The Puzzle Ring

by Kate Forsyth

  We have to get home, she thought. I’ll rescue Donovan and my father, and get back the hag-stone, and find the last loop of the puzzle ring. Then we can go home . . .

  Hannah refused to admit that she might fail in her tasks and be stuck in the sixteenth century for the rest of her life. She could not even let the seed of the thought waft across her mind, in case it took root there and flourished, and sapped all her resolve.

  ‘Let’s head back,’ she muttered to Scarlett.

  ‘But we haven’t bought anything yet! And imagine little Princess Morgana’s face if we come back empty-handed. She’ll throw a right royal tantrum.’

  ‘I don’t think anyone would like us to sing today. Everyone’s too upset.’

  ‘But there’s fresh bread for sale! And honey and cabbages and blackberries. Linnet could make us bramble crumble again. And look, Hannah!’ She pointed to where a butcher had hung a row of freshly slaughtered carcasses from a tree, flies buzzing above the puddles of congealing blood. ‘Lamb! Oh, I’ve been dreaming of roast lamb for months. Please, Hannah. Please.’

  ‘I don’t think we should . . .’

  ‘They’ll be glad of something to distract them.’ Scarlett jumped up on a stile and called out, ‘Such long faces you’ve got! Who’d like a wee song to brighten the day?’

  A few people shrugged and gathered round, and Scarlett tapped her tambourine against her hip and mouthed ‘“Greensleeves”’ to Hannah. Reluctantly Hannah climbed up next to her, and they launched into the song.

  A few small coins had been dropped into Hannah’s tam o’shanter and she had begun to relax when she saw a young woman standing at the edge of the crowd, staring at her. Wearing a ragged shawl wrapped close about her head and shoulders, the young woman was as thin as a stick and as white as whey. Recognition came—it was Edie, the young woman that had let them sleep in her goat shed while Hannah was sick—and so she smiled and lifted a hand in greeting.

  Her left hand.

  Even as Hannah remembered and guiltily dropped her hand, Edie started forward. ‘It’s her!’ she cried. ‘The witch-girl. She touched me with her devil’s hand and scarred my little boy. Look what she did! Look!’

  Edie flung back the shawl to show a small baby nestled in the crook of her arm. An ugly purple-red stain spread over the baby’s head, covering almost half of his face. A murmur rose from the crowd.

  ‘She did it! It’s her fault. She came and slept in my goat shed. Her friend gathered the flowers of the elder tree, and they drank it together! She’s a witch! She touched me with her devil’s hand and look what happened.’

  ‘Don’t be silly!’ Scarlett cried. ‘Of course she’s not a witch.’

  ‘Where do they live, these lassies?’ a man asked, frowning.

  ‘They come down from the fairy hill on their horse,’ someone cried. ‘I’ve seen them come out of the woods.’

  ‘Look at them! They’re as wild as any fairy bairn.’

  Scarlett and Hannah glanced at each other. It was true they were ragged and filthy. Although they washed in the river most days, they had no soap, and their hair was matted with knots, for they had lost or broken their combs long ago. Their feet were bare, for their boots had worn through the soles, and their aprons were badly stained from carrying berries and herbs.

  ‘Please, we’re not fairy children,’ Hannah cried. ‘I had nothing to do with the poor baby’s birthmark.’

  No one listened. Cries and accusations rang out from all sides. Edie shouted and wept and pointed accusingly at Hannah. The baby screamed. The port wine stain turned a deep purple as his skin reddened. Men jostled closer, saying the girls should be seized and taken up before the magistrate. Hannah was pushed roughly, and flung out her left hand to save herself. At the sight, the crowd grew ugly.

  ‘Come on! Let’s get out of here!’ Scarlett tried to push her way through the crowd, but someone seized her arm. At once she kicked him hard behind his knee. He fell with a grunt. Another man grabbed hold of her, but Scarlett twisted free and kicked him hard in the stomach. He bent over, winded. For a moment, the crowd just stood, goggling in surprise, and Scarlett seized Hannah’s hand and raced to where the water-horse stood. His head was up, his nostrils flaring red, his ears laid back against his skull. Scarlett leapt onto his back, and hauled Hannah up after her. A quick slash of Hannah’s dagger sliced the rope free. The water-horse reared, trumpeting a challenge and showing his sharp fangs. A woman screamed and flung herself away from his clawed hooves.

  Galloping madly through the street, knocking over barrels and carts, trampling fruit under hoof, sending people racing out of his way, the water-horse cut a swathe of destruction through the village. People raced after them, shaking their fists and shouting. The girls could only cling to the water-horse’s mane and give him his head.

  He followed the River Lyon, heading west along the glen. Tall mountains towered high on either side, still streaked with snow despite the warm spring weather. Behind them came the sound of pursuing hoof beats. Hannah glanced back and saw a few grim-looking men on horseback, spurring their mounts on.

  ‘Stop the witch-girls!’ someone shouted. ‘Stop them!’

  A man ran into a cottage and came out with a longbow. Scarlett cursed under her breath, and leant forward, trying to seize the trailing rope so she could turn the horse’s head. The stallion turned and plunged into the river. Hannah’s breath caught in her throat. She was sure he would transform back into his serpentine water shape and drown them both. The power of the iron held strong, however. The stallion swam strongly across the fast-running river, and came out galloping on the far side.

  Into the forest and up the hill he went, stones scattering under his hooves, and wound his way along a narrow path between rolling hills. Scarlett and Hannah could only cling on tightly. At last the horse slowed to a walk. Hannah could not see or hear anyone behind them, and so she heaved a great sigh and looked around them.

  Purple-brown mountains soared into the sky, their lower flanks dark with forest. Directly ahead was a hill shaped like a perfect isosceles triangle. Two tall grey stones reared up before it, like a pinnacle that had been cleaved in two by a giant sword. Hannah stared and could not speak. She tugged at Scarlett’s sleeve and pointed.

  ‘The praying hands,’ Scarlett breathed.

  Hannah nodded. She slid down from the water-horse’s back, rubbing his damp neck in thanks, and slowly climbed the hill. Her emotions surged so strongly in her that her throat felt thick and her eyes hot. She came to the base of the split stone and laid her hand upon it. The rock was warm beneath her fingers.

  She had to climb the rock, grazing her knees and her hands, wedging her body into the split so she could brace herself on either side. At the very top of the left-hand side she saw a glint of gold. The ring was caught in a crack in the rock. Hannah was only just able to reach for it. She slid it onto her finger, feeling happy and confident for the first time in weeks, and slowly climbed back down to where Scarlett and the water-horse were waiting for her. Hannah was smiling so wide her cheeks hurt, and Scarlett was jumping up and down with joy.

  ‘That’s all three loops now,’ Scarlett said, as they slowly rode north again, looking for a way back through the hills to Schiehallion.

  ‘And we found it without the hag-stone,’ Hannah said. ‘When I lost it . . . I thought every chance of finding the last loop was gone.’

  ‘The water-horse led us to it,’ Scarlett said, bending to stroke the weary stallion’s neck.

  ‘It’s a fairy horse and that was a fairy site,’ Hannah said. ‘I wonder . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My father said, in his notebook, that there are lines . . . roads . . . connecting places of power. I wonder if the horse was travelling one of those roads.’

  ‘Could be, I guess.’

  They rode on in silence for a long while, until the sun had set and the stars were sprawled out across the sky.

  ‘You know,’ Scarlett said, ‘I really ha
ted you when you first came to Fairknowe.’

  ‘Yeah. How come?’

  ‘It’s stupid.’ Scarlett was silent for a while. ‘You know, there was always this big mystery about you. The little Rose heir, whose father disappeared and whose mother took you away soon after. People often used to wonder what had really happened.’

  Hannah listened quietly.

  ‘I . . . oh, this is really stupid. I used to pretend that I was the missing Rose heir. That Lady Wintersloe was my great-grandmother, and that was why she took such interest in me.’ Scarlett heaved a big sigh. ‘I wanted to think I was really adopted, because my family was so ordinary. So when you came and I had to stop pretending . . . I really hated you.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Hannah said.

  ‘Oh, it’s not your fault. So then . . . when you told us about Eglantyne being rescued and maybe having had her baby . . . well, I wanted to think that it was me. That it would make me special somehow. But you know what?’

  ‘What?’ Hannah spoke softly.

  ‘I can’t wait to get home to my ordinary life and my ordinary family. I’m never going to wish I’m someone else again!’

  Witch-Hunters

  Hannah smelt the smoke of the witch-hunters’ torches before she saw the bobbing red lights. The men of Fortingall were searching the lower slopes of Schiehallion, the gusting flames snapping in the wind like forked banners.

  The water-horse paused on the ridge of the hill, ears laid back against his skull. ‘Quietly now,’ Scarlett whispered, nudging the horse forward. He stepped delicately down the stony slope. In the darkness he was almost invisible, and the two girls drew their plaids close about their faces and tucked their hands out of sight, so the white gleam would not betray them.

  They came close to the witch-hunters, close enough to hear their shouts and curses, and for the smoke of the flames to sting their eyes. The men did not see the girls upon the horse, however, or hear a single clink of hoof against stone. Smoothly and silently, the water-horse led them past the gang of witch-hunters and down to the stony banks of the river. He entered the water without a splash, and began to swim swiftly downstream. Hannah was sure she could hear the rhythmic beat of flippers, and every muscle tensed with fear. But the water-horse did not plunge below the water, or seek to roll and drag them under. The iron bound about his head kept him under their control, and so the two girls were able to slip right past the searchers, even when the reflection of their flaming torches rippled right across the water to touch their faces with heat.

  ‘We’ll have to get right away,’ Hannah whispered in Scarlett’s ear. ‘We cannot risk being caught by them.’

  ‘But where shall we go? Back to Fairknowe?’

  ‘Unless we can find another fairy gateway closer,’ Hannah whispered. ‘It’s almost May Day now. We have the third part of the puzzle ring. If we can just find a gateway, we can rescue Donovan and my father and then go home again.’

  ‘I think it’s getting a bit hot for us here,’ Scarlett said wryly.

  The girls found Linnet waiting for them anxiously at the mouth of the cave, her plaid wrapped close about her against the early morning chill. Max was awake too, his thin face drawn with pain.

  ‘Where have you been? What’s happened?’ he cried.

  ‘We’ll tell you on the way,’ Hannah said. ‘We need to get moving . . . fast!’

  But it was impossible to move quickly through the countryside. News of the fairy bairns and their fiendish horse had spread fast, and anyone who caught sight of Linnet and the children ran at once to call for help. Time and again the water-horse was forced to gallop from angry villagers, tossing his mane and baring his fanged teeth in rage. Hannah and her friends began to travel only in the early hours of the morning and at dusk, when people had gone home to their cottages and the roads were empty.

  When May Day came, they were still far from Fairknowe Hill and so had no chance of getting home to their own time for another seven weeks. The next thin day was Midsummer’s Eve, on the twenty-second of June. Till then, Hannah and her friends were trapped in sixteenth-century Scotland, with civil war threatening to break out at any moment. Hannah, Max and Scarlett were very quiet that night, sitting with slumped shoulders by the campfire and barely tasting the game soup Linnet had cooked especially for them. Hannah felt as if she would never get home; never see her mother or her great-grandmother again; never go to the movies or watch TV or catch a train wherever she wanted to go; never wear comfortable clothes that could be washed and dried by machines, instead of by her own chapped and chilblained hands; never eat a hamburger or chocolate or icecream again. No one said a word; they just sat staring morosely into the camp-fire, then wrapped themselves in their plaids and pretended to sleep.

  They missed Angus more than ever over the next few days, for the old man had known many secret ways through the forests and hills. Hannah and her friends did not know the secret ways, and found the mountains to the west completely impassable. Again and again they would follow a river or explore a glen, only to find their way blocked by immense brooding pinnacles of stone. The forest on the valley floor was tangled and overgrown, and there were signs that outlaws lived there, rampaging forth to steal what they could.

  ‘I can’t risk the puzzle ring being stolen,’ Hannah said anxiously. ‘I think we should stick to the road if we can.’

  ‘There are outlaws on the roads as well,’ Linnet said.

  ‘Yes, but at least there aren’t any wolves,’ Hannah said, for they had all been frightened by an unexpected encounter with a shaggy grey wolf the previous evening. It had only stared at them with fierce golden eyes, growling low in its throat, its hackles raised, before loping swiftly away when the kelpie growled back.

  As Hannah and her friends came closer to Perth, they began to see bands of men with great two-handled claymores strapped to their backs marching the muddy roads. Max still found it hard to walk, so he and Morgana rode on the water-horse, while Hannah, Scarlett and Linnet hiked alongside, foraging for food as they went. The further south they went, the harder it was to find mushrooms or birds’ eggs or fish, as the land was rounded and green and planted with crops. Luckily, blackberries were plentiful, as brambles grew all over the stone walls. Linnet cooked them with a crust of oatmeal and wild honey and, after weeks of plain porridge, Hannah and her friends could not get enough, so that their mouths were stained with purple all day.

  They could not live on blackberries and porridge alone, though. At last, Linnet left the four younger ones camping in a small copse of trees and walked to Perth for news and supplies. The town was milling with worried, frightened people, Linnet said when she got back. A few days earlier, Queen Mary had married Lord Bothwell in a rushed ceremony at Holyrood. Bothwell had divorced his wife only a week earlier. Queen Mary wore an old dress, and was said to have wept afterwards. Many people thought she had been forced to wed against her will. Others said she wept for joy.

  ‘But how long has it been since the king died?’ Scarlett demanded.

  ‘Thirteen weeks,’ Linnet replied unhappily.

  ‘No wonder people are upset. Thirteen weeks is not very long!’

  ‘What are we to do?’ Hannah wanted to know. ‘At this rate, we won’t get back to Fairknowe by Christmas!’

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ Linnet said. ‘No one paid me any mind at all in Perth. Either the story of the two wild fairy bairns has not travelled this far south, or everyone’s far too worried about what’s going on to care.’

  ‘So?’ Scarlett said.

  ‘Well, we’d have a long, hard journey from here to Fairknowe through the hills. I’ve never travelled that way myself, and Angus cannot show us the way.’ As Linnet spoke, she cradled the toad in her hands. He croaked and shot out his long sticky tongue to catch a midge. ‘There must be a path, but I don’t know the way. However, if we stick to the highway it’ll take us straight down to Edinburgh. And there are so many people travelling the roads now, no one will notice us.’


  ‘But we want to get home,’ Hannah cried. ‘What’s the point of going to Edinburgh?’

  ‘There’s a fairy hill there. Another gateway into the Otherworld. It’s only very small, and not much used these days. My lady’s cousin may not even have guards on it.’

  ‘Really? A fairy hill in Edinburgh? Where?’

  ‘It is called Dow Craig, which means the Black Rock,’ Linnet said. ‘It stands just outside the walls, separated from the city by a gorge. I have ridden out the gate there before, I know where it is. If we can get there by Midsummer’s Eve, you should be able to pass through.’

  ‘But we’ll still be miles and miles away from home, or from Schiehallion, where they took Donovan prisoner,’ Hannah said hopelessly. ‘How are we meant to find him or my father, or get home?’

  ‘You know that time moves differently in the Otherworld,’ Linnet said quietly. ‘Well, space moves differently too. What would take you days to walk in this world would take you a few hours, or maybe even minutes, in the fairy realm.’

  ‘Really?’ Hannah was filled with new hope. ‘You mean we could cross into the Otherworld, rescue my father and Donovan, and escape back out the gateway at Fairknowe, all in a matter of hours?’

  Linnet nodded.

  ‘Then why didn’t we just do that in the first place, instead of traipsing all over Scotland?’ Scarlett demanded. ‘We needn’t have walked all the way to Edinburgh, we could have just gone through the gateway at Fairknowe Hill and popped up outside the city walls a couple of hours later.’

  Linnet regarded her gravely. ‘Do you think I would willingly take you to the black witch’s realm? Do you have any idea of how dangerous it will be? I would not suggest it now, if we did not have to brave her in order to rescue poor Lord Fairknowe and Donovan! The very thought of it makes me feel sick to my stomach. But I can think of no other way, if we are to save them.’

  ‘We can’t just leave them there,’ Hannah cried. ‘Of course we have to rescue them!’