The Lost Queen (4 page)

It took Tania and Edric an hour on the Underground to get from Camden to Richmond. They came up to ground level in a crowded main street with wide pavements lined with black railings.

It was a relief for Tania to be out of the claustrophobic swelter of the tube train, but even out on the streets, the Saturday crowds hemmed her in as she walked hand in hand with Edric toward the first of the post offices that he had found on the Internet.

It turned out to be a busy main branch with a steady stream of customers coming and going through the double swing doors.

“There must be about fifty people waiting,” Tania said gloomily, peering through the doors. “We'll be here all day.”

“Don't join the queue,” Edric suggested, holding open one of the doors for her. “Go straight up to a
counter and ask to speak to the manager.”

“If you say so.” Tania slid between the racks of greetings cards and stationery and made her way up to the first counter. A woman was being served.

Tania fixed a friendly smile on her face. “Excuse me,” she said to the customer. “Could I interrupt for a moment?” The woman gave her a blank look. Tania turned her smile on the clerk behind the glass partition. “Would it be possible to speak with the manager, please?”

“Just a moment.” The man slid off his chair and went into a back room. Tania gave the woman at the counter an apologetic look. “Sorry about this,” she said.

The clerk came back. He pointed to a closed door at the far end. “She'll meet you there,” he said.

“Thanks,” Tania said.

She circled the long queue and came to a security door that could be opened only by pressing out a code number on a keypad.

“Fingers crossed,” Edric said, joining her.

“I've got
everything
crossed,” Tania replied.

After about a minute the door opened and a small, plump Asian woman looked out at them with a questioning smile. “Can I help you?”

“I hope so,” Tania said. “I know this is going to sound weird, but I think my mother was here a few days ago. She posted a parcel: a large book. It was going to an address in Camden.”

The manager looked puzzled. “Yes?”

“The thing is,” Tania continued, “my mum looks
just like me—red hair and green eyes—so I was kind of hoping that one of your staff might remember serving her.”

The manager gave her an incredulous look. “Do you have any idea how many customers pass through these doors every week?”

“Quite a few, I should imagine,” Tania said with a weak laugh.

“Hundreds,” the woman said. “And you want us to remember one in particular? I don't think so. Why don't you just ask your mother about the parcel if there's a problem?”

“I would,” Tania said hesitantly, “but Mum's gone…gone away…and…and the parcel never arrived and I'm worried that it might have got lost in the post.”

The manager rolled her eyes. “You want a lost parcels form,” she said, pointing to a rack of forms. “Fill it in and hand it over at the counter. We'll do what we can.” With a brief nod of her head the woman stepped back through the door and closed it with a sharp click.

In silence they made their way back onto the street.

“It was a bit of a long shot, I suppose,” Edric said. “And there's still the other branch.” He pulled an
A–Z
map out of his pocket. “It's in St. Margaret's Road, on the other side of the river.”

“I need something to drink first,” Tania said,
pointing across the street to a sandwich bar. “Let's try in there.”

The bar had a long narrow interior decorated in bright blue and white tiles. Along one side was a glass-topped counter lined with cakes and filled baguettes, and on the other side were rows of wooden tables. Most of the tables were already occupied, but Tania managed to find an empty one near the back while Edric joined the line.

A minute or two later Edric slid into the chair opposite her, placing a tray on the table. He handed her a tall cup topped with brown foam.

“We can't take too long,” he said as she stirred her coffee. “Post offices only stay open till one o'clock on Saturdays, and it's already gone twelve.”

As she drank, Tania became aware that a young woman dressed in a black-and-white waitress uniform was staring at her from the end of the counter.

Tania met her gaze. The waitress smiled and walked over to their table.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “But I have to ask—has your mother ever been in here?”

“My mother?”

“There was a woman in here a week or so ago and she had exactly the same hair color as you—that really fabulous glowing red.” She looked more closely at Tania. “In fact, you look exactly like her! She was very well dressed in a designer business suit and with really classy salon makeup. That's her, isn't it?”

Tania's heart was pounding with sudden exhilaration. “Yes,” she said. “I think it probably is.”

“I knew it!” said the waitress. “I never forget a face.”

“Did you catch her name?” Edric asked, and Tania could hear the excitement welling up in his voice.

“Her
name
?” the waitress echoed, sounding confused. “I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean.”

“How did she pay?” Tania prompted. “Did she use a card?”

The waitress frowned. “Cash, I think. I remember her sitting at that table over there. She had a briefcase with her and a large brown envelope—you know, one of those big padded ones. She was writing the address on it.” She smiled again. “Sorry, I'd better go and earn my keep. I love your hair, though. I'm totally envious!”

Tania and Edric sat staring at each other.

“It was her,” Tania said. “She was in here last week—with the book.” She put her hand to her chest. “Edric, she was
here
! We've found her. Now all we have to do is ask around the neighborhood, in shops and restaurants—everywhere. Someone must know who she is and where she lives.”

She broke off as her cell phone chimed. She scooped it out of her bag. “Uh-oh. It's home,” she said, looking at the lit-up screen. She pressed a button. “Hello?”

“Hello, dear.” Her mother's voice. “Your dad and I are going out to do a bit of shopping soon, and as we'll be near the school, we thought we might as well stop off there on the way back. How much longer do you think you're going to be?”

“I'm not sure—a little while yet.”

“Not to worry. We'll be there about half one. We can wait if you're not quite finished.”

“There's no need,” Tania said.

“It's not a bother,” her mother said brightly. “It'll save us going home and coming out again. I won't interrupt you any longer. Bye, now.”

Tania pressed another button on her phone to bring up the time. 12:14.

She had exactly one hour and sixteen minutes to get back to the school. They could do it—just—but only if they left right now.

“We have to go,” she said.

“I know. I heard,” said Edric. “I could stay if you like—start asking around.”

She frowned. “I'd rather we did it together.” She trusted Edric, of course, but part of her couldn't bear for him to find Titania without her. “I'll try and get away again tomorrow.”

This delay was frustrating—they were potentially only a few steps away from finding out where Titania lived—but Tania's well-meaning mother had put a halt to their search just when things were looking promising.

Tania knew one thing for sure: She was going to do everything she could to get away tomorrow. She was about to be reunited with her Faerie mother after five long centuries of separation, and there was nothing that would keep her from that.

 

They had luck with the tube trains, and it was still only twenty past one when Tania and Edric arrived back in Camden. They stood on the street corner, looking down toward the high wire fence that surrounded the school.

Tania peered up and down the street at the parked cars. “Good, they're not here yet,” she said. “But they could turn up at any minute. You'd better make yourself scarce. I'll wait outside the gate for them.”

“Call me,” Edric said, reluctant to let go of her hand.

“I will. Don't worry. I'll get away somehow tomorrow. I'll tell them I'm going to Camden Market with Jade.”

He looked up into the clear blue sky. “It's the first night of the full moon tonight,” he said. “In Faerie the full moon in July is called the Traveler's Moon.” A wistful tone came into his voice and his fingers tightened on hers. “A long time ago—before the Long Twilight came—on the first night of the Traveler's Moon, everyone from the palace would board ship and sail off to the island of Logris. The celebrations on Logris would go on all night: It was called the Festival of the Traveler's Moon.” He looked at her. “I wonder if they've revived the custom now that time is running normally in Faerie again,” he said. “I'm sure they have.” He sighed. “It's a shame you can't be there. I don't suppose you remember it at all, do you?”

Tania shook her head. The vast majority of her Faerie childhood was lost to her, and even those things
that she had been told about sounded like events that had happened to someone else.

“I don't think my mum and dad would be up for my popping into Faerie for an all-night rave,” she said with a smile. “I'm on a nine o'clock curfew, remember?”

“True,” Edric said. “But it's a pity, all the same. You'd have loved it.”

A dark blue car came gliding around the far corner of the street. “That's them,” Tania hissed. “Go now. I'll call you.”

There was no time for a proper good-bye. Edric let go of her hand and slipped out of sight around the corner.

Tania walked quickly toward the school, hoping that her parents weren't going to ask too many questions about the nonexistent rehearsal.

 

“I still can't believe that Jack dies!” Tania exclaimed as the end credits of
Titanic
rolled up the TV screen. “He shouldn't die. They should live happily ever after!”

It was late evening and she was sprawled on the couch in the living room with her mum and dad. They had just watched the DVD of one of their all-time favorite movies.

“He has to die for the story to work properly,” her mother said. “It's more romantic that way.”

Tania frowned. “What's so romantic about the love of your life freezing to death and drowning about ten minutes after you've met him?”

It had been a perfect few hours with her parents, almost like old times. Tania had decided not to spoil it for herself by bringing up the story of going to the market with Jade in the morning. No more lies today.

But while she had been watching the movie, the euphoria of knowing that she and Edric may be within a day or two of finding Titania had worn off. She had found it hard to concentrate on the movie, her troubled thoughts often turning to what would actually happen once they found the lost Queen.

She had promised Oberon that she would return to Faerie once the Queen had been found, but did that mean he would expect her to live there permanently? She couldn't imagine doing that. She loved her mum and dad and couldn't bear the idea of abandoning them. But she couldn't live in both worlds at the same time.

She was Anita Palmer
and
Princess Tania—two people in one body—but what did that really mean?

Let's just concentrate on finding Titania. I'll worry about what happens next when I absolutely have to.

“I think I'll head on up to bed,” she said, uncurling from the couch and stretching. “It's been a long day.”

She closed her bedroom door behind her, but she didn't switch on the light. She walked over to the window. The night sky was full of stars, paled by the glowing disk of the full moon.

“The Faerie moon is bigger,” she murmured. She remembered Edric's words:
…on the first night of the
Traveler's Moon, everyone from the palace would board ship and sail off to the island of Logris.

Could she slip into Faerie? Just to look at the Traveler's Moon for a minute or two.

Mum and Dad would never know. What harm could it do?

She took the simple side step….

And found herself in that small tower room again.

She gave a gasp of delight. The full moon was shining in so brightly through the window that its light threw sharp-edged shadows across the walls. The teeming stars blazed, filling the jet sky with flickering silver.

Tania's head filled with the perfumed Faerie air. The night scent of Faerie was strange and mysterious: a mix of aromas that blended to make a perfect whole. An icy tang of distant snow-capped mountains; the dark, earthy scent of deep forest glades; the wild smell of open moorlands, wind-scoured and rain-swept under racing skies.

Tania leaned out of the window, gazing over the tree-scattered downs. The notched silhouettes of the towers and roofs of the palace stood black and sharp against the rim of the sky, but the palace windows were lit up with a thousand candles, like a river of dia
monds strewn across a ribbon of black velvet.

A sound came trilling into her ears, so soft at first that she had to strain to hear it. The gentle jingling of bells.

Something was moving through the trees. It was an open carriage drawn by a single black horse with bridle and trappings hung with crystal bells. A man in a dark green cloak was driving the carriage and in the open back sat a Faerie lord and lady.

“The Earl and Countess of Gaidheal,” Tania said, recognizing the two passengers. She had seen them at the ball that had been thrown to celebrate her return to Faerie. The earl had a noble face with dark deep-set eyes and a high forehead with swept-back raven hair. The countess was serenely beautiful, her golden curls cascading to her waist.

Tania darted away from the window and ran down the spiral staircase. She came to an arched wooden door; lifting the latch, she pulled it open. A moment later she was running through the trees after the carriage.

“Hello! Hello, there!”

The earl gave a sharp word of command and the carriage pulled up only a few yards ahead of Tania.

“Princess Tania,” the earl said, his eyes wide with surprise. “My lady, how come you to be here in the deeps of night?”

“I was looking at the moon,” Tania said.

The countess smiled. “We have come from our manor in the fastness of Esgarth Forest to attend the
Festival of the Traveler's Moon,” she said. “Will you ride with us, my lady?”

Tania hesitated. Should she risk it? As long as she was back before dawn, her parents would never know she hadn't been in bed all night. And from what Edric had told her, this festival was worth seeing.

“Yes, please,” she said. “That would be great.”

The earl held the door of the carriage open for her.

The driver shook the reins and the carriage moved off with a jerk, rolling out of the trees and down the grassy hillside toward the Privy Gardens. It wasn't long before they were on the tree-lined lanes, passing between sculpted hedges, the leafy shapes of animals and birds seeming more than half alive in the charmed moonlight.

The lofty red-brick walls of the Royal Apartments loomed over them, and soon they drew close to a gatehouse with brown stone steps that led to arched double doors.

“I'll get out here, if that's okay,” Tania said. “I'd like to go and find my sisters.”

“As you desire, my lady,” said the earl, calling the carriage to a halt and jumping down. He lifted a hand to help her out.

“Thanks.” She stepped onto the yellow path.

“We shall meet anon upon the white strand of Ynis Logris, my lady,” said the countess.

“I'm sure we will.” Tania felt a flicker of excitement inside her. She was back in Faerie!

She waved as the carriage moved away, then she ran up to the arched doors and pushed them open. The long entrance lobby was lit by scores of candles set in tall, floor-mounted candelabras. The dancing yellow light reflected off the polished red and green floor tiles and glowed warmly on the soaring walls of carved white stone.

Tania ran along the aisle of candlelight, her bare feet hardly making a sound on the cool tiles. She came to the foot of a grand, ornately carved dark-wood staircase. It led to a high gallery lined with paintings. She ran her fingers over the warm banister and began to climb.

Two floors up, she reached the long winding staircase that would take her to the Princesses Gallery. She was barely halfway when she heard the patter of feet coming down. Moments later her sister Zara appeared, clad in a sky blue gown with her long flowing golden hair bouncing on her shoulders as she skipped down the stairs.

“Tania!” she cried in surprise. She came down the rest of the stairs at a run and fell into Tania's arms, her fine-featured face wreathed in smiles. “I did not expect you this night!” She hugged Tania tightly. “It is marvelous indeed that you are here! I feared you would miss the revels.”

Tania laughed, hugging Zara back. “I never miss out on revels if I can help it,” she said. “But the whole place seems empty—has everyone already gone?”

“Most have,” Zara said. “All but one of the ships set
sail from Fortrenn Quay early this morning. The last is departing soon. I came up here for this.” She drew a slender wooden flute from the folds of her gown. “The Festival of the Traveling Moon would not be complete without music,” she said, and she put the flute to her lips and sent a stream of clear liquid notes into the air.

“I didn't know you could play the flute as well as the spinetta.”

“I play all instruments,” Zara said, and then her eyes widened and she stared aghast at Tania's clothes.

“By my troth, what garments are these?” she said. “A princess in leggings—and in such a flimsy shred of a shift that a breeze would blow it away? Tania, you cannot be seen in public in such attire. It is…it is entirely
improper
!”

“It's fairly normal back in the real—I mean, in the Mortal World,” Tania said. “You don't think people will approve, then?”

“Approve?” said Zara. “Nay, I do not! To clad your legs thus, as might a court jester or a serving man? No, we must find you something more suitable. And quickly, too, or the
Cloud Scudder
will be gone without us.”

“The
Cloud Scudder
?”

A broad grin spread across Zara's face. “You do not remember, do you?” she said. She linked her arm into Tania's and led her down the stairs. “It shall be a surprise, then, my darling—a most wonderful and exquisite surprise!”

 

“Choose quickly, Tania or we shall be late!” Zara chided.

Tania stood in front of her wardrobe in her bedchamber, trying to pick a gown from the dazzling array. Zara was hurrying her along. She had not even allowed her a few moments to look again at the living tapestries that hung from the wood-paneled walls. When Tania had first arrived in Faerie, the tapestries had been simple scenes of faraway places: mountains and wild heaths, seascapes and ice floes under a cold naked sky. But on the day that she had finally accepted her Faerie heritage, all the tapestries had come alive: The wind had started to blow through the trees, the frozen waves had begun to roll and swell, clouds had moved across distant skies, birds had flown, rivers had run, waterfalls tumbled and foamed.

“Give me a chance!” Tania protested, pulling out a lilac gown. It was simple and elegant with purple stitching and a low square neck and long scalloped sleeves. She held it against herself and gave Zara a questioning look.

“Yes, it will suffice,” Zara said.

Tania quickly shed her outer clothes and climbed into the gown. Zara stood behind her, tying the laces that drew the bodice tight around her.

She turned Tania around, her hands on Tania's shoulders. “Yes, that is much improved,” she said. “Now you are a princess again. But we must run now, swift as the wind!” She clasped Tania's hand and the two of them ran from the room. Tania began to be caught up in Zara's enthusiasm; she laughed as they
raced down the corridors, her long skirts rustling as they sped along, her hair streaming.

Zara brought them to a breathless halt at a familiar doorway.

Tania looked at her sister, puzzled. “This is your room,” she said. “I thought we were in a hurry to get to the Festival.”

“Indeed we are,” Zara said, her eyes shining.

“Then what—”

“Open the door!”

Puzzled, Tania turned the handle and pushed the door open.

She already knew what she would see: the walls and ceiling painted to resemble a seascape, the floor-boards colored like shingle, the furniture shell-encrusted and draped with navy blue covers. But all alive—a living painting in constant silent movement.

And that was exactly what she did see as she swung the door wide—except that when she had been in this room before, it had been in daylight; now the room was wrapped in the sultry, dark glamour of a Faerie night.

The second thing that struck her as she stepped over the threshold was that she could hear the sound of waves washing over shingle. There had been no sound from the living paintings before. Was this some new enchantment? But before she had the chance to ask, she realized that it was not wooden boards that she felt beneath her feet; it was crunching, yielding shingle. And then she saw that there was no furniture,
no walls, no ceiling. The door opened onto a long beach that glimmered under the huge, shining sphere of the Traveler's Moon.

“The King has not opened this gateway since before the Long Twilight,” Zara said. “See yonder: The
Cloud Scudder
is in full sail. Shall we board her, or would you stand here forever on the brink of wonders with your mouth agape?”

Ahead of them, the pebbled shore sloped down to the foaming sea. A small rowboat lay close to the beach. A man stood by the boat dressed in a uniform the color of the summer sky, the water swirling around his booted legs.

But the small boat did not hold Tania's attention for long—something far more astonishing took her breath entirely away.

A three-masted galleon lay at anchor on the rolling sea. Its planks and timbers and ropes and masts and spars; its sails and rigging; its decks and prow and the deep, wide curve of its keel all shone silver-white, as though the whole vessel welled with trapped moonlight, casting a shimmering sheen onto the dark waters that lapped its hull.

“Behold the
Cloud Scudder
,” Zara whispered, her lips close to Tania's ear. “For five hundred years she has lain becalmed in a cold harbor, but tonight she will fly over the moon to the Island of Logris.”

Hand in hand they crunched their way down the shingle. They stepped into the water, the lapping waves sucking the pebbles from under their feet
with a sound like distant high-pitched laughter. Foam sizzled on the sea-rounded stones.

The waiting man bowed low and helped them board the small boat. They sat together in the stern as the man pushed the boat clear of the beach and jumped aboard. He fended the little vessel away from the shore with one oar, then sat and began to row with long, powerful strokes.

It wasn't long before they drew up alongside the towering silvery ship, their boat bumping gently against the timbers as the oarsman grasped a rope hanging from the deck. Zara stood up, using the man's shoulder to steady herself. More ropes came snaking down the side of the ship, including a long loop of rope with a small wooden platform at the base.

Zara stepped onto the side of the boat and then onto the wooden platform. She held on to the rope with both hands.

“Haul away!” called the oarsman, and Tania watched as her sister was hoisted up the lofty side of the ship.

A few moments later and Tania craned her neck to see Zara being helped onto the ship. The loop of rope slithered down again. The oarsman nodded toward the wooden platform.

The boat bobbed and shifted under her as Tania stepped up onto the side, holding her skirts with one hand. The oarsman took her arm to steady her as a gulf of water opened between the boat and ship. But a moment later the sea nudged the boat for
ward again, and she was able to step easily onto the platform.

She clung to the rope with both hands as she felt herself being lifted. She gazed shoreward: Behind the shingle banks, the land rose in grassy dunes, and beyond them gray-brown hills rolled dimly away on the edge of sight. She saw that the ship was anchored in a wide bay with dark curving arms of land stretching out to either side. To the left, a black finger tipped the arc of the bay, capped with a tongue of flame, distant but jewel-bright on the dark horizon.

“Give me your hand, Princess.” She was at the level of the deck. A sailor was waiting for her, wearing a cream shirt and sky blue trousers tucked into high leather boots. Tania took his hand and stepped on board the ship.

A familiar voice rang out from the throng of Faerie folk who were gathered on the deck.

“Welcome! Welcome indeed, my daughter! This is a joy unlooked for.” King Oberon stepped forward and took her into his arms. He was dressed all in white, with diamonds sewn into the folds of his padded doublet and with a fine filigree of charcoal thread patterning the collar and cuffs. His white crown circled his forehead, holding back his long yellow hair, the crystal band inset with a ring of precious and rare black amber stones.

Tania gazed into his face with its close-cut golden beard and mustache and those deep-set piercing blue eyes. “Hello,” she said, embracing him fondly. “It's nice to be back.”

“And you have returned in perfect time for the Festival of the Traveler's Moon,” the King said. “Come, tell us your news quickly, before we set sail for Logris.”

Clasping his hand, Tania looked around at the familiar faces that surrounded her on the deck. Her sister Hopie was there with her husband, Lord Brython, at her side, both of them clad in simple brown. Cordelia was there, too, her red-gold hair shorn about her shoulders and her face a mass of freckles. She held up one arm, a kestrel on her wrist. Sancha was at her side, dressed in her usual sable velvet, her clever brown eyes dancing in her smiling face.