Chapter One

My Sincere Solace

Edwin Puck let out a slow breath, chewing the eraser on his pencil and staring at the paper. The chemistry lab was quiet except for the scratching of pencils and the incessant ticking of the clock, reminding him every second that class was that much closer to ending. Class ending would be fine, of course, if he could focus on this test, which he couldn’t. He’d scanned it at the beginning of the period forty-five minutes ago, but upon realizing that he didn’t immediately know any of the answers, he’d lost all motivation to complete it. Now, he found himself with three minutes left to finish and nothing on the page but his name and the date, which, upon reexamination, was wrong in the first place.

He erased the date and re-wrote it, letting out a heavy sigh and glancing toward his sister on the other side of the room. She was busily scribbling on what looked to be the last page of the test packet. He immediately felt his breath quicken in his chest. If Gwen knew the answers, the test couldn’t be that hard. He looked back down at the page, re-reading the first question.

Gwen Puck, across the room, was deeply engrossed in the shitty stick-figure comic she had spent the last forty-five minutes drawing on every available centimeter of paper there was on the test. She’d spent long enough studying for this test that she knew she was going to fail it either way. When she’d eventually given up on that, she’d decided to at least make Mrs. Mao feel bad for giving her a bad grade by putting a ridiculous amount of effort into doing a horrible job.

The bell rang loudly, startling the Puck twins from their respective stupors and shattering the quiet in the room immediately. The students spoke excitedly, passing their tests forward in practiced patterns and packing their bags, ignoring Mrs. Mao’s calm instructions. Ed groaned and put his face in his hands, looking down at his still-blank paper. If he could just make the answers write themselves-

The writing that appeared on the page was only visible to Ed for a moment before his paper was snatched away from him by his lab partner, Terrance, who passed it forward and stood, waving. Ed was sure he probably also said something, too, but he was still reeling. That had been his handwriting?

Gwen stood and slung her bag over her shoulder, walking across the room to knock her hip against Ed’s side, nearly nudging him off the bench.

“Hey, dumbass, you look like you saw Mao naked. Wipe the stupid off your face and let’s go, I’ve got shit to do tonight.” Gwen spoke, ruffling Ed’s short, curly hair. Ed glared up at her for a moment before shoving his things into his backpack and pulling it on, standing. Gwen sighed and started for the door, making sure Ed fell into step before actually continuing.

“Dude, seriously, you look like someone told you the meaning of life, are you fucked up or something?” Gwen laughed, pulling her long red hair into a ponytail. “I don’t have practice tonight, so I can trip-sit if you got drugged or whatever.” She let her brother pass through the door in front of her, following him through the hallways of Colchester High School toward their lockers. Ed sighed, straightening out his t-shirt, which proclaimed in white block letters that he was Colchester Robotics Club President. He was also the only member.

“I’m fine. Thought I saw something, but it doesn’t make sense. Don’t worry about it.” He stopped in front of the chipped green locker block, entering his code and opening the lock gently. Gwen slammed her fist against her own lock, and her locker, which was always jammed, popped open.

“You know I’m gonna worry dude. How do you think you did on the test?” Gwen began shoving things haphazardly into her bag, making Ed’s head pound. She was going to ruin a textbook being careless like that.

“Bad.” He answered shortly, putting things that he didn’t think he’d need over the weekend onto the small shelf. He heard a loud thud as someone got slammed into a locker down the hall, and then uproarious laughter. Great.

He turned to watch as the flood of athletes came down the hall toward them, recognizing most of them from Gwen’s games. His sister was captain of three of the school’s teams: wrestling, track and field, and football. She and their moms had fought with the principal for a while to get that last one, but they’d done it and now Gwen was, without hyperbole, the coolest person in the entire school.

A taller boy with spiked dark hair clapped Gwen on the shoulder, and she turned to him fast, punching him on the chest. He reeled back, laughing.

“Gwen, take it easy, we came to wish you and Eddie a happy birthday, since your moms are gonna have you guys working.” The boy, Jason, grinned at Gwen, adoration written across his face. Ed rolled his eyes. He had a crush on her. Every stupid knuckle-dragger on the football team did.

“You think that’s gonna stop us from partying? Hell no!” Gwen wrapped an arm around her brother’s shoulders, messing up his hair and grinning. “The big man and myself turn 18 tomorrow! No way we’re missing out on that. We can buy cigarettes and stuff!” Jason and his goons laughed, and Ed cleared his throat.

“They changed that to 21 to combat teen addiction. We can only get lottery tickets. And please don’t call me Eddie.” Ed zipped his bag and closed his locker, shrugging off Gwen’s arm.

“Then we’ll get those! Get rich quick or whatever. It’s not like you’d let yourself get addicted to anything anyway.” Gwen grinned, ramming her shoulder into her locker to guarantee it would stay closed. “Ready to head?” She didn’t look at her brother when she spoke to him, opting instead to share whatever that weird handshake was with her teammates.

“Yeah.” Ed turned to go, but was stopped by a meaty mitt on his shoulder. He turned to look at Jason, who had stopped him. Ed wasn’t muscular, not by a long shot, but he was tall, much taller than this kid, and his green eyes burned out of his tawny-beige, freckled face in a way that made him look far more dangerous than he actually was. Fear flashed through Jason’s eyes for just a moment before his blissfully stupid grin returned.

“Happy early birthday, dude. If you wanna come hang after the gift shop closes, let me and the guys know and we’ll swing by to get you guys, alright? Gwen’s always talking about how lonely you are, and you seem really cool.”

Ed didn’t respond, continuing to look at Jason with an uninterested expression until the shorter boy laughed nervously and returned to his herd. Ed didn’t want pity, especially not from his sister’s stupid friends. He waited a few more moments for Gwen to finish saying goodbye, and fell into step alongside her as they walked toward the doors.

“Hey, Ed, don’t be too hard on the guys, okay? They’re not super smart or whatever, but they do really want to be your friend.” Gwen spoke as she pulled her phone from her pocket, checking her texts.

“You sure? Because I feel like it might have something to do with you always talking about how lonely I am.” Ed’s words bit more than he meant to, and Gwen locked her phone in the middle of typing a message, shoving it back into her pocket and pushing open the school’s large, glass front door. Ed didn’t wait for her to follow, but she caught up quickly, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Ed, dude. Don’t get pissed at me! I worry about you, you spend all your time doing computer stuff, and it’s really cool, but you need people. You’re always telling me about how people are animals, but part of that is that we’re social. You can’t just go full Tony Stark without a group of Avengers to back you up, man. That’s how you get supervillains.” Gwen let go of Ed’s shoulder when he didn’t respond, sighing.

“Look, I know I don’t get a lot of your stuff, but I try. You should try to get my stuff too, Ed. Just tomorrow? For my birthday present?” Gwen pressed her face into her brother’s backpack and began walking behind him, fully relying on him to guide her steps. He hated when she did this kind of shit. He groaned, stopping short, and Gwen grunted as she got a face full of books.

“Fine. Fine! But my present is that if I say I want to go home, if I don’t want to do something, or if I get bored, we’re done. Deal?” He looked at his sister as she moved to keep walking, maintaining eye contact as she kept her feet moving backward. She was grinning like crazy as she nodded.

“Yeah! Absolutely.” Ed started to walk again, and Gwen hooked his arm through hers, holding it in place. “Oh, man, you’re gonna love it, swear. Have you ever gotten drunk before?!” Ed shook his head and Gwen gasped. “Ed. Edwin, we have to get you drunk.”

“I’m not drinking. If you try to get me to drink, I’m not going.” He shoved Gwen away, stepping off the sidewalk and onto the dirt path that would lead them out of town. The buildings, painted the warm tones of fall and just picking up traffic as people got off of work, faded behind them as the twins began to walk into the woods. The leaves were beginning to turn, changing to shades of fire against the sharp blue sky and scattering across the ground. If Ed took off his glasses, it would probably look like everything around him was ablaze. Gwen kicked her sneakers off as quickly as she could, peeling her socks off and stuffing them inside her shoes before lightly jogging to catch up, and Ed sighed.

“Can you put your feet away? Please?” Ed laughed quietly when Gwen lightly hit him with her shoes. He looked down at his own shoes, a pair of custom-made Lightning McQueen crocs, complete with giblets, and mourned the fact that his feet would probably get dirty regardless.

“No. I want weird scaly forest feet.” Gwen stepped loudly on a stick to emphasize it, and Ed smiled as he watched her try to smile through her wince. His big sister wasn’t the smartest, certainly, but she did a really good job of making him feel better. Especially at times like right now, where he hadn’t even realized he was in a bad mood in the first place.

Gwen smiled smugly to herself at the change in Ed’s demeanor, watching him relax into what she privately called his ‘nerd slouch’. It was how he stood when he felt comfortable, and she only knew that because over the last year, she had been figuring out what kind of stuff Ed did. Not necessarily all of the stuff he did, but how he stood, how he did his hair, how he talked to other guys - when he felt inclined to lower his IQ enough to talk to anyone at all.

The twins walked through the tree line and into their expansive front yard, and Ed heaved a sigh of relief at the sight of the cars in the driveway. He loved his younger siblings, but taking care of three kids after school wasn’t the greatest treatment for his exhaustion. They approached the picturesque white farmhouse, outlined by the maple trees that had been planted by their mother’s family years ago, but just before they reached the side of the porch, Gwen held out an arm to stop her brother.

“Ed, door’s open, look.” Gwen spoke quietly, dropping her bag into the flowerbed. The door was hanging off of the top hinge, off kilter and cracked. The frame, too, was scratched and splintered like something had gone at it with a set of very powerful claws. Ed dropped his bag, following Gwen as she moved quietly toward the steps. Bears had gotten into the house before. Hopefully no one had gotten hurt this time.

Gwen moved up the steps and carefully into the threshold of the house, checking over her shoulder to be sure Ed was with her before grabbing the metal baseball bat that their moms kept by the door. The living room was trashed, but clear of life. The couch was shredded, deep scorch marks lined the walls, and every photo had been knocked off of their nails. Couch stuffing and broken glass carpeted the mud-covered floor.

“Gwen!” Ed hissed, pointing at the floor. She looked down, gasping softly. It was a paw print, but was too small to be from a bear. More alarming, however, was the way it stretched and distorted to be nearly the shape of a bare human foot. Whatever was in the house, it was not a bear.

“I’ve got it.” Gwen adjusted her grip on the bat, continuing forward into the kitchen. Immediately, she gagged at the smell. Ed coughed and covered his face with his shirt. Everything in the refrigerator had been pulled out and left on the counter, along with what had been in the pantry, and though it couldn’t have been out for more than a few hours, all of the food had rotted to the point of being nearly unrecognizable. The dishes had all been pulled out of the cupboards as well, and now lay shattered on the floor. This room, too, was empty. Gwen felt her stomach twist with unease.

She glanced quickly at the door that led into the half of the house that had been converted into the gift shop for their family’s syrup farm. It was still closed, which meant that everyone had to be upstairs. Their moms always left it open when they were inside the shop, something about air conditioning.

“Upstairs.” Gwen walked back through into the living room, looking to Ed. His eyes were wide with terror, and he shook his head.

“Ed, we have to. They could be hurt.” Gwen started up the stairs, but with a strength that was altogether foreign to him, Ed’s hand shot out and grabbed her arm tightly.

“Gwen, we should call the police. This isn’t a kid stealing from a corner store, okay? You can’t handle this.” Ed locked eyes with his sister, watching her brows furrow into an expression not unlike pain. She sharply pulled her arm away.

“You’re wasting time.” Gwen moved quickly and quietly up the stairs, and after a moment, Ed followed. The hallway was clean and empty, all of the pictures hanging as they had been when the twins left that morning. Gwen looked into the room their younger brothers, Eli and Malachi, shared. It was pristine, other than what little mess the boys left on the floor and Malachi’s homework spread out on the desk. They had gotten home.

Ed, across the hallway, looked into the room that their baby sister, Lea, had occupied for the last three years. It was certainly a five-year-old little girl’s room, and it hurt his eyes a bit from all the colors, but nothing seemed out of place. He turned back to look at Gwen, who silently shook her head.

Taking a deep breath, he moved to his own bedroom door, which was closed. He opened the door slowly, wincing at the slight creak of the hinges. Everything was gone. His bedroom, which had held all of his books, his tools, his computer, everything… was completely empty, save for a small metal cube in the center of the room. Ed felt his stomach drop, and he walked inside, picking it up. It was the first ‘robot’ he’d made, in middle school. A simple switch to bulb circuit, really no more than a lamp set inside a metal box with a simple smiling face laser-cut into it, but with a port so it could plug into his computer. He hadn’t plugged it in in years, not since it started to… type. This, of all things, had been left behind? Surely, if nothing else, it could be sold for scrap metal.

Gwen had opened her door as well, and found her room in a similar state. Every decoration pulled from the walls and ceiling, every years-old stuffed animal, every jersey and trophy, gone. The only thing remaining on her floor was a simple metal pin. She felt sick at the sight of it, just knowing that someone had seen it in here, with her things. She didn’t even pick it up. She’d stolen the pin from a store when she and Ed got to go to the mall for their twelfth birthday. She’d never felt more guilty about anything in her life, but the colors on it were so pretty. Two thin stripes of blue, then two of pink, and one white stripe right down the middle. She knew what it was now, but she hadn’t at the time. When she figured it out, she’d hidden the pin at the bottom of her closet and almost forgotten about it. Almost.

She turned and left the room quickly, going across the hall and peeking into Ed’s room.

“Dude. Moms’ room.” Ed dropped the cube in surprise when his sister spoke, wincing at the sound of the bulb inside shattering. Gwen gestured feverishly for him to hurry. There was only one place everyone could be.

Ed joined Gwen in the hall again, and they took the few final steps to where their mothers’ door rested against the far wall. Gwen put her hand on the knob, but Ed gasped before she could turn it. She followed his eyes down to the carpet, and she twisted the knob. There was blood seeping out from under the door.

Gwen pushed the door open, tightening her grip on the bat. Her eyes widened at the sight before her, and almost thoughtlessly, she let the bat clatter to the ground. Behind her, Ed let out a horrified shriek.

There was blood everywhere, soaking the carpet, dripping from the ceiling, painted across the walls in twisting, ever-connected patterns. It was as though the room itself was bleeding. Strewn across the floor and the bed were wet shapes of varying sizes, most of which, Gwen could already tell, she would be able to recognize if she’d paid any attention at all in Anatomy class.

Laying on their bed, holding hands as though they’d simply laid down for a nap, were their mothers, Amy and Charlie Puck. Their chests had been ripped open, and it was clear from the emptiness within that the gore scattered through the room had once belonged to them. Gwen felt herself begin to shake as she took them in. Their bodies were covered in blood, all but their hands, faces, and feet, which looked to have been washed. Amy’s long hair was splayed out in a halo above her head, braided through with small, vibrantly blue flowers that Gwen had never seen, at least not growing in Vermont. Charlie had been fashioned a crown of the same blooms.

Gwen took a deep breath in, and all at once felt herself grow sick. The room didn’t smell like blood. The scents that mixed in the air were overwhelming, a musky floral mixing with a smell not unlike that of a sickly sweet rotted plum.

Gwen turned to look at Ed, tears very suddenly forming in her eyes. His face had gone ashen, and his green eyes were wide above the hand he’d used to cover his mouth after his scream. He looked at Gwen, panic written across his face, and shook his head, screwing his eyes shut like he could erase what he’d seen.

Gwen threw her arms around Ed, pulling him sharply against her shaking body, and buried her face against his chest, heaving with deep, gasping breaths. Ed pulled his arm out from between him and Gwen to hug her back, eyes still closed tightly.

After what couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, Ed opened his bleary eyes again and looked into the room. They needed to call the police. He took a shaky breath, shushing Gwen quietly and petting her hair. Gwen. They couldn’t call the police, not yet, not with her record. He hugged her tighter, feeling her sobs grow softer. Nobody got murdered, not like this, not this strangely, and there was a good chance that Colchester Police would pin it on anyone they could to avoid the footwork. For the first time in her life, Gwen was an easy target. Ed loosened his grip.

“Hey.” He tried to speak gently, “We’re gonna go downstairs, okay?” Gwen moved to look at Ed, releasing her grip to smudge her tears away.

“Okay.” Her voice came out cracked and shaking, and she picked up the bat, never turning back to look into the room.

“I’ll be right there, okay? I need to check the closets to see if the kids are still here.” Ed watched as Gwen nodded and wordlessly descended the stairs.

He turned back and stepped through the open doorway, trying to ignore the turning in his stomach as the carpet squished under his shoe. He approached the bed slowly, clearing his head of sentimentality and grief the best he could, and scanned the corpses of the women who had raised him again. His eyes moved over their clean, ashen faces, then down to the clothes they were wearing.

They were dressed in what looked to be nearly identical handmade teal dresses, darkened in spots to a deep purplish-brown with blood. The embroidery on the hems twisted back and into itself in beautiful geometric knots, almost mirroring the patterns painted on the walls. He could not remember his mothers owning anything like these.

Their hands were twisted together, and a few bloody fingerprints stained the backs of their palms. He leaned down, choking on the bile rising in the back of his throat, and looked closer. There was paper peeking out from between their ring fingers.

Ed carefully pulled the corner, but the paper didn’t budge. He exhaled shakily, pulling his hands back. He needed to see it, whatever it was, and it had obviously been placed there so that it would be noticed. He tugged at the corner of the paper, but the rigor mortis-locked fingers didn’t give.

Ed steeled himself, trying to calm his nerves, and kissed Amy’s cold forehead. He whispered a quiet prayer, to what he wasn’t sure, and grasped Amy’s wrist, pulling back on her pinky finger with as much strength as he could muster.

A sharp crunch rang in his ears, and the finger gave, resting at an odd angle, still tense with decay. Ed felt himself begin to cry again, and grasped Charlie’s wrist this time, pushing against her pinky and gagging as it snapped. He shook his hands forcefully, closing his eyes. He’d already done two, he could do one more.

Without allowing himself any more time to hesitate, Ed grabbed Amy’s wrist again and pulled back sharply on her ring finger. He winced and grabbed the paper, running out of the room and slamming the door behind him.

He leaned back against the wood, hands shaking, and uncrumpled the spotless white page. The small, slanted cursive that filled the top half of the page was deliberate, and very clearly performative. Whoever had written it had taken the time to swirl and loop widely on their letters, and had used what had to be a fountain pen or a quill. The edges of the paper itself were rough, and it was thicker than printer paper, almost as though it had only recently been pressed from pulp.

‘My world is owed a debt. Your mothers had served their purpose, and I offer my sincere solace at their brutal and artful murder, but I could not allow them to describe me aloud to the foolish enforcers of your parallel. I have taken your siblings, and indeed took you as well. I delivered you into the hands of Amy and Charlie Puck eighteen years ago, and now your world bids you return home. Make your way to the Court of the Seelie Fae, and humanity will have restored the children that I have taken from it.’

Ed re-read the page so many times he lost count. It didn’t make sense. It didn’t make any sense. It was supposed to be a note, a real ransom note, not a madman’s delusional scrawling. He felt himself begin to shake with sobs, and crushed the paper in his hands.