Free Except the Queen by Jane Yolen, Midori Snyder Page A

air across the surface of her teacup before taking a small sip.
    “I’m sorry,” Sparrow said, suppressing a wave of nausea. “I’ll replace it as soon as payday comes. I promise.” She sat back, balancing her buttocks on her heels, one hand on the toilet while she wiped her mouth with the back of her other hand. “I guess I just didn’t realize how much I was drinking.”
    Marti had put her teacup down on the rim of the bathtub and was running cold water over a washcloth. She squeezed out the extra water and handed it to Sparrow, who took it and laid it lightly over her face. The cool, damp cloth smelled fresh. “Thank you,” she murmured from under the cloth.
    “You want tea? Chamomile maybe? Settle your stomach,” Marti said.
    Sparrow smiled weakly. “Yeah, sounds good. Thanks.” She lifted the washcloth to show Marti a grateful expression.
    Alone again, Sparrow washed her face at the bathroom sink, swallowing mouthfuls of water and spitting it out to rid her tongue of the acrid taste. She ran the cold cloth across her neck and then straightened up to confront herself in the mirror.
    Pretty bad
. Sparrow took in the hollowed eyes, thebright green irises flecked with dots of blood. The purple bruises under her eyes from sleepless nights contrasted sharply with her dyed neon-green hair. She thought she looked like a battered doll with plastic hair and a paint-smeared face. Her head throbbed with a headache and she closed her eyes over the welling tears. When was the last time she had truly slept free of nightmares?
Long ago,
she thought,
when I was lost among the deer in the forests
. But that world was gone. And she was here.
    Sparrow opened her eyes, washed her face vigorously, and combed wet fingers through the short spikes of her green hair. Not for the first time she wondered what had possessed her to dye it such a garish color. Or why she had pierced her eyebrow, her nose, and ears.
    Maybe to fit in, to find solace in a tribe of other like-marked men and women. Maybe to hide in a crowd.
    Returning to her bedroom, she pulled off her nightshirt. She was thin, her clavicles rising sharply beneath the taut skin. Her small breasts bloomed above the corset of rib bones, while her waist arrowed into the soft curve of her hips. An old ragged scar marred the inside of one slender thigh. She searched quickly in a pile of mostly clean clothes and pulled out a red T-shirt she had picked up from a thrift store. Wriggling into a pair of tight, low-slung jeans, she grabbed a half-smoked pack of cigarettes and a lighter off her nightstand and padded to the kitchen in bare feet, hoping the tea was ready.
    Sitting at the table, Marti was fussing over a teapot. Dry toast waited on a blue plate, next to a jar of dark honey. Lily slept in her usual spot under the table near Sparrow’s chair.
    “Just in time,” Marti said, grabbing a mug from the counter behind her and placing it before Sparrow.
    Sparrow filled her cup, squeezed out a liberal spoonful of honey, and started stirring it.
    “Take,” Marti ordered, handing Sparrow a couple of aspirin.
    Sparrow obeyed, even though she knew it wasn’t necessary. In an hour her body would be restored, healed ofwhatever damage she had inflicted on it the night before. She had learned that about herself when she was twelve. In one of his drunken rages, her father had stabbed a knife into her thigh, as though he thought he could pin her to the motel bed. She’d screamed and he’d reared back, horrified at the sudden rush of bright blood that spilled over her thigh and the cheap bedspread. Panicked, she’d pulled the knife free and—ignoring his hoarse cries—fled into the woods behind the motel. She’d wandered for hours through dense pines, until collapsing at last in a bank of ferns. Curling into a knot of pain, she’d pressed one hand against the pulsing wound in her thigh.
    In her fitful sleep she’d heard them come, stepping quietly through the ferns: three deer—a