THE QUEEN

The third part of your mysterious journey brings you to the fairy Queen of the Eastern Forest with a tricksy gift from last episode’s Warlock of the Hill.

Though signs of an overarching storyline have yet to appear, this chapter, like predecessors The Errand (2017) and The Warlock of the Hill (2020), offers a beguiling combination of poetic second-person narrative and atmospheric illustrations, printed on sumptuous coated paper between nonjacketed covers. With the assistance of a shrinking potion and the Warlock’s ghostly daughter, Arielle, “you” find a way into Fairyland, past numerous guards and obstacles to the Forbidden City, and into the imperious Queen’s presence. The “gift” explodes into a rain of destructive insects, but the Queen’s magic transforms them into flowers “sprinkling the / sky like shards of dazzling confetti—flashing / and shimmering and flickering and falling.” Afterward you stay in Fairyland until, a timeless interval later, you find the potion bottle and recall the world beyond the forest. In undulant scenes that flow around the blocks and streamers of text Oehlers channels Arthur Rackham both in the deeply shadowed curves of background grasses and leaves and in the way he depicts the elfin, insectile fairies (who are, like “you” and Arielle, White…at least insofar as they have human features). Writhing tentacles on the final page hint at a nautical theme for the next episode.

It doesn’t stand alone, but it should create some buzz among readers who like seeing lots of fairies in their fairy stories.