A Princess of Landover Read online

  “Is this about Rhonda Masterson?” she asked incredulously.

  “Yes, it is about Rhonda. It is exactly about Rhonda. She’s hysterical! She had to be sedated by the nurse. Her parents will have to be informed. I can’t imagine what I am going to tell them. That you traumatized their daughter by threatening her? That you scared her so badly that the entire school is talking about it? I am appalled, Misty. And I am angry.”

  Mistaya could tell that much. But she still didn’t see the problem. “She called me a name. She did it in front of everybody. She did it to make me angry, and it worked. She got what she deserved.”

  “For calling you a name? What name?”

  Mistaya tightened her lips. “I can’t repeat it. I won’t.”

  “But what did you do to her to frighten her like that?”

  Well, that was hard to explain, and Mistaya knew she better not even try if she wanted to keep the truth about herself a private matter. Princess of Landover, born of a human come from this world and a sylph who occasionally turned into a tree—how could she explain that? Telling them the truth about her father was out of the question. Telling them about her mother might give some credence to her commitment to saving trees, but it wouldn’t do much for her overall credibility. Telling them about her real life, which was not in Landover, Maryland, as they all thought, but in the Kingdom of Landover, which was another world entirely, would only lead to them locking her up for evaluation. There just wasn’t much she could say.

  Still, she had to say something.

  She sighed. “I just told Rhonda that if she kept this up, I was going to get her, that’s all.”

  But Harriet Appleton was already shaking her head in a sign of dissatisfaction with the answer. “It had to be something more than that to frighten her the way you did. You whispered something to her, and then—this is what some of the other students told me—you … you did something else to her.”

  Other students. Rhonda’s sycophantic followers, all of them blue-blooded East Coast snots from lots of money and little brains. They had been on her case since she arrived at Carrington, making fun of her, teasing her, pulling mean tricks on her, doing anything they could to make her life unpleasant. This time they had pushed her too far. Though forbidden to do so under any circumstances, she had used her magic. Just a little of it, but enough to make them sit up and take notice. A quick conjure of an image of someone she knew from Landover, someone they should hope they never encountered in real life.

  She had shown them Strabo. Up close and personal. Especially Rhonda, who had been made to smell the dragon’s breath.

  “What is it that I am supposed to have done?” she asked, deciding to turn this around.

  “The girls said you made a dragon appear right in front of Rhonda.”

  Mistaya feigned disbelief. “I made a dragon appear? How am I supposed to have done that? Magic or something?”

  Miss Appleton frowned. “I don’t know, Misty. But I think maybe you did what they said. You are an unusual young lady. You have demonstrated a capacity for commitment that exceeds that of the other students. You are a natural leader and a determined, if all-too-frequently reckless, advocate of the causes you believe in. Once you have set your mind to a task, it seems nothing deters you. You are a brilliant student. Your grades are excellent. If anyone could make Rhonda think she saw a dragon, you could.”

  She leaned forward. “The point is, you did something that terrified this girl. This isn’t the first time you’ve broken the rules, and I am quite certain that if things continue on as they are, it won’t be the last. I cannot have this sort of disruption. This is an institution of learning. In order for that learning process to function as it was meant to, the students must adhere to the rules for proper behavior and apply themselves accordingly. I don’t like using this term, but students must find a way to fit in. You don’t seem to feel that this is necessary.”

  “You’re right, I don’t,” Mistaya agreed. “I think we are here to discover ourselves so that we can do something important with our lives. I don’t think we’re meant to fit in; I think we’re meant to stand out. I don’t think we are meant to be like everyone else.”

  The headmistress nodded and sighed. “Well, that’s true for when you are older, but not for when you are in a college-preparatory boarding school like this one. Carrington trains you for growing up; it isn’t a chemistry class for the actual process. Not the way you see it, anyway.”

  She reached into the folder, produced an envelope, and handed it to Mistaya. “You are suspended from Carrington effective immediately, Misty. The details of the reasons for this are contained in this letter. Read it over. A copy has been sent to your parents. I have tried calling them, but cannot reach them at the home number. I suppose they are traveling again. I did reach a Mr. Miles Bennett, your father’s attorney, and he promised that he would try to get word to them. But it might be better coming from you. You don’t have to leave until the end of next week, when classes are finished and the Christmas break begins.”

  “My parents …,” Mistaya started to say, then forgot the rest and went silent. Suspended? For making Rhonda Masterson see a dragon? This was ridiculous!

  “I want you to go home and think about this conversation,” Harriet Appleton continued, refolding her hands on top of the file. “If you can persuade yourself to become a student of the sort that Carrington expects you to be and if you can convince me that you can be one of those students, I will consider reinstating you.” She paused. “Otherwise, I am afraid you will need to find another school. I’m sorry, Misty. I truly am.”

  Mistaya stood up, still in shock. “I understand,” she said. “But I don’t think it’s fair.”

  “I am certain you don’t,” Miss Appleton agreed. “Go home and think about it. After you’ve done so, maybe you will be of a different mind. I certainly hope so. I would hate to lose you as a student at this school.”

  Mistaya turned and walked from the room. All she could think about was how angry her father was going to be.

  She stalked out of the building into the midmorning cold, her frustration building incrementally as she replayed the particulars of her meeting with the headmistress and the events leading up to it. She didn’t care all that much about the suspension. In truth, though she would never admit it aloud, she wouldn’t care if she were expelled altogether. She hated Carrington and she hated the other students and she hated this entire world. It was her father’s and not hers, but he had forced her to come to it, anyway. Talk about misguided thinking!

  It’s time for you to learn about places other than this one, Mistaya. You need to spend time with other girls your own age. You need to have your education broadened by travel and new experiences. Questor and Abernathy have done what they can, but now …

  Blah, blah, blah. Her father. Sometimes he was just too thick. She didn’t need anything other than what she had in Landover, and she certainly didn’t need the hassle of living in a world where there was never anything new or interesting happening. She hated the smells, the tastes, and much of the look of it. She hated her classes, which were dull and uninformative. Who chose the subjects they studied there, anyway? Was there a single class on connecting with nature in a meaningful way? Any material on the traits and classification of mythical creatures? Was there any book that smiled on Monarchy as a form of government and suggested there might be more to it than beheadings and adultery?

  Still, none of this would be happening, she knew, if she had been able to control herself. It didn’t help that Rhonda Masterson had a building on campus named for her family and that she would be a fourth-generation alumna when she graduated. Carrington valued loyalty and wealth, and the Mastersons had both. She, on the other hand, had neither. At least, not in this world. She was a Princess, but only in Landover, a place no one here even knew about. She had no standing of the sort that Rhonda Masterson had. She was just someone to be brushed aside.

  She made up her mind in that i
nstant. If they wanted her to leave, fine, she would leave. But she wasn’t waiting until the end of next week to leave; she was leaving right now. She was going home where she belonged.

  She changed directions abruptly, breaking off her trek across campus to her English literature class, and instead turned toward her dorm. A few other students passed by on their way to class, casting furtive glances, but none of them spoke. She stalked on, tightening her determination even in the face of what she knew would be waiting for her when she got home. She could already hear her father. But what could he do about it? She was suspended and she had been told to go home and that was what she was doing. He would have to live with it.

  There was no one in her dorm room when she opened the door. Her roommate, Becky, had gone home for the weekend. A tall, athletic girl with a scholarship in basketball, she was always running home to her family in New York. Which was fine. Mistaya liked Becky. She didn’t pretend to be anything she wasn’t, and she wasn’t afraid to let you know how she felt. Becky had been involved in every mishap Mistaya had organized since her arrival, a full accomplice in all her efforts. But Becky never got in trouble for it. She knew how to be a part of things without standing out. She knew how to blend in—something Mistaya knew she had yet to learn.

  She sighed. Miss Appleton had pointed to Becky with pride as an example she would do well to emulate—a clear demonstration that the woman didn’t have a clue about Becky’s subversive side.

  Mistaya began packing her clothes and her books and her personal effects, and then quit right in the middle of her efforts. Everything she cared about was back in Landover, not here. She left it all where it was and called a cab. While she was waiting, she wrote Becky a short note to the effect that this place wasn’t for her and she wouldn’t be back. Becky could have what she wanted of her stuff and throw out the rest.

  Then she marched down the hallway to the front door to wait for her ride. She found herself smiling. She couldn’t help it. She was excited about going home. The reason didn’t even matter. It was enough that it was happening.

  She rode the cab to the airport, caught a long flight to Dulles and then a short one to Waynesboro. Money wasn’t an issue when you were a Princess of Landover. She thought about her life as she traveled, measuring the length of the road gone past and estimating the distance of the one yet to be traveled. It wasn’t easy to do when you were half fairy. Her differentness from other girls was hard to overstate. Nothing about her life had proceeded in recognizable fashion. She had not grown up at a normal rate, not even by Landover’s standards, her progress from infancy to girlhood achieved in quantum leaps. Talking at two. Walking at three. Swimming at four. Months, not years. Then status quo for almost a year, one of her many dormant periods when nothing seemed to change. She was in one of those periods just now, her body in a kind of suspended animation. Physically, she was a fifteen-year-old with a twenty-two-year-old mind. But emotionally, she was off in the Twilight Zone. She couldn’t describe it exactly, couldn’t put a name to what she was feeling, only that she was feeling something. It was like an itch that kept working at her no matter how hard or often she scratched at it. She was restless and dissatisfied and hungry for something she didn’t have but couldn’t identify.

  Maybe going home would help her figure out what it was. She certainly hadn’t been able to do so at Carrington. All of her adventures with trees and nature and Rhonda had just been things to keep her occupied. Her subjects were boring and easy. She was already thinking and working at college level, so there wasn’t much to be learned at a preparatory boarding school, despite what her father might think.

  Mostly, she thought, she had learned to be rebellious and troublesome. Mostly, she had learned new and interesting ways to break the rules and drive the teachers and the administration crazy.

  She smiled. If nothing else, it had certainly been a lot of fun.

  On landing, she called a private car service and had a town car take her up into the Blue Ridge Mountains along Skyline Drive. The day was sunny and clear, but the temperature was way down in the thirties. The car drove with the heat on, and Mistaya shed her heavy coat for the duration of the ride, which ended twenty miles later at a wayside turnaround overlooking the George Washington National Forest, south of Waynesboro. A small green sign with the number 13 lettered in black, a weather shelter, and a telephone identified the location. She had the car pull over, slipped her winter coat back on, and climbed out. The driver gave her a dubious look when she told him he could leave, but she assured him she would be all right, that someone was meeting her, and so he shrugged and drove off.

  She waited until he was out of sight, waited some more to be sure, and then walked across the highway to the trailhead and started along a winding path leading upslope into the trees. She breathed the sharp, cold air as she walked, feeling refreshed and alive. She might hate some things about her father’s world, but not the mountains. Ahead, an icy stream that had slowed almost to freezing trickled down out of the rocks, the sound faintly musical. She found herself thinking of the weather in Landover, which would be warm and sunny. There were storms, rain and wind and gray clouds, and sometimes there was even snow. But mostly there was sunshine and blue skies, and that was what she was expecting today. She wondered how long it would take her to reach the castle, if she would find anyone to take her there or if she would have to walk.

  She wondered, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, if Haltwhistle would be waiting to greet her.

  The possibility that he wouldn’t show up made her frown. She had been forced to leave him behind when she left for Carrington. Landover’s inhabitants, human and otherwise, could not pass through the mists as she could. Her father was the exception, but that was because he had the medallion of the Kings of Landover, and that allowed him to go anywhere.

  She, on the other hand, could pass through because of how she was made—an amalgam of elements culled from the soils of three worlds.

  Making her different from everyone else.

  She grimaced. Maybe her father would take that into consideration when he heard about the suspension.

  STRANGE CREATURES LIKE HERSELF

  Mistaya continued to climb until the leafless winter trees hid all traces of the highway behind a screen of dark trunks and limbs and a thickening curtain of mist. The little falls had been left behind, and even the trickling sounds of its waters had faded. Ahead, the mist was growing more impenetrable, swirling and twisting like a living thing, climbing into the treetops and filling in the gaps that opened to the sky.

  Had she not known what to expect, all this would have frightened her. But she had traveled between worlds before, and so she knew how it worked. The mists marked the entry into Landover, and once she passed through them, she would be on her way home. Others who found their way into these woods and encountered the mists would be turned around without realizing it and sent back the way they had come. Only she would be shown the way through.

  Assuming she didn’t get careless and stray from the path, she reminded herself. If she did that, things could get complicated. Even for her.

  She pulled the collar of her coat tighter, her breath clouding the air as she trudged ahead, still following the path that had taken her up. When at last the path ended, she kept going anyway, knowing instinctively where to go and how she must travel.

  A wall of ancient oak trees rose before her, huge monsters casting dark shadows in the failing light. Mist swirled through them, but at their center they parted to form a tunnel, its black interior running back into the forest until the light gave out. Trailers of mist wove their way through the trunks and branches, sinuous tendrils that moved like huge gray snakes. She moved toward them and entered the tunnel. Ahead, there was only blackness and a screen of mist. She kept walking, but for the first time she felt a ripple of uncertainty. It wasn’t altogether impossible that she could have made a mistake. There wasn’t any real way of knowing.

  The consequences of a mistake,
however, were enormous. One misstep here, and you were in the land of the fairies.

  She pressed on, watching the mist and the darkness recede before her at a pace that matched her own. She hugged herself against the chills that ran up and down her spine. Whispers nudged her from within the trees to either side, the voices of invisible beings. She knew those voices, knew their source and their purpose. Fairies, teasing travelers who passed through their domain. They were insidious, unpredictable creatures, and even she—who was born, in part, of their soil and therefore a part of their world—was not immune to their magic. Partly their child, partly an Earth child, and partly a child of Landover: that was her heritage, and that was what had determined who and what she was.

  Her mother, Willow, had kept the secret from her; it was the witch, Nightshade, who had told her the truth. Her mother was a sylph, an elfish creature who transformed periodically into the tree for which she was named to take root and nourish in the earth. She had done so in order to give birth to Mistaya. In preparation, she had collected a mix of soils—from a place in Ben’s world called Greenwich and from the old pines in the lake country and from the fairy mists in her world. But when she had gone into labor unexpectedly, she had been forced to take root in a hurried mix of the soils she carried while she was still down in the dark confines of the Deep Fell, the home of the witch Nightshade. The consequences were unimaginable, and while Mistaya had been born without incident she had also been born the only one of her kind.

  You couldn’t be more different than that.

  But being different only got you so far. For one thing, you were never exactly like anyone else and so you never completely fit in. It was so here. Being part fairy was not enough to guarantee safe passage. Staying on the path and keeping your head was what would protect you.