Forest of Dreams and Whispers (The Fae of the Forest)

by Katherine Macdonald

She’d gathered together all of the details over the years, stitched them together like a tapestry, a constellation of memories.

“The thing about fae is they always expect everything to be magic,” Juliana’s father had told her. “They’re never prepared for mortal tricks.”

None of Acanthia resided in Winter. That court had fallen long ago to ruin. It was a snowy wasteland, reserved only for those banished from the other courts, a punishment so severe it had not been done for centuries.

This certainly won't come up later

He never visited the seedier dens, the places filled with magical highs, and although she’d once discovered him in the local whorehouse, she found him there fully clothed and covered in glitter, being spoon fed honey by the madam herself.

“You could leave any time you wanted. Mortal vows are made to be broken, after all. I guess I just enjoy testing you. My dearest Jules, my most loyal companion, it is nice to know that someone will always stay with me.”

Oh no. He's a sad boy.....

You could only enter Faerie once. The way closed for mortals if they left.

Definitely won't come up later.....

As was the look in those ridiculous aegean-blue eyes of his. Juliana had stared at those eyes for years, hating how she had no name for them and how they plagued her late at night. Not dark as the lake. Not bright as the sky. Not blue as cornflowers. Some ancient, ageless blue, stony and smooth, softer and more beautiful than they had any right to be. One day, she came across Cedany painting a seascape in a corner of the gardens. Juliana had never visited the sea before, but she longed to, especially when she saw images like this. One of the colours Cedany was mixing was the exact shade of Hawthorn’s eyes. “What’s that?” she’d said, pointing. Cedany, far from being annoyed at the interruption, had smiled. “Be more specific.” “That colour. What’s it called?” “Aegean blue, child. Like the seas of the summer court.” Juliana pursed her lips. She ought to have been happy she finally had a name for the beautiful, accursed colour, but somehow she was not appeased. “Do you like it?” Juliana’s face twisted further, and then, with a kind of painful honesty like the ones exhibited by faeries when the truth was wrenched from them, she said, “I wish I didn’t.”

“I’ve slept next door to you for almost three years. I’m well aware of the different ways to make you scream. Not interested in anything that doesn’t involve actual torture, thank you very much.” “I might be all right with that.” “Come again?”

“Need me to kiss it better?” “I will chuck you in that cauldron.” “Wouldn’t do much harm,” the witch muttered, stirring the pot. “Not nearly hot enough. No lethal ingredients.” Hawthorn blinked. “Are all women obsessed with murder, or is it just you two?”

“Are you giving me a horse as an apology?” Markham handed her the reins. They were embroidered with green thorns that matched her palace uniform. “Only if it works.”

She was no longer a queen, regal and refined. She was power and chaos, nature in the shape of a woman. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her look quite so terrifying.

Something had happened to Juliana in this hut. Not one thing, but a dozen, a hundred tiny things she probably didn’t even remember, but something that had chipped away the smiles she used to wear and the ease she used to flaunt as surely as the blade against the stencilled leaves.

“Hurt me,” he begged her. “Why?” “Because I deserve it.”

How long had he felt this way? Hard to know. Hard to trace a river back to its source. Is it in the mountains or the rain clouds or the air all around you?

Juliana was fine with having friends, friends that could be slotted away neatly in the past, or up on a high shelf, ready to be dusted off whenever she returned to them. Friends like wildflowers who took care of themselves. She did not want people in her life who grew like roots beneath her, twisting into her, making her something else, making it impossible to leave.

For one fleeting moment, she was one of them. Careless. Free. For one moment, she belonged. But she was no faerie. She wasn’t even a carefree mortal. She was a creature of shadows and worries not easily discarded.

“Juliana,” Hawthorn whispered, almost hungrily. Her name sounded strange on his tongue, rough and soft, a serrated blade slicing through silk. The syllables rang painfully, like it cost something to speak them, like he found his voice unworthy of the task.

His mouth was soft and hungry and his kisses made her belly rumble. It was like being struck by lightning, sensation everywhere at once, from her claiming fingers to the tips of her toes. With reverence and desperation he kissed her, half saviour, half storm. Did he kiss everyone this way? How were they ever content to release him?

What if she wanted to crawl out of her clothes and peel him out of his and save him from the banshee’s prophecy by marking his flesh with hers? The thought sank in its teeth, convincing her that all she had to do to save him was bury him under her skin.

“What did you like doing with her?” she’d asked her father. Markham had paused, as if the answer was a hard one to collect. Perhaps it was; he so seldom spoke about her Juliana sometimes wondered if she were half a dream, a creature summoned only when thought of. “Everything,” he said finally. “Or rather… nothing. I liked doing nothing with her but being.” Juliana frowned, her fingers stroking her ragdoll, its felt hands turned threadbare. “I don’t understand.” “You will, one day.”

“That smile…” “What about it?” “It’s as much of a weapon as that blade of yours. I feel like it cuts a bit of me away every time you use it.”