Captives of the Fern Queen Read online

  Janna sat in her chair, staring at her snack box and muttering, until she remembered the night before last, when she’d climbed to the top of the tower to stargaze. Somehow, the box that had been full of snacks when she’d arrived had been empty when she left.

  Quickly, she pulled out a history book. She’d read about the Fern Queen, then later, when her parents were through with lunch, she’d sneak into the kitchen and find something to eat.

  Long ago, the queen of a kingdom not far from Mount Pasture became obsessed with ferns. First, she filled the gardens around her castle, then she planted her favorite plant throughout her land. Since her kingdom was made up of low, moist valleys, it proved ideal for growing ferns—and for less wholesome pursuits as well, people began to say.

  The whispered rumors said the Fern Queen had concocted a potion that changed people into plants. A lot of people scoffed at the idea, though they couldn’t deny that she was the daughter of the Stalker, who had been an expert potion maker. Years went by, and everyone, even the scoffers, noticed something strange about the queen. The people she grew up with lived and died; then their children did the same. She lived on, planting and cultivating ferns.

  Rumors became established folklore. People enjoyed telling stories about the evil Fern Queen in front of their safe, comfortable firesides. It wasn’t until she attacked and defeated a small kingdom that her neighbors realized she meant to expand her kingdom at their expense.

  They banded together with big Mount Pasture and fought.

  Janna lost track of time as she reached for one book after another, trying to find something interesting about the battle accounts. All of them described how long each battle lasted, where it was fought, how many people were on each side, and other facts that weren’t in the slightest bit interesting. None of the accounts said anything about what the Fern Queen looked like or how she changed people into plants, and Janna wished she could take the historians who had written them by the shoulders and shake them.

  Only one report was worth reading, in her opinion, even though it was in the largest and heaviest of the history books. She ought to read it again.

  “I’ll stretch first.”

  Her back ached from bending over books all afternoon. Her arms ached too, but after she’d stretched, Janna reached for the heavy book, lifted it onto her lap, and turned to the report. A drop of sweat fell on it. Absentmindedly, she grabbed the bottom of her skirt and dried the page, but it wasn’t until sweat started trickling down the back of her neck that she realized how hot she was.

  At least the top room of the tower had a window, though two windows would have been better because then a breeze could have come in one and out the other, creating a cross breeze.

  Janna was staring vaguely outside, hoping for a breath of wind, when something bright blue dashed past the tower window. She blinked and looked again. There wasn’t anything blue outside except for the sky, and even the sky was pale that afternoon, as if it were suffering from heatstroke.

  Dust from the old books must have gotten into her eyes, making her see things. Her throat was dry too. And she had a headache.

  “I’ll read this report again, then I’ll quit.”

  ****

  When the Fern Queen’s army surrounded us, we formed a circle around our children and called to the Maker for help. He sent help, and mighty it was, but clouds had covered the night sky, making it too dark to see. All we could do was listen.

  First, a distant drumming of horse hooves grew louder and encircled our enemies as well as us. We were unable to see how many horses had come to our aid, though it sounded like hundreds. The enemy shouted in defiance and sent arrows twanging into the darkness.

  Then the howling began. Wolf howls, long and sinister, wavered in every direction. We trusted that the wolves had come to help us, but we ourselves trembled at the wailing cries. Though the enemy was still shouting, there was fear in their voices. Nevertheless, they maintained the circle around us.

  Suddenly, both hoofbeats and howls stopped. A bird trilled, then another and another, until the air resounded with their songs. Throwing ourselves on the ground, we wept with the joy that filled us and were grateful when the singing ended. Some things human beings cannot bear, not until…we reach high home.

  The enemy ran from the birdsongs. Our scouts followed their tracks to the borders of the Fern Queen’s kingdom.

  ****

  The light in the tower dimmed as Janna read the last few words. She glanced out the window in time to see the sun dip below a far mountain. No matter, the sun was always dipping behind mountains in Montaland. The subdued light of evening would last several more hours.

  Janna looked down at the book she was holding, but the words on the page blurred together. She rubbed her eyes impatiently.

  “I’ll read about the wolves once more, and then I’ll quit.”

  Rubbing her eyes helped. She was able to read the part about the wolves again, but it only described them as gathering and howling. So what? Wolves always gathered and howled. That wasn’t special behavior. Janna could no longer think clearly. No matter, her list of high-home animals was on the table in front of her. She’d list this report as a reference even if it didn’t contain new information. All she had to do was straighten up and reach for the list. Straighten up, straighten right up, and—

  She didn’t move.

  Too tired.

  It was then that a flock of her least favorite animals chose to announce to the world their outrage at an act of gross injustice. At the same time, a dog began barking, and she couldn’t tell which species of animal was more indignant. The sheep don’t want to go where the dog wants them to.

  She winced at the increasingly loud exchange.

  “Baa-aaa-aaaa…”

  “Quit it,” she said through her teeth.

  “Baaaaa-baaaaaaaaa…”

  “I said, quit it.”

  Her headache was getting worse.

  “Sheep couldn’t possibly be high-home animals. What a ridiculous idea!”

  “Baaaaaaaa—” Then suddenly the clamor cut off.

  Good, the dog had herded his flock where he wanted it to go. Now she could relax. Closing her eyes, Janna took one of her deep calming breaths, but she didn’t relax because a line of fat wooly bodies were now marching through a gate in her mind. Fat, wooly, dirty-white bodies marching one after another after—

  “I can’t stand it!” she yelled and lunged from the chair, out of the library, down the stairs, and through the tower’s outside door.

  Sneaking past several castle windows, Janna made her way toward the kitchen. She needed something to eat. That would make her feel better. However, when she reached the kitchen window, she could hear her mother talking. Queen Berta and a friend were having a cup of tea at the table.

  Janna wavered, but she still wasn’t ready to explain why she’d run away from school.

  Besides, there were pies cooling on the windowsill, strawberry pies. Her mother would insist on cutting a piece for her, and Janna hadn’t yet recovered from being called chubby in a song made up by ungrateful kids who should have thanked her for making the effort to give them a history lesson.

  Her mother was quite chubby herself, but she was happy that way. Whenever Janna said anything about a diet, Berta would tell her she looked fine and then, in the same breath, urge her to exercise.

  “Nobody should talk about exercise on a hot day. And I don’t look fine.”

  Janna got past the kitchen windowsill, but it wasn’t as easy to leave behind the smell of strawberry pie. Uh oh. Now the rich aroma of rolls baking in the oven was wafting through the air. My favorite. Janna’s mouth began watering at the thought of a big puffy roll cut in half and slathered with butter that melted and oozed down the sides.

  Running was the only option.

  The smells followed at her heels as if determined to lure her back until she dashed through a side entrance to the castle garden and slammed the stone door behind her.
The garden’s absurdly tall walls did serve a good purpose after all. They blocked smells. Janna took a deep breath of the protected air and headed straight toward the nearest stream for a cold drink of water.

  “That’s better,” she said finally and stood, wiping her mouth.

  Green leaves waved from nearby trees, and summer flowers bobbed as if to say hello. Boring. Nevertheless, Janna’s headache began to ease, and she made her way to the far side of the garden, where an old pear tree grew. Its branches hung within three feet of the ground, forming a sheltered canopy, but the best thing about the tree was two of its lowest branches, which had been pushed together by a long-ago storm. The result was a particularly comfortable perch that had been Janna’s secret retreat for years.

  A jump and a twist settled her, and she leaned back gratefully and closed her eyes. Something stirred in the leaves above her.

  “Go away, squirrel.”

  A prolonged whirring of wings announced the presence of a bird, not a squirrel, but Janna didn’t open her eyes. Why should she care what type of bird it was? A number of birds ate the fruit of her tree, though they usually waited until the hard green knobs had ripened.

  The bird kept rustling the leaves.

  You should look. It might be special.

  Janna didn’t know where that thought had come from, but she wasn’t about to open her eyes. It had been a hard day. She deserved a rest. Eventually, the leaves stopped rustling and she was able to relax until her stomach rumbled.

  Jumping off the branch, she wondered what to do until the bell rang for supper. There was the hidden tunnel, of course, which needed to be found so she could prove Alland wrong. None of the history books had mentioned a secret tunnel built by the Fern Queen, which was bothersome, but not hard to explain away. It was a secret for high home’s sake. Alland had no right to say it didn’t exist, and Janna marched resolutely through the garden toward the back wall.

  Chapter 3

  A Disastrous Evening

  Most children in Mount Pasture had searched for the hidden tunnel at least once, whether they believed it was there or not. Janna had kept the hunt up longer than most, but even so, it had been years since her last serious effort. It wasn’t far from her pear tree to the back of the garden. In a few minutes, the wall loomed above her, large and forbidding in the evening shadows.

  Janna refused to be intimidated. She knew the tunnel was on the other side of that wall. It had to be. The back wall was built on the eastern border of Mount Pasture, up against a steep hill. Where else would a tunnel go?

  Sniffing at the ridiculous searches some children had made into pastures, she studied the area for something that looked different, a swelling of the ground maybe that didn’t belong. Nothing seemed out of place, but she hadn’t really expected to find anything this side of the wall.

  If she had time, she’d walk over to the other side, but the only gates were at the front of the garden. Before she could trudge down the meandering paths to a gate and then walk around the outside of the wall, the supper bell would ring, and she’d have to return without stepping foot on the narrow strip of land that existed between the back wall and the hill.

  That strip of land positively beckoned to tunnel hunters. Janna had known every inch of it as a child. She’d never seen anything that remotely hinted at a hole leading into the hill, but she was older now. She’d find it and then wouldn’t Alland be—

  The supper bell rang, interrupting her thought.

  “Hooray,” Janna cheered, though she flinched too. “Time’s up.”

  The expected outcry came as soon as she stepped into the castle.

  “Janna, where have you been? I’ve been beside myself worrying. Your teacher let everyone go home after lunch since it was the last day, then she came by the castle and let us know you’d run away. Why would you do such a thing and where did you go? I’ve been beside myself—”

  “You said that already, Mom.”

  Janna tried not to roll her eyes. Her mother and father hated it when she rolled her eyes. There was no sense adding to her misdeeds.

  “Don’t answer your mother back, young lady,” said King Luff, coming out of a side room. His belt was as wide as it would go, Janna noted, and appeared to need another hole so it could go wider.

  “Don’t you want me to answer her?” Janna couldn’t help but ask. She gave the smallest, barely perceptible eye roll.

  “Yes, we want you to answer us, but with courtesy,” Luff responded, but he had his mind on something else, as usual. Janna could tell.

  “And don’t roll your eyes at us either,” said her mother. “Well, where have you been?”

  “I was doing research in the library. It was educational. You like me to learn things,” Janna reminded her, hoping to avoid other questions.

  There was no such luck, of course.

  “But why didn’t you have lunch with us first? Benk brought your lunchbox on his way home. It was wiped clean, with the trash already thrown away and the napkin refolded. You’ll have to thank him for being so thoughtful!”

  Unbelievable! “Did you ask him what happened to the food in it? He and the other little kids ate my lunch!”

  “You weren’t there. What did you expect them to do?”

  This was so unfair, but it was typical too. Her parents always put her in the wrong.

  “Those kids made fun of me and ‘thoughtful’ Benk was the ringleader. He gets away with everything.”

  “Perhaps you misunderstood them, dear,” her mother said with a solicitude that was fully as annoying as her anger had been.

  “I was merely giving them a history lesson and they—”

  “We’ve told you what we think about those forced lessons. Some of the younger children have had nightmares after a session with you. Who was it this time?” her father asked.

  “The Stalker,” Janna reluctantly admitted.

  Her mother threw up her hands in horror. “He’s the worst of the lot—taking natural ingredients and doing evil things with them!”

  “It was substances, not ingredients,” Janna corrected impatiently and who could blame her? Her mother thought of everything in terms of cooking. “I chose him because he was so thoroughly bad. He’s representative, and besides, we know more about him.”

  The Stalker’s story had always been her favorite, which was strange considering how frightening her own nightmares about him used to be. However, that had been years ago. She was too old to have nightmares now, and so were her schoolmates.

  “Those kids you’re worried about ought to be punished for rudeness,” she said hotly.

  “Why? What did they do?” Berta finally asked the question that should have been asked at the beginning of this conversation, in Janna’s opinion.

  She took a deep breath, determined to give the episode her full storytelling abilities, but her mother suddenly sniffed the air and cried out, “My rolls!” Then she whisked about and hurried to the kitchen, leaving Janna with her father.

  That was fine. She’d tell him. One on one might work better anyway—as long as he paid attention.

  “We were behind the school,” she began, but Luff was staring at the floor in a distracted fashion. Janna wasn’t sure he was listening, so she repeated herself a little louder.

  “WE WERE BEHIND THE SCHOOL!”

  Okay, it was a lot louder. Her father jumped but at least he was listening now.

  “Who was?”

  “You and Mom wanted to know what they did,” Janna reminded him.

  “Yes, indeed,” he agreed vaguely. “What who did?”

  “Dad!”

  “I’m sorry, Pound Cake. Tell me again, and I’ll listen.”

  “Right,” Janna said, wishing her father would drop that old nickname. As a five-year-old, she had shown a marked preference for the rich dessert and had enjoyed the nickname, but it reminded her now of depressing things, like ounces and pounds.

  Before she could start again, a sweaty group of herders walked
into the hallway, and her father greeted them with an eagerness he certainly hadn’t shown her.

  Janna did not scowl at the herders. It was an achievement. She didn’t smile either, but the lack of a scowl was definitely an achievement, especially since the men had come straight from a day spent with smelly sheep. Trying not to inhale, she edged sideways toward a window. She’d almost reached it when Berta bustled out of the kitchen, announcing that supper was ready and inviting the shepherds to join them.

  “I will not overeat; I will not overeat,” Janna vowed under her breath, but she was hungry and her mother had outdone herself again.

  Thickly sliced meat was tender enough to be cut with a fork; mashed potatoes were covered with thick gravy; fresh peas and baby onions were cooked with fatty pieces of meat to give them flavor; corn on the cob was already salted and dripping with butter; fried apple rings were encrusted with caramelized sugar; big, steaming rolls filled a breadbasket with a soft mountain of butter in a bowl at their side; then, for dessert, strawberry pies were cut into large wedges, each wedge topped with spoonfuls of whipped cream.

  It was hopeless.

  Luff loaded everyone’s plate with meat and mashed potatoes, while Berta added servings of peas and an ear of corn. The rest of the food was passed, which gave Janna more freedom to choose, but she couldn’t resist the rolls, though it was perhaps not necessary to take two. She passed up the fried apple rings completely, which made her feel so virtuous that she ate two pieces of pie.

  After dessert, when everyone else was drinking coffee, Janna was so full that her mind was in a stupor. Regrettably, the numbness did not extend to the rest of her body. Her arms ached from lifting heavy history books from the bottom shelves, and her back ached from bending over those same books for hours while she read them.

  It would have eased the aches to stretch her protesting body parts, but that wasn’t possible at the supper table. Besides, though Janna knew stretching was a necessary part of exercising, she didn’t really like either activity. The only good thing about her aching body was that it kept her alert enough to hear what was on her father’s mind.