The ceremony itself was pretty straightforward, if a little weird. Mrs. Hill, the court’s de facto manager, used the same tone she did during neighbourhood meetings, talking about water prices—but this time, she picked up a flowered twig from the TV tray at her side before speaking. Emily sat next to her aunt in the audience and hoped the whole thing wouldn’t last too long.
Mrs. Hill dove straight in. “To our great joy, our work of these past years had borne fruit. The key to our return is in our midst. Though shaped by us, this agent has more than exceeded our hopes.” Turning, Mrs. Hill directed her next words to Emily.
“We of Royal Oak Court beseech Amelia Anderson to journey to the Sidhe and petition the king for our return. Armed with our gifts and love, she will travel to the green hills of our former home and make the king an offer on our behalf.”
Emily leaned in to her aunt and whispered, “Wait, I’m making an offer? Of what?”
Janice shushed her while Mrs. Hill continued. “You’ve been told, Amelia, that you are the only one of us who can return and thereby work to rescind our exile. Though you have already offered your aid, will you now promise before the court your willingness to do this for us?”
At a motion from Janice, Emily stood, shifting from foot to foot. “Um, yes. I, Amelia Anderson, do hereby swear to return to the Sidhe to petition the king and—ah, work to rescind your exile.”
There was a hush. Emily fidgeted, feeling the eyes of the entire court on her. From somewhere near the front, she heard Becky’s even voice.
“Done!” The woman looked up from an open book on her lap, a feather laid across its blank pages. Meeting Emily’s eyes, she smiled. “It’s done. It worked.”
“Wait, what worked?” Emily found herself pressed on all sides by her aunt’s friends and the people she babysat for, receiving hugs and slaps on the back. Realising that the boring, sit-down stuff was over, the kids joined in, Mathilde deciding to cling to Emily’s leg. Exasperated, Emily reached down to swing the child up to her hip, asking her aunt, “C’mon, what worked?”
Becky, who’d made her way back to them, answered. “You’re officially a magical chosen one, entered in the books with full rights for a quest of retribution.” Emily smiled and high-fived Mathilde.
Everyone retired to the Terrins’, who not only had the space but the desire to be the annual holiday party hosts, with enough seating scattered inside and outside to accommodate most of the adults. Sipping sparkling apple juice, Emily was pulled from one conversation to another. All the faceless adults she’d been surrounded by growing up, people who she’d assumed she was invisible to unless she was watching their kids, showed an unexpected amount of knowledge about what she did.
The Franks, Mathilde’s parents, chatted with Emily about photography, knowing somehow that she’d taken classes all four years of high school although she could not remember ever telling them. They gave her a Polaroid camera and several packs of film; Emily had to do her best to stutter out thanks through her surprise. After they melted back into the milling crowd, Emily found her aunt at her elbow.
“Everything you get tonight is a gift or key for your journey, though they’ll be a little more prosaic than a comb that transforms into a forest…” Janice trailed off, smiling at her niece, who was turning the camera over in her hands.
Emily looked up at her aunt. “That was always weird anyway. I’d so rather have a dress like the sun packed into a nutshell.”
Janice laughed. “Wouldn’t we all. Well, here’s mine for you,” She hefted up a package, setting it on the kitchen island. Hesitantly at first, Emily opened the plain brown paper, quickening her pace as she spied dark wood beneath it. Janice had given her a small vintage writing desk, its perfectly formed cubbies and trays filled with paper, nibs, ink and sealing wax.
“Holy shit.” Emily stared at her aunt, jaw slack with amazement. “This is so insane. There are all these things? And they each have their place and this is beautiful, Aunt Janice, oh man.” She threw her arms around her aunt, taking another glance at the writing desk from over her shoulder.
Janice laughed. “And I checked: it fits in the backpack we got you just fine. It’s a weird thing to give you for a journey, but you never know what’ll come in handy.”
The rest of the evening moved along the same lines. People Emily only knew existed because they also lived in the court stopped and chatted as though they had been talking with her casually for years. After an exchange of small talk, they presented her with a gift and faded back into the crowd as soon as she told them thank you.
Emily set the latest gift, a pair of broken-in hiking boots, with the rest of the presents on a card table and looked around. The air practically shimmered with a holiday party atmosphere, plates of meat and cheese and bowls of chips lined up on the kitchen island and two-litre bottles of soda next to a stack of Styrofoam cups. From where she stood it looked like any other court gathering, down to the older children arguing over which video game to play. From habit, she drifted to the knot of kids.
“Problems?” Emily held out her hands for the game cartridges. “Hmm,” she said, examining them, “so, both of these are pretty awesome. But it’s not worth arguing over, so we’ll leave it to chance.” Looking as imperious as she could, Emily held the games behind her back. “Right or left, folks.”
After a whispered conference, they chose the left and Emily handed the winning game over. She picked up their scattered paper plates and napkins, dropping them in the trash on her way to the porch.
Using the proper front door instead of the sliding glass, she avoided the party spillover. The camp chair she’d sat in the night before was still set up and she dropped into it, rubbing her eyes against the improbable events of the past twenty-four hours.
Seeking reassurance that everyone would eventually leave, the Terrins’ cat sprang into her lap, demanding chin scratches. Emily complied, lighting a cigarette and staring into the summer night. The pad of bare feet on the boards brought her attention back and she looked up, startled.
“I didn’t mean to scare you.” Becky smiled and took the seat next to Emily. Taking a drag of her cigarette, Becky checked her watch. “In about five minutes it’ll be one full day since we sat here and I made the big reveal. How’re you holding up?”
Emily looked down at the cat, who’d curled into a tight, purring ball. “Not too bad. It’s definitely weird, though.”
Becky laughed. “Hopefully it’ll stay that way after it’s all settled in.”
“Weird, or not too bad?”
“Well, it’s going to remain weird, in the old sense of the word, so I guess I’m hoping that you’ll remain untraumatised once you get more time to brood on everything.” Becky looked over at their happy, chatting neighbours. “You’ll be doing an amazing thing that we’ve all been waiting a long time for, but it’s got to be hard realising how structured your growing up has been.”
Emily wrinkled her nose. “It’s a little frustrating, yeah. One of those ends justifying means things, I guess.”
Becky smiled softly at her. “Well, if you ever need someone other than Janice to talk to, I’ll be glad to get into answerless philosophical discussions with you.” She started. “Oh! I haven’t given you your present yet.” Fishing in the pocket of her oversized sweater, Becky brought out an awkwardly shaped package.
Weighing it in her hand first, Emily carefully removed the wrapping. It was a knife, well-worn and sheathed in supple leather. Arcane rules, half-remembered from books, in her mind, she didn’t pull it fully free, exposing the metal just enough to show the maker’s mark, stamped below an engraving of the word “Luck.”
Becky gathered the wrapping paper and methodically folded it. “It’s no faerie knife, just a good old Bowie, but I’d like to think 160 years of knife making, paired with a hope-infused engraving, is nearly as good.”
“It’s actually pretty.” Emily slipped the knife back into its sheath. “I hadn’t really thought about weapons being nice to look at.” She looked up at Becky. “It’s more what they do that seems important.”
Lighting a new cigarette from the butt of her old one, Becky looked away. “It’s a tool. It can help you build a shelter, dig, whatever. They’re the original camp knives. But yes, they’re a weapon too.” She reached out to touch Emily’s hand. “With all the pomp and ceremony, I think some of us are trying to forget the exact circumstances that brought us here. We have reason to believe that you won’t come up against any particularly awful horrors or danger, but I’m not going to pretend that the chance doesn’t exist.” Giving her hand a brief squeeze, Becky stood. “Remember, if you need someone to rant at, I’m your girl. But right now I should probably go mingle for form’s sake.” Emily watched her go, loosely holding the knife in one hand while scratching the cat under the chin with the other.
This post is part of The Audacity Gambit – Serialised. Learn more about when the book was first published here, see the archive and overall content warnings here, and find more of my writing here. I’m over on both Comradery and Patreon, if you feel like supporting my creative endeavours. If you’d like to subscribe to this story, here’s a handy email box for you: