his sketchbook for the pretty lady to see.…
Oh, he will do just fine.
Dream. One thousand years ago.
I am the Fey Queen and I am here. Through storm and change and wind and you and all that is to come I will be here forever. You may reject me, but you cannot stop me. You will be part of my always and ever, a leaf of my tree, a dress of the season, a blink of eternity falling in a slow blinding crash.…
No, says Jane. I won’t let you, no. No no no.
I am Jane.
I am Jane I am Jane I am Jane I am …
*
When she awoke there was white sunlight on her body. She sat up and her head rang. “Edward?” she said.
But no one was in the room.
She patted her head where her hair itched—there were no bandages there. Either Edward hadn’t done that part or perhaps he’d never started her face at all. She didn’t know if she was ready to look in the mirror and find out.
But she would have to look sometime. Jane levered herself to the floor and wavered there until the dizziness subsided. She remembered having strange dreams, but the only fragment that was clear was a moment when someone accused her of coercing Edward. Compelling him.
Like the fey.
Deep inside she swore to herself that she would never do it again. She had not known she was doing it to Miss Davenport. But she had known she was coercing Edward. Once was enough for a lifetime.
Her feet seemed steady, so she inched along to the first door, stepped out into the workroom.
A breath. And she would turn and face that mirror, accept what she had chosen for herself.
And then a woman screamed.
Jane stumbled through the workroom, catching only glimpses of a messy workbench, a new mask hanging, things she hardly registered as she flew downstairs on stumbling feet. Dorie. Dorie.
The front door was open, but Cook stood just inside of it, blocking her way. “You won’t be wanting to go out there, lass.” She peered down at Jane and her kindly face went white.
“Jane,” Jane said. “I’m Jane.”
Cook’s hand crept to her apron pocket and suddenly there was a feyjabber in her hand.
“I am,” said Jane. The newness of the mask was making her dizzy and she desperately wanted to lie down, but she had to find Dorie.
The feyjabber wavered. Who had screamed?
“You know me,” said Jane. “You told me the story about your sister, remember? ‘May you be born plain.’”
The older woman’s lips trembled. “Would that you had listened.”
A sudden bear hug from a small girl knocked her off balance. Dorie had flung herself through the door and knocked Jane backward. “Mother!” cried Dorie.