Huntsman's Prey Read online

  The door to the bedroom clicked shut. One would never know the inner turmoil the two lived with as both Alice and Hatter walked out with an air of regality.

  Alice was dressed in a black silk, strapless gown that flared out at the knees in a sort of mermaid style. It was one of Hatter’s designs, in fact the Hatter usually fashioned her clothes. He’d shifted his talents from hats to dresses, mostly because Alice wasn’t much into covering her glorious head of jet black hair.

  What made the dress she wore so stunning and unique was that the material from the knees below took its color based off her mood. Right now the fabric was a dark smoky gray.

  Alice’s make-up was also magic. The scrollwork of her eyeliner was a constant and shifting pattern, the black line undulated between an infinity pattern and a bleeding heart that represented Chrysa’s birthmark.

  Alice was literally wearing her heart out for all to see.

  Hatter was holding tight to her elbow, standing tall and proud beside her. Reminding Danika of a regal lion the way his dark, shaggy mane framed his rugged features. There was a day’s growth of beard on his square jaw, and the molten brown of his eyes were cold, but not distant. Danika knew her boy well enough to see the pain welling behind the seemingly broody gaze. Wearing his traditional black suit full of pocket watches, they appeared a striking pair.

  Leading Alice toward a beige duvet, Hatter waited until she’d settled before sitting. The moment he did, Alice rested her legs on his.

  “I’m sorry for that, Dani,” Hatter’s voice was a deep inflection of sound through the eerie quiet of the home.

  Danika waved off his words. “I am sorry to have caused you and the lass such distress.”

  Alice’s eyes squeezed shut as her gown shifted to deepest blue. “You told us once, Dani, that Jericho said there was a way to overcome this curse. Please, for Gods sake, tell us how.” Her honeyed eyes pleaded. “Give us some hope. Something.”

  Nibbling on the corner of her lip, Danika watched as Hatter patted Alice’s thigh over and over like one would with an upset dog. She’d just told them of bloody entrails she’d found sprinkled liberally throughout the woods, it seemed beyond cruel to whisper words of “it will get better” or “it’s alright, it’s all going to be all right”. That would be nothing but a pack of lies and well Danika knew it.

  Not that she saw a problem with the occasional white lie, but at this point she was drowning in them. Ever since she’d noticed the change in Chrysa, it seemed like that was all she ever did with Alice and Hatter. Lie to keep their spirits up. Why she’d even created a false playmate for the child, telling them that Chrysa was playing with Gerard and Betty’s child, Shayera, now seemed like a horribly, cruel idea. In truth Danika had known that Chrysalis’ curse was so extreme it wasn’t safe to keep her around others not of her immediate family. The Shayera that’d played with their daughter had been nothing more than a golem.

  It sickened Dani that they still didn’t know either.

  She swallowed hard. Be sure your lies will find you out. Bloody hell what a mess.

  Nodding, Danika said, “Yes, Jericho did mention that we’d be able to break the curse, but that was many years ago now. He’s not mentioned it since and truth be told, I’m not exactly certain there is. I’ve looked at this from every angle.”

  Hatter’s nostrils flared as his hands stilled. “What are you saying, fairy?”

  “That perhaps we ought to consider changing tactics,” the last came out a squeak of sound.

  Cocking her head, scrollwork pattern shifting into a question mark, Alice’s words were soft but tempered with an edge of steel. “What the hell does that mean?”

  Gazing heavenward, praying for strength, Danika fessed up. “Look, what I know of moon curses is that they only get worse. In fact, all I’ve read suggests they never get better. It’s akin to the moonlight madness a werebeasty feels.”

  A muscle in Hatter’s jaw ticked. “We saw her play with Shayera Caron, at some point she was able to control this. She can again.”

  That dreaded knot of fear that’d sat in her gut for years suddenly roared to life, choking the breath from her lungs. Because there was the truth she’d hidden for so, so long.

  Closing her eyes, she knew what she had to do. “She never played with Shayera.”

  Their faces were total blanks. It might have been nice if they’d at least asked a question back, but they were looking at her with the expectation that she still had more to say.

  “Bloody hell,” she grimaced, “I lied. The child you saw your daughter playing with in the hall of Forget Me Not was not real.”

  “Say again.” Hatter’s scowl was a mile long. Alice’s dress had turned a bloody shade of red.

  Just then Miriam’s words returned to haunt her: Why must you always make things more difficult, Dani? If you’d just tell the truth the first time we wouldn’t be in this mess…

  Those words had become a sort of running mantra between the two of them throughout the years. At some point Danika figured that she’d eventually learn from it, but no… here she was, in the same mess as always. Digging her way out of a hole she’d created, except this time there was no Miriam to roll her eyes good-naturedly. In fact, the couple before her looked seconds away from lunging and throttling her.

  “Please explain how that is possible?” Alice’s voice was deceptively calm.

  Moistening her lips once more, Danika gave a nervous chuckle. “It was a golem.”

  “Bloody hell!” Hatter shot to his feet piercing Danika with a demonic glare of fury.

  Alice, who was a transplant to Kingdom, looked between the two of them with a pretty scowl scrawled on her forehead. “And what exactly is that, dear?” she asked her towering and pacing husband.

  With jaw clenched he threw out a fist in Danika’s direction. “It’s a piece of filthy clay designed to appear as human as you or I, only magic lets it live. Why would you bring that into our presence and not tell us what you’d done?” He growled the last bit at Danika who was currently the size of a quarter and trying to hide herself behind a large couch cushion.

  With knees shaking, she knew she had to accept their fury and now grovel for them to understand. They were hurting, and facts were, in hindsight deceiving them (even if only to spare them the pain of knowing the truth) had been a rather heinous idea.

  “Wait.” Alice held up her hand, her gown was now a soft shade of buttery yellow. “Just wait,” she sighed. “We cannot yell at her, Hatter.”

  He still looked as though he wished to wring Danika’s neck, but instead walked back to his wife and gripped her hand. She kissed the his knuckles and nodded, then turned her pointed look toward the quivering fairy.

  “Dani,” the scrollwork around her eye formed into the shape of a tear, “please, after all these years I do not doubt your love for us, nor for Chrysa, but you have to tell us once and for all what is happening to our daughter.”

  With a heavy heart, Danika nodded, and touching the tip of her star shaped wand to her chest, she grew to human size once more. Wings buzzing in agitation, she started from the beginning. “When the moon cursed your daughter, I went to the council to ask for the books of Lore.”

  “Lore?” Alice’s brow quirked.

  “The fairy tales,” Hatter supplied for her, but his eyes never left Danika’s face.

  She nodded. “Aye, the tales. I’ve researched for years how to break the moon’s curse.”

  “But you spelled her that night, Dani. I heard you,” Alice nodded, “you said that she had the—”

  “Gift of choice, yes I know I did,” she huffed, “and she still does. Your daughter can decide to not let the curse corrupt her. But curses are never really that easy, otherwise they wouldn’t be called a curse, they’d be called a wrist smack, right?” She chuckled.

  They didn’t join in.

  Danika cleared her throat. “So basically the curse turns her mad. Each year it only gets worse.”

  “But she
never manifested—” Hatter rumbled.

  “Yes, she did,” Danika grimaced, folding her hands together as her palms grew slick. “I never told you, but when she was four I saw the darkness for myself. It consumed her, curled out of her body and enveloped her like a fog bank. I did not tell you because I did not wish to alarm you.”

  Hatter was absolutely still.

  As was Alice, but her gown was deepest black. The air was dense with the gathering undercurrent of emotions. Outside a murder of crows cawed.

  “That was not your decision to make. You should have told us.” His words pierced Danika’s heart like a barb and she winced.

  “I know that now. And I’m so, so sorry. I just love you two so much and you looked so happy, so hopeful,” the word spilled wistfully off her tongue, “I tried but… I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.”

  Sniffling, Danika dabbed at the corners of her eyes. What she wanted to do was get on her knees and beg for forgiveness, it was one thing to lie to Galeta, she hated that over-inflated bag of poo. But to lie to these two, it’d hurt, and being forced to expose her duplicity now, it hurt twice as bad.

  But she held little hope her words would sway them, once a liar, always a liar. Trust was blown. She could only hope that in time they’d at least manage to forgive her, understanding that it came from a place of love.

  A few seconds later, a heavy sigh spilled from Alice. Standing, she walked toward Danika towing her husband behind her. Danika expected a slap, what she did not expect was for Alice to wrap her up in a scented hug of cinnamon and clover.

  “Dani, we love you and though it pains me to know she’s been sick so long, please do not take our harsh words as us saying we hate you. It hurts, but I can understand. Can’t we, Hatter?” She looked over her shoulder at her husband who didn’t seem nearly as willing to forgive.

  Alice poked him in the ribs. “As someone who very nearly died of cancer, and left her entire family behind without a word to let them know how or why, I know what it’s like to feel you have absolutely no choice in a matter. I do not like what you’ve done, Danika, make no mistake,” Alice gave her a stern look, “but we can understand. Can’t we? Dear?”

  Eventually Hatter managed to choke out a garbled, “Aye.”

  “She’s been sick since she was four then?” Alice asked with a soft sigh.

  Eyes swimming with tears, Danika huffed trying to dry them. Her throat was scratchy as she said, “Yes. In the books once the curse manifests the time bomb starts ticking away. There was no way for me to judge that on the eighteenth year she’d flip, or trust me I would have stopped the party, I swear it by my love for Jericho.”

  Hatter’s lips pinched.

  No, he’d definitely not be as forgiving as his Alice. Not that Danika couldn’t understand it, she did, if she were in his shoes she’d no doubt feel the same.

  “So essentially she’s as mad as I was,” he said.

  “No, goddess I wish. No, Hatter, she’s much worse. The child seems to have lost all sense of reason. The bloody massacre she left in her wake,” Danika shuddered, “that is why I say I’m not sure she’s capable of choice at the moment.”

  The room grew loud with the tick-tock ringing of clocks.

  “What do we do then?” Alice whispered.

  Danika shrugged. “I do not know, my dear. But we must do something before the Ten catch wind of—”

  Just then a manic shrieking caused them all to cry out and twirl, looking around for the source of noise. It was the clockwork monkey, half its leg was caught inside the snapdragon’s mouth.

  But the monkey wasn’t shrieking because it’d been caught, it was shrieking because it was trying to grab hold of Leonard—Hatter’s pet mouse—who was waltzing drunkenly across the floor.

  His bow tie hung haphazardly around his furry neck. The golden spectacles Danika had fashioned him for his birthday was shattered, split down the center of the frame. One of his ears was matted with dried blood.

  “Leo!” Alice cried, rushing to the wee mouse and picking him up before he dropped to the ground.

  The furry, little thing was panting and grabbing hold of his chest. His velvety nose was bright pink, and he sounded winded as he said, “I saw ‘er I did.”

  “Her? Her who?” Alice shook her hand just slightly, because the mouse was definitely blinking and looking for all the world as if he were ready to pass out. “My daughter?” she tried again. “Leo, tell me, did you see Chrysa?”

  “Mmm,” he nodded wearily, his eyes were closed now.

  “Leonard,” Hatter leaned over his wife’s hand, “did she do this to you?”

  It took two painfully gasping breaths, before the mouse could speak again. “Aye. Mad she was. Looked at me like she don’t know me, then she struck. Grabbed me so quick I near to peed meself.”

  A visible shudder rippled down Alice’s spine, her dress shifted from blue to gray to black, over and over again.

  “But then she done the strangest thing. All sudden, she blinked and opened her mouth and told me, ‘RUN’. I was dead, I was. Weren’t no coming back for me.”

  Danika wiped the back of her hand across her mouth as an undercurrent of excitement whipped through her veins. “When she blinked, Leonard, did she seem to recognize you? Was there any awareness at all?”

  Opening his beady eyes, he looked dead at Danika and nodded. “Aye, godmother, I do believe she did. I ran and she howled, but she never came after me.”

  “How did your ear get torn?” Alice cooed.

  “Fell down an ‘ole full of brambles. Ran for me life.” He whimpered, hugging his arms to his fat little chest.

  Alice rubbed her finger along his fur. Hatter pulled her into his arms and they stood like that for a while. They’re sadness a palpable weight in the air.

  But Danika wasn’t sad. No, on the contrary Leonard’s tale gave her hope. Not much, just a smidge, but more than she’d had a second ago.

  “Why do you smile, Dani,” Hatter glowered, “can you not feel our pain?”

  “No, no, you mistake me.” She waved her hands. “The curse has most assuredly gripped your daughter. And yet, for a split moment she was cognizant enough to let Leonard slip away. Somewhere in her head she remembers her old playmate. She let him go. Don’t you see?”

  “See what?” Alice wiped her nose with the back of her hand, tucking Leonard into a pocket of her gown, patting it down gently.

  “Choice!” Danika felt like pumping her fist. “If she’s capable of letting him go when the curse drives her so mad, then she is still capable of choice. She can be saved.” Jericho was right, the Cheshire was right. The answer to the riddle had been right here all along.

  “But you were saying something about the Ten. What will happen to her if the Ten learns of her madness?” Hatter was quick to ask.

  Truth time. “Nothing good I fear. You know what they did to the Jabberwock.”

  Both Alice and Hatter shuddered, they knew quite well what the ten had done to the chimera, man-eating beast.

  “Madness is fine, so long as the madness is contained,” Danika continued, “once it runs amok—”

  “They take care of the problem,” Hatter finished.

  “No!” Alice scowled, yanking on Hatter’s arm. “You can’t let them hurt her, sweetheart. I swear if a single fairy lays a hand on my daughter I’ll rip it off and slap them with it.”

  Hatter patted her shoulder.

  Wincing in sympathy, Danika scrunched her nose. “No need to go ripping off hands, Alice. I think I know what to do.”

  “What?” They snapped in unison.

  “Many years ago I had to send a hunter to tail Hook, he’d grown, well…” she waved her hand, “well, you know,” she pierced them with her eyes, “he was wild. So I sent the Huntsman after him.”

  “The queen’s tracker?” Hatter blinked and then snorted. “Oh yes, she’ll let him come to our aid, sure.” The sarcasm was hard to ignore.

  Danika was a damn fine godmother. Sh
e’d not thought much of it at the time when she’d first met the Huntsman Aeric and felt the familiar tingle rush down her spine. The tingle of true love. Of course the pulse had been faint, but it’d been there.

  In all those years since she’d first felt the shiver of love’s first bloom she hadn’t forgotten and always looked around for who the Huntsman was meant to be paired with.

  It was almost as if Miriam were speaking to her through the great divide, because deep in Danika’s soul she sensed an answering awareness when she thought of the Huntsman with her Chrysa. There was something there that needed to be explored.

  If anything could tame a beast, it was a huntsman.

  But she’d not tell them that just yet, no need to give them false hope. For everyone within Kingdom knew the strongest, most surest magic of all was true love. If anything could break the curse, it would be that.

  She smiled. It didn’t solve every problem, but it was a start. Tomorrow Jericho would visit her, she’d have to talk to him and see what else could possibly be done, but this was most assuredly a good place to begin.

  “The Huntsman takes side jobs. He also happens to be a ward of mine. Though I rarely see him,” she grumbled, “Red Queen fatty keeps him so bloody busy.” Her wings buzzed angrily.

  “No, I do not like it,” Alice shook her head, the scrollwork had now fashioned itself into a spearhead. “He’s a trained killer, bordering on psychopathic.”

  Danika laughed. “Killer yes, psychopath… well dear, that’s what they all said about your Hatter.”

  Alice frowned.

  Hatter brushed his knuckles against her cheek tenderly. “He is the best. But, we should have no problem finding her. You say she’s leaving a trail of death in her wake. Surely if we just follow the corpses—”

  Alice dry heaved, grabbing hold of her stomach.

  “Sorry, my heart,” he whispered.

  “No, I really do insist it be the Huntsman, he’s skilled, he knows what he’s doing and to be blunt, your daughter is dangerous.” Danika shook her head.