The Unready Queen, стр. 1

written and illustrated by

William Ritter

Algonquin Young Readers 2020

Contents

Before

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

For Teresa.

You’re magical, and I’m proud of you.

BEFORE

There once was a woman who lived deep in the heart of the Wild Wood. She was fierce and fearless. And she was alone.

She did not miss people. People had turned their backs on her, and so she turned her back on them. When men from the nearby town set up camps or hunting blinds in her forest, the woman would turn more than just her back. She would turn big rocks and logs on them from the surrounding hills. It was her favorite hobby. Just before their tents were flattened, the men would hear the mad cackling of the woman in the woods.

Stories spread. The woman was a cursed thing. She was a witch. She had shared her soul with the forest to become the Queen of the Deep Dark. The woman heard these stories on the breeze and she breathed them in. She let them fill her up until she could burst. She became them.

But still, she remembered.

She remembered a child with bright hazel eyes and tiny, chubby fingers that reached out for hers. She remembered lullabies and good-night kisses—and she remembered a thief and an empty crib. The memories burned.

Every day the woman spoke her daughter’s name on the breeze. Raina. Every day she gazed into the shadows of the forest, willing the darkness to surrender what had been taken from her. Every day, the forest gazed back.

Years passed. The woman learned to listen to the trees, and the trees learned to listen to her. If an animal was injured, the woman dressed its wounds. When hungry beasts of the Wild Wood came prowling, the woman stood tall and looked them in the eyes until they bowed their heads. The forest gradually bent to the will of the Queen of the Deep Dark.

But it could not give back what had been taken from her.

The woman grew old. Her hair became as white as daisy petals, and her hands shook. She knew the end was coming, but still she listened to the trees and cared for her creatures and defended her forest.

One quiet morning, the door to her cabin rattled on its hinges, and the woman rose with a start.

“If you’ve come to finish me off, get on with it,” she snapped, stumping stiffly across the floor. “I haven’t got all day. Or at least I wouldn’t have all day if you’d stop dawdling.”

She threw open the door.

There was nothing there but a dusty walkway of polished river rocks and the whisper of a breeze.

The woman sniffed the air.

“Better not be any thieving little goblins out here!” she yelled hoarsely. “I may be one foot in the grave, but don’t think I won’t drag a few of you with me. Hello?”

The wind died away and the forest crackled with invisible energy. The hairs on the woman’s arms prickled. She held her breath. In front of her, the empty air opened with a clap of thunder, and a bulky shape tumbled out of nothing onto the forest floor.

Suddenly the woman was not alone.

There once was a child whom the goblins stole away. She was a sweet child with joyful dimples and thick curls of rich brown hair. One night, her mother kissed her forehead tenderly and tucked her into her crib, and the next day the girl awoke in a palace full of glittering lights and heady aromas. She did not remember being secreted away through the forest by goblins. She did not remember being sold at a reasonable price to the fair folk. She did not remember crossing through an invisible gate to the wrong side of the veil (even after many years, it would always feel wrong), but she remembered that kiss, her mother’s good-night kiss, long after she had grown. Some days, she could almost feel her mother’s lips on her forehead, could almost hear her mother calling her name. Raina.

The fairies were not unkind. She was treated like a precious pet, fed meals that tasted like sweetened sunbeams, and clad in dresses that shimmered like starlight on water. The fairies loved her, in their way, and they called her Florabelle. It was a fine name, but it was not hers. Raina knew that it was not her name, although there were days she could barely remember what her real name was. There were days she nearly forgot herself completely.

Time passed more slowly in this place than it did on the earthly side of the veil, but still it passed.

As the child grew, the magic of the palace pressed up against her and she pressed up against it, until they began to grow as one. The fairies taught her spells and charms, intrigued that a mortal was able to perform them. They looked on with pride, noticing that their human child had become something more than human. One particular fairy smiled all the more kindly as he noted that she had become something more than a child, as well. He was young by fairy standards and fair by any standard. He made no advances, but the girl called Florabelle found herself wishing that he would.

With time, childhood fell away from her completely, like a snakeskin, and what emerged was a woman of remarkable talents. Her handsome fairy waited. He did not age. He did not sour. When she was ready, she made her own advances. She slipped her hand into his and pressed her head against his chest. He did not protest.

There was a courtship and there was a wedding, and in time the woman called Florabelle conceived a child of her own. Her husband saw joy in her face, but also sadness. She confessed she did not want her baby to be born so far from her home. It pained him to hear her say it, but he promised her that he would take them back across the veil when the time came.