Last Stand in Lychford Read online

  “I remember,” said Sunil to Lizzie. “I remember her doing that.” He quickly looked back to Trill. “I remember you doing that, Judith. I—” Lizzie realised he’d started to cry. “Why couldn’t you tell me all this while you were alive?”

  “Now,” continued the voice of Judith, oblivious to his words, as Trill turned on the spot, the fairy’s eyes looking around the crowd on autopilot, “the other person who might get to listen to this is anyone who’s been chosen to guard Lychford. Maybe it’s my apprentice. If so, hello, love. I hope you haven’t been stupid enough to summon me as an intercessional presence. You need to be your own wise woman, not rely on imaginary copies of me.”

  Lizzie wondered if, in the absence of Autumn, she should step forward. But Judith’s gaze swept straight past her.

  “Or maybe I’m not talking to my apprentice. Maybe it’ll be my apprentice’s apprentice, the next in line, if this takes a while to get heard. At any rate, it’ll be someone the land all about has chosen. The shape of the town often has a say in who the wise woman is, or so I was told when I was initiated.” To Lizzie’s surprise, Trill suddenly seemed to fix on a direction and marched over to address Zoya. “Right. This message is for you.”

  Zoya stared at the fairy, looking startled. “What? No. I know less than any of them.”

  “I hope we’ve had a proper handover,” Judith continued, “and that all my magical whatnots have been passed down to you. You should feel known by the shape of the land now. Loved by those you can’t see and never will.”

  Lizzie realised that she’d heard Zoya say something like that. But Zoya was stridently shaking her head. “No.”

  “You’ll take your power from the map of the town, and your home will be your place of greatest strength, as it was for me. Until I spoiled it for myself. And had to live with a ghost because of my foolishness. Don’t you be a fool. If you can manage that.”

  “I like her, Mummy,” said Jas.

  Lizzie saw the look of bafflement on Zoya’s face suddenly become one of shock. “Oh,” she said. “Oh.” Then she looked to Jas. “Are you okay to stay with the rev . . . with Lizzie? Mummy back in five minutes.”

  Jas nodded.

  “Where are you going?” asked Lizzie.

  “I have a ridiculous thought,” said Zoya. “And I don’t want to hear the rest of that message until I have looked into ridiculousness.” And with that she turned and jogged off the down the street, pulling her phone from the pocket of her jeans.

  Lizzie looked back and saw Trill slump into inactivity, waiting for the recipient of his message to return. The crowd sighed. Lizzie checked her phone. They had forty minutes left before the end of the world.

  * * *

  Autumn had had a ridiculous idea, a terrifying idea, and here she was in the dark implementing it. She’d remembered what Trill had said about the compatibility of human and fairy blood. If she was right, she had a way to make a sacrifice not to one of the great powers, who might not want to venture into the place she was, might not even be on her side in the current conflict, but to the king himself. She put the knife to her lips, happy now that she kept it sterilised with boiling water. Not being able to contain a wince, she drew it down across her flesh. The cut was too sharp to feel. A moment later her mouth was full of the taste of her own blood. A lot of it. Oh God. Drips were already pouring to the floor.

  She put the knife back in her pocket, feeling like a proper witch but, however, acutely aware of how badly she’d wounded herself.

  She used her tongue to make sure her blood covered her lips. Wow. None more goth than she. She was proud to be that in the belly of the beast.

  She stepped forward, reached out, was open, seeking. She tried to find the king.

  * * *

  Zoya was hoping against hope that the house she needed to get to was still inside the wall. She had to look on her phone to find it, and it must be perilously close to the edge. She headed north, to this place she had often heard talk of but had never been to. She realised as she approached, though she had less of a feel for this than the people who talked about having extra senses, that she’d been lucky.

  19 John Wittingham Road, without the first “h,” was still inside the wall.

  She slowed as she walked along the estate houses with gardens that varied between neat and untended. Here was an ancient car being taken apart. Here was a modern one that had rusted. Ahead she could feel a place that was standing out now she was this close.

  This was the love that she’d always felt from the north of the town. The care from something invisible that Judith had spoken about.

  She had never come to seek it out, because before that would have seemed ridiculous. She had never come to this address because she had never had time. She had never realised that the two things were one and the same.

  Here was the house. It was a perfectly ordinary house. The garden didn’t attempt to achieve much. There was no sign of children’s toys, and no car. It looked like a pensioner lived here. And yet whatever was inside the building was singing to her now she was this close, wanting to give itself to her, like she was sixteen again and this was her first disco and the world was suddenly afire with expectation.

  Could it be? Could the error in the magic be this small, this stupid, this human? She had seen, in that dream world, while that shitty man had been unconscious, that vision of Lychford that was projected on the wall there. In that the addresses were all jumbled, all needed translation. Perhaps that was how the supernatural authority that automatically bestowed whatever Judith had thought was going to be bestowed on the basis of geography could get equally confused by a human map. Perhaps the mistake of a county council could have consequences on stages way beyond those the councillors could imagine.

  She saw that the front door was open. It didn’t feel like an invitation. The door was moving slightly in the chill wind.

  She went quickly up the path, ignoring the fear because there were others to fear for. She pushed open the door and went inside.

  * * *

  Autumn’s senses found the king. She told him that she had blood, clean blood, fresh blood, all her blood, to freely offer him. And then there was something terrifying in her arms. She was holding the power of a sleeping cosmos. It decided on a mouth and made it. It was an entire people. It was here at one point just for a moment, for her now. It was warm and desperate and needed her like nothing ever had.

  Autumn kissed the king of the fairies and fed him with her blood.

  * * *

  Zoya had called out in the hallway, to no response. The cold had got into the house. Now she was inside, the feeling of being here in the heart of something she’d never known she’d lost was even stronger. It was like . . . coming into an inheritance. No, that was wrong. It was like inheriting something wonderful made from love. Except this hadn’t been given deliberately. But neither had it been withheld. Not deliberately. Not quite. This wonder simply hadn’t known about her, hadn’t seen her.

  Yeah, right. Maybe it should have bloody searched harder.

  Was she supposed to . . . move into this house? No. It was clear someone already lived here. Oh. There were extraordinary, livid paintings on the walls. They all looked like they’d been painted by the same person, and there were too many of them. They were struggling to all fit. They made a mess of the space. What they depicted . . . some were pictures of Lychford, and there were some other landscapes, yearning ones, pictures of the places you go to in dreams.

  All the paintings felt . . . like they were missing something. There was some corner of each of them that needed extra weight, some imbalance that made you tilt your head. That was perhaps why there were so many of them, an attempt to make quantity fill the gap that would never be filled. Zoya put her hand to the surface of one of them, as if it could connect to her, as if she could add to it. That didn’t seem that big an as if. But nothing happened.

  She went into the next room, the living room, and there he was.
r />   The old white man was lying on the carpet, on his face, both arms straight out in a ridiculous, undignified, fall. He was dead. The cold filled the room and had entered him too.

  In his back were two arrows.

  Oh. Oh damn them. The assassins had come here in error. When they should have come for her. They had made that same stupid mistake as the cosmic authority of Lychford had. Then they had realised and had gone to wait for her at the school. They had hoped to control this man. But that body looked so thin, his limbs so frail, he hadn’t survived the attempt.

  She went to him and lay down beside him to see his face. He looked half-caring and half-angry. He looked halfway between everything. His expression said he was still missing something. That he remained incomplete. Even though he was over. She should hate him for having kept a power and knowledge that could have been hers. And she did, a little. But he hadn’t done anything with what he had. He hadn’t understood it. All his art said that. He had always been missing something. He had never become wise.

  But now she could.

  Zoya couldn’t help it. She reached out and touched the man’s face.

  And something was completed.

  * * *

  Autumn found the kissing was something she’d needed. She’d gone all the way into the heart of what she feared the most and had found what was there and held it against her bosom and given all she was to it. She felt the kiss taking all the blood from her, taking all she had, but she’d had to suckle this enormous galaxy beast, she’d had to force it to take it, it hadn’t forced anything on her. She had never felt so strong. It had taken her willingness to sacrifice everything, but she had no doubt anymore. She was the wise woman of Lychford.

  She understood, distantly, that the king’s eyes were open. It was like light spilling into a darkened room. But then they closed again. He was lost in despair. He could not find a spark of emotion to bring him back. Their poison kept on pumping into him, and she didn’t have enough blood to counter it completely.

  She found her body again, found her hand, shaking with the lack of blood. She found sensation in her hand and made it, full of pins and needles, reach into her bag.

  Her hand closed on the terrible thing she’d brought with her.

  * * *

  Zoya stood up, feeling authority and acceptance racing through her. She felt the completion, the love of the land. She felt she could put her hand now on that thing she’d always known in the distance, but had only started to grasp when she’d come here. The hedge witch, the words said, would come to live in Lychford, and would balance the space between what was and what could be. These words were not her own. But a moment later they were.

  The rain that had come from the well in the woods, whatever that was, had thought it had nothing to teach her, had thought she had already inherited her potential. The rain had thought! It hadn’t known that the shape of the town and the land had been broken, that she had arrived at the right time but had found the potential split and mistaken. Her mother had prepared her. Her mother had half known. All those books had contributed. There was still a long road in front of her. She was the new apprentice and she had to find the wise woman and tell her she was ready now.

  “Oh,” she said to herself, and now to a whole new world that was listening, “I am so going to kick that angel’s arse.”

  * * *

  Autumn waited for an unknowable time.

  In the space where she was with the king, she had put the head of the king’s son.

  She gradually started to feel it. His anguish finally roared from him like the tide on the beach. What had done this? How had he allowed this? What had become of him to allow this? He was wanting to have the energy to do something, he was willing himself to, he was not going to be able to defeat the terrible otherness that had infected him. The tide was being dragged back from the beach.

  Autumn let the blood flow from her lips and willed him to take it all.

  * * *

  Lizzie had decided that the best thing she could do right now was to try to get through to Luke. Because even Sunil, who’d gone to wait beside Trill as if he might hear more from Judith, now had a distant look about him, as if he was being swayed by the blood that filled the air. So she really wanted to see if she could get through to someone. She made sure Jas was okay, told her to stay by the church porch, then went to Luke, grabbed him by the shoulders, and led him forcefully away from the others. “Look at me,” she said. “What is it you want?”

  “What are you doing? Stop getting in the way. I just want everyone to be together and happy.”

  “How is that going to happen?”

  “If you stop arguing and let it happen.”

  “But I’m not going to be happy if this happens.”

  “Then that’s your fault.”

  “But I thought you wanted everyone to be together and happy?”

  He just angrily shoved her aside and went back to join the others in their excited anticipation of what the angel was going to do when it returned.

  Lizzie wanted to fall to her knees. So she did. She looked at the pools of blood all around and decided she didn’t want to see that. She closed her eyes and prayed for her friends, for everyone in the this town and in the universe that now had twenty-five minutes left.

  * * *

  Autumn was finding her fear getting smaller and smaller, as her awareness got smaller. She’d given a lot of blood now. The king, in such a small space with her now, was awake, was sobbing, was just like her, full of loss and sorrow.

  What had they done to his boy?

  He would make it up to him. He would make it well again. He would make things well for everyone.

  But he was not quite yet awake. These were only the desperate wishes of an old man.

  Autumn was pleased that she had found out what she was. Like her and unlike. But he was what she knew. So well. And so, she realised, she had something she needed to do to complete this working, this largest working, this working that could save everything. “I won’t die for you,” she said, wiping the blood from her mouth. “I can’t do this for you. If you want to save him, if you want to save everyone, you need to do it yourself. You need to wake up.”

  He was angry at her now. Increasingly angry. The fury hit her full on.

  Autumn fell to the ground and smiled with bloody teeth. To be angry, you need to be awake.

  * * *

  Lizzie realised that she could hear something different. She opened her eyes. Had the angel returned early? No. It was the fairies who’d been on guard. They were reeling, stumbling, crying out. All except Trill, who was still standing there passively being Judith.

  She leapt up, went to the nearest fairy, and grabbed his hands. After a moment, his eyes started to focus on her. It was as if he was trying his hardest to wake up. “Oh Autumn,” she whispered, “you did it.”

  From across the way came a shout. Lizzie saw that Zoya was running toward them. She was gesturing at the sky. “They’re going for it early,” she yelled.

  Lizzie looked up, and indeed, the light had returned, and, to the wild applause of the human beings below, the angel was forming out of the clouds once more.

  “Oh no,” said Jas, coming over to calmly stand beside her. “Father Christmas.”

  Of course. Whether or not Autumn had woken up the fairy king and freed the fairies from sleep, Cummings still controlled the humans through the same blood. Maybe the fairies weren’t onside anymore, but Lizzie was pretty sure the angel didn’t actually need them.

  * * *

  There was now a place in the space inside fairy where the king, awake, had put Finn’s head. Enormous energies of growth were all around. New rules of physics were being formed every moment. Autumn lay there, numb, watching, delighted, on the edge of death herself. As she observed, Finn was being grown again, was having his consciousness put back into a new place of being that, as with last time, was beyond the physical ideas of humans.

  She had no idea how
she was going to get out of here now. She was horribly worried about breaking her promise to Lizzie. She wouldn’t give all her blood to the king. He had indeed got there on his own. She had not completed the sacrifice, because it was not her job to sacrifice herself for him. But she still didn’t have enough left to keep going. She decided that she wanted to keep on speaking. She hadn’t finished. “It can’t be like it was,” she said. “They tore up all those rules. We need new ones. Ones they can’t tear up. Ones that won’t leave us all vulnerable to our own mistakes.”

  The king told her he was listening, while he was making. He owed her. Enormously. He would repay.

  Autumn barely heard him. She realised she could ask to be healed with these enormous energies he again had access to. But no. One wish. No. She had to keep talking. This was more important. “My land is just the place I am. Yours is the place you are. I want a new deal between all the worlds. For the bad guys too. No more borders.”

  The king was silent. And as she strained to hear a reply, Autumn found herself slipping away.

  * * *

  Trill suddenly jerked and pointed again at Zoya, once again adopting Judith’s stoop and voice. “And if I’m talking to my apprentice or the apprentice of my apprentice this is just to let them know: you basically just have to bloody make it up as you go along. All right. I love you, Sunil, you silly old man.”

  Sunil didn’t reply. He just closed his eyes and kissed Trill on the forehead.

  “That’s it,” Trill continued. “Carry on, you lot. Bye then.” And the fairy suddenly looked around, shocked, back to being himself again, and seeing, obviously, a lot of his fellow fairies all doing the same. “Oh,” he said. “What did I miss?”

  “Quite a lot,” said Lizzie. She could see that Zoya, who’d found Jas, was looking bewildered. “I’ll explain who that was in detail soon. If there is a soon.” She looked back up to the sky, and saw that the angel, now fully formed, was heading down toward them again, to vast cheering from the gathered believers.