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PROLOGUE
(Oriole Excerpt)

R.K. Wheadon

Her body is tucked up against rock overgrown with ivy, draped in thorn and wild rose, but
she has found a small bare spot, a place where things will not grow. It is warm against her back,
warm like sun-baked dirt, like hot pavement in the heat and smog of London’s August. She folds
her legs underneath her body, tries not to breathe the air too deeply -- it is enchanted here, that
much she knows, enchanted and deceptively sweet, a nectarine-encased poison -- and she tries to
recall where she was before she woke suddenly, embraced by the gnarled roots of an ancient oak.
She tries to recall, because recollection is her only defense, because she knows she must think of
the way things were if she is to survive this strange otherworld.
This is the last sensation she can recall, before everything became verdant darkness and
then gray fog and then the rasping bark of the tree and her desperate scramble for something
familiar, something less out of faded childhood memories and fantasies: she recalls feeling
heavy-limbed, as though she were crafted of metal and lead, forged in one of the factories in the
dark expanse of land that lay to the south of the Wall. She felt, in that moment, in the moment
before all of this, as though she were borne from fire and ore and then she fell, impossibly heavy,
to the loamy earth.
Before that, she can recall a tree, ancient as the ocean, with shining and stretching bare
limbs, draped in hoary moss as though clothed in the finest of lace shawls, a veil for mourning.
Limbs like fingers against the slate gray sky, that scratched at the limits of its rooted prison
house. She can recall wondering how it was possible for a tree to shine, especially one dressed
for mourning and screaming for release, but shine it did. She did not remember shining trees in
her childhood, only dying trees, trees torn up from the earth, trees dwindling in numbers, until
they were all gone. Until they faded into vague memory, lost in the shadows of her mind.
Before that, the smell of spice-laden branches, incense-heady garden air. A garden, then,
lost behind lichen-dressed stones, with crumbling mortar as white as sun-bleached bones. She
can recall walking down the gray lane, far too close to the Wall, far too close!, for Evelyn knows
better. She must have noticed the ink-thin branches stretching up from behind a mass of tangled
vines, brown and dead and dry as ancient parchment. She must have noticed that the branches
were sigils, that they were warnings and she must have known she should have paid attention,
that she should have turned and run all the way back to the train station, miles south of the
abandoned country lane. She must have known!, how could she not ---
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She shakes her head, squirms her shoulders further back against the Wall, and it bites into
her skin through her thick gray coat, nips at her like a perpetually foul animal, more burden than
joy, but comforting nonetheless. She squeezes her eyes shut, pinches the bridge of her nose, and
she concentrates again.
Before that, before she saw the dolorous oak with its rune-claws, Evelyn can recall the trill
of some bird, an oriole, perhaps, or else a sparrow or a lark. She remembers how shocked she
was to hear the song, so shocked that she glanced up into the heavy twilight air, shocked because
Evelyn had almost forgotten what a bird’s song sounded like. The song sent a jolt through her
entire body, a sickening fall of her spirit, and she was at once terrified and ecstatic to hear such a
thing. And so she looked up and saw those black branches and --
But, Evelyn thinks, I must have imagined that. Because Evelyn knows there are no birds
left, that there aren’t any wingéd creatures on that side -- her side -- of the Wall. Evelyn knows
that there haven’t been any songbirds, not any real songbirds, not a robin nor a nightingale nor a
mistle thrush, not since she was a mere scrap of a girl. And she should have known, should have
realized, because the only songbirds now are built of illusion, of stained glass and deceit, of
magicked tongues and snow-sweet hearts. She should have known.
Before that, before Evelyn had been walking down that path, the path that lead her close to
the Wall and towards the imagined bird lullaby that had pulled her lidded gaze to the sigil-dark
branches impressed upon the deepening sky that had drawn her into the garden where she had
smelled incense and spice and had fallen to the ground, an automaton built by the smoke-birthed
cities of the south, before all of that, before she had woken up in this strange world, Evelyn had
been searching for a cottage. She had been searching for a cottage, and Evelyn tries to recall
where she took a wrong turn and how she got lost at dusk and so very near the Wall, but she can’t
quite make it out. Before that, everything seems blurry, no clear edges nor outlines, just expanses
of gray and industrial grime and long shifts in the factory. Before that, everything is the
cacophonic symphony of gears and steam-hissing pipes and curfew bells, dented from long years
of use.
Well, says Evelyn to herself, I must be dreaming, because I cannot possibly be where I
think I am. She knows that if she opens her eyes, she will see a green landscape draped in fog
that hangs, floating, above each hillock. She knows she will see white birches, silver birches, and
distant cliffs, she knows she will see green!, emerald and sage and myrtle greens, that have
become names without colour. She knows she will see the green of her own eyes in the
landscape, and trees lining the horizon, and a meadow, and that she will see the birds she can
hear above her head. But Evelyn can’t shut out all of her senses, can’t shut out that other voice in
the air -- sweet as honey and piercing as a thorn, that woman’s voice, singing, singing and
beckoning.
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This is a dream, Evelyn reminds herself. She opens her eyes, and reminds herself that she’s
simply dreaming, and she stands up and begins to walk her way over the damp grass, penetrating
the gossamer mist laid out before her.
But Evelyn knows better. She knows that she must try to recall things as they are, she
knows she must recall the factory where she pieces together watches from salvaged parts
unearthed from crumbled buildings, she knows she must recall her tiny flat, she knows she must
recall London, the grime and the oil and the smells of burning --- things as they are. Evelyn stops
walking, flips up the rough collar of her coat, pushes her hair out of her eyes. She straightens her
hat and plants her feet, roots them into the soil beneath her, and tries to recall things as they are,
because her dream may not be a dream at all.
She starts with one of the many pamphlets strewn over the city. Breathing slowly, she
reaches down into the blackened gutter, reaches out with white-gloved fingers and plucks the
sodden piece of paper, as though she were pulling a tick from dog. She can see the faded letters
and the poorly drawn tree --- an artist’s rendition of that which he had only seen in old paintings
and lithographs --- and she imagines she is reading it:
BEWARE! it proclaims and she peels back the front panel and reads THE ENEMY WANTS
NOTHING SO MUCH AS THE LIVES OF CITIZENS. EVERY GOOD CITIZEN MUST
THEREFORE BE AT ALL TIMES ALERT. IF ONE ‘IMAGINES’ ANY OF THE FOLLOWING,
THERE MAY BE AN ENEMY ATTEMPTING TO STEAL ONE’S BREATH AND BLOOD. IN
CASE OF SUSPECTED ATTACK, ONE MUST GRASP A STANDARD ISSUE IRON
NECKLACE, CONCENTRATE ON ONE’S LOVED ONES AND OUR GLORIOUS
HOMELAND, AND PREPARE TO FIGHT FOR ONE’S PRECIOUS HUMANITY. She recites the
list to herself, a litany, a prayer, though prayers have long since faded into obscurity, have fallen
away into darkness. Her lips move along: abundance of fauna, silver trees, crystal cliffs, clear
brooks, stags, black hounds, talking beasts, gray-skinned men, purple-lipped women, triple-
headed creatures, the ocean, hawthorn, cauldrons, groves of trees, whispering wind, sweet rain,
mist, unfamiliar languages, all types of song.
Yes, Evelyn thinks, yes, there is a song, there is a grove of trees, an abundance of fauna,
and I most certainly hear a song. There is fog in the air, and it is sweet, and the words of that
song are utterly beyond me. Yes, she thinks, and she pulls the iron necklace from underneath her
dress and wraps it three times ‘round her left palm and thinks, desperately, of things as they are.
Her heart pounds frantically in her throat and Evelyn suspects that she may cry. Her skin grows
hot in the chill air and her eyes rove the sky above her, which is sinking into violet and black
and, if she were not trembling, she might think it was beautiful. But instead she thinks: Very
well, I am on the wrong side of things and I ought to be afraid, for I have every reason, but I am
a most practical woman and I shall be fine. And she supposes that nothing was ever solved by
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standing in one place and trembling like a newly-birthed fawn, so Evelyn continues walking
towards the voice. Again she straightens her hat, again the tugs at the collar of her coat, and her
fingers run over the links in her iron necklace, and she counts them off, one, two, three, four…
The fog parts, moves to the side and licks at her skin, soft as a kitten and insistent as the
turning of the seasons. She tries very hard not to think about what lies in front of her, tries not to
think of that voice -- oh! that voice! -- so instead she thinks about her life, while she rubs the iron
into the palm of her hand, squeezes it, wills it, into her very flesh. Her life as it truly is:
She is Miss Evelyn Ashley, twenty-six years of age. A most sensible woman. She wears
sensible shoes and sensible dresses and puts her hair up in sensible plaits. She buys bottles of ink
and rinses them into her red hair, her thick red hair, because it is the sensible thing to do. Because
women with red hair have a little too much magic in them and cannot find employment and Miss
Evelyn Ashley is a sensible woman. And so she dyes her hair and works in a factory and
assembles watches from broken pieces; she makes order out of chaos, makes something out of
nothing. Neither broken watches nor the chaos of time stand a chance under her able hands, and
this is a most comforting thought.
Evelyn’s parents died many years ago. She was once engaged to be married, to a handsome
young man with a faltering smile and thinning hair, but Evelyn is a practical woman and women
who remain alone for too long -- well, it is just as bad as having her unfortunate colour of hair.
And so when her husband-to-be joined the Patrol, Evelyn was first worried, then she was
relieved. She was barely upset when he was killed by an arrow fletched in owl-white feathers,
first was worried that she would need to find another husband-to-be, but then was joyous when
she realized that she had license to not marry. She was now a grieving almost-wife, and this
pleased her greatly. Evelyn visited with her almost-husband’s parents briefly, made a show of her
faux mourning, and then found a job putting watches together. She moved from Cambridge to
London, and it is there that she keeps her tidy little flat, left to her own devices. She buys herself
nice things, when she can afford them -- her leather shoes, antique, because cattle are hard to
come by in these times; her rough gray coat, made of sensibly dyed wool, that could withstand
the chillest of days; her ring with inlaid moonstone and agate, engraved on the inside: to my
beloved Marian, eternally yours Diana Jan. 24th, ‘80. This puzzled her for a long time, for ages,
for aeons, puzzles her still, she supposes, putting one foot in front of the other, wriggling her toes
occasionally in the dew-clung grass. She would slip the ring off her left hand when she took a
moment’s respite from gears and ticking and inlaid gold, and study those letters and think about
their meaning, for all letters have meaning, all pieces, however insignificant on their own, have
purpose, but this ring, her ring, was a puzzle and Evelyn always solved the mysteries laid before
her. She always seeks out the truth underneath the jumble of seemingly disparate pieces. While
Evelyn acknowledges that she is a practical woman, she also knows that her ring is something
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special, that it is not wholly practical, and to pretend otherwise would be a lie. So she wears her
mystery ring and cherishes it and she supposes she is allowed one foolish thing. And Evelyn has
chosen Marian and Diana and their love.
That golden orb occupies her mind for a moment and, despite the cold of the night around
her and the wet of the air and the inevitable curl of her wild hair, which is beginning to nuzzle
her cheeks like a faithful dog, and Evelyn is, for a moment, quite happy. She inhales, brushes a
curl of her mane to the side, and then Evelyn realizes that she has been doing just as the
pamphlet read, and it is not helping her in the slightest. She glances up and the fog has all faded
away and she is now ensconced in darkness, a blanket wrapped ‘round her pale skin, and she is
startled to find herself still here, still subject to this attack on her precious humanity. She thinks,
again, about her life as it is, about her bottles of ink and leather shoes and neat dresses and her
ring, when she notices that two things are very much missing: she can feel the grass tickle her
toes and Evelyn realizes that her shoes are gone and that she is walking in her bare feet; and,
with a sickening lurch of her stomach, as sickening as if she had slipped and tumbled down the
iron-wrought stairs in the factory, she also notices that her ring is not on her finger.
In her moment of panic, Evelyn does not notice that the singing has stopped, nor that the
moon is hanging high in the sky, bright as sunshine and round as a pearl, she only pressed frantic
fingers to all of her pockets, saying to herself, oh no, oh no, I can’t have lost it, because Evelyn
has nothing of her parents’, would not allow such sentimentality, and so Diana and Marian and
their love have become her family, nearer and dearer than blood. But her search is fruitless and
she cannot find her precious ring. She lets out a gasp and sinks to the ground. Evelyn again
pinches the bridge of her nose to fight against the hot prickling at the corner of her eyes. Her
heart flutters in her chest and even the warmth of her cloak and the caress of her wild hair cannot
comfort her.
“I shall never find my way out of this place,” she whispers, dropping her iron chain to the
ground, letting it sink into the darkness of the grass, and she presses a chill hand to her skin, “I
shall be here for ever and ever and I shall never go home again.”
A hot tear slides down her cheek, sneaks past her fingers, and runs over her fair skin.
Evelyn’s breath hitches, breaking the sudden silence that has descended around her. Desperate
for any distraction, Evelyn notices the silence in the air. It is a quietness, a solitude unbroken by
the sound of mechanized bells or the smell of smoke or the blistering heat of furnaces. It is a
silence of all of her senses, a lull in the world, and Evelyn stops weeping, calms her shaking
body, and looks up into the dark of the night.
A woman looks back, white-skinned and lithe, with heavy black hair and a wry smile. She
holds in her hands a dress, white and gauzy and dappled with dark stains. It is dripping wet, as
though it has been drenched in a washbasin and Evelyn can do nothing but stare into those
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unfathomable eyes, dark as the heart of the world. The woman’s face is beautiful, impossible for
Evelyn to understand. Under Evelyn’s scrutiny, the woman’s face splits into a smile, and Evelyn
catches a glimpse of something underneath, something past the skin, something incandescent,
and it is as though someone has tugged at a cord that connects Evelyn’s eyes to the depths of her
tummy, something that ties her lips with her womb, and she can do nothing but stare in terror and
in awe.
“You heard my song,” the woman says, and her smile grows wider. “I am sorry to have
troubled you.” Evelyn wants to tear her eyes away, to avert her gaze from that shining something
underneath the woman’s skin and smile, but she can’t, and she can feel every tiny muscle in her
body quiver with -- with something. The woman hesitates for a moment, as though she has
something to say, but then falls into silence, her gaze still tugging at the cord that runs through all
of Evelyn’s body.
Evelyn cannot think of what to do, because there are no pamphlets describing how to deal
with a preternaturally beautiful fairy woman standing before you, with moonlight skin and
ocean-gray eyes, who smells like moss and the sea and lavender soap. And so, Evelyn does what
is sensible, because she is a sensible woman. She says, “I’m Evelyn.” A moment’s pause, and
then she amends, “Miss Evelyn Ashley.”
The queer woman crouches down in front of her, clad in a gown as white as her skin, a
gown that seems to be made of nothing more than fog and stars. She cocks her head to the side,
studying Evelyn as closely as Evelyn is studying her, and the two stare at each other for several
quiet aeons. And then the woman says, “I know your face. I did not know your name. Are you --”
and she pauses, hesitates, “Are you also called Marian?”
Evelyn shakes her head.
“Are you known as Diana?”
Evelyn shakes her head again, and the woman frowns, turns her gaze to the ground. Evelyn
is confused for a moment, confused by the scent of the woman before her, by the gown in the
woman’s hands -- the gown that looks too familiar, too familiar to be comfortable -- and then she
realizes something and says, “Do you have my ring, then? I have a ring, which is very dear to
me, with those two very names engraved on the inside.”
And in a flash, the strange woman’s face lights up, brighter than the orb in the sky, and she
exclaims: “Oh, yes! I have been waiting, hoping you might come to find me. I found your ring
--” and she reaches into a pocket hidden in the diaphanous folds of her dress, reaches in with pale
fingers and extracts the shining band of gold, and holds it, a mirror of the moon in the sky. “I
found it when I was washing this dress in the brook, washing and singing, and it just fell into my
hands, heavy as bone and hot as fire, and I knew that I had to find the woman to whom the ring
belonged. And I am most glad we have found each other.”
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She proffers the ring and presses it into Evelyn’s waiting palm. Evelyn sighs with pleasure
and slips it onto her finger. But the ring feels different and Evelyn finds herself wishing she had
lost something else dear to her so that this woman could touch her skin again, press her brook-
cool fingers to her flesh, and Evelyn is so startled by the thought that she can feel her face flush,
grow red-hot in the cool night air.
The woman stands, offers Evelyn her hand, and Evelyn notices that the woman’s fingers
are puckered, freshly unfurled rose petals, blossomed but a moment past. She wants nothing
more than to reach out and press those damp-tired fingers to her lips, nothing more than to kiss
those petal fingers -- But Evelyn pushes herself up, no longer wishing to feel that skin nor touch
those fingers, or, rather, she does not want to know what will happen if she does. The woman
makes a small sound of contentment and tucks the wet dress under one arm. “You ought to be
going,” she says, “I know that your kind aren’t supposed to linger here.” The words seem heavy
on the strange woman’s tongue, distasteful. Evelyn inhales sharply, preparing to explain that she
hasn’t any idea how to leave, when the woman adds, “If you walk that way,” she extends a
graceful arm, points back in the direction Evelyn came, “you’ll find an oak tree. Its leaves are cut
of emerald and of gold and they never fall to the ground. You’ll find your way back, now that
you’ve regained what you lost.”
The woman turns to leave and Evelyn blurts out, faster than she can catch it, “What’s your
name?” The woman, iridescent as the moon, smiles that dangerous smile, sharp teeth and supple
lips and says, “Áine,” before fading into the darkness, an alabaster-white figure lost in the folds
of the night.
Evelyn watches for a long time, watches Áine, clad in moonlight, she watches the branches
waving in the darkness, watches a crouched animal track its way through the field, watches the
starlight play on the water of a tiny brook. She watches and absorbs and dwells in that silence,
the lull in that strange land, before turning around and finding her way back to the tree.
The last thing Evelyn can recall before waking on the ground in her mysterious garden,
before smelling the spices and incense and hearing the golden song of an oriole as the first rays
of dawn crept up into the gray sky, the last thing on her mind and pressed into her skin’s memory
is the fading melody of a sad song, caught on the sweet breeze of that place beyond the Wall.
When she wakes, face pressed into the earth in that secret garden, where the grass is green
and there are bushes grown wild already budding in the mid-spring sun, Evelyn knows that it
was likely just a dream. She imagines that Áine and her washing were nothing more than
figments of her over-tired mind. She stands up quietly, yawning and stretching, straightening her
coat and tucking her hair behind her ears, and is shocked to feel the soil underneath her bare feet,
between her toes. She twists her golden ring around her finger, once, twice, thrice, and stares up
at the towering oak for one last moment before walking away, bare-footed and shivering.
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Miss Evelyn Ashley is a sensible woman, but still she pulls off her golden ring as she walks
down the abandoned road and stares at those familiar letters, suddenly gone strange, because she
doesn’t think about Marian and Diana when she looks at the engraving. Now she thinks of bone-
white skin that smells like moss, with deep terror and deeper delight. Because as much as Evelyn
may be a sensible woman, she is a woman in whose blood runs curiosity foremost. She is a
woman with red hair, she is a woman who does not want a husband, she is a woman who
remembers the feeling of feathers and the prick of tiny bird claws on her finger, she is a woman
who remembers trees. And so she strolls down the path, feeling the morning chill of the stones
underneath her feet for the first time, she skips and laughs and decides, all in a moment, that she
will move to the cottage she has inherited, she will return to London only long enough to pack up
her things and leave for ever. Because, she thinks, warm and flushed and trembling with
movement, I am Evelyn and somewhere, there is a woman who knows my face.