by C. Gockel
The little woman tutted. “What a silly name to give. It does not fit, not at all.”
It did to Lily. The sprite was about a foot tall with red hair and a little dress in fiery oranges, and she had gossamer wings that hung down her back like a cloak. Peter Pan’s friend might have been blond and preferred green, but other than that, the similarities were astonishing.
“Okay. So what do I call you, and why are you here? Better yet, how did you get here?”
“You are unseemly rude,” said the sprite, tiny fists propped in her hips. “All questions, not a gracious word. Good thing I was warned this could happen.”
Lily bit back an apology. “Gracious guests don’t wake up their sleeping hosts either,” she said instead.
The wings stirred to life with a low humming and then the sprite gave her a wide smile. “At least it has spine, this mortal! Very well, you may call me One.”
“Hi, One. Nice to meet you.” She wiggled in the bed, trying to look decent. Her beautiful blue dress was wrinkled and the neckline had twisted out of place. It had become uncomfortable.
“Greetings. I would not say nice, but meeting you is interesting.” One shook herself and her wings hummed again. “Right. Now that formalities are out of the way, I may give you my message. Cadowain asked me to ask you if he could ask you for a meeting.”
Lily’s head swam. “That’s lots of asking in just one sentence,” she grumbled.
“Look, it is not hard,” huffed One. “Will you talk to him, yes or no?”
“Yes,” she said, kicking the covers back and standing up. “Oh, yes. We have to talk.”
“Hush!” One used her wings to keep her balance and then rushed to Lily, grabbing onto her hand and half-hanging there. “You must be quiet! This is a secret meeting!” The little faerie cackled.
It did sound a touch unhinged, but Lily chose to listen to her anyway. She sat back down and lowered her voice. “Why is it so secret? And why didn’t he come himself?”
“He did not come because there is a dark fay sitting by your door,” One said in a “duh” tone. “And I do not know why it is so secret. If he had told me, where would the secret go?”
“Right. You’re just a messenger here. Did he tell you how we were going to meet if Troy’s standing guard?”
“He is by the door! We must only go to the window!” One pointed and giggled. “That is how I came in, by the way.”
The window was open. The curtains flapped a little in the breeze. Lily walked over, One clinging to the sleeve of her dress, and took a deep breath before peeking out.
Her room was in the lower level, so the ground was perhaps twelve or fifteen feet below her. There was open, grassy space and then, several yards away, the huge trees rose to the sky in their peculiar forest.
“There!” One pointed at a shadow, deeper than the ones pooling around it, and then Lily caught a glimpse of silver clothing. Cadowain.
He stepped out, until he stood directly below the window, and One dropped down and perched on his shoulder. They exchanged nods and the little sprite flew toward the trees, her gossamer wings whirring like a bee swarm. Cadowain stared after her for a moment and then looked up.
“Are you feeling well, My Lady?” he asked.
Lily took a moment to think of the appropriate answer. She felt calmer, she supposed. Still far from well. She shook her head and he frowned.
“If I could help you deal with the shock you must be feeling, I would.” He sounded sincere. His eyes never wavered from hers. Faeries couldn’t lie.
Lily wrapped her arms about her middle. “You were telling me about this instrument of unbalance and what it has to do with my grandmother,” she said, not acknowledging his comment.
Cadowain shifted. Had he just camouflaged a wince?
“Well, yes. We were talking about it before we were so rudely interrupted, weren’t we? But in truth, I came to see how you fared. It didn’t sit well with me, leaving you alone and upset like that.”
“I’m better. I did need the quiet to calm down, I suppose. And I needed to rest. Now let’s finish our conversation.”
“Ah. Of course. Well.” His eyes abandoned her face for the first time and he had to drag them back. “The Unseelie court believes they have found a way to unbalance our world. Everybody believes Mackenna knows where to find the key. End of the story.”
“Like hell,” Lily almost growled.
“Hush! You will attract attention—”
“You promised to help, so you’re going to tell me the details. I don’t believe for a second that’s all you know.”
“In technical terms, I promised to deliver all pertinent information and—”
“I can’t believe you! This is pertinent. You were going to tell me before!”
“Before I learned that Kelpie has complete command over you,” he hissed, pressing his palms against the wall and craning his neck even farther back. “You have all pertinent information, My Lady. I am holding back, yes, but only the details, and I am doing so because I am bound by far older oaths.”
“What do you mean?”
“I cannot betray my court, my lady. If I tell you all I know, Kelpie could learn it with but a simple question. Your intentions might be noble, but you couldn’t deny him the truth.”
She was kneeling in front of the window, though she wasn’t conscious of moving. Her cheeks were wet, but she didn’t know when she had begun crying.
“Please,” she said, understanding the full implications of the word and using it nevertheless. “Please, there must be something else you can tell me. Something that is safe to tell me.”
“Don’t cry, My Lady.” Cadowain’s voice sounded pained below her. He sighed. “The neutral force I mentioned is known as the Wild Hunt. Are you familiar with them?”
Lily shook her head. Then, she realized he couldn’t see her from his angle and whispered, “No.”
“Long, long ago, the King of the Fay graced the King of Men with an offer of friendship. The offer was accepted, and the fey king visited the human one when a prince was born. During his visit, he was greatly offended and even threatened by the human king’s courtiers, but he bore the insults with nobility and said nothing. Then, when the time came for the human king to visit the fey, our sovereign gave him the chance to make amends. Still he chose to insult his host. Not wanting to be unfair, the fey king then gifted the human with a hound, who would guide them back to the mortal world if they were worthy of soul. After a sniff, the hound caught the scent of the human king’s wickedness and led them on a never-ending path across the forests that populate the frontier between our worlds. The human king and his retinue have spent mortal centuries in those lands, and the lands have changed them to better reflect who they are. That is how the Wild Hunt came to ride: a host of twisted mortals who achieved immortality, feeding their life-forces with that of their prey. Prey that can never escape.”
“Is that a legend or is it true?” asked Lily. Her tears had dried as she got sucked into the story. Cadowain had a talent for storytelling, that was undeniable.
“It is the story as our bards tell it,” he said. “I don’t know how much embellishment is there, but I know there is a host of creatures, neither mortal nor fey, who inhabit the edge between the worlds, and that they always succeed in bringing their prey down. The name of Wild Hunt seems to fit them well enough.”
“So, the Unseelie court has found a way to somehow control this Wild Hunt? To sic them on whoever they choose?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Silence. Lily straightened up and dared to peer down. Cadowain wasn’t looking at her now. His regal figure was hunched as if in pain and his eyes were fixed upon the ground.
“The human king’s hunting horn,” he said, his words muffled by heavy breathing. “It was a gift from our sovereign and can be used to summon the host and to command them to ride out.”
“Is that the information everyone wants?”
Cadow
ain shook his head in a jerky movement. “Everybody knows that much. Mackenna, she knows where the horn is.”
“What?”
“I—I can’t.” He shuddered and leaned against the white wall for support. Lily had to lean forward to keep him in sight, and she caught a glimpse of his ashen face, covered in sweat. “The oath binding me to my court is not a gentle one.”
Lily bit her lip. She knew how it felt like to try to resist a command, and she didn’t feel great about Cadowain pushing himself like that to answer her questions. Still. She remembered the flying iron coin, almost hitting Troy instead of the redcap. It was all about loopholes, wasn’t it?
“The reason you can’t tell me,” she began, “is because Troy could get the answer from me, right?”
“Yes. If I told you where we believe the horn to be, he could command you to get it for him. If I told you where Mackenna is, he could use his command over you to force her to give it to him. In both cases, my court would be in dire danger.”
The air rushed out of Lily’s lungs and she felt dizzy. “You know where my grandmother is.”
Cadowain nodded. “In Seelie custody.”
So close. Lily was so close to putting an end to the nightmare. She racked her brain for a way.
“How did she get involved in the first place?” she asked.
“The Wild Hunt accosts the realm of men as often as ours, if not more. We believed that taking the horn away would put a stop to their gory outings. Mackenna was chosen to hide it somewhere no fay could ever take it, and it was one of the few decisions ever made in unison by both courts. Now, it seems it was a ploy.”
“If you weren’t meant to ever find it, how come you know where it is?”
Cadowain opened his mouth, closed it again with a grimace. He shook his head.
“Okay. There must be a way around this.” Lily’s heart pounded in her chest and her blood became a thrumming roar in her ears. An idea was taking form in her mind, but it was risky. Very risky. “What if… What if we took the horn out of the equation?”
“You can’t destroy it, My Lady.”
“No, but we could put it back where it belonged. It wouldn’t be vulnerable, right? There wouldn’t be a reason to seek out Mackenna in that case, and you could tell me where she is.”
“The idea has some merit,” Cadowain murmured. “But it would bring us to the status quo as it was, with the Wild Hunt free to roam. And they would be furious for the attempt to restrain them. The price could be dear, and it would be paid in blood.”
Lily hadn’t thought of that and it horrified her. It horrified her that she didn’t care much as long as the blood wasn’t her grandma’s. Or hers.
“A trick, then,” she said. “We will hide the horn somewhere else. If the Unseelie think my grandma no longer knows where it is, they have no reason to pursue her.”
“Unless Kelpie asked whether you knew the horn’s whereabouts.”
Lily grinned. “No. I will say no, and it’ll be the truth.”
“What do you mean?”
“We must hurry, but it could work! Listen, I’ll give you my word not to tell Troy and you’ll tell me where the horn is. I’ll fetch it… you’ll hold on to it. Then I’ll go to my grandma, and she’ll be free because there’s no more reason to keep her secured. Then, we’ll ask her to hide it again, someplace else. The Unseelie won’t act because they’ll believe the horn is in Seelie hands, the Wild Hunt will be contained, the balance will remain, and grandma and I can go our own way.”
There was a moment of weary silence.
“That could work, I suppose,” said Cadowain at last. “The risk involved would be extreme if anybody found out I have the horn while I do have it, and there is a slim chance the Unseelie court would still lash out at Mackenna out of frustration, but…”
“Let’s do it then.”
“You do understand you would have to go alone, right? That you might run into more members of the Unseelie court and I cannot go with you if we hope to keep the plan a secret, that—”
“I promise you I’ll retrieve the horn and won’t let Troy know about it in exchange for you telling me where it is.”
“Oh.” Cadowain sighed, and his voice sounded worried. “You have a bargain, I suppose.”
“Wait a minute.”
Lily rushed toward the vanity, fighting the laces of the dress bodice on the way. She tore it off her back and wrestled her cleaned mortal clothes on as fast as she could. Then, she laced her sneakers tight, threw her grandma’s notebook into her knapsack and slung it over her shoulders.
“I’m coming down,” she called to a surprised Cadowain.
“Now?”
“Yes. Troy’s giving me room and letting me sleep now, so it’s our best chance.”
“Maybe you do need the sleep, My Lady,” said Cadowain.
Lily was already dangling her legs out of the window, her arms clutching the sill to lower herself as much as possible before letting go.
“Or maybe not,” he added with a wry tone. “Come, I will catch you.”
Lily let go.
More than catching her, Cadowain managed to break her fall. He was tall and lean, but not as strong as Troy and they both tumbled a little with her forceful landing.
“I’m ready. Where do I go?”
“No fay may take the horn because Mackenna hid it in hallowed ground,” he said. “We can’t enter, but you, a mortal, shouldn’t have any issue.”
“Hallowed ground? Like, a church?”
He nodded. “Or its grounds. In her own hometown, we believe.”
“So I just have to find the way we came in through and then what? Cross again to give you the horn?”
“No, if the horn enters Seelie territory, the queen will know and she will order me to surrender it. I shall meet you near the opening you already know, in the forest humans call Glenbuchat. And since you were right about time being of the essence, you will follow a different way to Aboyne now. I can’t guide you, but nobody will miss One.” He pointed to the tree line and there, floating half-hidden behind a trunk, was the little sprite. “Not for a bit, anyway. She will take you through a shortcut and return before her absence is noticed. You will be alone for the recovery of the horn, and until we meet again for the exchange. Be most careful, My Lady.” He gave her a rueful smile. “Mackenna would never forgive me if you were harmed by a harebrained plan I consented to, and I would be most sorry to see you hurt as well.”
“I’ll be fine.” Lily answered his smile with a brave grin of her own and dashed off toward One. They had only a bit of time before Troy noticed her absence at dawn, and she wanted to be done with her part of the bargain by then.
Chapter Thirty
Taking One’s shortcut wasn’t a pleasant ride. When they burst through the opening and into the mortal land, Lily doubled over and fought back the need to retch.
“Oh, but I am good!” said One, not paying her any mind. “Look! I brought us right to the gate!”
Lily managed to straighten and look around her. She stood in the Green, where every summer the Highland games took place, and just in front of her loomed the iron gates to the parish church. It was an old temple, built sometime in the nineteenth century over the ruins of Aboyne’s original church, and it was all hard lines and massive planes. It didn’t look inviting like other buildings from the same period would, but foreboding.
The low stone wall circling the grounds and enclosing hundreds of crooked headstones and moss-covered crosses didn’t help.
“How can I enter?” she asked One.
The sprite shrugged. “Through the door?”
“It’s the dead of night. The door will be locked.”
“Well, how do you expect me to know how to get someplace I cannot even get close to? It is your task now, not mine.” One’s wings whirred and she shot up.
“Wait!” She didn’t, and Lily was left staring at a pitch-black sky, surrounded by twisted silhouettes of trees and centuries-old dead.
Her brilliant idea didn’t seem quite so brilliant anymore and the hairs in the back of her neck stood up. She had visited this place during the day, of course, back when she was a kid. It was very centric and you were never alone. Now, in the darkness, she was alone and she wished she’d feel that way. The eerie sensation of being observed nagged at her and made her knees wobbly.
Hoping against all hope, she tried the front door of the church. It didn’t budge, of course. She dried her palms against her jeans.
Okay. Let’s try the back door. It’s on the other side of the wall, so perhaps they don’t lock it.
She began to circle the outer wall of the cemetery. Her steps took her away from the open Green and under the trees, and the discomfort increased. Lamplight was nonexistent this far from the streets and the moon couldn’t make it beyond the canopy, sparse as it was. She stumbled over rather than saw a rock by the wall, dislodged from the oldest part of it.
That’s it. I’m not looking further.
The climb wasn’t too hard, only five feet or so of eroded stones that offered plenty of ridges to act as hand and footholds, and still Lily stumbled.
She dropped on the other side and overgrown ivy tangled her feet. She caught herself on a granite Celtic cross that stood sunken in the vegetation. It had an inscription, but it was too eroded to read.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to whoever had been buried there.
She had known she would feel fear, but she hadn’t anticipated the wrongness that came with breaking into a church in the dead of the night, falling on top of ancient graves and disturbing the sleep of the dearly departed. They had departed, they couldn’t care anymore. And she might be sneaking in, but she didn’t have unholy intentions in mind, and surely God would understand her reasons.
Still.
She hurried along, picking her path to avoid the graves as best she could, and reached another door into the church. Locked as well, and she was not going to break a stained glass to enter. There she drew the line.
Options. There had to be more.
The minister’s office. It wouldn’t take her to the church proper, but it was connected.
