Shakespeare for Squirrels: A Novel (Fool #3)(53)

“But I’d give my all, to Sister Lilly.”

I danced a step or two, tossed the puppet Jones in the air and caught him behind my back, then bowed with a great flourish. The fairies clapped and cheered. Upon my second bow I noticed hair-thin scars on some of the fairies’ legs. Some were like white threads, some pink, as if fresher, none more visible than the scratch of a kitten, but each fairy was covered, head to toe, with a lattice of scars. Even amid the face paint I could see the white threads, and one or two of them had one eye that was clouded. Not unseeing, but bright blue or green iris paired with a clouded gray one.

I took Cobweb by the shoulder and pulled her aside. “What is this? What are these scars?”

“The marks of Oberon’s pleasure,” she said. “A frolic stops the bleeding. Two or three will bring an eye back, but the new eye doesn’t always match.”

I felt my supper sour in my stomach and rise in my throat. I swallowed hard to force it back down. “I would have never let Oberon send you here if I’d known.”

“I knew,” she said. “Well, I had heard. Moth has a brother here. She’s right troubled about him.”

Moth was touching foreheads with a male fairy with eggshell hair like her own.

“We are leaving, then,” said I. “Oberon has given me passage on condition I become his fool.”

“Ha! He fears you,” said Cobweb. “The Puck trick worked. The shadow king fears my little fool.”

“I am not your fool,” said I. “And things did not go well with Oberon. He doesn’t have the flower I need to take to Theseus to secure Drool’s release, and he doesn’t know how to change Bottom back into normal.”

“We’re not done yet,” said Cobweb. “Help me drag this dead one to the middle of the room.” I did as I was told, since it appeared that Cobweb had settled into her role as my mistress whether I cared for it or not.

“Have a sit by him,” Cobweb demanded. She yanked the bolt out of the goblin’s chest with a grunt and handed it, dripping green with gore, to me. “This will be a cracking frolic with so many. You might be leaping over rivers by morning from the overspill.”

And so she gathered the frightened, painted fairies, who seemed to have no will left of their own, and the frolic began, just as it had with the three of them in the forest before. But now a hundred fairies plus three dropped their robes and danced around me and the dead goblin—light firing in the air like exploding fireflies among them and the fairies rising from the floor until they were a whirlwind of color and life and power. Each hummed a high song that would have been barely audible had there been only one, but now it sounded like a hive of melodious bees, a hundred notes creating an all-enveloping harmony. My muscles and mind sang with the power of it, the life of it. These creatures turned the tides, made the trees blossom, the mare foal, clouds grow fat with rain, lightning crack the sky—these creatures, more than men, together made a god, brought the glory of nature to the now. But still, fucking squirrels at dawn.

And the dead goblin sat up. “What?”

“Ahhh!” said I, somewhat surprised.

The fairies ceased their dancing and gathered round the undead goblin.

“He going to eat us?” asked one wan fellow with a milky eye, a still-healing scar running from his nose to his ear, the point of which had been clipped off by the slash that took his eye.

“Not today,” said Cobweb, pushing her way through. “Oi, goblin, did you kill the Puck?”

The goblin looked around at the fairies gathered round him and even with his fearsome teeth and eyes, it was clear he was terrified—his wits set to go wobbly any second.

“Fetch Gritch,” I told Moth. “He’s outside.”

“No goblins,” said a woman fairy, dark of hair, bright scars across her ribs that might have been gills if she were a sea creature, or the lines made by fingers tipped with blades.

I lifted my jerkin and pointed to my knives. “He’ll not hurt you. I’ll see to it.”

Moth returned, dragging Gritch by a long ear, the goblin submitting completely for the chance to see his dead friend.

A goblin smile is not a pretty thing to see, yet those two, in a pair, nearly brought water to my eyes. Gritch embraced his friend and marveled at the healed wound in his chest. They shared grunts and whispers, and, still holding his friend, Gritch turned to me. I shook my head and pointed to Cobweb.

“Ask your mate if he killed the Puck,” she said gently.

Gritch whispered to his friend, then said, “Yes.”

“For silver,” the reborn goblin said.

“Who gave you the silver?” I asked.

“A human mortal. A little one.”

“A little one? A woman?”

“No, a man. A short man in black. In the forest. He gave silver to kill the Puck. I didn’t want to, but silver.” He touched the silver armlet.

“Did the mortal carry a crossbow?”

“Yes.”

I looked to Cobweb. “Burke, the duke’s watchman. Blacktooth’s leftenant.”

“Those wicked fucks,” said Cobweb.

“Aye,” said Moth. “Wicked.”

“Aye,” said Peaseblossom. “Fucks.” She scratched herself. “Who?”

“They shaved our bits,” explained Moth. She’d put on her black gown. She patted the sash. “I kept the razor. Never had a razor before.”