Mad Maudlin by Marie Brennan

Author:Marie Brennan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor.com
Published: 2014-02-05T00:00:00+00:00

He thought he screamed, in that moment between—but they landed hard enough to knock all the air from his lungs and put a stop to sound.

It wasn’t the street below, or any part of the city. Not for an instant did Peter expect it would be. There was an otherness to this place, going beyond the impossible green of the grass beneath his feet, the cool dampness of the air, the perfect silence devoid of birds or insects or even the wind. But it still gave him a jolt as bad as the landing when he looked up and saw where Maud had brought him.

The field was groomed into a perfect chessboard of grass, bare to the starry sky. Peter and Maud stood on one side, and on the other, a figure sat beneath a canopy, like a king or queen on a throne.

That figure shone with soft, silver radiance. The light emanated from skin, hair, clothing, as if the figure were the full moon in human form. Peter’s mind rebelled against the thought, and he jerked his eyes away—only to see the figure wasn’t alone. Others stood ranged behind the canopy, creatures twisted like anger and fear and jealousy, creatures that weren’t human.

His own side was no better. When he turned to Maud, hoping irrationally that she might have an explanation, he saw her own company milling about: the host of furious fancies, he thought, that he’d felt on the rooftop. Fairies. They had brought Maud here.

Brought them both. Because Peter had promised.

Maud was staring at him, eyes wide, hand clenched on that spear of flaring light. It wasn’t the nail-hard glare of before; she seemed lost and hopeful. Waiting for him to do something.

To help.

“What now?” she whispered.

What the hell could he do? This wasn’t psychiatry, not anymore. One look around told him that much, beyond any possibility of denial. Maud’s delusions were real. A childhood of listening to folksongs had not prepared him for this.

And yet, he had promised. He couldn’t go back on that, even if this was no place for a doctor. It would destroy the trust Maud had given him.

Everything seemed to be waiting, on both sides of the field, for someone to make the first move. Maud, or him. What would happen if they did not act?

Like iron to a magnet, his gaze was drawn back across to the shining figure. And now he saw what he had missed before: two others, standing a step back to either side. On the shining figure’s right, an armored form, and on the left, an indistinct male shape, both hidden in shadow.

He’d been more right than he knew, when he dragged up those terms from his half-forgotten undergraduate psychology classes. Animus, anima, shadow, all the complexes and archetypes of Jungian psychology—but the folksong, too, the knight of ghosts and shadows. That would be the armored one; the other . . .

Tom o’ Bedlam.

Peter’s breath caught, as if he’d found himself suddenly on the edge of a great fall.

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