“But you have to come with me…” he says, bewildered.
“No, I don’t. Tell Death that he owes me for the favor I did to him in helping him balance his books. I’ll come to him when I’m good and ready but not tonight.”
“Why are you being so mean, Sylvie? I thought you’d be glad to see me.”
“I thought so too, but I was wrong.”
She rolls the window back up before he can respond.
Sylvanna de Godervya raps on the glass divider and the limo shifts into gear. She glances out the back window as the limo rolls away, but the darkness has already swallowed Robert Mynwar.
“Well met by moonlight, proud corgi,” Sylvie says, scritching the corgi’s ears, and it yawns in agreement.
A Note from Ysabeau S. Wilce
Since it’s quite obvious to me that if Oberon had seen Led Zeppelin play in 1974 he would have undoubtedly stolen Robert Plant away to Faery, I can’t believe no one has done the rockstar abducted by faeries story before. But it appears that I might be the first. Clever readers will quickly realize that Love’s Secret Domain is a pastiche of two incendiary 1970s bands, and their song titles are mostly stolen from that rockstar of poets: William Blake, whose famous painting of Oberon and Titania dancing could only have been improved with a Les Paul in the background. The geography of the journey to Faery is indebted to the British writer Robert MacFarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) whose Twitter feed is a fascinating exploration of forgotten British language and landscape, and ever an inspiration to me. I like this conceit enough that I feel the urge to expand it to a novel; so perhaps I shall just do that. Rock stars and faeries seem a match made in… Faeryland.
Many many thanks to Stephanie Burgis and Tiffany Trent for letting me play in their submerged ballroom.
(And if you should ever see a fat corgi waddling urgently down the road, heading west, I urge you not to follow.)
TWELVE SISTERS
Y.S. LEE
Twelve Sisters
Don’t you wonder what happened afterwards?
Yes, yes: a king was plagued with twelve daughters who, despite being locked into their bedroom every night, wore holes through all their dancing slippers by morning. His solution? Invite any passing adventurer to discover our secret and inherit the crown. After many failures and messy beheadings, a grizzled soldier with a cape of invisibility followed us to our underground revels, brought back proof of our adventures, and claimed the eldest princess in marriage. Everybody knows that much, thanks to the Brothers Grimm.
And now you shall know what happened next.
“It was my fault,” said Anya. “I shouldn’t have—”
“Married him? You had no say in the matter.”
“Argued with him. I should know by now…” She dabbed her eyes with a lace-trimmed handkerchief.
I couldn’t see an injury at first—not until I realized that the shadows sheltered by her high collar were actually fingermarks. I unclenched my teeth and turned to the maid in the corner. “Grace, fetch a hot posset for Princess Anya. Plenty of Madeira.” A trip to the kitchens and back. Time to heat the cream, grate the sugar, steep the mace. Twenty minutes’ privacy, perhaps.
“Sister, I don’t need…” Anya shivered, and her beautiful posture began to crumple.
“Go,” I said, and Grace fled. When the door closed behind the maid, I wrapped a soft shawl about Anya’s shoulders. My touch was gentle. She flinched nevertheless. “Come,” I said. “Sit by the fire.”
She lowered herself cautiously into an armchair, as though it might take sudden exception to her presence. And here, by warm firelight, there was something else about her that looked… different. A familiar kind of different. “Oh, sister…” I couldn’t quite bleach the chagrin from my voice. “Are you with child again?”
She stared at me, aghast. “Sweet heaven, do you think? So soon?”
I was no physician, yet it seemed so obvious. The subtle swelling of her face, the new languor of her movements: her body engaged, once again, in that most magical and ruthless of feats.
“Are you sure you’re not a witch, Ling?” Her smile was small, stiff. “You have never been wrong before.”
Twelve years ago, a few moons after her marriage to the soldier, I had noticed the changes but not understood their import. Since then, I’d observed them at the start of each pregnancy. “Don’t you feel it yourself?” How could she not sense such a transformation in her body’s workings?
Anya’s tears flowed faster. “I don’t know what normal feels like anymore. I scarcely recognize this carcass as mine.”
I could well believe that. Anya had birthed eleven daughters, running down in age like steps on a staircase. The youngest was still an infant. People thought princesses soft and idle, but Anya’s body was as worn as that of any farmwife. Even her speech was different: losing half her teeth robbed her of the crisp hauteur that had been one of her defining traits.
“Maybe this one will kill me,” she said. Her voice was wistful.
It was the bleak heart of winter, the snows were deep, and our father, the King, was dying. Within a few days or weeks, Anya’s husband would become king—all according to the proclamation made in order to solve the mystery of our worn-out dancing shoes.
Shoes!
For such were the lives of princesses: every pirouette need be accounted for.
Anya’s soldier had not seemed monstrous, a dozen years ago. Surly, yes. Arrogant, certainly. We had not liked him, but neither had we feared him. Three nights in a row, Anya gave him the sleeping draught in the antechamber of our bedroom and we watched as he “drank” it, rivulets of mulled wine trickling down his chin. We hid our smiles, thought him merely greedy and clumsy. We hadn’t seen the sponge concealed within his untrimmed beard, didn’t realize he was only feigning sleep.
When he put on the cloak of invisibility and followed us down the enchanted stairway, I felt his tread catch the hem of my gown, the heat of his breath on the back of my neck. I was alarmed. But I was the youngest, a child of twelve, with a habit of obedience. Anya insisted that all would be well. I set aside my instincts. Later, in the ballroom, I saw invisible hands lift my wine goblet, watched unseen lips drain it, repeatedly. I didn’t realize he enjoyed my terror.
After Anya was wed, there remained eleven of us. In order of birth, each a year younger than the previous: Bunmi, Chanda, Damla, Esther, Fatima, Genevieve, Hasnaa, Isolde, Johanna, Keiko – and I, Ling. The glories of our dancing nights became common gossip. Courtiers and diplomats never asked outright, but all wanted to know what else we’d done in the nether world besides dance. Were we certain we’d only allowed the princes to row us in those enchanted boats? Had we only dined in the castle – and all together, always? And what of the cut of our ballgowns? Did we truly expect them to believe…? The King cursed, he threatened, he trebled our dowries. After that, my sisters found spouses.
Now, the King’s bedchamber would be crowded. Anya and I lived here, at the castle, but our ten sisters and their families were expected on the morrow. Tomorrow was not only the beginning of our deathbed vigil; it was the first time the twelve of us would be reunited since the scandal.