Kull’s vision went blurry. He wiped his eyes with the back of his arm.
“Do you think it would be okay,” Tinn asked, “for us to show my friends a howl?”
Fable held her mother’s hand as they crossed the field. Raina allowed herself a smile as Kull and Tinn started in on a raucous old shanty about highway robbers and floating islands. It was all in Goblish, but the children huddled around them didn’t seem to mind.
Evie Warner was regaling a hob with the story of her very own honest-to-goodness adventure in the Wild Wood. She sketched the fellow as she talked, and every now and then he leaned in to see her progress. Raina glanced over the child’s shoulder. The face grinning up from Evie’s sketchbook was plump and wrinkled with a long, crooked nose. Beneath wiry brows, his eyes were kind and bright. It was a good likeness.
“Are you okay, Mama?” Fable said.
Raina wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “I was so worried I wouldn’t get to see the sort of queen you would become.” She put a hand on her daughter’s cheek. “You are a good Witch of the Wood, Fable.”
Fable leaned in to her mother’s touch. “Only for the time being,” she said. “You’ll be better soon, and then all these butts can be your problem again. Come on. We’re almost there. I want you to meet somebody.”
An old woman with wispy white hair sat waiting in the smooth roots of the Grandmother Tree. Her eyes twinkled as she watched a group of children race around the trunk with a pair of giggling wood nymphs.
She looked up as Fable and her mother approached.
“Hello, my little hazelnut,” the woman said. “Who’s this?”
“Hi, Maggie,” said Fable. “This is my mama. Mama, this is Maggie.”
Old Mrs. Stewart put a hand to her chest. “Oh, my word,” she whispered. “You do look just like her. You both do. I see it now.” A curious smile grew at the corners of her mouth. “It’s the eyes.”
Raina looked at Fable for an explanation.
“You should ask her,” Fable prompted, “about her lady.”
“Now, this is how it ought to be,” said Fable as Chief Nudd hopped up onto the mossy rock beside her. The two of them looked out across the field together. The sun was beginning to sink toward the horizon like a heavy head toward a pillow.
“Hm. Is it, though?” Nudd pursed his cracked lips.
Fable gave the chief a sideways glance. “Of course it is. Why? What do you mean?”
“Oh, it’s nice,” he added. “Right nice.”
“It is nice.” Fable scowled. “You don’t think it ought to be nice?”
“Been in the world a long time, lass. I’ve known it ta be mad. Wicked. Beautiful. Never known it ta be nice.” He leaned back. “But if there was ever anyone in this not-so-nice world who could turn it inta exactly what she wanted it ta be—well, that’d be you.”
Fable stared across the field. Evie had finished her drawing, and the hob applauded. Fable’s mother and the old woman were still talking. “You can’t just change the way things are,” said Fable. “That’s not how magic works.”
“It’s na the way yer mother’s magic works,” Nudd said. “I met a rather cross tortoise earlier who might argue that yer brand o’ magic is a wee bit different.”
Fable swallowed.
“Things change,” Nudd said. “Big things. Little things. The whole world changes. All change is a sort o’ magic. It isn’a always grand, and it isn’a always quick. But that doesn’a mean it isn’a magic.”
Across the grass, Kull had begun coaching Cole through a valiant attempt at a goblin howl. It was terrible. Tinn was beside them, beaming.
“You, my wee witchy, are changin’ the people around ya in ways ya dinna understand,” Nudd continued. “An’ yer lettin’ them change you, too. Shifting of the tides.” Nudd looked at Fable. The chief had a faint scar across one eye, and his skin looked like badly tanned leather, but somehow his expression was still soft. “Yer na yer mother, Fable. I’m na my father. We’re the tides that they shifted. Now it’s yer turn.”
A game of checkers concluded and the gnomes cackled over their victory. Across the way, Hana’s mother called her to go home. She waved goodbye to Kull and the twins, and was shortly followed by Oscar and Rosalie and all the rest. One by one the forest folk slipped back into the trees, and the humans headed back down the road toward their houses. Fable’s mother and Mrs. Stewart looked like they were just about finished, too.
“I best collect Kull,” Nudd said. “He looks a bit light-headed after all that excitement. Give yer mother my best, lass. We’re all glad to see her on the mend.” He slid down from the rock, and then added: “Sorry. Not lass. I mean . . . Yer Majesty.” He gave Fable a cordial bow before padding away.
Fable breathed softly. The sky had warmed to a gentle orange-pink. She would only have to be queen for a little longer, and then her mother would be better. Until then, Fable was beginning to think that one day she really could do this queen thing—her own way. Maybe she really could make her world be what she wanted it to be.
Fable closed her eyes. She listened to the wind rustling through the branches, the chirp of crickets, and the hoot of an owl emerging for the evening. Fable listened to the forest—to her forest.
She listened. She breathed. She concentrated.
And she smiled.
EPILOGUE
Crickets chirped in the tall grass as the Burtons and the Witches of the Wood walked back toward town. Fable was asking Annie what sort of dress she was going to sew for her next, and Tinn was changing his skin color to match her descriptions. “Yeah, like that,” said Fable. “But more dots. And the buttons in the front this time!”
Cole slowed, letting them walk a few paces ahead. The queen glanced down at him. The boy’s brow was
